Release the Life We've Planned -

This was a very very hard concept for me - releasing the life I'd planned, getting back to "normal."

When trauma hits, plans are thrown out the window, and crisis living takes its place. We live in the moment, from one doctor's visit to the next, one service to the next, begging for "as it was" to return, but it doesn't. And accepting this is difficult, so hard, in fact, that people spend their time longing for this rather than moving forward, into the unknown.

Most of those I serve long for their old skin - and while they know, to some extent, that they cannot return to normal, because we can't go back, they want what they thought they could have.

Just today a woman asked me when would "life get back to normal." And I carefully and gently told her that "back" is not where she wants to be. Because "back" includes the diagnosis and treatments of yesterday. We can't selectively go back.

The only way is forward. And just as when living in crisis mode, living in the moment is not a bad idea for moving forward. One day at a time, and sometimes, one hour at a time.


Joseph Campbell wrote,

We must be willing to get rid of
the life we’ve planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come.
If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
When we hang onto any form,
we are in danger of putrefaction.
Hell is life drying up.


When I prayed, seeking guidance for what was next, the spirit told me, "The life you were leading no longer suits you." What I took that to mean was that I could not "go back," because not only could I not return, but the old me is not the new me, the now me, and back would not fit. 


You may not see it today or tomorrow, 
but you will look back in a few years and be
absolutely perplexed and awed by how every little 
thing added up and brought you somewhere
wonderful - or where you always wanted to be. 
You will be grateful that things didn't work out
the way you once wanted them to. 

Attributed to Brianna Wiest


I am finding this to be so. And awareness of this has made my journey rich with living in the moment, reflecting on the past, and anticipating tomorrow.