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.
