the epiphany

 

good morning

Day ? in my self imposed social media exile 

has been interesting.

I check in once a day on my laptop.

But having been down with my knee

all swollen has made it harder, just sitting and reading

or watching the chickens in the gardens

without scrolling is harder than I imagined.

How did we get so dependent upon

a *thing* in my lifetime?

Anyway.... healing is happening, though so

slowly. I am starting to understand that

the rhythm of August will be this slower,

purposeful movement.

Podcasts are my jam these days.

I have enjoyed listening and expanding my mind.

One actually changed the way I saw myself, and how I have

been stuck in this response for way too long...

and now I know why.

My fears about everything over the years:

abandonment, safety......

was ( is)  actually anxiety.

And with every loss since, it reinforced itself.

This makes so much sense.

SO MUCH SENSE.

Can I un-program what was a safety mechanism ?

I will try.

It has held me back from so many opportunities,

Who knew that grief could present this way?

It honestly made me wonder about the people

in my life who respond the same way...

are they processing grief too?

Sometimes it just takes a change of perspective to 

change everything.

Now, now I can move into a place of healing.

It has been a long time.....

{ to be honest, October 1988 seems like yesterday sometimes, 

like mommy will just walk into my house one day...grief is weird}

I am glad that I carved out this time to take a step back and reevaluate.

Growth is not always linear... growth comes when we finally

let go of the outcome, which I did at the start of this year.

My life and the changes became overwhelming in reflection.

I did not talk to anyone about it, just went about my days

hooping that I would feel like I belonged here, in this space.

As I took steps towards growth, people left.

My anxiety grew.

Feeling untethered allowed me to become vulnerable to

criticism and judgements.

It can be a vicious cycle.

Luckily I am at home in nature and this place where God planted me is 

all about that. 

I am not always lonely anymore.

My  old daily chaotic cycle of noise and interruptions and

focusing upon others kept me from examining this

underlying buzz that was my normal.

Took me a while to appreciate the peace.

When I look back through old photos now it is with different eyes and 

a kinder heart. 

The judgements of the past stripped away.

Grief is anxiety, grief  is fear & for me grief was an old friend

that kept me stuck in a time where it seemed time had stopped.

It kept me close to the loss as if doing so would not make it real.

The grief always left like it was right there, under my skin...

reminding me in a most uncomfortable way of the anguish

and the pain and the possibility of it happening again.

But if I am honest, it was its own monster.

It became the fear and the anxiety and the almost ruin of every good thing

in my life that is about me.

Tough to untwine all the tendrils of this in my life, but I am willing to try.

🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃

Summers bounty is here and I always have a fridge with odds and ends of

veggies by the end of the week. Instead of tossing them, I make this.

Super easy and it stores covered in the fridge for a month but

it is honestly eaten way before that. I put it on sandwiches, hotdogs & burgers...

Summers slowness is perfect for healing.

This is what I am doing ....after all.

Thank you for allowing me to be vulnerable in this space .

Blessings,

raven

xoxo