
I find my clarity in the silence of early mornings, I get my coffee and I usually write or pray. For a very long time I have prayed for a protector. For as long as I can remember, I have sought out a person who would bring me peace; a sense of safety. That soul that would make me laugh and push me to do better and fix all the things I break. Someone to hold my hand when my blood runs cold and to tell me I’m amazing when I feel like nothing. As it turns out, I AM that person…dramatic eye roll. That’s annoying.
While reading James Allen, he states repeatedly (as does the Bible) “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” So, if you are truly limited only by the myriad of thoughts rushing through your brain, then actually you have all the power! Easy breezy right!? No. Not easy. Not breezy.
If you want a reality check, make a list of what you think about most of the time. What you REALLY think about. My list was extremely clear. I wouldn’t want to hang out with a person with my list. It was depressing and miserable. It was actually my father’s list. Well, I hate my list, and I refuse to be a person with this list! No wonder I freak out! So now all I have to do is completely change my entire way of thinking! Can you hear me screaming? I’m fine. I will be fine. And I’m freaking out…
When I get to this place in my life where I want to scream and throw things, I have to stop. This is where I am depleted spiritually and physically. I keep showing up for others but continually not making time for myself or the things that bring me joy. Your purpose can also be your destruction if it isn’t balanced. When I no longer feel joy I have taken my purpose and made it my obligation and then it becomes a burden and not a blessing. Also, sometimes your purpose is different than you had envisioned.
So what’s my purpose? What is the path God wants me on? I thought my purpose was animals. To rescue and love and care for them. That was my plan when I randomly got a 50 million dollar check. I was going to start a fund to protect and nurture and rehabilitate these animals. I was going to still be covered in mud because I was going to do all the work. I also was going to start a fund for the SPCA; I had plans.
I am starting to realize that God’s plans are not necessarily my plans. God wants me to encourage others. To lift people up when they feel scared. I see that the ones I end up nurturing are the many women around me. I see their incredible qualities when they do not. All the years I struggled and suffered gave me both the calm and the heart to truly see people. I see all the things I would have died for someone to see in me. It’s a strange paradox that I have spent my entire life seeking out mother figures only to end up becoming one.
I remember this woman telling me I was like her ranch mom. At first, I was like I’m 12 years older than you! I can’t be your mom! Then I started to really hate the term “ranch mom,” then I just felt irritated because that was absolutely not the way I wanted to be seen. In retrospect, this scenario has been presenting itself to me forever. I was being called to become the mother I was seeking. After a very long while, I started to see that that was my strength. Just to see people. To understand pain. To care with all my heart. It encompasses both animals and people.
I want to give. I want to uplift. I want to love. I want to help. These things bring me happiness and fulfillment. Whether it is a horse I can turn out and spoil or a human who I can learn from and adore. Sometimes, it’s a person hurting, and I have hurt beyond explanation. I understand pain, but more than that, I understand that it has an expiration and it will get better.
So, what do I think about? Today, I have been thinking about what a blessing it is to be stable enough and mentally healthy enough to show up for those I love. I’ve been thinking how I give what I have in service to others and that I’m extremely grateful to be healthy and whole when 10 years ago I didn’t even see joy as a possibility. I didn’t even care if tomorrow came.
Taming your thoughts is a powerful daily practice. Those words that are triggers to your fear and anxiety seem to lurk everywhere. I can not explain the changes that have happened in my life as a result of looking at my thoughts and praying for the strength to confront them. The life I have created and the love my daughter and I are surrounded with are 100% a result of me trusting God and not the words spoken over me. If I trusted the words spoken over me by my family, I would most assuredly be miserable at best or dead. I believed those words. Think carefully about the words you speak over yourself and your children! They are spells that carry the ability to manifest.
I am committed to the path I was put here to follow. Not the path my father feels comfortable with or the path I wish I had, but the one I am meant for. I will be happy and fulfilled, and my daughter will have a beautiful and blessed life. I will find a way to create income for my daughter and myself that will allow us to have our own home. My father will see us succeed, and he will see he was wrong my entire life. I am not going to fail. We will not suffer because he says so. I will be everything I am looking for, and that will be my blessing.
I am blessed to have young girls who feel like daughters and women who feel like sisters and older women who absolutely feel like a mother figure to me. This group of women and girls is what I have needed my entire life. I feel loved, and I get to both give and get advice, and I get to screw up and learn and show up and love. I believe that if I look closely at the trajectory of my life, it is slowly, and I mean slowly, moving in a more beautiful direction every single day ❤️ Thank you God.