Achilles heel

Have you ever identified your weakness? This isn't a post about how terrible or weak a person can be. This is an honest approach to how "we" as humans tend to operate. I have a theory that the weakness is on the opposite side of the strength. It took a couple of decades to be sure but I have a weakness of enabling. Gentle helping I like to call it. Until it spins out of control and begins to devour everything around it. My weakness is on the opposite side of my strength. Independently strong. Fascinating to think about what a strong person can do, it's even scarier to think about what our weaknesses do. My desire has always been to be liked. Not for what I looked liked, but for how smart I am. I have always valued my brain. My ability to think and be independent from others. To handle life and all it's ups and downs like a warrior. Since I longed for it as a child I made up for it in my young adult life and it didn't always work in my favor. I liked the feeling too much. I hadn't mastered picking the right relationships to be around me since I had lived in an environment that hadn't mastered it either. It really does matter if your parents were honest with what strengths and weakness's they had. It doesn't allow people to learn to function well at all when those key elements are not focused on so we can choose more wisely each new day. This of course does not allow blame to settle in indefinitely, just a basis for understanding why our actions can lead us in a healthy way or just the opposite, an unhealthy way. There's a part of me that just loves to study the first half of my life so that I can understand what was missing and what my decisions were based on. If I can recall the data I begin to understand my own poor behavior had come from the influence of poor behavior around me. It's not easy to learn new things while attempting to undo the wrong things. I had this huge Faith burning inside me everyday. I was increasing in weight as well. This was not in my favor as a woman. I was also witty and challenged everything that was in my path. My relationships from my past have one thing in common. THEY COULD RELY ON ME. I followed through. I was consistent. I worked hard. I do not require much out of people, just conversation. That one always seemed to be the hardest. Oddly enough. My mother had started me off at a young age helping my siblings clean up their rooms or clean up after them. She was also a stickler for doing the dreaded chores. Remember those? I was always the strong element in the household to get things done. I remember my mother had a very difficult time getting dressed and out the door before 4 pm everyday. Most likely undiagnosed depression. She began to rely on my ability rather than her own. I never connected with her. She was sneaky and allowed a certain amount of deception in to everyone she came in contact with. She would take the credit for things she hadn't actually achieved on her own as if she had. My father on the other hand was completely the opposite. He left the house very early and didn't come home til he was tired and done for the day. I can assume they never set out to be so different but rather expected to meet in the middle. However it never came around to happening. My father loved his strength. I am very similar to him in that regard. He didn't so much want to identify his weakness. He enabled just about every relationship around him. He found it more appealing to be needed or control the environment at home. I know now it comes from his own ignorance on how to be completely open. But back then it just left a huge gap between him and my mother. It began such an unhealthy path. It taught us all the wrong things while not being transparent enough to grasp the healthy things in life. Picture a huge tree in the middle of a field. Enabling is when someone ties themselves to the tree, but never grows deep roots to stand along side of the tree so they can both weather the storms. I followed right in his footsteps. I enabled multiple relationships. At first it allows you to feel very important. I mean think about it. The person tying themselves to you sees what you have to offer and you feel overwhelmed by the feeling of importance. Someone noticed something special about me! It is life changing to be noticed. You can live on that high for awhile but it starts to irritate. The rope begins to rub and break pieces off of your tree that make you question who's getting more out of this. Enabling always causes problems. I've found throughout the past 3 decades that I often fall into that trap to enable others hoping that they will learn to trust in my deep roots. Alas it always leads to a full breakdown of the relationship because the one things ALL RELATIONSHIPS REQUIRE IS ACCOUNTABILITY. My Achilles heel was that I enabled others to do things that are not in their path. Now I give them the encouragement to grow deep roots on their own. My relationship with the Lord changed my life. Do Not be discouraged to face your weakness. This isn't about pointing out your faults, this is about accepting your humanity. This isn't about how you haven't learned your lesson, it's about the lesson to be learned. I am still in the process 38 years in, of being intentional everyday to face my own fears and weaknesses. It isn't easy to hold yourself accountable at first like anything in life. I am here to share it does get easier and easier. Once you've understand there is no shame in facing anything head on. I enjoy my life and every part of it. When you look at your WHOLE life it adds up. I call it "good math"

the road to recovery

It would have been great if the road to recovery was lined with flowers, puppy dogs and candy but the reality is it's filled with anxiety and thoughts of "am I making the right decision"?! The choice was clear that Luis and I needed to be done with each other. I had made the right decision to choose life over death on this earth. A metaphorical death of living under someone else's control. I had to come to the realization that even though there were no secrets about this horrible situation I was going through, there didn't seem to be an easy choice to overcome the after effects of the decision I had made. I would wake up in the middle of the night with sweat dripping off my body as the stress poured out of every pore in my body. I was spewing out all the toxins and stress one day at a time. I look back now and understand it was the beginning of real change but going through it can make you feel like your dying and make you question what you did might be causing more problems. NO. It's causing different obstacles to work through, but it is NOT causing new problems or urging you to go backwards. Whenever you pursue to fix the problems in your life your going to have to push all the stress to the surface to work on it. Once that stress is out and in front of you if you make the decision not to face it because it looks bad or too big or overwhelming you'll be sorry you did. Conquering the stress of bad relationships will always require you to clean up the mess you made. It's like throwing a party. It's always fun while it lasts, but there's prep before hand and there's cleanup afterwards. It's real life. Once you decide to get out of a relationship you will need to begin cleaning up your messes. I would have these mini panic attacks. I learned to run towards them instead of away from them. I would allow my mind to think on the information that would just "POP" into my head. What was the big deal? Why did my brain bring this to my attention? What was the underlying problem? Why does this need me to take another look? ALL OF IT, I MEAN ALL OF IT WAS NECESSARY for me to work through why I had made those decisions in my life and why I allowed other people to take advantage of me instead of bring more good to my life. I realized that while I had lived in a home that would use words to manipulate your decisions, we also used words from the Bible to create "shame" in the air to control your actions sometimes to the point of NO ACTION. I had been on a path for a long time watching a mother and father not work as a team and no one around them seem to be able to derail that misery. I had become accustom to watching people in authority over me make decisions not for the greater good, but for their good at the time. Which inevitably led us down the road of mental and physical sickness. Yet.....no one seems to be able to speak to it to change our minds to choose something better for everyone involved. SO...in turn I had learned to do the same things, just in a different setting. It wasn't hard to pinpoint where I had learned it from, it's just it was really easy not to pinpoint it. As long as my mind didn't bring it to the frontal lobe I was able to believe this was my own walk outside of my parents and I was nothing like them. I was stabbing in the dark with every choice I made. Not so far from real life once you move out of your parents by any means, just this life was a life I wanted to avoid but had jumped right in. It's true everyone makes mistakes and no perfect parenting can ensure every child will make great decisions when they become young adults. I am speaking specifically to families and you who can relate to the times when we WEREN'T taught. When there isn't respect in the house to respect yourself and to communicate to the best of your abilities your left making decisions in the quite parts of the brain where you think it will never come back to haunt you. Not true. If you ever want to face the truth about why you choose what you choose, you will be lead right back to your childhood every time. You will need to reach a place where you can feel the vulnerability and work through the self doubt and lack of self worth and love. It doesn't kill you but it can feel like it inside your body when your having a panic attack. I've been there. I get it. It's scary because while your required to handle the present life you have your required to make future decisions while managing the clean up of bad ones in your past. WOW! Yes all true....good thing is your brain is incredible and can do it. You just have to work through the uncomfortable state of "feeling" like you can't. If there is one thing that I wan't you to get is that feelings are NOT FACTS. They are only the brains way of starting the whole feeling, thinking, action process. Feeling allows us to think through all the decisions we've made or will make or what we've seen others make and then decide what action to take from there. Keep in mind we need to make the decisions on the people WE WANT TO BE, not on the emotions we feel. This will be the hardest thing to master, for what I found to be mostly true is that the large majority of people on this planet make decisions based on their emotions and not the person they want to be. While it felt impossible at times to make the right decisions I learned very quickly I never died from the anxiety welling up in my body. I never actually lost the ability to choose. I never was incapable it just felt overwhelming at times. Until I made the decision to do it. Walk towards my problems instead of walking away. I have to fight the uncomfortable urges not to face it every single time. The feeling never goes away and I've learned because it is always going to be equated with choosing to face the issue. The emotion of frustration,failure, relationships not working will require me to be more involved not less. I had a lot of flashbacks while driving. I don't know why the car is so invasive on the brain but most likely it's because your driving by yourself and can hear your thoughts. I was continually having mini panic attacks on the way to work or the gym or the store. It hurt like the dickens every time. My head would burn and my chest would tighten and oddly enough I lived through it every time. I was left feeling empowered to thinking my body was working all that stress to the surface and the last place for the stress to reside before it was gone was in that frontal place in my brain recognizing the actual pain the stress caused.......and then it vanished. I have to say the feeling of dying and the actual feeling of healing can fool you into thinking to take the wrong action. This is why it is so important for you to be cognitive to what's really going on. Let me give you a great example so you know what I mean. I have been a cosmetologist for 18 years and one of the hardest things for women to realize is when they start getting facials they will break out. Meaning they will actually see blemishes and pimples come to the surface after they have treated the skin to a facial or massage. Women are often just super irritated seeing their skin be imperfect. Here's the biochemistry on the blemishes. The surface is the last place for the impurity to show itself before it works itself out and vanishes. The facial and massage worked the blemish from deep inside to the surface so it could be dealt with. The facial didn't create the blemish, on the contrary it was the facial that was strong enough to work the blemish out of the skin's deep layer where it was being held. This is a lot like our lives. We hid blemishes and impurities deep within our bodies and when we are working them all the way out we feel the pain and the discomfort the entire time, but once it is to the surface it can begin to vanish and we move on better than before. While you may not like that I equated our personal lives to a pimple. I believe once you let that sink it, it isn't all that bad. Pimples come and go and we all know it isn't the end of the world. Life goes on.

Therapy

Therapy is just as hard as it sounds. It takes guts to get in the car and go searching for answers to what is going on inside your head and what you can do about it. Therapy doesn't fix you. It just allows you to understand that you can fix yourself.....if you want to. It's hard work. It's simpler in the office than it is leaving the office. Once you learn the word "boundary" you're pretty much sticking to it forever. Unless you're me and that word literally pisses me off. How the Heck can we have boundaries on everything? Goodness if everyone in the world goes to therapy and learns boundaries we will all have boundaries on one another and get no where. Great plan therapy. The only reason we haven't gone wild with boundaries is because "the whole world" hasn't had therapy yet. I love therapy. I hate the idea of boundaries taught in therapy. Don't confuse the two. They are two very different things. I, on the other hand, like the word "accountability" I prefer to think based on my experience that if we taught individuals to be accountable we would get further on the journey to healing and understanding. Since accountability doesn't negate speaking or communication it is my modus operandi to seeing the world grow and develop. It wasn't my first time in the office. You see I had been getting therapy for many years now since I was 16. You might think that was horrible but for someone like me that wanted to talk everything through it was essential to my well being. I had to pay someone with a brain to listen but I'd take it any day over the silent hell I had lived in at home. I shared everything. I spoke my thoughts and it helped me in so many ways. Today's session went a little differently since I was going to tell her how I had fought my way to victory over Luis. I knew once I told her I had revealed his plan all along she'd be so proud. WRONG. She was more worried that things could have gone very badly for me. I see her side of it. I also see that up to that point it was going badly the whole time and this was my life we were talking about. I had lived in fear for 2 whole years. I was willing to die for what I believed in, rather than hear how I had to keep some "boundary" up on him that WASN'T WORKING TO BEGIN WITH. I get uber frustrated with people when they say things like they understand the wager. The only way we can truly understand one another is to take the time to think about what it must be like to live everyday in fear that someone is going to get you. You have to want to make it stop at nothing, or nothing will stop it. Yes, I believe in miracles. I am not doubting the power of God to make it go away. I also believe he gives us life to live it to the fullest and that doesn't mean just in good times. On the contrary I believe he also wants us to live life to the fullest in bad times as well. I was trusting that my will to live over being devoured by a demon was stronger. I was right. My spirit devoured the demon that was inside of him and he wasn't ready to wager his own life for his evil cause. I on the other hand WAS willing to stand up and say....ENOUGH. I can still see the look on the counselor's face when I shared with her that when I told him it was time to fight to the death on this one, he spoke in an evil voice I had never heard before and called me names.....remember this guy came to tell me of his undying love but when I said no he began to name call.....um yeah where's that love you spoke of? So I explained to her that I had to stop giving in to his lies. I had to believe that this game would have gone on forever as it would have pushed my body and brain into decay. I said NO! Only then did he back away and leave. She was in panic mode because in therapy they never tell you to fight back, take your life back, don't give in, stand up and live for the first time in your life, don't allow anyone to steal your joy......No they tell you to settle and put up boundaries. Don't start any ruckus. Golly, I just don't know any situation where someone is being manipulated by another crazy person that not starting a ruckus and pushing back against the manipulation has them politely letting you alone and moving on to the next poor soul who will let them destroy their life!!! Here's my point. Therapy is just the place to begin to change your thinking. Your actions will need to change over time when you're given the chance to make new ones in life. It's very unfortunate that a bad situation has to arise to see if you are learning the new techniques, but we all go through that. You ultimately are walking with God each day in Prayer that He will over see you and protect you through His son Jesus Christ. That does not mean you won't have trials. That does not mean you will get everyone in your corner agreeing how you went about it. That does not mean the more counseling or therapy you get the less problems you will have. It means you have a place to see the truth. The truth does set us free, sometimes there is a fight, sometimes there's not. It will all depend on the life situation. I had beaten the demon in Luis but not even my counselor gave me a medal. Heck who was going to then. I mean seriously that was anti climatic for ya. She didn't need to live my life so I let her off the hook, that if it had been on her plate she might have made a different decision. We just went about things very differently. I learned that when you get to new levels in your head and your experience not everyone can relate. It takes time and true effort to really get in deep to how we feel when we go through certain trials and how that can relate to other people. I wanted to relate to people so I worked and still work hard to understand my feelings and thinking so I can explain my actions. I still feel a disconnect from others when it comes to talking through our problems or obstacles in life. I sense a feverish joy to get in deep while others feel put on the spot or trapped. I always wonder how that stressed out approach will change anything about the situation they are facing. Therapy could help that!!! All in all nothing was lost to go through the therapy to understand many different situations. I believe seeing the good and the bad helped me form a complex understanding and superior strength to your everyday life. I am grateful for such obstacles because it's what made me work harder to come to a life full of joy. No one can take that. I often look back over my life and feel peace. Yet writing out all the drama I have dredged through is clearly overwhelming for the average Joe. As I closed one of the darkest chapters in my book.......So I opened another one.

I am not enough

Do you ever feel like you're not enough? Well......you're not. Not in a bad way just a real way. Without Jesus Christ filling in the gaps with his breath, spirit and divine intervention, we're simply not enough on our own. Now switch your thinking around, accept what is true without guilt and shame, and it's a whole different story. I can truly say, without a doubt, that growing up unhealthy and unattractive to the eye was extremely difficult and made me "feel" like I wasn't enough. I decided that that feeling inside my gut was to cue a change in me; a desire to start a revolution against the impurities and dysfunction we had with food in my house. My family had set habits in motion at such a young age that I very much began to feel like I wasn't enough. I learned we didn't choose laughter or sharing thoughts over eating and watching TV. It began to tear at us on the inside creating less and less self worth and value we could share between one another. I knew it wasn't God's intention for us to hurt silently. It was screaming to the outside world that we needed help and we needed it now. I looked around at everyone who could clearly see that we needed help and yet they all looked exactly the same. In those quiet moments I knew that everyone felt the same about themselves and that we needed Jesus badly. We were believing the myth that we were not enough but not being changed by the truth. There is a huge difference in knowing about God and feeling His presence in your life because you have a relationship with Him. I wanted the real relationship with Him. I am still on a continuous journey to grow in Him and to develop an incredible relationship that all people can see no matter who they are or where I am. I have felt not enough and I know I am not enough but those feelings do not come from the same place in my spirit or gut. Feelings can completely cloud your judgement and can inhibit the right choices in the future, where as the knowledge that I am not enough can come from an understanding of all things truth. I know I need Jesus to close in the gaps and "I" am not enough...without HIM. It isn't a put down or an attack on my self worth. It's an acknowledgement that HE is the key to joy and peace. I was able to change my thinking over the years so I could then begin to refine my actions, no matter what my feelings were. I often say in the house that Happy, Sad, or Mad you're going....so make a good choice because your emotions will change by the minute but your actions will produce consequences that could last a life time. When you stop and think about what can happen over time because of the choices you make you can begin to look inside and get real with yourself. Do your current choices say to the world around you that you believe "you are enough"?! Too often we blame the things outside of our control and don't take enough responsibility to conduct our own lives in a way that says loud and clear "I am enough". We must remember to continue becoming the best we can be, while also accepting our value from our Lord and Creator God and that He has a purpose and we can be a part of that purpose. I am walking through that life with you on accepting that HE has created me and "I am enough with HIM". As I pushed bedyond the relationship with Luis where I found that he was not interested in leaving me intact for any kind of work on this planet, I began to accept the pain that it had done in my life. Outside of Christ there is nothing to live for and what Luis had done to my life left scars or reminders that we have to bear the consequences until we are healed and understand the lesson in it's entirety. I still had a great career, a car, a house, wonderful cats, friends and places to shop and eat, it wasn't like I curled up and died. I was living with the pain in my head. Everything is mental first before it becomes physical. I was facing every painful excruciating moment in my head with HIM. Jesus never leaves me to do it on my own, but he also doesn't take it all away. I'm okay with that because in the end it is the obstacle that refines you. I am now sharing with my husband and step son that there are so many obstacles to face in this life so we can be at our best and it isn't in ignoring them that we are strengthened. It's in facing them that we become strong. We are enough with HIM. We're learning that deeper and deeper and deeper everyday.

Anxiety got the best of me!

I don't mean that in a negative way. Anxiety really did GET the best of me. I learned along time ago my brain works best under heat and pressure. I learned to understand that when anxiety hit me it was because I wasn't getting truth from everyone that was involved in whatever situation I was facing. After the breakup of Luis and I there wasn't many people who would understand what I had to do and why it was so necessary to continuing my life in a healthy way. It was VERY important for my life to remain in a healthy way so I could go on to tell others what I had learned. BUT.....that was not the experience I had with others around me that were in relationships. The undertone was not that I had learned anything from my mistake but rather that I had taken a notch out of the belt of learning and growth and had basically gone backwards in thinking not forwards. I am in love with words, learning, investigating, talking, conversation, basically anything having to do with human interaction. So the minute I was in and then out of a relationship, for me to find not one person who wanted to relate what I had gone through and how to manage or go on in a healthier approach, I became very aware of the disconnect we had as people with the learning growth process of life. I was on a mission from that point on to prove a point. WE ALL HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT. You either go through it finding out who you are and what your genuine needs are while maturing and refining your relationships, or you go through it in the wrong relationships becoming a person who picks up on coping mechanisms, manipulations and pretend states of mind. I have watched the deterioration of people's joy and interest in growth because of being locked into relationships that are all wrong for them. DON'T MISUNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING. I am not an advocate for just breaking these relationships up. No. On the contrary. I am an advocate for teaching all people accountability and responsibility to learn for themselves, then to learn to communicate that to others. Just breaking up relationships is not the point. There is still the full responsibility to teach all things positive and to hold accountability to all humans to act in a way that allows us all to thrive. This in my personal opinion and experience starts at birth. The most important role is parenting. It's an incredible job to introduce to a child the reason they are here on the planet is to affect it in a positive way to bring the love and light of Jesus Christ in a everyday approach to everyone they meet. It isn't something that waits for Sunday mornings. It is what we are to be living every second of everyday. So in parenting we TEACH. They learn and aspire to go even farther than we had ever hoped or grasped they could because we would be relying on the Holy Spirit to enter in and fill the gaps. Not only would we not have competitions, we would look for connections so we could all be part of a thriving society full of people wanting more to join in. When everyone serves a purpose and all people have a purpose there is no need to tear down and to devour the spirit of the individual. When we are all thriving we all thrive. We need more God and less control. In my dream world we all start to understand that there is nothing to loose being part of a thriving society just more to gain on loving one another and how unique and interesting we all are. It will take effort and understanding to ask for wisdom from God so we can begin a new path to healing all people and to prepare for those not yet born. I was here in my mindset on the way to work everyday when Luis and I were finished. Although I can go deep deep deep into my thinking and spirituality it doesn't mean I am incapable of making new mistakes or for that matter making the same mistake twice. I have to continually be in a relationship with the Lord just like the rest of us. I have to meet with him daily allowing him to enter in to soften and refine me as well. Each day I experienced an anxiety attack whether driving my car or going to walk into work I realized it was because I was taking steps to reveal truth. I was walking in God's grace and experiencing the complete opposite of what the "religious" people in my life said I would experience from walking outside of God's will. Now that doesn't mean I wasn't experiencing consequences. I had and do have consequences from disobeying. I was still joyful, happy, alive, breathing, feeling whole, gaining new understanding, feeling forgiveness from the inside out....I could go on for days explaining the overall health I felt even though I had just lived through a traumatic experience. I was ok. YET.....every time I ran into someone who had heard about, gossiped about it, or asked me how I was doing they did not exude that same amount of grace to me or have even the slightest amount of joy to share with me. I found this to be quite interesting. How could they be sadder than the person going through it? How could they not be happy to hear I was ok, or better yet look at me and know I was? I have learned so much about relationships and how much we are NOT capable of understanding when we won't relate to what we ourselves have gone through. NO ONE can be happy about something in your life without first understanding it in their own lives. I will say that again. You can not be genuinely happy for another person's experience without first relating that to something you have gone through in YOUR OWN LIFE. It's called fantasy if it hasn't been YOUR reality. I was becoming irritated the more I learned about this true disconnection we have with God, which would cause a disconnect between his people. I was sad, because the more I opened up to people the more they shut down. This is my mission. To bring connection back to the individual, so that they can then begin to truly connect to another person.

Brain Food

There's no denying that the brain is so powerful. We continue to feed it even when we haven't figured out what is best to feed it. Think back to your childhood and begin to recall the amount of times you were told what to do, not necessarily WHY to do it. The learning process truly begins when we comprehend why we do something not just listen to a command from someone who is in authority over us. I was always impressed with the Creator God who instilled free will into humans, then humans who created commands. Ha! I still giggle when I think of parents who continually command their children to do something. Your child will just WAIT for the next command. He or she will not realize your expecting the comprehension side of the brain to just settle in without any work or effort on your part to understand the difference. Until we want to sit and think deeply about why creation matters to God, I believe we will see a disconnect between the people and the amount of communication they use and the deepen the relationships they have. There's an immense correlation between knowing who God is and forming a relationship with him rather believing you know who God is and using his name or scriptures loosely. For example, when we are children and we are told to obey our parents, parents can either hear that commandment in the Bible and hold in high regard to teach and love you to the point of explosive self worth, or here a way to control and manipulate for their private gain. Children who are given a reason for living and included in that life are more willing to respect the parents who gave them a great life. For those parents out there wondering why the children rebel, well.....you might want to have a talk with yourself. Have you equipped them to see themselves as whole and important to society. Being in a genuine relationship with our Creator God and understanding he gave his very own son for us would allow you to think deeply about how important children are and must be to God. He speaks often of them in the Bible and depicts great pictures of how we are to be like them. Yet....most homes don't take enough time to invest in each one of them born into the family to help their little brains grow into something that is essential for positive growth in our societies. I also fell into this group of people who had 2 parents and we all lived under one roof, but because of our lack of community we couldn't grasp what it would look like years down the road. We all hadn't pitched in and become better unit or team. I can honestly say we are still reaping the consequences of those choices we made some years ago. Of course we could see there was little to no deep interaction between my parents. They went to church had a house had a business, but little to no depth of personality. My mother the worst of the two was so backwards and introverted that it was of no avail for my father to help her open up. As the years past by I could tell my mother was so threatened by other females, no matter where we were or who they were, my mother would implode when she perceived a threat. Nothing could be done until my mother wanted to change. The way I see it, those other women are just as special to God as my mother, but that doesn't make our time on earth special unless we change our behavior towards ourselves and then towards others. My father wasn't supposed to change or fix my mother or visa versa. They were to allow an environment where the support of one another cultivated the desire and trust to change themselves for the better. The team of marriage is a beautiful thing and more important when you can bring children into that relationship. What I was experiencing was each step I was taking it was like taking them for the very first time since I had not seen this path cultivated between my parents. It was difficult but not impossible to change and begin a new path outside of the family norm. Painful at times, I can see why most of us choose not to try and change. My experience tells me that although change is hard, it is necessary to growth and because we try so hard not to, we rarely experience the presence of the Lord with us. It's God's will that we continue to try to be better each new day growing deeper with him. So why would he not want his people to be accountable to their choices here on Earth? Oh he definitely does. I believe he requires it. For depth of relationships and long term success. Now still allowing our freewill to be the determining factor of whether or not we will choose to do it. My relationships from my childhood were superficial and most often out of obligation. HOW IN THE WORLD WOULD I KNOW HOW TO FIND A MATE AND THEN GET THEM TO UNDERSTAND WE WOULD ACT DIFFERENTLY THAN EVERYONE THAT SURROUNDED ME? Yikes....It still makes my head spin trying to grasp this one. Until we can see each person born as a baby as a human being on a journey to grow up and serve society in a huge way, we are going to continue on this excruciating journey of broken relationships. We have to see the individual before we can operate as a team who can impact people for the Lord. I am always thinking of how my past has formed me and how grateful I am for the allowance of my sin NOT to devour my joy or take my life in a path of deteriorating addictions. I will continue to reach new levels in my relationship with the Lord and I pray we all will begin to reach out to him to seek understanding and to beg for wisdom. WE ARE GOING TO NEED IT.

Demon Slaying.

You think you've slayed one demon you've slayed them all. Nope. I was just over coming one obstacle at a time. I was so proud of myself for standing up for truth. You don't get a crash course on loving yourself where I come from, and just because we went to church didn't mean we knew how to put any of it into play. We played the church game. What I mean by that is we didn't know what it really looked like to allow the relationship we had with Jesus to cause any rational actions on our part. Just the church face, but no real loving behavior. What does loving behavior look like? Or what am I referring to. I mean acting like we gave a crap about our entire body, mind, soul, and then applied that self love to all other living creatures. Picture that for a moment. Just breathtaking. I would give anything for at least a family tree that did that. I believe we could affect the world in a real tangible way if we began with ourselves then taught every child that was born to do the very same thing. I was fighting a real battle. The one outside the church doors. THE ACTUAL battle. Fighting the smoke and mirrors out loud and in broad day light. I still am actually. No boasting there, nobody likes a braggart. It isn't a fun game in terms of winning and loosing. It's more deep rooted and secretive. Evil never really shows itself. It cloaks itself in the darkness and allows people to take the fall. It requires more communication on our part as humans to reveal what's really going on. I've learned that's the first thing to go in families. Communication. It seems to disappear the longer the family lives and the more people that marry into the family. It seems we believe things just "work themselves out".....or the other famous line "pick your battles". UM. I only know of one battle. The one between Good and Evil. All battles stem from that one. Therefore it requires us as people to keep the lines of communication open so we can bring to light all the passive aggressive evils that are lurking in the dark. It isn't "that" difficult. Unless like I have experienced your so far away from your own voice and who God has created you to be that staying quiet is just easier. I watched it in my own family my whole life. Even to this day we are incapable of working out our own issues for fear of failure. To me that's failure in itself. All we've done is reveal that we never knew God at all. We didn't understand his plan. We didn't read in depth the scripture to begin to connect to the reality of what he was warning us against. We bought into the religious spirit and began acting politically correct. BIG MISTAKE. We became chubby drones for the picking. We made it easy for the devil to deceive. Deception isn't easy to overcome, but it isn't impossible. We have no excuses for our behavior. We will answer for everything we do and say. That isn't a threat, it's just the truth. I wish we knew how the spirit of God would come in and strengthen us to be able to get through any trial. My prayer is that God will do a work within us to give over all control

Your not going to like it........but it's what happened.

To say that my life is boring is the understatement of the decade. I have lived a very dramatic life in such a small town. Not all of my own doing of course......No no...I mean because I am always uncovering someone's or something that has drama attached to it. It has been said drama follows me. Incorrect. Let me say this loud and clear. I CALL OUT DRAMA. There is a big difference. It doesn't follow me. I stop it in it's tracks. It's resting place is at my feet. Therefore the slow, irrational ones speaking always get this incorrect. Moving on to one of the most interesting times in my life was when I was dating the drug ridden co-dependent psychopath of my twenties. Don't sit there and gasp. They are all around us. This isn't as uncommon as some people would like to allow themselves to think. What I am most interested in was all the life lessons I came to learn through studying his movements and how difficult it was to outsmart him in the beginning. As time went on I got stronger and stronger and stronger. One of the underlying core values I have is once my mind is made up, I am willing to die for what I believe in. I was not willing to give anymore of my valuable young life to this guy who clearly didn't want to change and was going to kill my spirit "if" I let him. I will never forget the sound of that door at 2 am. My whole life I have been a light sleeper. I am one sound away from waking up and searching the room for any dark thing that might be lurking about. I sleep on a wooden box now so there is no way anything can crawl under my bed to later bite me in the middle of the night....That's a whole other blog!! I value sleep but I am completely aware if I am awakened and begin to feel a shiver down my spine, there is trouble on the horizon. I have had this kind of perception since I was a child and while it may seem to be a gift, it at times has felt like a curse. I am immediately begging God to intercede on my part. Given the time in my life and how young I was to be facing such a paralyzing helplessness for my own well being. This guy was going to stop at nothing. I had had the counseling, I had had the friends and family talks about how this guy is bad news. I had had the intervention with myself and said "self.....let this guy go." Do you understand you don't just break up with psycho's????? Try not to go all pragmatic on me if you have absolutely no basis for understanding here. Emotions do not help this situation, only facts. Until you've been through the trama of being followed, beaten, threatened, stalked, choked, tracked down to every place you go you have no idea what it is like to deal with one of these nitwits. No one is going to help you. Your on your own. You can try and set up the false sense of safety of 911 and family nearby or neighbors maybe hearing your cry for help, but who ya kiddin'? Your on your own. That morning changed my life forever. I knew when I heard the piercing door bell at 2 am my mind raced for a reason. WHO'S AT MY DOOR? WHY AM I AFRAID? NOTHING HAS HAPPENED AND I'M LITERALLY SHAKING FROM HEAD TO TOE. I thought about rolling back over and going to bed, but it would only happen and again. MY future wasn't safe. He was going to take over my life. Or so he thought. Bad move on his part. I decided it was my life or his that night. I didn't waste time going to the kitchen to get the biggest Knife I had. "The Butcher" you got it. This should work said my 23 year old self. Having never killed anyone before or even maimed them I had to go on what I thought would do the trick. I went to the peep hole looked out and there he was. LUIS. This guy was really starting to piss me off. I called through the door. (I was working up the guts to open up the door and go all kill bill on him) The thing that I can still recall is the feeling of being alone. Not spiritually alone. But alone. There wasn't one person who was going to help me. I was on my own. The choice 3 years prior in the dance club to allow this guy to consume me had come full circle. Now I was standing on the other side of my first house's door ready to open it up and kill this guy if I had to. I was sad, not that sad, I was sick of this petrifying fear he had put into my life. I was done shaking in my sleep, waking up in panic attacks, ducking into places before he could see me. It had to stop. The pfa's (protection from abuse orders) didn't work. He would find me no matter where I was. I could hear him breathing. He answered back in his latin buttery voice....."baby open the door it's me...I miss you". I answered back " You need to go and leave me alone or I'm calling the police." I didn't really know if I had the guts to call the police. This type of life just wasn't mine. He brought this to me....I didn't ask for it or want it. I had never ever ever wanted anyone to feel this way. I got angrier by the minute. He was testing my patience. He began to ring the door bell like he was running from a bear....Only 2 people in my life ring door bells that way....MY Father and Luis.....both this day do not spend time with me. One thing I detest is a man out of control. smh I was so afraid that my upstairs neighbors would wake up and call the police for such an alarming disturbance so early in the morning. I didn't want anyone to believe I thought this is the way life should be lived. I should probably preface I have a turbo switch in my brain. I can take alot, but once you have hit the breaking point.....back away slowly. What you are about to encounter is Laura" modern day demon slayer" I opened the door shiny butcher in hand. Raised like some thriller tv show from the 80's.....I had bad form but I ment every bit of it. He saw it and disregarded the huge shiny knife in my hand and pushed himself through the door. I held the knife back as not to nick him prior to him apologizing and leaving for good. No need for violence right???? ummmm.....wrong. He started this sob story about how much he loved me and needed me in his life. Remember we are not dating, he's stalking me and ruining my life. So I left the door open for him to see I didn't have plans to make up or take long with this unnecessary reunion. I remember talking to him with such intensity and density in my voice. I told him to get out and said I am no longer his toy or pet. I am willing to die tonight to be done. I said you either leave now.....Or I split your skull in two. It was like time slowed down. (que the matrix) I saw his eyes glaze over. He backed out of the door slowly and for the first time was making eye contact with the knife as if it could split his skull. He never looked more evil then the moment he last spoke to me...... His voice changed and his body stiffened up, more like sobered up. He no longer looked hopeless and needed me. He was someone else entirely. "You ungrateful cunt" is what he called me. His body oozed a darkness I knew had lingered deep within his body but now I was faced with it. I could hear the sound coming from his mouth but it wasn't the latin lover he had presented himself to be over the last 3 years. I had forced the Demon to the surface and he was looking me in the eye. I used the phrase then that I have come to love to use in situations like this. " You will never win, you do not serve my Creator God, He has already won the battle. Get Out" Some of you reading may be speechless, disoriented, be in a state of disbelief......it's always difficult to imagine the spiritual realm tickling your face. I was triumphant that night because I believed it was time for TRUTH to prevail. I have been in many spiritual battles since then and been able to talk through them very much the same. I faced the demon that lived inside of him that had made me his project to destroy. He was gaining ground until I decided to allow my FAITH TO STAND UP AND PUSH BACK AGAINST. I have had glimpses of God's power in my life and for all of you with your jaws open on the floor.....pick um up and move on. There's more to be thankful for in this story than to sit and worry about. Our God is an awesome God and HE reigns for ever and ever. My God conquers just by mentioning his name. That night changed the course of my life. I knew what it was going to take to get rid of these guys on the planet and for a moment I pictured the women across the country. Did they have what I have. A GOD SO BIG AND MIGHTY A FAITH THAT ALLOWS THEM TO PUSH THROUGH. I closed the door to my house differently that night. I walked back into the kitchen and put the knife back. I didn't need it after all. ALL I'VE EVER NEEDED IS GOD.

"Lust is that you"?

Growing through your 20's is hard. It's even harder when you do not realize the impact of the decisions you will be making in your future based on feelings. Sex, Lust, Control, Desire& Seduction comes from a sexual nature. Given to us by the creator and totally manipulated by the Devil. I am not making excuses for my less than classy behavior between the sheets. I am only painting the picture for you to be able to understand why it happens and why I have come to believe there's a fine line between us reading scripture then genuinely being able to carry it out WITHOUT making ANY mistakes or having chosen the wrong thing based purely on sin. Luis was a drug for me. His body oozed sex. He was so intensely beautiful naked that it was unreal.(I had nothing else to compare it to) For a young chubby thing like me that was incredible. I always knew I was different than the other girls at school. Since I was young as far back as I can remember I was the one getting in trouble at private school for bringing up the word sex, or talking about body parts when I wasn't supposed to. I laugh now. The writing was definitely on the wall that "Lust" was my kryptonite. I always liked the body builder guys and the muscular guys since I was little. I am drawn to the linear beauty and structure. I was never the Adam Levine type. Heck, I was the first girl in this area to put the "Rock" on the map as hottest celeb!(someone should be sending out royalties to me any day now). No matter where I was I was eyeing up the boys and so far from reach because of my own insecurities and obvious obstacles. I needed to have the chills go down my spine when they looked at me. I looked for that rush similar to picking out a fresh donut to chomp into at a local bakery. I thought I'd never get the guy that I was into to be into me and when it happened something else encrypted on me as well. "Lust". It is strong. It is a drug. It will devour you if you do not turn it over to God. I was so young. I don't beat myself up about the decade of debachaury . It's easy to look back now and see how easy it was to fall into it. The harder thing to manage is the young people in this world who continually fall into this pit fall of finding love through all the wrong doors. Even though I had gone to counseling it doesn't take away the work that needs to be done once life starts hitting you full force again the minute you leave the counselors office. It's hard to fight the urges to be seduced by the person your attracted to. When they are kissing you and touching you in a way that allows confusion to the brain, you have to be able to think your way out of it. The feeling is great but the actions lead to consequences that force you to go deeper into your brain to discover the truth about how we are to interact with the creator God. His desire to allow us to fight back against the smoke and mirrors game is intense. He can get us through anything we want to change and fight back against the destruction that is so rampant in our society. Saying no to Luis's touch was extremely hard. He was so lost and I knew I could help him. I wanted to show him a life that was awesome and amazing, but he was too far into drugs and so spent from his childhood with no parents caring for him and taking care of him. I was always in a superficial relationship with him. I wanted to go deeper with him but in the years we were together we never managed to get past the sexual attraction and the natural independence we had from one another. He didn't really need me and I sure as heck didn't NEED HIM. I wanted him. That feeling from the very beginning haunted me like a nightmare. The unnatural wanting of another person is dangerous and can lead to crazy girl syndrome. I would answer calls, answer texts, listen to messages and allow him to show back up in my life like a bad habit. It had to come to a stop, it was becoming clear that there was no controlling how he was treating me. Once we separated and I bought my house I thought the calls and constant clammer would stop. Luis always finds a way to get what he wants. It was what the drugs did to him. He found me following me home one night after work and decided to come back early in the morning. 2am in the morning. Nothing good happens at 2 am. when the doorbell rings......

Time Travel>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Let's travel 15 years into the future! Boom......were here. I sit in the same living room as I type out this blog and can also see the young woman that I was at the time of purchasing this place. What a gift to have been able to achieve such a wonderfully small place to call my own. I have had so many great memories here that the few bad ones just fade into the dust. I love this house so much! Not so much because it's extravagant, rather because it is simplistic. It is enough. It is just right. I can't explain the contentment. It's ability to hold me safe at night, be close to all things me and yet still fit my style and continual need to change. My condo was going to be this sweet consistent tool for my life very much like my spiritual walk. Always here, always growing, changing and helping others do the same. It is an extension of me. You have to be able to get outside of any comfort zone to really understand why I can compare my faith to an actual item or space in my human life. This home represents the faith that I have as a woman. This home from the moment you arrive is set up in a way to give life, love, laughter and a bit of elegance among the status quo that is right outside. My streets are lined with the most beautiful of trees and each driveway carefully placed outside each home. Each night when I drive home from work exhausted and hangry, I am just minutes from my sweet little escape. I have loved sharing this story with so many people over the years. It's connection to me isn't like most considering it was bought at such a young age of 21 and single. It's more of me than anyone else that comes into it, but just like me, anything I have is open. I always want people to feel comfortable and welcome when they come into my house. I have felt the other side of being unwelcome and uncomfortable the entire time I was growing up or how my ex controlled how long people stayed because he couldn't let anyone in. The journey to reveal who I wanted to be started very young for me. 17 choosing my career and then moving out at 18, then buying my first house at the age of 21. Life was going so quickly. I loved every minute of it. Yet I still have this little piece of property and am as content as can be. My husband and I now have goals that include this condo one day being rented, but never sold. Never thrown away. I would never sell this place. It is not a stepping stone, rather part of the whole picture. When you have no regrets you can understand everything in your life is for a reason. If a painter were to paint my life some of the most beautiful parts would be the dark areas. Where the black and shadows change the way a person sees the Light and all it's reflection! See without it you can't understand the beauty in it's entirety. Before I knew it I was in my house and loving every minute of it. I enjoyed the hustle bustle of everyday. I knew then I was a person of structure. I love to be in control of my environment. I can arrange and rearrange and tidy and nap and just "be". It really is great when you understand your single life is as good as it gets when you're not in a relationship. You need to know who that person is before you can really represent yourself in a healthy way, and know your boundaries. It was tough for me in the beginning with my relationships because as much as I love to be single I also love to be in a relationship. Go figure. I'm a go either way. The real issue is my love language is words of affirmation and quality conversation. Since I had been neglected as a young girl and woman when it came time and of age to be able to really gauge that for myself I longed for it. I always was and am still looking for those words to see if people see what I see. The greatness that I see in life, my career and myself. For years I starved for any nurturing at all. So once I was in a position to be in a relationship I took it. Luis was someone I thought I'd never achieve. From chubby conervative to fashion forward Designer was a huge change. I was much safer in my own environment, but not for long. As is and you will see throughout the blog. The minute I settle in, someone is right around the corner waiting to ruffle my feathers.