Trading Your Burdens for Peace, Joy and Love

Sometimes I get so caught up in trying to help and inspire others that I forget to inspire myself. Sometimes I forget to find joy in life and sometimes I am lazy and feel like wallowing in my own mess.  I am a phony.  I don't always follow my own words of wisdom that I deliberately preach to the world about.  After I wrote my last post I uncovered a painful truth.  I've been lying to myself. Am I grateful?  Yes.  Have I accepted that life will happen?  Absolutely.  I am, without a doubt, a lucky woman.  But these last couple of weeks I haven't actually been considering why I am so lucky. Remember those sunrises I was telling you about?  You know, the ones I would gaze at while sipping my coffee in the morning and suddenly I would feel blessed?  Well, I must confess, I have not observed a sunrise in two weeks.  I haven't had time because my hand meets the the snooze button on the alarm one too many times in the morning and I regretfully settle for a cup of coffee on the way to work as I speed through traffic to get my daughter to school on time.  I have not even attempted to find joy in the smiling faces of my family or by the beautiful piece of art that my daughter had been showing off one day and had worked so hard on just for me.  I have been floating through life just trying to make it to the next day. My thoughts have consumed me.  My dog has been driving me up the wall and the thought of turning on the stove to actually cook a meal for my family sounds absolutely dreadful. I've lost sight of the joy's in my life and I've just been going through the motions. I sensed it as soon as it started but I did nothing to intervene.  And then it hit me last night while I rolled around in bed attempting to resume a comfortable spot on our king size bed.  

I wasn't just fighting for a comfortable spot on our pillow top mattress, I was trying to fight off the millions of thoughts running through my head that were causing me discomfort in my everyday life:

Gotta clean the dinning room chairs off that have suddenly become a drying rack for our wet clothes. The bathroom needs painting.  Actually I just want something different to look at - for the third time in two years. So, Aqua Blue or Blue Igloo? I've got to walk the dog or at least convince my husband to so I can finish writing a paper for my Children's Lit course.  That reminds me, the litter box needs cleaning. We're almost out of milk and my car inspection is due - in July.  It's not even Friday but you better bet I've got my top three dinner choices planned out along with how I am going to get it on the table by 5 pm so we can finish by 5:30 and then make it to soccer practice by 6.  Oh look, squirrel.  

You get this idea.  My mind is a racetrack and in my defense I think my thoughts have a mind of their very own.  I have been trapped inside my own mind.  I know I claimed otherwise, but I didn't even realize that I had been consumed by such a burden until that very moment.  We were shutting everything down and heading for bed by 7 pm.  I'd been skimping on dinner and ordering out or just barely mustering up enough energy to make sandwiches.  My hair hadn't met with the blow dryer in two weeks and my poor husband had been taking on the never ending piles of laundry.  I thought I was just tired.  I thought I was just trying to be more laid back.  Or at least I convinced myself otherwise just to avoid the truth but I wasn't actually any of these things.  I stopped looking at all of the little joyous things that typically had the ability to bring me back to life.

Shame.  Regret.  Guilt.  Sorrow.

All of these begin to consume me.  And then I remember those life changing words from weeks before: Today is the beginning of peace and reconciliation.  Right now, this very moment.  I am letting go of the burden.  I have been paralyzed by my own never ending thoughts, worries and concerns.  Some are senseless and some a real.  Regardless, these thoughts were powerful enough to suck the life out of me.  Joy, passion, peace, focus, connection and love - all missing from my soul.  I didn't expect to write this today  (I should tell you that I've also edited this 7 times since posting yesterday).  But I also didn't realize that I had even been missing parts of me to begin with.  I share my heart with you today because maybe you, too, are feeling lifeless.

I invite you to ask yourself these questions:

What are you missing today?

What does it take for you to feel connected with yourself and the rest of the world?

What does love, joy and peace look like to you? 

I am missing me.  I was missing me and all of my little quirks because I allowed my thoughts to consume me.  To feel connected I need to be surrounded by those that I love most and to be conscious in each and every one of my experiences.  If I am capable of doing so, then I am better able to recognize when I am a little off.

Love is my fur child, Sadie waiting by the living room window for my return home.  Love is the passion I feel for my job when someone thanks me.  Love is in the kitchen preparing a meal for my family that we planned three days prior.  I miss doing that.  Love is eating a dozen Hershey kisses and then getting licked by my seven year old's chocolate covered tongue.

Joy is the game of hide and seek that my human child forces me into when I walk through the door and she is no where to be found.  And then again when she jumps out from behind the fridge, carelessly giving herself away as she anxiously fly's into my arms and declares how much she had missed me for the hour that I was at Walmart. Joy is the little moments spent with my family being silly, because that's who we are and enjoy being.  Joy is in my writing and in the words that I speak to those who listen.  

Peace is at the end of the night when my husband wraps me into his arms, even with a dozen pillows standing in his way, and then effortlessly falls asleep snoring in my ear.  Sounds a little ironic, right? I find peace in this moment because no matter what the day entailed, or what kind of mood I was in, my husband always finds me at the end of the night to remind me that he is still there, loving me every step of the way.

Maybe for you, sunrises and sunsets aren't the answer.  Maybe you don't find joy in being silly and in laughing until tears drown your eyes.  Maybe peace isn't through your husbands loud and abrupt snoring right smack dab next to your ear.  Maybe for you love consists of much more than it does for me.  But whatever it may be, I encourage you to find it.  I encourage you to choose peace, joy and love every single day.  I know that when I do not choose, I am instead unconsciously choosing regret, shame and sorrow.  And I am likely missing out on some of life's greatest moments. From here on out, the reminder is there in plain sight.  I refuse to let the burden of my worries and senseless thoughts suck the life out of me.

It's possible that you are not a relentless thinker like me.  I wish I was more like you.  But I am not. So whether you over analyze next Wednesday's dinner menu, or even tonight's.  If you just remembered you missed a deadline, or have one coming up in six months.  Or if something just rubbed you wrong today and is sucking the life out of you - ask yourself.  Prompt yourself to discover your own inner burdens and replace them with your definition of peace, joy and love.  

They are in the ordinary and if you choose to commit to them today, and everyday, the weight that you may not have even known was there will be lifted.  That is my promise to you.  And who knows, maybe you will inspire someone else to do the same.