Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith first. The trust part comes later.
That’s what I did last year, almost exactly one year ago – take one hell of a leap.
I took a year off from being confined.
I took a year off from being obligated to anyone or anything, or even any place.
My family thought I was nuts. Pretty sure my friends thought so too. But I needed the break.
I took a break from work. Why? Because I needed to step away from toxic motherfuckers with self-serving interests who wanted nothing to do with their jobs but I had to work with them. I needed a break because I no longer felt passionate about what I did for a living.
Work had become a chore.
I also needed a break from feeling anxious about NOT knowing what I wanted to do next with my life. I need a break from fighting myself for control of my life.
And so, to not give myself a way out of learning the art of surrender, I prayed, gave most of my shit away to charity and told my cousin I was leaving the country indefinitely. His response? Don’t come back.
I then called up a few friends I hadn’t seen in years and asked for grace and a place to crash for varied periods of time.
The result? Roughly six and a half months of travel through the continental United States and Vancouver, Canada.
It was a life course in humility and awareness. I learned a few things during my travels.
Life is hard if you make it hard.
Worry and anxiety make life hard. Worrying solves nothing.
Discipline and balance, on the other hand, help make life a whole hell of a lot easier. In my quest to ‘find myself’, I found myself creating new routines and habits. I began establishing small boundaries for myself, not realizing that they were preparing me for things to come. Letting go of everything I could not control and controlling the things that I could make all the difference.
‘No,’ is a complete sentence that I now use quite often because those boundaries I have worked so hard to establish must be maintained.
Being the eldest child and a girl at that from the last of the analogue children makes shaking off that indoctrination one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Self-discipline is the best form of self-love though. If I can master boundaries for people, I can master them for myself. It’s a messed-up way to do things but it’s what works for me.
Life is easy when you open yourself to new experiences.
I’ve begun to embrace exercise, drinking water and staying on top of my diet, eating what’s good for me as opposed to what I want or feel like. While doing or eating what I want comes into play occasionally, I learned not to let my emotions rule my food life. It’s a course correction that has to be addressed every morning. Experiencing my first 24-hour fast was a game-changer. I’m about to re-implement it into my cycles this week moving forward.
I’m more attuned to my menstrual cycle – how it affects my body on different days of the week and different weeks in a month. I got a crash course in how cold weather affects my body from the onslaught of sneezing and mini colds to the insanity of readjusting once I got back home to the tropics.
Life’s abundance doesn’t really dwell in the financial realm.
Abundance is a quality of life. When it comes to friends, there’s a high level of abundance. Sometimes less is more. I wouldn’t trade my friends for the world. I now have a better understanding of what it means to trust and trust in God. It’s a daily challenge and commitment. Some days are easy and some difficult but regardless of which way the pendulum swings, whenever I say, “Lord, I trust You and I trust in You,” I have a better day for it. Even the tough things seem a little easier.
My good days, my bad days and my in-between days are all days where God is good. And there’s nothing that can change that. I did a lot in 2023. Being still and listening to Him was the best part of it.
2023 is a chapter I will cherish. I don’t think I wanna replicate it. I’m digging my heels into 2024 and I can’t wait to see what unfolds.
Song: Jump
Artist: Madonna
Album: Confessions on a Dance Floor
Release Date: 2005
