Tag: truth

When You Have No Words

A Girl In A Complex World

Sometimes the deepest feelings are the ones I can’t name. They’re too heavy, too tangled. Its like trying to hold water in your hand, impossible to get a grip.

Are you struggling to find the perfect words to accurately describe the weight of your experience? I want to tell you something that I wish someone had told me a long time ago:

Your silence does not make your experience any less real or valid.

If you’re carrying something that feels too big to share, please remember that your worth and strength aren’t defined by words, but by the resilience you show as you carry the weight of your truth. Some wounds may never be spoken of, but you can still heal, and you can still find peace, in your own time and in your own way.

This Can’t Be All There Is

A Girl In A Complex World

I raise my hands and bow my head
Searching for truth in words written in red
They tell me that there’s more to life than just what I can see …

Well, I can’t quote the book, the chapter or the verse
But you can’t tell me it all ends with a slow ride in a hearse
You know I’m more and more convinced, the longer that I live
That this can’t be …

No, this can’t be all there is.

Symphony

A Girl In A Complex World

Sometimes it’s hard to breathe
All these thoughts are shouting at me
Trying to bring me to my knees
And it’s overwhelming
Darkness echoes all around
Feels like everything is crashing down
Still I know where my hope is found
It’s in You.

You say You’re working everything for my good and I believe every word

‘Cause even in the madness, there is peace
Drowning out the voices all around me
Through all of this chaos
You are writing a symphony

Tune my heart to Your beat
Let me be Your melody
Even when I cannot see.
You orchestrate it
Even when the darkness surrounds
You’ll never let me drown
I know that my hope is found
In the name of Jesus.

And even in the madness, there is peace
Drowning out the voices all around me
Through all of this chaos
You are writing a symphony.

I want to truly know if You compose beautiful music though
From all my unruly notes.
The distance is dissonance.  

You erased the scales from my eyes
Then played the scale of my life
Chaos played out with chords in accord
With the source prevailing through strife.

I’ve tasted suffering
I’ve been embraced by the painful buffering
I’ve been bound by doubts, so loud right now
But a melody is made when you play these rusty keys.
So we all gotta get pressed
And tuned up like instruments
I know life’s tempo is set
So I must remember this …

That even in the madness, there is peace Drowning out the voices all around me Through all of this chaos you are writing a symphony

A symphony.

Author Unknown

Warrior In The Making

A Girl In A Complex World

You are a warrior!

You’re not crazy. It has all been real, and it stretched you, and at times, it has felt as if it would even kill you.
Their words broke your heart.
Their actions broke your trust.
That injury broke your body.
That illness broke your hope.
That circumstance broke your spirit.
BUT GOD…
He came to overcome it all.
And guess what?
It never broke you!
It challenged you, and it LOST!

You’re still here. You’re not “just” a survivor. You’re a fighter. You’re a warrior. And yes, you may be covered in scars, but they are scars of deaths defeat! Your scars have become a memoir of your  journey, and they tell ONLY a story of triumph!

You see, they don’t see you the same way anymore, because a warrior was birthed from the destruction and fires in your life! What was meant to kill you, didn’t and while some keep judging you for starting over, others are clapping because you never quit! You went into the flames covered in life’s grit, but came out of the fire polished in Gods grace!

The abuse, the pain, the anxiety, the bullying, the fear, the anguish, the doubt, the worry, the crushing, the pulling, the words, the moments, the days and the years – were real, but so was your strength and resilience. You did it. You survived everything they said you wouldn’t! You are still standing, and you are a WARRIOR!

Grief Is Complicated

A Girl In A Complex World

Loving someone long term means you get to attend a thousand funerals, for the ppl they used to be.

Ppl are constantly changing. We become exhausted being ourselves so we change. Our opinions, our routines, our hair color, our style, our attitudes, our likes and dislikes … always changing, always evolving. Who you are in this very moment is different than who you were 3 months ago.

We regularly grow out of ourselves. Our spark dies out. And when we see it happening to our loved ones we grieve for them. We miss who they used to be. We long for the parts that made us fall in love with them in the first place. Sometimes the new version is even better than before. While other times we struggle to hold on to whatever we can from the past version because this newly invented person standing before us has no resemblance whatsoever to the one we held so much respect for.

Hundreds of funerals are to be had for one single person. Sparks die, over and over again. It’s up to us to travel alongside our loved ones as they go from each version and to honor what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even brighter flame than before. While other times it will be a mere flicker that temporarily floods the room with a necessary darkness.

I’ve been learning a lot about relationships in recent weeks and have been experiencing a deep sense of grief. I miss the man my husband was when we first met. I miss the man I married 13 years ago.  My heart aches for the past versions of him that are no longer alive. But as I grieve for that which is no more, I feel a slight jarring in my soul as I realize …

Maybe this is an opportunity to fall in love all over again.

I am reluctant, I admit. But am also holding on for dear life, too afraid of the unknown to let him go. I need him. I don’t want to be alone. It’s selfish of me, I know. Even though he hurt me in the worst possible way I still don’t want to let go.

Darn it. Grief is complicated.

Good Old Fashioned Conditioning

A Girl In A Complex World

I’ve spent my entire life believing I’m not smart. I sort of “know” I’m smart, at least in some ways, but I usually still feel “stupid.”

Maybe what’s happening might be a form of an emotional flashback? Feeling young and vulnerable, operating from the same emotional mindset and with the same emotional tools as I did when I was a child? Possibly.

But another part of it is just good old fashioned conditioning. If we’re told over and over again that we’re stupid, we start to believe it. Repetition works its way into our brain, whether or not we initially believe what’s being repeated.

When the people SENDING the message that we’re “stupid” are people who have known us a long time, maybe who even share our name and DNA, maybe people we were dependent upon for years … it becomes REALLY hard to truly test or second guess that message.

The thing about the belief that I’m not smart is, there’s no way to really disprove it. Not to my satisfaction, anyway. Someone can point out lots of ways that I seem gifted or talented, and I’ll just counter that stuff  by saying it doesn’t count.

Is that what a “mental filter” is? The thing where we decide that the good stuff about ourselves “doesn’t count” for various reasons … but all the bad stuff, well, of COURSE that’s all true. Is that what a mental filter is?

It’s all a bunch of BS in my opinion.

Smart people get treated like they are stupid every day. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It often has to do with someone’s desire to control us by lowering our self-esteem.

A part of healing, I think, is to consider the possibility that maybe, possibly, we ARE smart … that the people who told us we weren’t maybe had some other agenda.

Interesting thought to ponder.

Growing

A Girl In A Complex World

You did not come this far for nothing. I promise you. And deep inside your heart, you know it too.

Yet all the setbacks and all the obstacles and all the dark paths you have faced along the way make you question if you have truly made any progress at all.

Do you remember at the beginning when you could barely see the next moment? Now look at you.

You have grown. And taken chances. And fallen. And gotten back up.

And i think that if you were to be honest, you would admit that occasionally when the light shines just so onto your bedroom walls, you can see a glimmer of something. Something that wasn’t there before.

A dream, perhaps. Or a heartbeat that rises up from a place you never thought you had. You are not just trying. You are doing this.

And every step forward is a step in the right direction. Keep going darling. You’ve got places to go.

Remember, in order to get there you have to actually be here. So don’t throw in the towel just yet. Just you wait and see. Your sunshine is on its way. It won’t keep raining forever.

50 Things About Me! ☆Part 2☆

A Girl In A Complex World

26. Can you whistle? Slightly. I can make a sound but that’s about it
27. Where were you born? Grand Falls, NL Canada
28. Any Surgeries? 2 (repair of shoulder following a traumatic arm amputation. And a knee repair)
29. Piercings? 6
30. Shower or bath? Shower
31. Last song you heard? Amazing Love
32. Broken bones? Cheek bones, nose, chin, 5 fractures along my spine, 2 toes
33. How many TV’s in your home? 2
34. Worse pain? Recovering from a car accident was brutal from a physical standpoint. But the worst pain I’ve ever felt was deep within my being. Mental illness was destroying my mind as well as my body and I was crying out to God to let me die. That is a pain unlike any other.
35. Do you like to sing? Yes
36. Are your parents still alive? Yes
37. Do you like to go camping? Love it!!
38. What do you binge watch? All the medical drama shows … 9-1-1/Grey’s Anatomy/The Good Doctor/New Amsterdam etc
39. Favorite Pie? Oooohh. That would definitely have to be cherry
40. Favorite time of day? Sunrise. The darkness is leaving and a new day is dawning
41. Chocolate or vanilla? Definitely vanilla
42. Have you ever been on a plane? Yes. I flew to Ontario to a rehab center then flew back home several months later, clean, sober, and alive!
43. What did you want to be when you grew up? A social worker
44. What is the best job you ever had? I absolutely loved working as an early childhood educator at a local daycare and preschool center
45. Favorite movie? Girl Interrupted
46. Christmas or Halloween? Christmas all the way!!
47. What color is your toothbrush? Purple
48. Bad habits? Skipping meals, not opening mail right away, ignoring the signals my body sends me
49. Last person you hugged? David (husband)
50. What is one thing you could talk about for hours? My dogs!