You are strong, they say… You have a choice, I say

If you read the previous LIFE blog, then you’ll know that I’ve gone through some pretty rough rides this year – all in one word:  divorce.  I’ve had my share of very sad days and have experienced the darkest of moments in my life.  I think, eventhough not diagnosed, I was severely depressed for some time eventhough I didn’t want to say that out loud and was somewhat ashamed of people seeing me, the strong girl that everyone knows, in such a sad state.  So…. I faked it.  I faked being happy, faked that everything was fine when it really wasn’t, faked that I could just go out and have fun without coming home to cry myself to sleep.  No one would ever see that; the only thing they saw was me holding myself strong, presentable and composed.  Then, one day as I was “faking it” I realized that I had a choice – LISTEN UP – We all have a choice.  You can choose where you are going to live for the rest of your life, even through pain, you can choose to live in darkness or you can choose to live in light.

When I see friends or even when I meet strangers and I tell them my story, immediately the response from everyone is “YOU ARE SO STRONG!,” and while I thank them for their kind words, my immediate response is “YOU HAVE A CHOICE, AND I CHOSE TO LIVE IN LIGHT.”  I’ve come to realize that eventhough this is a pretty simple concept for me, it’s mind blowing for most people.  It’s hard for many to understand how I can live in light and keep my heart graceful when I’ve experience so much heart ache.  You see, what I have come to understand on my own is that I could have chosen to come home every day and spiral down into my own depression or even yet, not even leave my house and mourn the death of the life I had known for so long, the love and many dreams.  Instead, I decided that waking up every day I was going to choose me over everything else.  I decided that I was not going to hand all my power to feelings that, although very real, were tarnished by deep sorrow.  I began to realize that if in every moment that my mind went to a deep and dark place I had the choice to pull myself out by being thankful about the moment I was experiencing and by forgiving not only the person that hurt me but also forgiving myself. 

Is it easy to dig yourself out every moment you get to that dark place when you are depressed? No; not at all – it does take strength but actually what it takes more is your willingness to know that you will be happy and that this is not the end of all things.  It’s the willingness to show up for yourself because you know that the future that is waiting for you is only yours to create.  If all those things are true, then how are you going to be able to create your own bright future from a place of darkness?  I began to think that energies attract and if I focused all my energy in being sad, then that is exactly what I would attract to me.  Slowly yet rapidly, I began to choose the energy that I wanted to be surrounded by even on the moments that I was alone.  I began to feel that I was strong, I began to feel that I was beautiful, I began to feel that I was enough, I began to feel that I was surrounded by strong and like-minded individuals that exude happiness.  The universe, then began to repay those choices by allowing my heart to come out of it’s dark shell and shine.  The more the shine, the easier it became to stay afloat in this space of calmness though the storm.

I am not implying that we should ignore our feelings; not at all.  We should perceive our feelings and acknowledge that they are there and that they are deep.  But, just as we become aware of those moments and feelings we then must acknowledge that we don’t have to live in those spaces.  We must make a choice of where we want to live – in my case, in a place where I could smile and had the sun shining over me as opposed to the darkest cloud.  The choice if yours to make every morning when you wake up, every minute of every day.

Slowly, and after reading The Untethered Soul by Michael A. singer, I realized that we are all made up of the energy that we choose to store in our heart or that we choose to let go.  What happens to us as humans is that we experience moments of pain and unintentionally we store those moments and those feelings in our heart.  Then, every time an even similar feeling comes close to the surface we shut down completely and run away from those feelings in a state of fear that all of those things are going to hurt us.  While this is a great mechanism to keep pain away, it’s also a great mechanism to shut down our heart and live in a place of darkness all of the time… all in the name of fear.  When we choose to acknowledge the feelings and let them pass though us without allowing them to take a seat in our heart, we have the ability to let go not only of the feeling but also of the fear that comes attached to the feeling.  When we choose to let go and go choose light over darkness, we immediately get light in our hearts and attract more light situations, light thoughts, and light feelings.

Choosing to let go is probably one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn this year; but now that I look back at all of that pain and all of those tears and I can tell my story without crying, for the most part, I can acknowledge that those small moment-to-moment choices are that have made me heal.  Choosing to stay light and bring light to your heart is much like exercising any part of your body; the more you run or the more you lift those weights at the gym, the easier it all gets.  It’s pretty cliché; however, the whole concept of “it’s not easier, you are just getting stronger” is true.  You get stronger a findings the things that allow you to smile rather than focusing on the things that bring you tears; you get stronger at ensuring that you let go of hatred and allow light in.   

I know I am not the first or the last person to deal through traumatic and life changing experiences and I can appreciate everyone that has said to me that they simply cannot get to that place of letting go because the pain is so deep.  I get it – it’s not easy, it sucks, it hurts, and it’s brought you to your knees… and anything that has the ability to place you deep in the dark also has the ability to keep you there.  But you are who you choose to be, each and every single day of your life.  You choose what you eat, how long to sleep, if you are going to work out, smoke, keep your hair light or dark.  So if you can make all of these decisions on your own; what’s keeping you from making the decision to live a life where you are the character that smiles and chooses to shine? 

“You are so strong and I don’t know how you are handling this so well,” I heard last night once more while having dinner with some girlfriends.  “Well,” I responded and continued, “So are you… we all are this strong, it just takes willingness, lots of trust in the universe and the dedication to knowing that you owe it to your self to make the choice.”