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 

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

Focus

You know the little feature on Instagram? The one where you can pinpoint a focus point on your picture and it automatically blurs out it’s surroundings? That little feature inspired my next post:

What is my focus point in life, and what exactly am I blurring out?

I may only be speaking for myself here, but no matter how great I am at multitasking I can only have one primary life focus.

My ideas, motivations, passion, thoughts, dreams, hopes, and inspirations stem from my focus and create what I would describe as my heart, while everything else becomes a blur. In all my 28 years of living I have had many focus points as well as having to deal with the consequences of blurring out the wrong things.

My main focus being on my family as beautiful as that sounds ended in disappointment. My mum is amazing my son is phenomenal and my sisters are the best friends I could ever imagine. Yet, they re not enough to fulfill life and give me purpose or even enough inspiration to be where I need to be in life

Career focus left me feeling competitive, slightly obsessive and finally quite bitter.

Focussing on happiness always leads me to depending on quick fixes.

Focussing on living for myself, everything Jodie and what makes Jodie feel good. Drinking, dancing, making myself known, needing to be popular, beautiful, and center of everything is quite exhausting so moving on from that focus was quite liberating.

My main struggle that I believe will always be my weakness is aiming my main focus on a relationship, or a potential relationship. Everything that I am is dedicated to pleasing that person, impressing that person and spending all my time with that person. They are on my mind when I fall asleep when I wake up and I can’t concentrate on anything else no matter how hard I try. In the rare event this person is not put off by my “unhealthy” focus on them and therefore mirrors my affections, it becomes a “us” obsessed relationship which always ends in disaster.

The few last weeks have been a struggle. I had lost focus and started clinging to anything and anyone to make me feel secure and happy again. It worked for a couple of days by then I felt that ugly empty feeling kick in and could feel myself giving in to insecurity.

Even though I had a really good Friday night surrounded by people when I woke up Saturday morning I felt heartbroken. I had a ladies brunch to go to at church and so spent the most the time trying to smile. I heard one of the women say “Some creative ladies have made some post cards if you like the look of one feel free to take one home.” The first one that caught my eye was this one:

I knew in my heart straight away why I felt so heartbroken. I was looking for my security in someone in particular instead of God and it was leaving me feeling so empty. I picked up the postcard put it in my bag and for the rest of the meeting concentrated on controlling the tears rolling down my face. At the end of the meeting I walked up to a complete stranger and asked if she could pray with me. My mind was refusing to go home until I had at least spoke to someone or asked someone to pray with me. I was determined not to let this drag out more than it needed to. I cried and cried for about half an hour while this lady just talked to me about her experiences and by the time I left church that day I felt half mended. When I got home I sang to God, prayed, wrote in my prayer journal and made sure my focus was back on track.

What I have been blessed enough to learn (even if it was the hard way) is that believing and knowing God clearly brings Him into focus and blurs out everything else. Even though things that are important to me are not my MAIN focus they all seem to fall into place and priority, while I just concentrate on a faith that literally brings me to life.

I wake up each morning, sit up, smile, slide out of bed and onto my knees at the side of the bed and talk to God like I would my dad… I tell him about the dreams I have, the struggles I have, my hopes for the day, the things about myself that I need to change. I ask him for strength for my day to deal with all the emotions that I face, I laugh about the silly things I have said, smile about the people I love and admire. I thank Him for all the things I want to make sure I wake up to tomorrow and I basically ask Him to take my day in His hands and guide me through it.

I still go through life’s up and downs, and I am still a working progress but life is so much more bearable and makes a little more sense when I have someone who never lets me down to turn to whether I am heartbroken or flying with happiness.

Love J Louise

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Colossians 3:2