never been here before

  As part of a new series I’m starting on expectations, one of the most unexplored places for me is disappointment. Understanding it, exploring it, and “sitting in the emotion” of disappointment and really letting yourself FEEL it. One of the reasons I see this as being so important, though it can be painful to experience, is that I believe we can learn a great deal about ourselves if we choose to listen to what we are feeling. This is not about wallowing (I’ve been a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of girl my whole life, so ain’t nobody got time for that) but about exploring. Exploring the desires, wants, hurts and needs that are all wrapped up into expectations. I remember sitting on a couch, facing my counselor, a week after a big breakthrough for me. She was asking the typical follow-up questions, and I was feeling fairly content. The breakthrough powerful and good; I’d finally connected two dots that desperately needed to be connected in my life and I was r

I’ve been making a list. A list of all the things I want to explore and write about concerning expectations. So this is going to be my new series. I haven’t done a writing series in a while, and I’m not that great at it. Because that means I need to be consistently writing. And I write a lot for my job, so to write on my days off is typically the last things I feel like doing. But this is important. It’s a far too unexplored area of my life, and perhaps of our lives in general. And I’m rarely afraid of a challenge, so I’m going try it. So far, my list includes topics such as shame, detachment, feeling the disappointment, avoiding the heartache… I’m determined to find joy and redemption in this series, even though it doesn't sound like it from this list. I’m open to ideas. What do you want to read about concerning living our lives with (or without) expectations?

It’s such a real feeling. It comes it waves… not tiny ebbs and flows but in huge, crashing, surfers’ dream kind of Hawaii-sized waves. What do you do with loneliness when you are introverted? It’s not the same… being a loner and being lonely. Or being exhausted by people and being lonely. As I need to recharge by being alone, I am seeing more and more my desperate need for connection to those I love. Have you ever physically felt heartache? …maybe I’m the only one. But I physically feel it. I feel my chest cave in, and a burn right in the center of my chest. I often end up placing my hand or both hands over that place. My shoulders turn in and my whole body leans forward. My chins hits my chest and I breath deeper, in an attempt to slow the pain. It hurts. It hurts because it’s more than just physical pain. It’s soul-wrenching pain. I was always a sensitive kid, and since I have two much older brothers, my parents really did not know what to do with me (an