allegri

Its not usual that I actually end up posting my journalings on the world wide web, but today, for some reason, it feels a bit cathartic and something that I feel I need to openly express and do a little bit of self disclosure. Maybe its because it is March first, the beginning of a new leaf. Maybe its just because it is 3 o’clock in the morning, maybe, however life has just smacked me in the face and I need to continue to process it. So if you feel so inclined to wander the deep dark daunting areas of my mind, as well as the run on “stream of conscience” sentences of mine – bear with me, and read on. 

This week has been a very interesting week, to say the least. I guess maybe the best thing to say is that it has been an emotional roller coaster.  This week I faced some pretty big giants that forced me to break down some walls, and climb over the ones that I just wasn’t strong enough to battle against. I had to really re-evaluate my sense of self, and my need to feel/LOOK like I have it all together. But who am I fooling? Myself mostly. Thankfully I have an amazing support group within my family that helped pull me out of this dark rut and get me to a point were I felt physically capable of standing on my own. Today marked the end of my LSAC self awareness & skills labs, needless to say – going in, I knew that if I was poked in just the right area, the arena of tears would follow. And… wow… they did. And guess what. I survived. Can you believe it? I am sure still wondering how I managed.

I had to take a chance a not being invisible, not being the cherry – happy go lucky gal; and just be in the moment, be me, allow myself to show that I am not all society tells us that we need to show to others. I am amazed how often I don’t allow that to come out. Does anyone else suppress that stigma? After about 9 Kleenex’s and spilling my emotional insecurities, I actually got somewhere, somewhere I didn’t really think of when this week began. I really noticed how I create this aura of hope and love towards others, and adore to fill their emotional banks, but refuse to accept it back – in turn, leaving mine empty. Wow. I have been through HOW MANY psycho-educational classes, and just now this is clicking – a bit depressing. But incredibly liberating to actually notice that I am really putting myself into the position of not accepting, or even consciencely believing/identifying, with the good things about me.

After group, I shut off, and attempted to quit processing, as it was just making me more frustrated with my self. Then… these lyrics came at me like a  flying banchi from the radio waves.

“Its not about having what you want, its wanting what you’ve got” – Sheryl Crow

I didn’t think that they were really going to effect me as I car danced my way down the road towards home, but they really sunk deep. We spent hours processing the negative self talk that we (ok – me) give ourselves (myself), and yet, this song struck me more into more processing power than I believe I was even ready for. How often do we sit and believe that if we just get “so and so’s” approval or we hear kind comments that we can believe their messages without changing the negative recordings in our own minds? Damn… I am still struggling, I probably will forever, but AMEN, for my AMAZING family, anesti, and the fabulous group members I had today that didn’t expect me to be what I expected my self to be or judge me for struggling in life. 

On another note – my site remodel is moving along a bit slower than I thought, I have only changed my plans – entirely scrapping the prior – about 3 times. I have decided to (sub) name this model “life lessons. learned.” I believe this accurately depicts the phase of life that I am in right now, and really focuses on the here and now than some of the other designs that I have made. I will hopefully have it ready for release by the end of March (fingers crossed)

Well… thats all I have in me for the moment… good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Addictions & substance abuse are a lot like a car crash. In this crash, every window has blown out, shattered and left thousands of shards protruding from your extremities. These pieces of glass range in size, and soon you become acquainted to them. It is as though they are essentially a part of ones “natural” being. One fears more so of the removal of these pieces, and the scars that removal shall bring, than the actual velocity and dire nature through which these shards were brought to creation & implantation. Now, substance abuse treatment, is like removing each piece of glass & piecing back together the windows these shards once formed, all before bleeding out on the cutting room floor. To us surgically minded counselors, these shards represent the family problems, emotional and behavioral problems, educational and truancy problems, and societal tribulations that lead up to the crash.

Daily I work with clients who would rather leave these shards of glass imbedded in their body, than face the open wounds that follow removal. Daily these clients divulge in thinking errors of how they reason that it is “comfortable” to sit with these protrusions, when a more proper word is that the feeling is “familiar” to them.

Sometimes it seems as though, I am “well-versed” in these dynamics, possibly because I too have walked drudgingly on through the stages of change, and I too have felt the familiarity of the pain that I had caused. Feeling worthwhile to someone, anyone, was a new & awkward territory. Possible, probable too.

Daily I face within the clients & my own minds the stages of change, the thinking errors, & the chain of thoughts to actions. Trust me, it is never easy, it is never comfortable, sometimes it is familiar, and it is always messy, but in the end there is always a stage of relief, knowing that you, honestly are in control.

As I sit straddling the wheel forming clay into what prayerfully will become a pot, I contemplate on how Christ has this position in my life. In Jeremiah 18:6 the Lord declares that we are like clay in the hand of the potter, and again in Isaiah 64:8; we are the clay, you are the potter – Lord ; we are all the work of your hand.

To allow the Lord to work in our lives we must be compliant, we must move in his hands the way that he puts pressure for us to move, we must mold our lives into the shape that he creates. As he makes grooves we must allow him to cut out of our lives the hindrances and distractions of which he does not approve. He wants to fire us so that we are permanently bound into the vessel that he has shaped. He paints a gaze over us, that is our talents, the bright and shining endowments from him, everyone has a different glaze, a different texture, shape, and style. Yet, each one was sculpted so carefully and precise as he poured his life and love into each creation.

But, the most often forgotten specification is the most important of all, we must be centered on the wheel, we must dedicate our lives to him. Let him put us at the center, where we are spinning around in his grace and love. If we are not centered on him, centered on that wheel, all we will ever be is spackle on the wall.

The Lord wants to mold you into a earthen pot, a jar of clay, into which he can pour his love so that we overflow. He wants us to give our lives to him, as to allow him to create in us a life that is glorifying of the work that he did to create it. He loves you. He yearns for you. He wants you to be the clay in his hands that he creates into a beautiful vessel for his love. Allow him to do so. Allow him to be the center, to knead the hindrances out of your life, to mold you into a vessel, to shave the bulges from the clay, to fire you into what you were made to be, to glaze you with your talents, and to fill you in an abundance with his love.

The Christian walk is  a lot like throwing on a wheel, you need to be all in – completely giving your life over to the Lord to work you into what you were made to be, or be spackle on the wall in the studio of the Lord.

For my Social Welfare class at the University of Utah we were required to write an editorial about something, some people group, or some attitude that we discriminate against. After taking much time to contemplate what it was that I personally discriminate against, this is what came to be…

As I look at myself and examine my mind for what it would be that I discriminate against, I search my mind for a people group, or religion, or culture. Staring at a list of people or things to discriminate against, my mind continues to draws blanks. I reach for my pen and I scratch blacks, Africans, and African Americans off of the list. I work with Sudanese refugee families; their children have become some of my greatest little pals. There is no way on earth that I could discriminate against them, instead it is more that I make them a model of a life I would like to live, to have the courage to leave oppression, to fight their way through the desert for freedom. I scratch off religion, because I delight in sitting and taking every ounce of what I can learn about each and every one of them. I have to take more time to contemplate this thought, the first thing that comes to my mind is, upper class whites. Ok, maybe that was a bit crude. The thing that I discriminate most against is affluent people who would rather spend their money, time and resources furthering themselves, and condoning the lower class for not doing the same. Yet these people do not take the time to become educated on poverty, in there own nation, yet alone the world abroad, people who are ignorant and/or arrogant about global procurement. Continue reading

I have been thinking a lot lately. Thinking about, life, and death. Choices, and and decisions that should never be left to that of a mortal being. Choices so painful that God never should have given humans the ability to make them. Maybe I just watch to much TLC, but honestly – what is the right choice to make when faced with the birth of a Treacher Collins Syndrome or an anencephalic child? Maybe I just get too emotional, maybe I am just full of fear – praying that God would face me with such a choice. Would I lose faith? Would my faith become more restored and renewed in God’s grace? What would I do, would I go through everything that a mother could to make sure her child not only has life but – work to try and make her comfortable? Or would I let the Lord take her back, remove her from her misery? Could I just sit there and watch her suffer, until the eminent reversal of her life? What would you do. What Maternal or Paternal emotions strike you, the desire to want to see your child live – to be able someday to truly live; or the pain of not wanting to see your flesh and blood suffer?