I've always ... okay... not always, but at least since I walked into a Unity Church 25 years ago, believed that the key to life and happiness was to focus on the positive. Or as my favorite rapper Pitbull says, "negative to positive."
It's not about being in denial about the negative, it's about putting all your focus and energy into the positive to the point that the negative ceases to matter. Because the truth is even when the negatives in our life rear up and threaten to overwhelm us - in the balance, life really is still precious and has more good than bad. Every day we wake up on the green side of the grass is a blessing, as cliched as that may sound.
So that's how I try to live my life. I'm not always successful - I admit that. I am human and some days the negative threatens to swallow me whole. Some days, no matter how hard I look, I cannot find a crumb of goodness and light to hang onto. Thankfully those days are usually few and far between, until recently.
When I was a kid my family was very good at moving. I mean we were really good at moving. Long moves, short moves, you name it. We were champions of moving - gold medal really. By 9th grade, I was enrolling in my 13th school. It was an interesting existence. At a young age, I'd lived in a lot of diverse places from Florida to Colorado to Texas to New Hampshire. As a kid, it was just the way my life was - it wasn't something I really gave a thought to - I just did what I was told.
As an adult, I learned to look at the positives of my nomadic childhood. I lived in places as different as Ft. Lauderdale, Fl and Lubbock, Tx. Believe me, you will never find two more different places than the spring break capital and the most conservative city in the US. I experienced weekends on the beach and in the mountains, as well as tornados and hurricanes. I mastered the art of walking into a classroom full of strangers and acting like I belonged there. It's a skill that has served me well.
Eventually, I put down roots in the Big D and made a life for myself. Even though my family moved on I was happy to be in one place indefinitely. But all good things come to an end and eventually it became time for me to move, long past time really.
But a strange thing happened when I began to make plans to move back to my home state of Florida - I was suddenly crippled by fear, anxiety and panic attacks with a large helping of depression thrown in for good measure. These aren't completely unfamiliar feelings, I've had them before just not the plethora the universe gifted me with in December and January. Any attempt to work on my big MOVE TO FLORIDA plan resulted in an anxiety attack. When I wasn't having an anxiety attack, I was safely ensconced in the chilling hug of deep dark depression. All the while my life was going to shit.
I knew there had to be something causing this vortex of suck in my life. Part of my "All Thought is Creative" philosophy is that nothing happens to me without something in me attracting it - or in the case of my business - repelling it. So all through the month of December I worked hard trying to find that proverbial splinter in my psyche. I journaled, I prayed, I meditated, I worked with my life coach - I consulted the angel cards and even did a rain dance when I wasn't curled up in the fetal position. It might seem stupid, but the correlation between my decision to move and my crippling angst just did not occur to me.
It wasn't until about ten days ago that the link between my decision to move and my erstwhile adventures as a toddler nomad became clear. And even then I couldn't figure out exactly why. I had, decades ago, come to terms with the fact that I had schlepped across the country multiple times. I had focused on the positive aspects and moved on! Ta Da! Presto! situation handled. Sorta.
As I kept journaling about my childhood, I started to realize there were some gaping holes in my childhood memories. I remembered living in all these places, I just didn't remember actually moving. I couldn't remember anything about the move to Colorado, or the ones to and from Tx or even how the heck we got to New Hampshire - it's not like I was a small child when some of these moves happened. I was 14 - surely too young for dementia? The more I tried to fill in the gaps the sadder I became. That was when I finally realized what mini me was never able to cope with - every one of those moves was a trauma unto itself. Every time we moved it meant I was losing someone. My parents were divorcing... again. Or we were leaving a favorite aunt and uncle to join my sister in another state, or leaving them to join a different, not so favorite aunt and uncle. By the age of nine, I'd been thru the loss of my father -twice, my older sisters leaving and had moved cross country twice.
It wasn't till 10 days ago I fully got the impact of it all. That is a lot of trauma for one child and it wasn't over - the moves kept coming.
This isn't a story about blame or shame. Everyone involved was doing the best they knew how to do in the circumstances. Grown up me knows that, understands and even accepts it. Sometimes life just sucks and through no fault of our own, we end up with scars so deep the only option is to bury it. And bury it so deep not even your memory can find it. This is a story of what those scars do to us, the way they run our lives and bring us to our knees when we least expect it.
This year, 2015 is the year I plan on making huge changes in my life. I want to make a move I've thought of for a long time - heading back to Florida. I'll be purging 90% of my possessions, throwing what's left in the back of a pick-up truck and leaving. I'm actually really excited about it, letting go of stuff feels liberating to me. Apparently, I have more stuff to let go than I realized.
Once I made the connection between my impending move and all the garbage floating up from the bowels of my psyche - I thought I'd be able to clear it up and move on. But it wasn't so easy. I found myself caught in this weird vortex - in agony to the point I could barely talk about the moves without choking up. But weirdly unable to shed a single tear. I felt totally trapped - probably a lot like it felt having to move for the umpteenth time. All the while my life is swirling around the drain and I couldn't seem to get a handle on anything.
So back to the drawing board and another round of journaling, praying, meditation, begging, coaching, counseling and anything else I thought might help. I knew that I needed to break thru this block. The thing about feelings is they don't go away if you refuse to feel them. Sure you can stuff them down and even forget them. But they are still there. The only way to heal and move forward is to... unfortunately.. feel them. Feel them in all their miserable glory.You have to be willing to sob until your face is swollen and red, snot drips down your face, and a box of tissues lays crumpled on the floor. But how to do that when you won't even let yourself cry? That is a conundrum.
So I decided to do the one thing I was most afraid to do. The thing that 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 20, 30-year-old me was never able to do. Tell my mother how I felt. It wasn't about blaming or guilting or shaming. It was about reclaiming some of the power I never had as a kid. It was about being heard, having someone acknowledge the hell I had been through. I won't go into all the details of our talk. Some things are best kept private (I'm sure some feel I've said more than enough already - but whatever) But the point is, I was able to get what I needed from my mom.
It wasn't an immediate cure-all. What it did do was pop the metaphorical cork I'd stuffed on all the hurt and pain all those years ago. Wow, did it ever. I spent two solid days crying and sobbing. I thought the tears would never end. Actually, they still haven't stopped totally. But I've gone from an all day snot-fest to sporadic crying. Each day just a little bit better than the last. I'm starting to feel better, the anxiety attacks are fading, the depression is starting to lift. And I'm getting excited about the future. I'm feeling a lightness I haven't felt in a long time.
I still believe in the power of focusing on the positive.It's the only way to live a life of joy and happiness. I've never known a cynical negative person whose life was filled with joy or laughter.
What I understand more clearly now, is you have to be willing to feel the yucky stuff. It's the only way to get to the other side. Even when you don't realize you're avoiding it, it's still there, underneath everything. Worst of all, it's like that proverbial back seat driver - only they've got their own steering wheel and they end up steering you in ways you don't even realize. Looking back on my life I realized that choices I've made - that I thought were rational well thought out - might actually have been steered by the fear and trauma of my childhood. I guess I'll never really know for sure. What I do know is that those fears won't be running me anymore. The steering wheel has been disconnected.
If you're going through your own stuff, be willing to cry and yell. Prayer, meditation, boxing, or writing whatever works for you. Just don't let it stay buried. Feel it, own it and get back to the positive side of things. I'll meet you on the other side of the yucky stuff.
