surrender...

Several years ago before I had Goom, I dreamt I was given a child about age six to take under my wing and pour love into -only to realize later in the dream that the child was me. I was given the opportunity to see how I was neglected emotionally as a child. I realized at that moment what it is to love and protect a child.

About a year and a half after Goom was born, I went into therapy to get help with adjusting to life as a single mother. I had just gone through a break-up with a great too- young-to-be-a-daddy-guy, my best-friend had moved away and Baby’s-daddy had fallen in love with a woman only interested in impressing him which meant acting like a mother to my young child. It was too much to handle on my own.

During one session we were talking about my history with men and lack of value for my-self. It didn’t come out this tidy. It was more like this -you’re playing Russian roulette with your heart, sleeping with men in hopes of getting love, trusting that they would take care of your heart in the process. I was one messed up girl, so desperate for love that I basically became a whore for it.

I didn’t realize what I was doing until my therapist said, “Would you let this man take care of your baby? Would you just leave your baby on the front steps and hope this guy takes care of it?”

I guffawed and rolled my eyes. “No!”

“But you’ll do it with your heart, which is just as precious as your child.”

This stopped me in my tracks. It seems so obvious now but at the time…I wasn’t taking care of myself. I never knew how to. I was never taught. In my family, I was the scrap metal beaten by the wrecking balls of my family’s anger. By the time I left, love looked like being emotional abused.

Many, many more years later, in fact just this past spring, after much spiritual work and life coaching, I met a man who I thought might be the one. I’d had a feeling for several months that I was going to meet someone in May and I did. We got along like a house on fire and we both had some intense emotions. However, my heart once again leapt before I was able to check the foundation of this man’s house. I saw the red flags but wasn’t able to break it off, not for several weeks. I didn’t understand why I would have such a strong intuitive feeling about this man and the timing of our meeting. I didn’t understand the lesson I had to learn. I had shifted into an old paradigm.

The only way to shift out of a paradigm is to shift your self within it. This is no easy task because even though the paradigm most likely doesn’t feel good, it is familiar and with familiarity comes comfort. This is why people say change is the hardest thing to do. Our paradigms are formed when we are children so they are at our core. It is that old adage -say no to the old so the new can come in. I was forced to make a different choice. I was forced to say, no –you aren’t allowed to treat me like this. I am worth more even though my heart and soul wanted him. If he loved me than I’d be worthy –that is the paradigm.

I didn’t think I would need this lesson again. I’d had a different dating experience. I knew what it was like to be loved. After all the reading, therapy, work I’d done I thought it was in the past but here it was again. This is the thing -until we experience the shift emotionally we don’t get the lesson and it will be repeated. This is about the heart and the soul not the brain. Being book, lesson, therapy smart doesn’t make the shift –we have to be in life, interacting, and experiencing it with other people from our hearts.

I’m always in awe of Spirit handing me the perfect lesson for my growth. I have complete trust and faith and with it comes unwavering peace. I might not always get what I think “I” want but Spirit knows what would truly make me happy if I only allow myself to surrender.