A strange title and a little "off" from the every day jargon we have become accustomed to.
This is a part of my story...
I went to a weekend 8 years ago to deal with some of my lifelong built up anger and disappointment with people, with life...
One of the many challenges coming out from that weekend was that I wanted to be encouraging and challenge others...to speak in to their lives..to give hope. I wanted to become who I was meant to be. Of course to speak into others lives means we need to have a voice and walk along in life with others--neither of which I was participating in regularly.
I was challenged by one man to journal about every relationship I'd ever had with anyone--any contact at all...and then list two words to sum it up. It was difficult but I did this assignment and journaled about every person in my life I could think of and then I came to a realization that had I heard it from anyone else I would have dismissed it and been angry...but there was no one to argue with or dispute my own words that stared back like a window into my soul.
All of the disappointments...all of the anger...defensiveness...
Each relationship had a summary with the same pattern of they had wronged me in some way and I was alone or forgotten now. Either it's a worldwide conspiracy or I needed a change of heart.
I was watching the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" and watched a scene that deeply resonated with my heart. Liam Neeson is speaking to his son and trying to give him wisdom. They are headed to Jerusalem during the crusades period and his son has shame and guilt from his past that he can't let go of. His Father realizes this and offers this advice "There at the end of the world..you are not what you were born--but what you have within yourself to be" Baron of Ibelin.
If it is indeed what we have within ourselves to be--then the responsibility is mine to change this story...and change the ending.
I had been looking at all of the relationships in the wrong way...they were all mini stories that were part of the overall story. The plot was flawed from the start.
Brene Brown talks about a moment in one of her books where she talks with her husband and comes to the realization that those who hold the premise that basically people are doing their best from where they're at in their own story...if we approach it from there...I am free to not have to be judge and jury but rather I'm free to move on in my life.
When I approached life from this premise it's amazing how the happier people I talked to were indeed ones who agreed with this premise.
This also allowed me and even dared me to reconnect emotionally with life...
"Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
--CS Lewis
This quote WAS my story...I was safe and intact. It had to change or the story would always remain the same.
“The opposite of recognizing that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will choose how this story ends.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong
So reconnecting after years of disconnect was not an easy road. In order to choose a different ending and make this a life worth getting up and battling each day---I needed some changes indeed to say the least.
Choosing how the story ends is an interesting thought because it begins with the end in mind.
I know what I want the ending to be...what are some things I need to battle with daily to get there?
Vulnerability, transparency and humility were now my powerful allies where I had believed in self protection and determination as some model of courage.
It's really easy to judge..it's much harder to continuously put yourself out there every day...
I found a path in reading some interviews with Bob Goff and his book Love Does.
Bob had discovered profound gratefulness in the scenes from his life...instead of seeing them as disconnected scenes they were actually woven together in their very fabric through the thread of gratefulness. Someone had given him some of their time when that was something they had the least of to give him. This realization has fostered an intentional direction to live by gratefulness and loving others well. "Loving people well means living with constant interruption" he states...how true and there it is. I wasn't reacting kindly to the interruptions of these relationships...yet isn't that how life unfolds? Difficult relationships are available all around us--and it's our choice to engage or to live like love is in short supply or to stand in the gap and give hope.
"People who live their lives filled with gratefulness see more waterfalls because they are looking for them" Bob Goff.
That reminds me of my first encounter that same year with the hummingbirds migration. I went to Warner Park and I sat down exhausted from the different jobs I was working and lost in thought. As I changed my focus to what was directly in front of me I started to see first one...then two..then tens...even fifty different hummingbirds. They were all around me but I wasn't looking for them--so I missed their very presence like a blind man...a blind man to their beauty, speed, change of directions and the joy of watching them go go go...
As I stood there 7 years ago and looked out the back of the fast food store I was working in--I looked out over the city scape and trash dumpster area and saw the usual telephone poles, hot humid air rising but I saw something else in the usual dismal cityscape. There in the ugliness was a beautiful double rainbow over the city. It reminded me there were redeeming stories and scenes everywhere on my journey...and it began to fuel a desire to intentionally plot a course through the very middle of that city to listen to others stories, encourage and refuel belief where belief had been lost...it's about giving hope.
...and if you know that it's about giving hope...you know the ending of this story.
