Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

11 Jan Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

Things to Think About When You’re on the Fence.

Lately,  I’m gripped with the concept of heartache and loss. Nothing gets us HSPs more than the emotional pain from matters of the heart. It is physically exhausting and anxiety-provoking, to say the least. I’m not immune; as much as I speak about inspiration, love, and following your heart, I still experience the full spectrum of life right here, alongside you.

“You only think of yourself,” my mom would say to me. “Yep, that’s me,” I’d smirk back after I felt my stomach move into my throat. I was trying to hold it all together, managing three children on my own on a trip back home, while balancing time with my father with progressing Parkinson’s.

No matter how many times we go through it, grief is hard, and it’s a process. Multiple losses at once are harder.

I’ve struggled with close relationships, my marriage, with my friends and family. Some of the hardest times have been when I struggle with multiple demands at the same time. Work, life, kids, and parents all add up to a lot.

When Life Punches Below the Belt

Sometimes, things compound, and we find ourselves dealing with multiple issues at once. Compounded heartaches.

Life is like that right? It can be hard. It can throw you multiple punches at once.

You may even have friends and family nearby. People who lend a shoulder and an ear. Yet sometimes, that doesn’t help because it’s ultimately us that must endure the unchartered tunnel through our own heartache.

When a relationship is dissolving or shifting, someone you love is hurting, or someone close to you is leaving this earth. There is nothing more difficult than the unknowing moments of feeling that grief.

In the middle of this, I never know when I’ll spontaneously melt into a teary-eyed puddle of mush. There is no predicting when I’ll be fine and feel like myself, or when I’ll be swimming through uncontrollable emotions.

The smallest, strangest thing sets me off into the outpouring of my emotions. For instance, a memory – a feeling that a certain moment is just that, a memory that won’t have the opportunity to happen again, that makes me sad.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m going against the grain. I’m trying too hard or not nearly enough in the right direction. I like to be in control, and you know what? I’m not.

None of us are ever really in control of everything. We like to try to be, and tell ourselves that we are, but some things in life are truly out of our control. That, my dear friend, is ok.

Having an Open Heart

Lately, I’ve been working with the concept of “having an open heart”. It’s like painting, when each day there is a new blank, unplanned canvas to paint. If I make a mark that isn’t what I want, there is always another canvas.

This means that even if, in any given moment, there is a chance that the waterworks turn on, it’s ok. It may be exhausting to have an open heart, however the alternative is worse. To be closed and tight—a frozen bud in a deep-freeze with no chance to ever open.

I am not that bud, and neither are you.

I’ve made a commitment to be open enough to remember things, to be present even when it isn’t easy.

Hope Helps Us Endure

Our ability to fully experience emotions from happy to sad exist to serve us, after all. I believe our anger, our sadness, our disappointment is all there so that we can experience hope.

It doesn’t matter our story or where we’re from or if our lives have experienced more pain that any living human should ever have to endure. Hope doesn’t care.

Hope doesn’t care if we’re privileged or we’ve led a life wearing rose-colored glasses until one day they come off. It doesn’t matter if we’ve failed to live our lives to the fullest or that our minds tell us that we are strong, beautiful, weak, or crazy.

No, hope is for all of us. We can reach for it anytime.

Often, in our darkest hours, we forget to look up to see it.

I’m telling you now, that I know from experience that hope is friend to each of us. There is fresh air to breathe. The sun will come out again.

Know that your life and your dreams matter. You matter.

Know that, if you are in the middle of grief, dear heart, you are not alone.

If you know pain, heartache, loneliness and disappointment too many times – know that you can access hope. Open your heart, breathe, and lift your eyes to light.

I’m right here with you.

Feeling extra sensitive? Check my post on: Keeping Your Empath Superpowers in Check.

If you want to start strong in 2017, knock fear sideways and check out:  How Your Limiting Beliefs Impact Your Goals.