Getting to Essentials

I've been reflecting on this past year and have been happily surprised about how positively focused I've felt about it. One of my friends said she thinks it's because I'm a pretty positive person. Be that as it may, when you are dealing with considerable life stressors, it's easy for even the most positive of people to fall prey to the negative thinking. So that leaves me with the question, why didn't I?

First and foremost, it's about enacting one's self-care. I really do a great deal of self-care on a consistent basis. That I would say is the foundation of it. It allowed me to stay focused on the here and now moment and in touch with myself and what I was feeling. Sometimes, it even made me feel better. However, there is more. I don't sit with how I'm feeling for great periods of time. It has limited shelf life value, in my opinion. Take for instance if I am feeling awful. I can sit with myself and focus on feeling awful and all of the reasons for it. This doesn't really get me anywhere, and I'm all about getting somewhere. When I say this, I sound uber-ambitious and that's not really it at all. I'm not particularly invested in getting somewhere society thinks I ought to be, or what looks good to other people. The place I'm all about getting to is being right with myself and my Creator. Taking my own path and not somebody elses. On my own time, not another's timeline.

So what I did was I found other like minded people to befriend. A funny thing happened when I did this. All hell broke loose in my other relationships. It was as if the universe was throwing a purging party on my behalf. I didn't really see it this way at the time, but I realize now that it was one of the best things that could have ever happened.

When I surrounded myself with people who boldly and courageously walk their own path and are invested in their own self-care, it helped me to see essential elements to who I am as a person. I'm very strong, have a great deal of tenacity, and am authentic. So why did I surround myself with people in the past who weren't, or were invested in staying with their one emotion to centralize around, or who just didn't have the courage to really live life as it's meant to be lived?

The next step was purging myself of the "whys" as they aren't essential. It really doesn't matter why what happened happened, or why I did what I did in the past. The "whys" are perennial rabbit trails, distracting from the path ahead.

After that, I just started taking steps. One step after another and I left myself open to all of the possibilities that they might offer along the way. In retrospect, a critical element that contributed to my success was that I detached from an anticipated outcome. Honestly, this is probably because I was exhausted from everything else that had come before. Some people say it's trust or faith that it will all work out that leads them to their detachment from an outcome. For me, there were elements of faith involved, but an active participation on my part in the process.

Amazing things began to happen! I'm beginning to like this and can't wait to see what happens next!