Starting Over (Part 3 of 3): Endless Possibilities

“I feel a new beginning coming towards me, and I’m running to it with open arms.”

Have you ever considered where you would go if you could go anywhere? Or what you would do if you could do anything? It’s exciting to think about what we could do if we didn't have our current responsibilities or obligations holding us back. Even if we are satisfied with where we are in our lives, there may be times when we just want to escape, to do something different, or even to be someone different.

When faced with the prospect of starting over, there is no choice but to consider the possibilities. Well, I suppose one could sit and wallow in the misery and sadness of the situation--but where’s the fun in that? And where, seriously, is the future in that?

Stop and think for a moment about what might be possible if you had nothing to hold you back. What have you always wanted to do, to try, to become? Choosing to do or become something different than what you did or were in the past is not a betrayal of what you were before, but I see it as an acknowledgement that that part of your life is over, and now you are in a different place at a different time, and you are given the opportunity to start over. Perhaps it’s hard to accept this place, since maybe you didn't want to start over. That’s fair. I didn't want to start over, either, but one day I found myself in a life I barely recognized, where everything I had known for the past several decades was either gone or unrecognizably altered, and I had a choice to make. Pull the covers over my head and cry, or consider how I was going to get out of bed and continue to live a life I could be proud of.

I wish I could say the choice was easy and the execution was smooth, but it wasn’t. The transition took months--in fact, it’s still happening--and what I've gone through is very similar to the five stages of coping with death--denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Initial denial that anything happened at all, and it was all just a very bad dream. Anger that it was, in fact, a reality. Trying to bargain my way back into some semblance of what my life was before. Depression when I realized that simply wasn't going to happen. And, finally, acceptance of the situation as it was, and of the need to move forward while making peace with the past. This is a simple explanation of a process that was difficult, even brutal, at times, and left me in the dark more times than I can count. There have been days I’ve chosen the covers and crying. But there have been more days that I’ve put my feet on the floor and tried to face the day with hope and joy. And I work towards more of that.

Starting Over (Part 2 of 3): Letting Go

“One of the happiest moments ever is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change.” --Unknown

Emotional baggage is that stuff that hangs onto us as we move from situation to situation, relationship to relationship. It’s the emotional debris that is created by the mistakes we’ve made, the hurts we’ve endured, the stuff we’ve done, or that’s been done to us. It’s the mistrust and hurt that we carry with us wherever we go, the feelings we have about our past. And it’s almost always negative. Actually, it’s always used in a negative context. I’ve never heard anyone speak kindly of emotional baggage, or comment as though it were a good thing.

It’s a sad but true reality that we all come equipped with emotional baggage. We can’t avoid it, since we’re all born onto this planet, into the human race. We all carry it, and we all have to come face to face with it at some point. It’s also a reality that this baggage can, at best, make it difficult for us to function in a healthy way or, at worst, make it impossible for us to function at all. But when we are faced with starting over in any area, we have to deal with our emotional baggage and, if we are to move forward with any success, let it go.

As human beings, we seem to be wired to want to get out of pain. Actually, that makes a lot of sense, since pain is, well, painful. Who in their right mind would WANT to go through pain? So we do anything and everything that we can think of to avoid pain, even to the point of burying hurt and trauma and emotional pain, denying that it even exists. Unfortunately, when we do this, we also bury the lessons that can be learned from our pain. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned during my ____ number of years on this planet, it’s that there is ALWAYS a lesson to be learned from the pain. In fact, I WANT to know what the lesson is that I can learn; otherwise, the pain has been for nothing and it’s just painful.

Because there’s the secret--there is always a lesson to be learned, and you’d better find it if you ever want to get past the situation. Does this sound harsh? Perhaps. But it truly is the fastest way I have found to move through a situation and get to the, hopefully, brighter side.

“But what about the benefits of emotional baggage?” Benefits? There are benefits? Actually, yes, there are, and they are the reason that many of us are unwilling to address and get past the junk--because there are benefits to hanging on to it. First of all, we get sympathy. That’s right, sympathy. Even if we claim we don’t want sympathy--or pity--it’s an awfully powerful thing. If we give up the baggage, we are no longer entitled to the “victim’s rights” that are bestowed on us as the victim of whatever happened to us, including the right to be angry. Yes, I said we give up the right to stay angry about what happened. This is in no way saying that we have to declare that whatever happened was okay, just that we will gain nothing positive if we continue to be angry about it. Also, if we hang on to the junk, we don’t have to go through the pain of actually dealing with it. We may be in pain now, but the pain we know is better than the pain we don’t, right?

So how do we let go of this emotional baggage?

I think the answer is different for everyone, and the answers are as varied as the individuals themselves. For some, simply making a decision to put it behind may be enough. For others, therapy may be what is needed to understand the roots of the pain and find the right path to walk through and leave it in the past. For still others, a spiritual approach is the answer. Whatever your approach, it will be necessary to be willing to feel the pain, to accept the reality of whatever the situation is or was, and to let it go.

Letting go isn’t easy--in fact, I have found it to be one of the hardest parts of the whole process. But once it’s done, there is freedom to consider the endless possibilities in front of you. And doesn’t that sound inviting?

Starting Over (Part 1 of 3)

“I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Starting over is hard. It doesn’t seem to matter whether what was in the past was positive or negative, finding our way into an uncharted future just isn’t easy. There are so many questions: What if I fail? What if I’m never able to get started again? (Or, if the past was negative) What if my future isn’t any better than my past? What if I don’t know how, or am too scared, to do anything? Yep, starting over is hard. But the good news is that hard doesn’t mean impossible. Hard may be hard, but it’s still doable.

When faced with the prospect of starting over, we must consider what we’re starting over from. Or, in other words, what we’ve left behind. Because we will be carrying the baggage of that experience with us into whatever future we create for ourselves. For starters, is this new beginning something that has been forced upon us (as in an unwanted divorce) or is it something we have chosen for ourselves (choosing to leave a job or other situation that is doing us more harm than good)? In extreme cases, we may find that we have lost everything, that “life as we knew it,” is gone, and we must move forward. In all these instances, we have to face the emotional baggage that comes with our reason for a new start.

I have found, in my own case, that addressing this baggage and coming to terms with it has been essential to taking those first small steps toward my new life. After the shock had subsided, and I could begin to see even the smallest bit of potential in my situation, I saw that I could “reinvent” myself--and what an opportunity that was! As I revisited my Bucket List and my list of “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up,” I realized there was quite a bit there that got me excited, and I couldn’t wait to get started. And I have also found that when I am fueled by the excitement of doing some of those things I’ve been putting off, the emotional baggage becomes less of an issue. Not that it’s completely eliminated--sometimes you have to actually go through the muck to get to the other side--but that the impact is lessened because I have something else, something positive and exciting, to focus on.

Note to Self . . .

I am searching for a new name for my blog, and it seems that all the names I want have already been taken. It's frustrating, because most of them aren't actually being used--but that's okay. It's just a few words strung together. I can string some other words together differently and come up with something that will work. In the meantime, I'm going to use this one (and who knows, maybe someone has wanted to start their own blog with this title, and have come across my claimed, but unused, blog by this name. It goes both ways).

I will no longer be stopped because I haven't found perfection. Perfection is a myth, anyway--it will never be found on this earth. There will never be the "perfect time" or the "perfect words" or the "perfect opportunity." Some things may come close, and I rejoice that does happen. But perfection? Not going to happen. So I will vow to keep going, accepting the tripping and falling and assuming I will put my foot in my mouth more than once. Knowing I have no idea where I'm going, but trusting the GPS to get me there--even if it has me turning down seemingly wrong streets from time to time.

I'll find a not-perfect-but-pretty-good name for my blog. In the meantime, I'll use what I already have. That's a good habit to get into, anyway.

So here we go.

You May Never Know . . . . .

It was Christmas Day, and to the usual hustle and bustle of the holidays was added the hustle and bustle of getting two very small children ready to go to Grandma's house. It always seemed to take longer than expected, and this day was no exception. By the time we were ready to go, we were 40 minutes late. We piled everyone into the car and headed south on the freeway for the one hour drive.

About halfway through our trip, we noticed lights and commotion up ahead on the freeway. We hadn't seen many cars on the road, but the ones that were traveling were being slowed to a crawl, and we were forced to join them. As we got closer, we realized there had been an accident--evidently a pretty bad one. It is always sad to come upon an accident, but on Christmas Day, it seemed even more sobering. As we crept by, there was time to observe some of the details--most notably, the minivan that was identical to ours and the fact that the accident had happened quite recently. My heart beat a little faster as I realized that, had we been on time leaving the house, it might have been us twisted and broken on the side of the freeway. I raised a prayer of thanksgiving that we had been delayed by whatever it was that had delayed us.

Several days later, I had to take my 12 year old son to the airport and was picking up my mother so I wouldn't have to drive back alone (which was always hard for me to do after sending my son off to his father's house). Again, with two very small children to get ready, I was running late. There was construction being done on the freeway, and the road was diverted through one of the towns, and just as we reached the detour, I noticed lights, commotion. My heart sank as I realized there had been another accident, and by the looks of the scene it had been only a few minutes earlier--possibly the 20 minutes I had been delayed at home.

I don't know if you will believe me if I tell you that later that evening, as we were driving home from the airport, there was another accident that occurred just ahead of me. A car spinning on its roof, coming to rest against the center divider. I remember having felt frustrated with the traffic, frustrated that I wasn't further ahead in the crowd. But as it turned out, I was only 4 or 5 cars from the accident.

Sometimes we get delayed--a slow car, we can't find our keys, we forget something important and must go back to find it, a roadblock or detour where we didn't expect one--and we get frustrated, anxious, stressed, and angry. We think we are being mistreated, persecuted, or abused. We don't understand why things aren't going our way. But stop and think about what you may be missing because you are running late. Stop and think that maybe you are being protected by that slow car, or by the few minutes it takes to find your keys, and say a prayer of thanksgiving.  Because you may never know what you were spared.