Scurrying and Impotency

I know that's a weird title, but that is how I experienced yesterday - so I thought I would write about it.

Right now, I am in motion.  Since I had this epiphany about 40 years after my sixtieth, I suddenly had a paradigm shift from survival to choice. I suppose the survival mentality was a combination of temperament, circumstances and mindset. Life looked like a monotonous struggle to just get by and hope it didn't last that much longer.  When I got a new perspective, it was as if I suddenly had this great big wonderful empty room, with plenty of light, but now it needed to be furnished.  Lots of space - not a clear plan. My orientation to my life had changed, so lots of things were going to be shifting around. So, what happens next?

DYNAMICS OF CHANGE
This is how it works...  There is a strong desire at the core of the human heart for no surprises.  A birthday surprise is okay, but big life surprises which, by definition, interfere with the status quo, are unwelcome.  How many times did I see in my years of practice that people would choose known misery over unknown potential joy?  Constantly.  I remember being asked by a doctor to do an intervention to get a wife out of an abusive situation.  When the opportunity came to offer help, she said "It's not that bad.  I am fine."  (This was despite the bruises, imposed isolation from her family and other clear indications that she and the children should get out.)  Change, even change for the better, involves risk and messiness, and disorientation.  ALWAYS. 

Also, if there is change, there will always be resistance, both internally and externally. Even basic physics tells you that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and that overcoming inertia takes more energy than maintaining movement.  Change takes added energy.

So, in these last two weeks, I have been experiencing change.  I have tried a number of new things - new job, new workout, new diet, new books, new people, new ideas and new dreams.  All that is great, but it has resulted in some added messiness and disorientation. 

THE MESS
While I have perfectionist tendencies, I am also ADD.  So, the house, which was not in perfect order anyway, seems to have gotten a bit messier.  My new job allows me to collect flowers destined for the dumpster, so I now have a growing accumulation of orphaned plants on my driveway, awaiting their new home in some bed or basket.  I have gotten a few (really, Jim, it is not that many) Amazon boxes with wonderful books that are all calling my name.  I am on a Paleo diet, which requires new menus and different shopping.  I am writing a blog, which I wasn't doing a few weeks ago, and there are all these little tangents that I am going off on, at the moment.  There are moments when I feel like an ant who has had it's little pathway messed with and it doesn't quite know where to go next, but it is scurrying around like crazy, trying to get back on track.

In addition to my own busyness, I have been trying to offer help to others in various parts of my life.  Yesterday, it seemed like all my gestures of what I perceived to be help, were not received with the delighted responses I had hoped for.  When Jim got home last night and I had filled him in on my day, he responded "So, basically, you have been frustrated at every turn."

Yes.  Yes, I have.  I have not had the world working the way I wanted it to.  I haven't had people falling in line the way they should.  Life is messy and I am frustrated.

PERSPECTIVE, PATIENCE AND TRUST IN THE PLAN
When I got up at 3:45 this morning (I couldn't sleep because I was "frustrated" (ANGRY) about something), I got the coffee, got Jesus Calling, Bible and journal, and decided to process what was going on. 

As I thought about this anger I was feeling and about Jim's summary from yesterday, I realized I had a perspective issue.  I HAD felt impotent in my activities.  I DID feel disoriented with the changes that are occurring.  I WANTED more control and less chaos.  I wanted everyone to do what I said. Hmmm.

As I have reconsidered the events of yesterday and of the last few weeks, I am coming to a few observations.  First, I am going to be miserable if I insist that the world work the way I want it to.  Secondly, I need to remind myself that the process is always "ORIENTATION, DISORIENTATION, and REORIENTATION."  I am in process, and the sooner I accept the undulating nature of this pathway, the sooner I will enjoy the journey.  And, lastly, I really do have the freedom to trust God with myself, my future and the lives of those around me.  I don't have to take His job. (In fact, I used to tell my clients to put an index card on their bathroom mirror that read "I am not God", just so that they could release themselves from that "responsibility.")

A NEW DAY
So, I suppose that, now that the sun is up, I should go put another load in the wash, give a couple of those orphaned plants a new home and get ready to go work a few hours at Colliers.  Then, I think we will manage to have a good Paleo dinner and we will probably make it to our dance class tonight.  At least, that is the tentative plan.  AND, if necessary, I will be posting an index card on my mirror to remind me of my freedom to trust God and the process.