Exhale.

I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Washington this month. My whole family was there and we celebrated Jake and Leah's graduations from graduate school and then spent some time in the mountains at an awesome cabin. It was wonderful.

I realized that week that my soul needed to breathe. It needed room to have a nice long exhale without being rushed back to routine. The minute the plane took off I felt lighter and lighter. It's not a reflection on my life in Nashville, but just a reminder that my soul needs room to breathe. I need to make room for my over-thinking mind to rest, my over-empathetic heart to take a break and my always achieving soul to stop. It was a chance to be reminded that I do not hold the world together and that it keeps going when I'm gone.

My soul took a nice long exhale and I was able to rest. I was able to think about things that I usually just push away and cover with busyness. I was able just to be. I was able to exhale and inhale rest, peace and joy.

With every fit of laughter, every game played, every beautiful scene taken in, every short nap in the car, every page read in my book, every breath caught on the hike, every talk with one of my family members, every thought that with these people I am completely known and loved...my soul exhaled.

The hard part is not to feel like you're choking when it's time to get back to reality, to not feel like your soul is getting stuffed back down after experiencing that breath of fresh air. How do I make room for my soul to breathe in the everyday and the ordinary? How do I allow myself to feel that freedom and rest in the middle of the busyness and routine?

This was supposed to restore my soul and give me rest to start again and it did, but it also just made me long for more, long for more room to breath, more room to rest and more room to be restored. So, how do I create the space for my soul to exhale in the every day?  I guess it's something I'm still trying to figure out.

When "Let it Go" Became a Holy Moment.

I know there's been a lot of buzz around the movie, Frozen, and the song, Let it Go, and while I really liked the movie and the song, I haven't been quite as obsessed as other people have been. I know most parents are ready to burn the DVD because they've watched it so much and their kids won't stop singing and I can't hear someone say "let it go" without the song popping in my head, but I haven't thought too much about it. About seven months ago I started counseling. (I know, kinda a random jump, I promise I'll get back to Let It Go, I didn't just want it to be stuck in your head for the remainder of your time reading this :-) ) For whatever reason, there is a stigma around counseling that I think is so completely wrong. Where some people think that going to counseling means you're broken, something's wrong with you and you're crazy, I think it means you're brave, you realize your mental health is just as important as physical health to be a whole person, and sometimes we need a safe place to let it all out. (and sidenote...we are all broken, we all have something wrong with us and everyone's a little crazy, but I digress...) I'm not shy about sharing with people that I'm in counseling and how much I love it. (although, I never really thought I would post about it here) I've gone to counseling off and on since college and it has always been the best decision I could make.

Counseling this time around has been a little different. Other times I've done counseling, it's been for a specific reason or situation of life I'm dealing with, and this time it was just because, well, of life. There was just so much transition, so many things happening and I had so many feelings and I just felt like I needed to let it all out there to someone who had to listen and not judge. Best decision I've made in a long time.

This journey I've been on through counseling has helped me arrive to the truth that it's okay to be who I am. It's helped me realize the deep issues and struggles I've had that made me think I was never going to be enough. It helped me identify the natural tendencies I have that lend towards counting myself as less and shifting to be the person who everyone needs and likes rather than staying true to who I am.

To go into everything that's come from counseling would be pages and pages of writing, but I will say the last seven months have consisted of some of the hardest, but most rewarding work I have ever done. I am not the same person I was seven months ago. I have discovered who I am and that I don't have to apologize for that. I have truly realized that I am good enough, just because I am me. I have come to face my issues and work through them and realize it's okay to feel things besides happy and "good" feelings. I know that my life is my life, no one else's and I can walk through each day with the knowledge that I am staying true to who I am. I have felt empowered, I have experienced freedom and I know what it means to be whole.

Part of my counseling is something called EMDR therapy (it's too long to explain what that means here), but it has been incredible what it has done for me. So at one point today, my counselor asked me what I noticed during EMDR and the lyric from Let it Go (you thought I forgot about that by now, didn't you?) came to my head when she sings, "Here I stand" and then the rest of the song flooded my head.

We decided to play the song at the end of my session, so as I sat there with my eyes closed listening to Let It Go, I felt like I was experiencing a holy moment (after I stopped myself from almost laughing out loud because it seemed a little ridiculous), with the help of a Disney song. It was a moment where I fully realized where I had been, where I was, and where I was going and all I had processed and journeyed through the last seven months. "Here I stand, Here I'll stay"...this is who I am, this is where I'll stand, knowing who I am, whose I am and letting go of this "perfect" person I think I should be so that everyone else is happy. While this song played, in that little moment in a small therapy room, I felt like Jesus was there. I felt like I could feel and know my worth and value, that I know the confidence I can have in who I am because I am one who is dearly loved, that I can keep living life unafraid and let go of anything that has made me feel less than enough or that I'm not able to be who I really am. It was a moment of freedom and holiness. Who knew a Disney song could usher in such a moment!

Just in case you don't know the song I'm talking about, find it here! Also, a sidenote, but if you're reading this and you actually made it to the end, you should consider looking into counseling! I think it's something everyone should do in their life and it's so beneficial for so many reasons, even if you don't think something is "wrong", but that's just my two cents, and not that I'm telling you what to do or anything like that... ;)

Some MLK Day Thoughts...

Today is a day where we remember Martin Luther King Jr. and all of the good that he did. I am thankful that there is a day to honor a great man who fought hard for justice. One thing I do often is revisit different things Martin Luther King Jr. has said and I thought it would be timely to share them here!

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”

 “…I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

It’s nice to read quotes and memorialize a man who did such great work, but it can’t just stop at that and I think we forget that too easily. In an interesting article about streets named after MLK it says this, “There’s a way in which the process of memorialization is sometimes the first step in collective forgetting. We name our monuments, we name our streets, and they’re meant to do the work of memory for us.” That's not how it should be.

I think this is a great day to remember a great man, but also a day to remember how much work we still have to do. How much work we still have to do in bringing about economic justice, racial justice and equality. People say it’s gone and that we’re all equal, but we’re not..just take a stroll through your city, talk to a teacher about the roadblocks in the education system, ask an undocumented teenager about their dream to go to college and how it may never happen, think about how I can get pulled over in my community and asked, “why are you in this neighborhood” but my African-American friends seem to get pulled over for no reason at all, read the news to hear about things like how Philadelphia choose to close 23 public schools, but build a $400 million prison, read The New Jim Crow…the list could go on and on. The world is broken, we are broken and it can be hard not to get overwhelmed by it all, but we have to keep moving forward. Keep moving forward on a road towards justice, peace, reconciliation, restoration and equality.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” So don’t stay silent. Remember to take a stand for what is right, dare to dream the world can be a better place and do your damndest to make it happen.

Reality vs. Expectations

I have been called out recently. Called out in a way that brought attention to something I didn't even realize but as this person said it, I could only nod and agree. She said, "in one hand you have your life as you thought it would be. You have your life as you expected it would be, as the person you think you should be and doing what is expected of you. This is who you think you should or could be. In the other hand, you have your life. Your real life, with everything you've accomplished, struggled with, and face every day. This is who you are and the life and circumstances that are shaping you into who you're becoming. You aren't accepting your reality and reconciling these expectations with your reality. And really your reality is a good reality!"

This was so true. I didn't even realize how I was struggling with accepting my reality. My life has not really turned out the way I expected. In many ways it's like all I planned to do and thought I would do have been thrown out the window. I have had the opportunity to do things I feel like I don't deserve and have been fortunate to do so many good things. I kinda struggle with that in a way I'm not fully even able to explain. I desire things I thought I would have and try to bring things with me from the past that I thought were good. I never realized how much time I've wasted on this. How much time I've wasted on letting my expectations rule over my reality.

When we allow our expectations to rule our decisions and our mind, we miss out on our reality. We miss out on what's right in front of us. We miss out on realizing that the opportunities we have been given are just that, opportunities! I don't want my life to be ruled by my expectations. I want to fully live in my reality and not the "what could be or should be", but by what is.

Today I had a choice.

Life has been overwhelming lately. I don't always know what to do when it gets this way because it's overwhelmed with so many good things. I love what I'm learning in grad school, I enjoy doing my job, and it's so life giving to spend time with people, but it's reached a point where it's a lot. I have felt paralyzed with it all lately. So anxious about all there is to do, I feel like I can't do anything. This morning I realized I had a choice in how to deal with all this so I wrote a letter to myself (weird? Maybe...but it worked) Abby, you can choose to let anxiety and fear run your day or you can chose to let peace and wisdom run your day today. Stop being paralyzed by the anxiety you're allowing to creep into your life. Take a deep breath, remember you can't do this by yourself, choose to make this a productive day and take one thing at a time. Be flexible, be mindful, work hard, take deep breaths, and remember God has got you and wants to be the source you tap into for your strength. 

So after this little self-talk I decided to choose peace, to choose wisdom and to choose productivity and by the grace of God I made it through today. Everything there is to be done is still there, nothing has changed with my workload, but today I choose peace, wisdom and productivity and a peace that surpasses understanding is currently covering my life.

So be encouraged today friends, be encouraged that you're not alone. Be encouraged that you can choose peace. Be encouraged that a peace that surpasses understanding can cover your life too.