Thoughts on a Friday Night: Confessions and "The Universal Assignment and You"



I was invited to my friend's house about two hours north of the Twin Cities this weekend, so I made the trek up here and was left alone with my thoughts and an audiobook for a few hours. It's a chilly night in late September by Lake Millacs. It's quiet. peaceful, and I sit here on my laptop in my makeshift bed wrapped up warm in a blanket and a million thoughts in my head.

The month of September was probably one of the most difficult things I've been through. But realistically, I'm grateful for all of it, and it was truthfully the hammer dropping on a lot of things in my life. There's so much I can't write about because I simply can't. There's so much behind the scenes that I could write a novel about in terms of learning experiences.

The man that I was dating often asked me why I didn't blog more often. I didn't really have an answer at the time, but the truth of the matter is I just didn't feel like writing.

If I'm being honest, I haven't been myself in a long time. The last few years put me through the wringer, made me question my worth, made my doubt my inner strength, my ability to influence people, and truly made me question my ability to love who I am. Flaws and all.

We're all hard on ourselves. I'm exceptionally hard on myself, and I know why. Through a series of things that have occurred in my life, I'm slowly realizing I've built a narrative in my mind that I can't be certain things, won't achieve certain things, and for some reason I became hellbent on proving those things to myself. Instead of pursuing things with full passion and all the force my spirit can muster, I instead chose to "punch in on the timeclock" in almost every facet of my life. Physically, spiritually, and in terms of action. I went from one of the hardest working people I know to someone who halfassed everything.

And halfassing, making excuses, and avoiding myself is ultimately why I'm in the position I'm right now. 

I've spent so much time dodging my own fears and believing my own shit that I settled over and over again for things I don't believe in, didn't want, and told myself it was fine. But I've known all along that it wasn't fine. I got a part time job for a few reasons (social and frankly, financial stability for the future and to save some money faster), even though it made my skin crawl and I resented it. Seriously, I don't think I'm employable now that I've worked for myself. Someone else dictating my schedule, telling me how to dress, when I'm allowed to look at my own cell phone, etc made me want to punch people in the throat after having the total and utter freedom I've experienced. But I sure settled for it instead of just figuring out the 80 other options to TRULY make a run for the things I wanted again. Nope, I chose to settle and be somewhat like everyone else. I decided slow and steady made sense, even though it's NOT how I've ever operated. It felt much more comfortable than putting myself out there 100% after being hurt and disappointed for the jillionth time.

Without going into detail, my relationship and the general direction of my life that was going 800 miles per hour suddenly ground to a halt. I've surrendered to the fact that this is was almost unavoidable. My ex is a gorgeous and complex human being. I was really angry for about a week and a half. I was livid. I felt betrayed. I felt so many things. And I sit here tonight with gratitude and love for the lessons I've learned from this relationship. You see, he and I are both highly sensitive people (emotionally and spiritually), and we were drawn to each other for so many reasons almost immediately. Yin and yang, yin and yang, yin and yang. He was the ketchup to my mustard, the coffee to my cream, and we were ridiculously alike while being totally, ridiculously different. We also were absolutely incredible at accidentally tripping over every single one of each other's insecurities and past hangups. One wrong word or action, no matter how minor or well intended, would almost instantly trigger an extreme reaction and lead to a blowout. It got to the point that it was almost weekly.

And in these things, and in these moments, he would have a way of phrasing things where I could not avoid myself and the excuses I was making. There were times that it wasn't done in a tactful manner, but I will tell you this: this man was amazing and calling me out at my bullshit and my excuses. I didn't want to have these things pointed out. I knew they were there. I knew I was human and I was allowed to have these times (as did he), but after awhile it was a regular topic for both of us. Pointing out our flaws practically became dinner conversation. After awhile it became toxic. And in that time, resentment slowly built up between the two of us that we were SO laser focused on the lack in ourselves and each other that we missed everything that was there. And the sad thing is, beneath it all, the reasons for it was because we were afraid. We were afraid to be vulnerable. We were so busy protecting ourselves that the entire thing imploded and we both lost.

The saddest thing, by far, is the amount of love that still exists but it cannot be used. It can't be applied in the way that I want it. So I have to do it in a new way now, I just have yet to figure out what that means.

In the meantime, I'm sitting here and I'm blown away at what's transpired in such a short period of time. Nobody won. Everyone lost. As the dust from this hurricane settles, the collateral damage was tragic. It is absolutely possible to love the sh*t out of someone and still not have it work. I want you to know as I write this, this is not resentment. This isn't hate. This isn't blame. It takes two to make or break a relationship and we both played our parts. I'm sitting here with the most bittersweet pain in my heart and in my stomach. There's nothing I can do now. There's nothing to do but grow, pray, and learn.

So... this is it for me. It's do or die. In the last month, literally everything I had and counted on (sans friends and family) have been stripped from me. I'm not tied to anything. I'm living with friends as I pick up the pieces of what used to be the picture of my life and reassembling the order. The guardrails of my life have been stripped away. This has suddenly gone from a tragic situation to an interesting opportunity.  Where do I want to go? What are the things that make me happiest and most free? These are the things I'm blessed to pursue in this healing process.

There's a new book out by Gabrielle Bernstein called "The Universe Has Your Back" and I was blubbering like a baby in my car on my way up here this afternoon. There was a chapter in it about how every single person you encounter is a holy assignment. I've heard her allude to this before in prior books, but she elaborated on what this truly means and it hit me hard. It hit me exactly where I needed it to at exactly the right time.

Think of a person or situation that's hurting you or causing you anxiety, pain, or frustration right now. If it's consuming your energy, that relationship is a holy assignment. You can't avoid the holy assignment. It follows you everywhere you go and it's forcing you to stare at it. Fighting it makes you exhausted. Per Gabby (I'm paraphrasing here), it's NOT to find strength in pain because that often solidifies the negative stories you tell yourself. In my case, seeing as this sort of relationship has happened to me twice in four years, it would be extremely easy to be bitter, blast him on FB, and other sorts of nonsense that I wouldn't want to do. It would be super easy to just not deal with it, write him off, and avoid feeling the feelings I have right now. 

But that would not be taking on the holy assignment that was presented to me loud and clear.  My last relationship was the chance to heal old owies I never dealt with. My last relationship was specifically designed for BOTH OF US to trip over our past insecurities and pains over and over, to point out to us that those things were NOT healed yet and we could absolutely, positively not be successful in any relationship (ours or future ones) until we heal those things. It wasn't just coincidental that we were constantly treading on the invisible triggers for each other-- we were supposed to! That was to force us to look at ourselves and realize we weren't healed. You know what we did instead? We would step left or right, step on a different landmine, have it blow up in our faces, and suddenly the entire relationship was nuked. Trashed. Dust in the air, collateral damage for all the eyes can see from 360 degrees around.

I have the choice right now to look at everything with fear (lost my relationship, lost my home, lost my part time job, OMG what am I going to do?) or look at this with love (thank you for the lessons that you taught me).

Sad? Yes. Thought provoking? For sure.  This will take awhile to absorb and cope. God is knocking on my door loud and clear. "You're not doing the things that I'm asking you to do and that you KNOW you should be doing because you're being a fear-based woman-baby, so I'm lovingly going to take all the distractions and excuses away and FORCE YOU to look at these issues so you stop believing that you can't do more in your life and your purpose is real as you thought it was. MMMkay pumpkin?"

We almost got locked into a house, marriage, etc with someone before either of us were ready or healed from old stories in our minds. He simply realized it before me and did what needed to be done (maybe in an order that I wasn't comfortable with, but the results are still the same.) Instead, I'm now tied to nothing and can decide do to whatever I feel best serves me. And I'm going to trust the timing and pay close attention in my healing process as I decide what my best course of action is going forward. That is a blessing.

I know people want to blame someone for what happened in our relationship. It's human instinct to feel that way. His crew wants to blame me. Mine wants to blame him. The fact is, it happened exactly the way it was supposed to. We were meant to love each other and implode from it. That was the holy assignment. The key is finding it. We drove each other insane and we loved the sh*t out of each other at the same time. Despite our best intentions and sincere dreams of building something big, it was built for both of us on a house of cards. Our foundations weren't as set and the cracks weren't as sealed as we hoped they'd be. In my case, the recently sealed cracks hadn't dried enough yet to be load-bearing, no matter how hard I insisted it was good to go.  We weren't ready. Though the pain is very deep and real, I miss him every day and I love him dearly. I always will. And I choose to forgive us both.

We served our purpose in each other's lives and that's the peace that I carry with me as I turn this laptop off for the night.

Whatever you're going through, remember that you can see it through the lens of fear or the lens of love. And if that makes no sense to you, please pick up the book below:





You are loved. You are guided. Stop believing the bullsh*t and trust the process.

Love, Light, and Figuring This Stuff Out,
Abby
    

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