Back Seat Reflections

I’ve expressed before how I often times surprise myself with the wisdom that comes out of my mouth. A lot of times this happens when I am sitting down with a friend or my mentee and I am looking to encourage them or I’m asked to give my opinion on something. I came slumping into this current week off of the last week where I was left pretty emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. This past Saturday provided me with the opportunity to go to therapy…aka I got to hit the road to South Florida for 5 days. Travel may not always be cheaper than therapy, but for me it certainly seems to do the trick; and I quite enjoy getting to hit the road rather than laying on a fainting couch amidst all the junk I may be working through. I’m not running from problems but putting some space between myself and the place that often is associated with them. 

Usually I am on the road by myself and I have found that most of my travels provide me with the opportunity to gain a greater perspective on where I am in life and my spiritual walk. This time I hit the road with 4 of my co-workers for a conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. And the angel chorus sang. I had my hand at the wheel a couple times and then spent most of it as a passenger passing the time. I write to you from the backseat of a 7 passenger mini van, cruising 95N through North Carolina. The sky is a bit heavy in places and the trees line the left side of the highway as pastures line the right. I simply adore my time on the road, it’s the place where I can remember doing most of my daydreaming as a child. I wish it would rain so I could race raindrops down my window as I once did. 

I spent most of my time Sunday through Wednesday in sessions for work learning more about my place in higher education as an Christian Enrollment Counselor. I took the teachings as things that I could of course apply to my current work but also saw opportunity to take from these sessions tools and learns that I could use in the future for whatever I end up doing with my life. In my spare time I did some reading. I honestly wish working everyday was broken up into more than two parts of the day, before lunch, and after lunch. I think breaking up the day into sessions would make me a bit more productive and then maybe I could even suggest breaks for tea and coffee and maybe a good 30 minutes break for pleasure reading. Something to break up the monotonous schedule that is working in an office 8 to 5. 

I hit a break-through moment on Tuesday just around dinner time. After my last session of the day I gave my girl Kadi a call because I would be meeting up with her in Savannah, Georgia as we made our trek back to Virginia Beach. As we were catching up over the phone I told her that I felt like I was under some serious spiritual attack last week. (Side-note: Just got the most glorious whiff of burning brush…one of my favorite things). We talked more in depth about it but I will just skip to the conclusion I came to with the help of this beautiful friend of mine. I hadn’t given permission or space for failure in a certain area of my life. The usual assumption is for anything you want to be successful you need complete control or as much as possible to see that whatever it is becomes a success. If you are unsure of something wouldn’t you want to have as much control over it and it’s influencers as possible? Well, the hard part is when you try to control something that you can’t. This causes major anxiety because there’s no formula, there aren’t any guides or step by step instructions to guide you along. The unexpected will happen. It must. There’s no way to be fully prepared, and like I said in my last post, I wouldn’t want to live a life fully prepared. 

So here I am in the midst of the revelation that all of my anxieties I had were because I was trying to figure out how to fix something that’s not broken, prevent things I cannot foresee, mend the past when it’s long gone, or control something that is doing just fine on it’s own. BOOM. What. Yeah. Anxiety can influence one to take control, and it can become a result of the attempt. It’s pretty much something I think we all deal with at one point or another. This rings especially true for all those detail oriented and planning people out there. You know who you are. I know I am. Sometimes planning and details can get in the way of faith and I have definitely been challenged in this over the years. I have a pretty good grasp on not being able to control the future that is a year down the road or more but have more of that struggle of control over the present and closer future. Again, it all comes back to opportunity. This time, I’m sitting down to document my failure to fix, prevent, mend, and control which in turn will lead to stronger faith. I think I would rather have a faith that is stronger than my own control.