Curious About Now…

Today I sat in my living room, closed my eyes and spoke words of life until my mind was forced to agree. Only then was I able to let go and actually start believing what was being spoken.
I always know when my mind has given up trying to control me. I lose a sense of where I am and I feel myself rising up, my body becomes heavy and I know I am finally present.

My emotions, thoughts, whereabouts, circumstances, and fears no longer exist, and I am free to be the real Jodie and talk to God in His language. (Our language)

It’s incredible and feels so natural. I find out so much about this exact moment – that I would usually just let pass me by while I worry about future moments or even past moments. 

Once I opened my eyes I realised that I have being using my negative thinking to protect myself. 

If I think negative it will hurt less when it actually happens. 

If I think negative I won’t step into something I know is wrong.

If I think negative I will figure it all out and never be deceived again.

These are the stories I have been consciously and subconsciously telling myself.

What would happen if I chose to just think positive about everything? 

Negative things would still happen, but only when they happened in reality rather than every single hour of everyday in my mind.

My mind would learn a new route and automatically start seeing the best in everything rather than using the same route it has used for so long. (Which has clearly not got me very far) 

I could let go of my attempt at the control of outcomes and take more risks without fear.

I could learn to love myself and others without trembling at the thought of rejection and abandonment (after all I’ve survived it before I can survive it again) 

I will attract more of the right things into my life and be attracted to better energy. 

I was not born to be anxious, fragile, and fearful. I was not born to just be peaceful by myself, for myself and within myself … I have a responsibility to find out exactly who I am and use who I am to impact those around me.

I am sensitive but strong

I am giving but wise 

I sob my heart out when it hurts, but I also laugh from the soul when I am free.

I love with all my heart, and I am also loved intensely.

I am sassy, but I am also very understanding and forgiving.

I am very aware of the fact that life’s circumstances can bring happy moments, but can not give me the peace and joy I crave so much. This is why I am so open about my spirituality, my security in God, and my gratitude for being woken up to this from such a young age. 

Here’s to being blessed with today … and a hope for tomorrow
Peace x 

Escaping To Safety …

One of Those Days

I adore peace 

Peace is not my default state of mind and does not come naturally to me.

I fight for my peace and because of this I do not let a peaceful day go by and take it for granted. I thank God for each wave of quiet and contentment. Stopping at least once a day to just enjoy how cooperative  my mind is being. 

Today has not being one of those days. 

I could feel the build up and in preparation lined up my “What have you been thinking about lately” teachings and “Overming fear” podcasts by Joyce Meyer. Listening to these while working at my desk has done the trick in the past. Yet, even though she gave me a LOT of great advice today I drove home in tears frustrated and exhausted from fighting my anxious thoughts all day. 

During this drive home I told God I  was feeling extremely insecure about my relationship. I explained that even though I have had counselling and teachings and read books and articles and talked and talked about this until I had nothing more to explain I needed some more guidance on trusting in my security in Him. 

I got home … sat in the bath and typed Overcoming Insecurity with a shaky hand into You Tube.

What I found and clicked on was not random, or an accident or even “good luck” it was God answering my prayer 30 minutes after I prayed using a very unexpected teacher.

https://youtu.be/X7OwLAONIm8
I’m not sure how more personal to me this advice could be. 

Love J Louise

All that glitters is not gold…

I was never really into craft as a child. I would much have preferred to lay in the reading corner writing out a story and colouring in pictures making sure I outlined and stayed in the lines. Craft at home would involve mum drawing a page full of circular squiggles and I would then colour them all in.Mum would sit and watch me do this deep in thought. One “messy”craft I do remember enjoying is writing a message in glue and sprinkling glitter over it before the glue could dry. After 5 minutes I would lift up the page tap it on the table and there would be my invisible message revealed in sparkling glitter.

I feel as though my writing style during my 20’s has been me writing in invisible glue. Sharing my idea’s, my thoughts, my interpretation of my dark days and my expression of my bright days. Trial and error of what I can and cannot handle and my attempt at explaining my unique and deep rooted relationship with My God.

I haven’t written for a while.

So much has happened, yet, I have not felt compelled to write about it. I needed a break to sprinkle the glitter.I needed time to stop trying to express every emotion, to stop trying to figure everything out, to stop explaining, to stop doing what I felt I needed to do to keep floating and sink a little.

I needed to be still and just sprinkle the glitter over my life so far, over the ideas, the lessons and coping skills I have written in invisible glue. I needed to sprinkle glitter over my realities, my love, my laughter, and really see life for what it is really is.

I needed to stop and be still in the moment to see exactly who I had become and what in particular was driving me.

I have a feeling my 30’s will be spent tapping my life on the table to remove the loose glitter and to see what what sticks to the invisible glue. To see what has been written.

Love J Louise

…Fool In Love…

Do you remember the diaries from the 80’s and 90’s with a padlock and key? I guarded that key with my life. I only realised today that the one key they gave us with that diary would have opened every single padlocked pre- teen diary! Thank God for password protected online blogs. 🙂

I have been pouring my heart out through writing since I was 11 years old and today I am writing my first blog post as a 30 year old woman.

It has taken a while to publish this post as I am a little more reluctant to pour my heart out as often as I used to because more than ever before I believe in the power of words and would much prefer to write on purpose rather than from pure emotion.

I think I’ll start by going back to a few nights before my 30th birthday. The room was silent and all I could hear was my own heart beat. I had been avoiding sitting so still and letting myself think as I knew I was coming to the end of an era and felt ashamed of how little I had accomplished in my 20’s. In a way by facing my true feelings I was allowing my mind to plead it’s case and tell me exactly why I should feel ashamed. I needed to hear this to realise it was a lie.

The truth is I have no reason to be ashamed so `i stopped my mind mid sentence and wrote a reply from my heart:

Jodie,

If you were offered a chance to live a year of your 20’s again you would say no. You have been programmed to move forward. The phrases “re-live” and “going back” makes you feel restless and actually go’s against your grain. No you can’t say confidently you feel ready for your 30’s but you can shout from the roof tops that you are now well and truly done with your 20’s. Look at what you have achieved in the last 10 years

• You made your first home

• You experienced your first love

• You carried, held and experienced the overwhelming motherly love for your first child

• You started an accountancy career through work and study

• You re-dedicated your life to God found true freedom and still to this day have not looked back

• You have been so overwhelmed by your emotions it almost took your life, yet you learnt how to move forward and fight despite the depth of these emotions.

• You have learnt how to find peace in any situation and know exactly Who to run to. 

• You overcame your fear of public speaking and have stood up on a number of occasions in front of strangers and spoke about the most vulnerable times in life and how you overcame them.

• You overcame your fear of singing on stage and have joined more than one worship team

• You overcame your fear of being in a car and actually learnt how to become a driver and now have your own car.

• You learnt to swim 

• You learnt to forgive on a whole new level – resulting in a strong friendship with your little boys dad.

• You have become a wonderful parent and a lot of people tell you this regularly

Don’t believe the lies ….

Since writing this letter to myself I felt motivated to concentrate on what is to come.

Everything I have learnt so far in life has contributed towards what I believe will be my biggest achievement. Which is to learn to be a fool in love.

I am in a place where my constant flow of love and security comes from God, therefore, I can afford to be a fool in love. I can love those that are prone to reject me, I can love those who don’t seem to know who they are, I can love those that seem so unlovable, I can love those who have an unhealthy way of loving me back. I can love those that have nothing to give, I can love those I don’t understand. I can love despite my fears, I can love with all my heart and still guard my heart because my main source of love comes from God.

In simple terms…

I dedicate my 30’s to Love.

The next 10 years are going to be beautiful.

Love J Louise 

 

Why did God create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

I was reading Genesis (again) and highlighted Genesis 2:9 as I had a niggling question…I can hand on heart say this is the best answer to any biblical question I have ever had before.

School of Christian Thought

A friend of mine recently asked me this question:

I’m often asked questions like this: why did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden if he knew that Adam and Eve would disobey him? I’d be interested to know how you answer that question.

Here is how I responded:

You ask an important question, a question theologians, philosophers, and believers have been puzzling over for hundreds–if not thousands–of years. There is much we do not know about that time, so whatever we say about it must be held humbly. People of good faith debate whether we are to read Genesis 1-3 as literal history or as a metaphor broadly of who created us, why, who were are as human beings, and what has gone so terribly wrong. Regardless of how you read it, there is a looming question: why did God put the tree…

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12 Bright Sides of Loneliness

Originally posted on The Fickle Heartbeat:
A beautiful feature post by Single Strides. ” “I am a lover without a lover.  I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.” – Warsan Shire Happiness sometimes hits you the moment…

Expectation Translation

I have struggled with my emotions since before I can remember. I would not be surprised if when all is said and done I was told

“You were actually born with a broken heart”.

Dramatic? Theatrical? Deep? It is all a result of being blessed and burdened with the gift of feeling everything to an extreme. My passion, determination and inner strength are the consequences of pushing above and beyond to live based on truthful decisions rather than overpowering feelings. I could talk for hours about this but it has all been laid out before in previous posts. I just wanted to paint a little picture before I spoke about something that stopped me in my tracks yesterday:

I don’t really want to add emoticons to my blog (bit tacky) but if I did I would be using at least 5 of the wide eyed serious looking ones.

Why??

My life recently has been based around visualization, looking to the future, expecting the impossible and fighting to overcoming fear of the unknown so I can be excited about my future. The steps I have been taking in my mind, in my soul and in reality have been lining up. I have become refreshed and refreshing, full of it ( the good type of “it”), confident, relaxed and, less judgmental. I have popped my own bubble to mingle with people on a different level, different age group, different cultures, different languages. I have dusted off my dreams and started to expect that they will one day be my reality. I have even dared to step on the stones of my biggest fear: Rejection. I wake up shocked that I am finally living beyond, yet deep down I know my heart is still very very broken.

When I read this quote it cut deep. I felt distracted all day. I sat in church trying to listen to the message, laughed really loud with my friends to drown out the niggling feeling, spent the afternoon with my family feeling absent minded. I got home on Sunday afternoon exhausted and if I’m honest with myself forced myself to have an afternoon sleep. I even missed out on watching Cool Runnings

“It’s good this mummy it’s got Jamaicans in it”  ahahahaha

I woke up an hour later and before I remembered my own name, the same questions popped back into my mind.

“Is my heart still broken because I expect too much? Am I expecting for things that are not going to happen?  Have I dragged my dreams out of the dirt and dusted them off for nothing?

After reading with Kayden and tucking him up in bed I sat in my bedroom and just prayed. I prayed out of frustration at myself for getting the balance wrong again. I know in my heart that God wants me to expect the impossible, to dream big and live without limits. Yet, for some reason my expectations are breaking my heart?? So confused and so deflated.

I called my sister to have a chat and it came up in the conversation. I explained all the above and how it had ‘done my head in’ all day. She listened quietly then said …very simply:

“Expect with all your heart from God, but don’t expect anything from man, that is what breaks your heart”

One simple sentence and it all made sense.

Just like that.

My hope and expectations are from Him 

Psalm 62 v 5 (AMP)

 

And this expectation will not disappoint us 

Romans 5:5 NLT

Conscious Breakthrough

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break·through 

n.

1. An act of overcoming or penetrating an obstacle or restriction.

2. A military offensive that penetrates an enemy’s lines of defence.

3. A major achievement or success that permits further progress

---

I have experienced breakthrough through in life on more than one occasion, however, it usually happens like this:

• I have an overwhelming issue in my heart, mind or situation.
• I make a decision to try and overcome this by using tools such as ‘out of sight out of mind’ or ‘becoming obsessed with a distraction.’
• I take time to reflect on my life so far by reading previous posts, journals, or even just using my memory.
• I realise I have ‘moved on’ without even noticing the transition.
• I suddenly feel powerful, blessed and a slightly more mature.
• I celebrate this doing a little dance while dialling my sisters number to tell her the full story.

I have named this type of coping skill Subconscious Breakthrough. I would describe it as being put to sleep emotionally and woken up to a new chapter. Breakthrough is hard work in all forms, but, up until recently that is the only form I have fought through.

Over the last 4 months I have been faced with more overwhelming situations. Except this time it was different. An emotional soul tie that could not be dealt with by putting him out of sight so how could I get him out of mind. An internal warning against getting obsessed with anything, and an incapability to distract myself with anything or anyone. It has been as though cling film has been wrapped around everything and everyone preventing any type of connection. Everything I looked at, stepped to, or touched moved away. All that was left was me, my fear, and my God. No more being put to sleep through this one. I literally had to face my fears head on. I would like to say I was brave and just got on with it, but as I saw it I had no choice. So I grabbed Gods’ hand and walked through it CONSCIOUSLY. 

• I cried, screamed, and begged God to change the situation
• I started a new journal dedicated to this one situation
• I woke up and before my mind knew what I was doing drove to the gym
• I spoke words over my day on purpose
• I visualised myself secure, free and happy
• I stood in my living room and sang worship songs whether i believed what I was singing or not
• I read books on my situation and learnt to stop talking about it 
• I started to tell people what was going to be instead of what IS
• I felt myself pick the pace up and start to enjoy the walk if I’m honest
• This week I consciously realised I had experienced breakthrough and the best thing about it is God did NOT change the situation. He changed my perspective.
• Before I could pick up the phone to speak to my sister she had messaged me to tell me something was different and she had noticed a change and the woman who knows me more than anyone (mum) told me I was 10ft taller and “That’s the Jodie I know”

I am now the proud owner of a chapter in my life called Conscious Breakthrough

Being Mum…

After a day of…

“No we are not going to church I have too much housework to do, get out the house we are late, go back in the house you have forgotten your swimming kit, what are you wearing? Why don’t you listen, use your brain, you are driving me crazy ” etc…

I have only just realised my son has not had much to say today, and what he has said has been positive…

“Wow, mummy I know we are rushing but remember when we used to walk to swimming. Then we all prayed for you to have a car and now you we have one”

“Today is a lovely day”

“You look so nice mummy”

I know you don’t like what I’m wearing, but I think I look cool”

“3 days till I am 7 and I get to spend the day with mum and dad together”

“Was that Nana on the phone? I hope she is ok”

I find it quite heartbreaking that none of those comments registered in my mind until now. I have been all caught up in my own toxic (me,me,me) thoughts. Reacting to my frustration at not being who I should by shutting up, and pushing aside the one small person who only ever reminds me of love in its purest form.

I actually woke him up an hour after he fell asleep to tell him I love him and I’m sorry for being so sad today…

“I forgive you mummy”