Thrown Into the Fire

Sometimes when you're in the middle of something that is difficult, it isn't easy to see any way forward.  It is not easy to understand that it might be the most helpful thing for you.  In fact, sometimes it is just too much too bear, that the last thing you want to think about is how helpful it may be.

In the past several months, I've had extremely difficult moments to deal with in life.  It isn't the first time this has happened and most likely won't be the last.  I was thrown into the fire like no other time I have easily seen.

If you would have told me that what I was going through was good, I would have most likely slapped ya up-side the head.  I would not have believed you.  I would not have listened to you at that moment.

It just kept howling at me...

Yet, as I think back and see all the stuff that was piling on, I'm beginning to see just why it did what it did.  One event would have been an annoyance, but event after event after experience piled on like snow drifting in a snowstorm.  It didn't stop!  It just kept howling at me at every turn.

At one point, I was ready to give up.  In fact, after one experience, I cried so hard that I could barely stop.  The pain hurt deeply.  The wound that was inflicted cut all the way through me.  I took off for the mountains to get away and find a break from it all.

I had felt so abandoned and alone, hurt and abused, and wondering where in the heck my life was going.  The mountains and the trees were my only refuge at that point.  I took off, wondering if I would even want to come back.  I took off, not caring if I really stayed alive another day.  The pain was so great, I could barely handle it.  I was thrown into the fire.

I could barely function...

As the fire raged on in my life, there was one thing after another.  It didn't stop and there were physical issues that showed up from being so exhausted where I could barely function in a day, to having to deal with a horrible rash in one of the worst places it could end up.

It felt like my life was falling apart.  It felt like there was no tomorrow. I could not get a handle on anything.  I could not get a break.  It just kept going, one experience and event after another.  I tried to hang on, but even that was exhausting.

I finally started thinking - OK - life, just have your way.  I can't control this anyway, so you might as well do whatever it is you're going to do.  I started working on surrendering to the horrible part of being thrown into the fire, even though that was far more difficult than it is to write these words.

I had no clue how to proceed...

I tried to focus as I was being thrown into the fire, but that was more difficult than breathing.  My mind was anywhere but on how to proceed.  I had no clue how to proceed or deal with any of this that was happening.

As the days went, I began to piece things together.  I began to see things a little more clearly each day.  No, it was not like everything came into view all at once.  If I sat here and said that I see the whole picture at this moment, I would be lying.  Each day, a little more shows up.  Each day I see just a little more.

The one thing that I notice is my life is changing.  I'm beginning to drop some of the long held anger in my life.  Granted, from being abused and tortured, I have a right to be as angry as I am.  It is hard to let go of that anger.  It is more than just thinking I am letting go or saying the words "I am letting go".  Maybe that works for some, but this is the cellular level of consciousness that I'm working through.

It was burning up the stuff deep inside...

The fire is all the events that were happening.  The one event after another that was consuming me.  While I thought it was consuming me (the person), I realize now that it was burning up so much of this stuff deep within me that I struggled to release and get rid of in my life.

If you burn wet and soft wood in a fireplace, the soot will build up.  If it builds up, the chimney needs to be cleaned.  You can do this a number of ways, but if you light a hot fire or a brief one in the chimney, it goes a long ways to cleaning the soot out.  (This is merely an example, not something you should try at home).

Sometimes in our life, the only way to get rid of the soot in the chimney is to burn it out.  When we are in the fire, it is then that we are attempting to get rid of that which is not helping us.  We may not see it in the moment.  It may feel like an overwhelming experience that you cannot even begin to understand this point I'm writing about.  Hey, that's okay.  I understand because I have walked through these hot stones.

The more I began to find peace...

The more I allowed the stuff that had caused me great pain to be consumed by the fire I was in, the more I began to find peace.  If I tried to hold on to the pain of those moments, I continued to stoke the fire.  No, it was not easy.  It was much more difficult than I'm writing.

I had to be patient with myself and let go of all that stuff that happened.  It was a collection of many experiences and triggers in life from years gone by, showing up as every day moments.  These were traces of things that I had worked on, but by them coming at me all at once, it ignited the fire in the furnace so much, that it ended up consuming them.

Now they are nothing more than ashes in my life that I can sweep out and make room for things that are much better and more beneficial for me.  I'm sure, there are other things that I will find as I go deeper into my own consciousness, but I know that the fire helped me.  It helped me let go of things that I've struggled with every day.

Life isn't perfect, but I can see some of those issues drastically better than they were.  I can feel like I'm more in control of them than I was and that helps boost my peace and self confidence to take on bigger tasks ahead.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

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Self Confidence And Believing In Myself

Sometimes I struggle daily with myself.  Sometimes, no matter what I feel like I'm biologically wired to see the negative, instead of the positive.  Self confidence and believing in myself often take a beating.  One such example happened yesterday.  Instead of burying into this like I normally do, I'm going to write about it and shine the light of day on this struggle in my life.

What may seem like a routine repair to some, is like an accomplishment the size of flying to the moon for me.  Our pool pump motor had gone out in the lightening storm a couple of nights ago.  After much time trying to figure out what I needed to do and not wanting to spend any more money than we absolutely needed to, I realized I had to replace the motor.

I'm not a mechanical person and I dislike doing repair work so much that I'd rather not do it.  On top of that, I'm often afraid that I will just mess things up and so I can talk myself out of doing the repair work quicker than a snake can shed its skin.  Ugh.. I hate that analogy.  However, I am usually able to figure out many things and will generally find a way to fix something, within reason of course.

Self Confidence And Negative Chatter

Far too many of us are excellent when it comes to tearing our self down.  It is much harder it seems for many people to focus on their good qualities.  We all have them.  There are things about each one of us that makes each of us special.

Unfortunately throughout our life, we listened to people who did not have our best interests at heart.  They may have told us how worthless or stupid or dumb we were.  Some of these people may have beaten us for not obtaining perfection as small children.  Love or affection might have been withheld if we did not perform to a level of satisfaction for those around us.

We've all got our stories and our experiences.  I'm sure any one of us could name them off in a list without taking too much effort.  It is sad that we endured these experiences, but it is even more sad that we have carried this baggage into our adult life.  I'm not saying it is easy to let go of the baggage, but we need to see it for what it is.

A hypnotherapy CD by Steven Bayner that I am listening to on self confidence talks about creating a list of our good qualities and then reviewing it.  It isn't a bad idea.  After all, we listen to so much negative chatter in our mind every day that doing something positive for our brain is like a gift from heaven.

Hypnotherapy Self Confidence CD by Steve Bayner

Steve Bayner, Hypnotist
Building Self Confidence

I finally was able to get this CD transferred on to my iphone so I could hook it up to my headphones and listen to it.  For some reason, the headphones really amplify the effects for me of audio files, most likely because they help block out the world around me.  I feel like I'm in my own little section of outer space when I listen to things through them.

This CD, Building Self Confidence,  is one that I got through a hypnotist by the name of Steve Bayner.  He performed at the Volusia County Fair in November 2011.  I was intrigued by him and when he took the audience through the warm up exercise to see who might be a good candidate to come up on stage, I ended up being one of those people.  I'm still surprised that I had the courage to go up on stage because I usually shy away from anything that is in front of people.  Self confidence is one of those parts of my life that was desecrated many years ago.

Throughout the night, I had such an amazing connection to the hypnotherapy.  It was the first time that I experienced it and the level of deep relaxation I experienced was phenomenal.  After all, while I have a fuzzy memory of the experience, I know that I went out deep.  After it was over, it took me some time to really come back to in alertness.  Normally in a big crowd of people such as was present that night, I would have been very agitated.  Instead, I found myself amazingly calm and enjoying all the people around me.  This experience did have a great impact on me.

Power Within You

This morning when I selected the angel therapy card on my iPhone app (Healing With The Angels) developed by Doreen Virtue, it really spoke to me. Most of the time, the cards that I select are so appropriate for that moment. This was no exception.

Here are the main thoughts that spoke to me from this card:

1) You now allow yourself to express your power.
2) You have all of the power of your Creator within you!
3) All the power of Divine love, wisdom and intelligence is available to you.

While there was much more this card said, these points really were what I needed to hear in this moment. Sometimes it is difficult to see the power within ourselves. Sometimes my self confidence is lacking so much that I feel like a jelly fish floating along in life.

The day I selected this card, I had a meeting with someone about a project. It was a project I had been working on for over a month and was hoping to get a final commitment on it so I could move forward. It mean a substantial financial income to me for the moment and was very much needed. Before going to this meeting, I was beginning to doubt myself and the self confidence issues were coming to the surface. After reading what this card said, I felt a power come over me that gave me confidence and helped me to act with a manner of confidence in the meeting. The meeting was successful.

Even when we think that we don't have the power to do something or we don't recognize the power within our self, it is there. We do have access to it if we choose to connect with it. Sometimes, just the reminder of that is all that we need.

*Read other articles on Mind Body Thoughts Blog

I'm Not Good Enough

Some days it is difficult for me to not feel responsible for the things others do. It is as if whatever they do or how they respond to me, that I in some way caused that. I'm not referring to a conceited view but one that I'm always afraid of doing the wrong thing.

Self confidence is very difficult for me. I wish I could take injections to boost my daily level. often i feel scared deep down inside of me, almost to the point where my stomach is shaking inside. It just doesn't come easy for me.

I always feel like I'm failing someone. it is like I'm not good enough or I don't measure up enough. While their expectations may be normal for me, I still strive to earn their trust, respect and approval. They may be already giving these things to me but through my filtered glasses of life, I am unable to see and appreciate it.

It is easy for me to not beat myself up at this point. For I could easily give myself a sentence of flogging for not being good enough. As people have told me in life many times, I am much harder on myself than they would ever be with me. Yet, I don't feel as if I am perfect enough. I feel full of holes and mistakes.

While it didn't help that my father only found faults within me a majority of the time, I was and am a driven person. Nothing is never quite good enough for me and I seldom accept the minimum. In many ways, I'm still caught in the trauma cycle of needing acceptance, love and respect while not realizing I am already getting it. I wish that it was as easy to do for me as it is to write about it. However, I know these two worlds are vast light years apart.

How do I acknowledge this part of my life and continue to move past it?

First, identifying this just as I have done gives me a view point into a part of my life. It is an opening into my conscious awareness.

Second, I need to remember the miles I have already traveled in life. I have come a long ways and need to give myself credit for this. To act as if I've gotten very little progress is really doing a disservice to myself. In many ways, I need to give myself a break.

Third, each day if I remind myself that these things I keep listening to are nothing but old tapes playing in my mind. They are experiences of trauma that need to be loved and accepted so they can be nurtured and released. I need to remind myself that I don't have to be perfect even though I was brainwashed to believe I had to be as perfect as Jesus was.

Fourth, I need to acknowledge and open my eyes that others don't see me as harshly as I see myself. Putting a balance in these things would be much more spiritual than what I currently do. Realizing that by wearing my filtered glasses in life, I'm holding myself back from the connections that are all around me. There is so much more than what I allow myself to be a part of.

What if I just allowed myself to e in a balanced connection to the parts that are not as easy for me? What if I just allowed myself to go there? What would that feel like? What would that look like in my life?

Of course, it is up to me what I choose to do and how I choose to do it. No one else can take these steps for me. If I am to continue moving forward, I need to allow all of these things into my consciousness with loving acceptance. Only then will I be able to release them. Only then will I be able to fill my soul with all that I need and desire for my life.


*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Note: Above picture taken as I'm feeding the Budgie Parakeets at Gatorland (Florida)