Tag: #lettinggoofthepast

Maybe You’ve Changed

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My daughter made my Chemex this morning. She was getting ready to leave for classes, but paused long enough to do that.

That’s true love.

She stayed home this weekend, so I didn’t make weekend plans. I just wanted to hang out with her in that weekend vibe. Life has her on a rapid schedule right now, so it was different for her to just chill. We went to one of our favorite small towns yesterday and strolled the streets of downtown.

lattes

We walked into one of my favorite shops, or so I thought. There was a day not too long ago I would drive to that town just for that shoppe. It’s full of Artisan goods on display and for sale. One of my favorite Potters has his work there and I soon found his display taking up a corner of the store.

I picked up one of his coffee mugs and cradled it in my hand. It didn’t have the same feel as the mugs we use today. My daughter said, “You know I will slip some of those mugs from Dad’s for you if you want.” I used to collect this potter’s work, but left all of it in the cabinet when we left.

Placing it back on the shelf, I said, ‘Nah.’ Our mugs feel like love when you hold them.

This mug belonged on display.

Leaving the shoppe, I looked down at the sidewalk and told my daughter, “I didn’t see anything in there today that resonated with me. It used to be one of my favorite shoppes, but maybe it’s changed.”

She stood with me in that moment and softly said, “Maybe you’ve changed.”

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It Took Years

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I started pondering my front yard after Christmas. Taking the Christmas wreath off the front door, I wondered about having a year round wreath.

Everything is so pretty on Etsy.

wreath
Brickhouse Design Co. made this.

My daughter and I have a french theme sprinkled through the house. The front door is the entryway to our home, and that french theme, so it makes sense.

That door is where this all began.

Today, I’ve been playing in the yard.

This journey with this front yard began with, A Simpler Life. An update to that post is, I found the perfect bird-feeder. It didn’t take much time.

birdfeeder
Vintage Scrolled Birdfeeder.

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About two years ago, I grew Boston Ferns on our front porch per my daughter’s request. That was the first time I had messed with plants in years, beside growing some Canna lilies while living on 40 acres.

You see, my ex husband and I owned a landscape company during the most trying part of our marriage. We designed, planted and built outdoor living spaces in people’s backyards. We installed some magnificent yards, but he practiced on ours.

Toward the end of our marriage we no longer spoke to one another. The yard was his safe haven and he created such beautiful yards, but the well manicured yard left a sore spot in my heart.

When we moved into this house, I completely ignored the yard and let it go. It was an interesting experiment to see what would happen. I’m pretty sure UPS was scared to walk through the yard to the front porch to leave a package. It was a jungle.

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But remember darling…2019 is the year to bloom!

flowercart
Vintage Flower Cart

A friend had this lovely flower cart for sale.

It adds to the french theme don’t you think?

Time has passed and my yard heart has healed. I look forward to planning and planting again. A yard that will bring joy to people as they stroll by.

It will look quite different from last year and they will see this transformation after only one year.

You know the whole story my darlings.

For me to love a yard again. It took years.

Your Way Home

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I have been pondering lately the feeling of home.

Maybe you travel a lot, or work long days, and you pull into the driveway. Walking up to the door, and seeing it standing there waiting. Hearing the key slide into the lock, and then the click. The door swings open, but there’s that initial step into the home.

That is such a good feeling. There’s no place like home, the saying goes. To capture that moment and carry it with you throughout the day would be lovely, right?

To feel peace and exhilaration all at once.

There is a book by Melody Beattie entitled, “Finding Your Way Home.” It contains stories of people’s ideas of what home is, and how they yearn to return there. Taking a detour off the path of life can feel like a maze of sorts. I can lose my way so easily, if I don’t depend on God to guide me. Even then, I take detours, but He waits while I wander.

Here is a meditation Melodie suggests in her book.

brown pathway surrounded by trees
Photo by Satria Wira Bagaskara on Pexels.com

Get in a comfortable position, and let you eyes close.

Picture yourself standing at the entrance to a bridge, a walkway across a chasm. You can make the bridge as high, as low, as wide, or as narrow as you want. But to get to the other side, you need to step onto the bridge and walk across. The side you’re standing on is a little dark. It’s familiar, but it’s not where you want to be anymore. Even if you have some fear, envision yourself feeling excited and curious to get to the other side. You may not be able to see what’s on the other side clearly yet, but it looks greener, lighter, happier over there. Feel your desire and determination to cross the bridge.

Picture yourself walking, safely taking each step, or running (if you want to run) across the bridge. Stay with yourself each step of the way. Hold the railing if you like, or run freely down the middle of the bridge. But take each step until you get to the other side. When you get to the other side, keep walking until you are completely off the bridge, and your feet are planted on solid ground. Give yourself a moment to look back at where you’ve come from. Smile and wave at anyone, or anything you’ve left behind. Bless them. Release them. Don’t worry about who you’ve left behind; when they’re ready to cross, their bridge will appear. Turn around, smile, and take a moment to enjoy the beauty you see and feel on this new side.

Know you’re safe. You have successfully crossed the bridge. Your feet are planted on solid ground. Feel yourself surrounded by people who love you. You may not be able to see their faces or recognize who they are yet, but you can feel their love. Feel yourself surrounded by trees, mountains, sunshine and birds. You may not know exactly what you’re going to find on this new side, but you feel secure. Know and trust that it will be good.

You’re on your way home.

Learning To Live

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We are getting much needed rain here in Texas. I have three chickens in the side yard that have not witnessed rain in a long time.

When it began pouring from the sky, they freaked out and started running around. They have a coop to provide shelter, with the door standing wide open, but are huddled up against the house instead. They are called chickens for a reason.

reese

Maybe we forgive, and forget how things feel.

Forgiveness has to come first, or the forgetting will not take place. It will haunt us and make us miserable until we forgive. God wants us to forgive others for wrongdoing, but we often forget to forgive ourselves.

The house my ex-husband lives in is the same house we shared. When I left, I only took a few things, so you couldn’t tell at first glance, that anything was missing. The furnishings remained the same as I left them, with a few replacement pieces. I don’t know how he has lived there. I guess he hasn’t. It has just been sheltering from the storms of life.

I saw that house as a slow brewing storm.

My ex-husband blames himself for the dissolve of our marriage. It’s not true, but that is how he sees it. Recently, I sent him an email asking him to forgive me for hurting him. I don’t know that he can because he is going to have to find forgiveness for his soul first. He needed to leave that house.

His favorite Bible verse is Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” His life is not reflective of his favorite verse. When you are stuck in the past, there is no future.

I started praying for God to move and show my ex His goodness. It was passed time for him to leave that house, and all the haunting memories it stored. Last weekend, my ex took our daughter to look at a house he saw in the newspaper. She showed me pictures of it, and it’s the perfect house for him! He is moving in November!

When my ex and I first met, he lived in a condo on a lake in Virginia. This house is reminiscent of that condo, and is overlooking a lake! God is restoring the years lost, by placing him in the last place he was his happiest. Now he can have a beautiful shelter, surrounded by God’s goodness and start the forgiving process. Let the healing begin.

A Full Heart

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Cleaning house is like therapy for me. It might be a few days before I get around to it, but once I do, I find my center. Just doing something with a positive outcome like mopping, vacuuming or dusting, brings things into focus.

The shower has the same effect.

Maybe God has something about cleaning because He has me in one spot for a moment and I’m able to listen. Mopping the floor today, I was enjoying the beauty of the wood. Each slab is unique and has it’s own design. I don’t have it covered up with a rug, but it did bring to mind a rug I used to have.

It’s at my ex husbands house, where I left a lot of stuff. He’s not using it, so for an instant, I toyed with the idea of asking him for it. It is a hugely expensive rug, rolled up collecting dust. It amuses me when I think of a material object from the past that I would like to have today.

It never works though. They just don’t fit where I am.

I completely understand the draw of holding onto the past. Whether it’s material objects, or people, it’s comforting. Pondering this today, I can’t think of  anything from my past that would bring me joy in my present.

The past is the past for a reason. It’s not healthy to live there and it’s next to impossible to move on and grow. When I was able to let go and clear my heart and mind, there was room for growth.

The more you clear the clutter of your past, the more room you have for new possibilities, and that leads to a full heart.

You Are Here

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You gotta love the directory at a large shopping mall. You walk over to look up the store location of your choice, but first it helps to find the spot that says, “You Are Here.” I want one of those for my life.

accept

This quote is the mantra for my coaching career. I love the simplicity and have to remind myself of it frequently. It’s very simple to read and say, but much more difficult to do. We like being in control but, I can tell you from experience, it’s more productive to Let It Go.

Our body and mind love pleasure. It will gravitate toward pleasure faster than pain. Some think their life should have a certain amount of pain. That they are not supposed to walk in complete happiness. The saying, “No pain, no gain”, should be debunked. That is one of the many things my program does. It looks at those old beliefs and sayings we grew up hearing, and determines if we want to utilize them in our lives today.

To give up control means stepping into the unknown. That can sound like a scary place to be, but it’s not. I have done this so many times in the past two years alone, today I pretty much run toward the unknown. If you have read any of my blogs, you know I have a ginormous God. Learning to walk by faith, that He has a plan for me and my life, makes stepping into the unknown easier. You could do it with a positive mental state as well. To know that everything is going to turn out for good will get you moving.

bottom

I had allowed my life to become so miserable, anything would have been an improvement. This is called hitting bottom. God will allow us to do that. How miserable will we become before we are willing to make a change? This is a horrible place to be. Everything looks dismal and grey.

Let me encourage you today that life is meant to be beautiful! By going through the letting go process one day at a time, one lesson at a time, we chip away at the ugly and let the light shine through. For me, it felt like shedding layers of old skin, until I got down to the real me. The people that came into my life were people that added good, not chaos.

Stepping into the unknown is an invigorating place to be. If you are at your bottom there’s great news! The only way to go is up! Take my hand and let’s go.

Bruised, not Broken

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Almost a year ago I received my Letting Go Coaching Certification. This process can help anyone who desires quality of life.

We start by adopting the perspective of our nervous system. You see, the body knows how to be healthy. If you spent time each day resting, remaining calm and you led a peaceful life, your body would remain balanced and healthy. This is because the space of rest allows the body to express its most authentic inner energy, the power of homeostasis (inner balance).

Your nervous system makes decision on your behalf. If you put your hand on a hot stove, the information travels up your arm to the spinal cord. The spinal cord nerves process the information and sends a command to your arm to pull the hand back. All of this occurs without the brain. It is the nature of the spinal cord to make an immediate decision on your behalf, much faster than it registers in the brain.

Have you ever touched something hot, recoiled and wondered why you did that? Your brain is processing what your nervous system already knew.

Have you ever noticed a bruise on your body and wondered where it came from? The moment it happened, it was painful and the brain took assessment of the pain. Life is a lot like that. We take on the painful experience, assess and move on to the next thing. What happens to that painful experience? It leaves a bruise.

My goal as a Letting Go Coach is to fine tune your awareness of what the body is telling you in the moment.  Our bodies are designed to heal themselves given the proper care and attentiveness. Letting Go of past experiences allows the bruise to heal quickly and you will begin to realize, it was only a bruise. You are not broken.