I had this revelation this morning: I am always waiting for bad news.
For The bomb to drop.
For The sh*% to hit the fan.
That things are not going to work out.
I wake up around 7:30 am to see 4 missed calls from my sister. Immediately I think someone has died. It is 3 hours earlier in Atlanta last I checked. I listen to the voicemail messages and realize it is my 4 year old nephew Blaise, the one who has Prader Willi Syndrome, ” calling his friends”. He also says for me to come over and that he wants his schoolbus. 
Sigh of relief. No one has died.
That is an extreme example of the feeling I am referring to, but one everyone can relate to. When a family member calls at the crack of dawn, isn’t that all of our biggest fear, that they are calling with bad news? Unless you hate your family, but that, dear readers, is another blog entry entirely.
Someone says to me ” I need to talk to you.”
I think “What have I done?” “Am I in trouble?”
I come to find out they just wanted to share that they got a new job, that they started a yoga practice and thought of me, that they got engaged, that they have fallen in love or learned to speak French. Whatever it may be, it is never what my subconscious immediately decided when they first said ” I have to talk to you.” I had already decided someone died or I was to be fired or jailed or someone didn’t like me or I messed up or some other piece of information that suggested I was a bad person.
Not all news is good news. We all know that. But who am I to be expecting this wasteland of horror? Somewhere deep inside me I am still an 8 year old who was just told her father had died in the night.
Ah! There it is!
No wonder. I will blame it all on my father’s death. The end.
Not so fast.
I know better. I have to do a little rewiring, a little reprogramming, a little meditation, some more yoga and writing, but I am most certain that I can shift my thinking so that I can begin to expect the best, instead of the worst. Some bad news when I was 8 years old surely cannot dictate the fact that the rest of my life will be filled with nothing but the same?
I do wonder why so many of us live like that, though?
Let’s be brutally brutally honest here. ( A horrible expression if you ask me. Let’s pummel each other with truth! Let’s beat the crap out of each other while NOT lying!).
I talk a great talk, but, at the end of the day, I am still struggling with releasing my past and my old fears that a big bad dark future filled with bad news is waiting for me. Of course, this isn’t always the case, but enough that I decided to take a good look inside and clear out some of those mindwebs. Cobwebs of the mind, old dirty dishes stacked up in the corner of your soul.
Why should I not expect miracles? They have certainly been showing up for quite some time in my life now? Why should I not expect to keep being as happy as I am right now, rather than expecting that it surely can’t last, no one gets to be this happy, for this long?
Well, excuse me as I ask myself something:
” Well, why the F%CK not?”.
So next time my phone rings at 4 a.m. I will for sure think that it’s someone calling to tell me that they love me instead of a hurricane blowing my family’s home while a tidal wave outside my door waits. Metaphor or not, the tidal wave is my constant nightmare.
Next time a change presents itself in my world, I will not assume it is a bad change. Next time I am dealt a card I know not what to do with, I will breathe and know with utter certainty that the answer is on it’s way.
I am taking my future back. With all of it’s glory and perfectly imperfect moments of happiness and utter joy. Sure there may be bad news again, but it will be as unexpected as falling in love, and I will surely deal with it with as much grace and spontaneity.
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You’ll be Happy to Know that the Universal Law that Created Miracles Hasn’t been Repealed.” ~Wayne Dyer
Challenge:
Where can you expect more miracles in your life? Can you keep your past in your past? Can you invite good news in more often?
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I hear you… this is a life practice for me. I was just doing the SAME thing you were tonight and then talking myself off that ledge. I think it speaks to our humanness and that in some way is good. I just wish like you I could harness it before it unleashes a whirlwind of worry. Great tips and good to know my festering isn’t alone. xo
Wow!!! Love this Jen.
Love this Jen. I know that runs deep for you but you can rise above it. You have come a long way. Love you.
So true! I can’t tell you how many times I do the same thing….I have this pit of fear that something bad will happen. Thanks for reminding us all to breathe and trust that good things are around the corner too! =)
You are a dear angel! A wonderful shrink told me that things are always getting better. I don’t worry as much as I did before–because if you think about it, things are usually getting better! Thanks for your post!
[…] I still have many fears and am working through them daily. Sometimes they feel so real, as if at any…, I will be without a job, people will hate me, that I will have to go back to waitressing. I will go completely deaf. A fear of the Future. The abnormal fears. They run the gamut. […]
[…] I still have many fears and am working through them daily. Sometimes they feel so real, as if at any…, I will be without a job, people will hate me, that I will have to go back to waitressing. I will go completely deaf. A fear of the Future. The abnormal fears. They run the gamut. […]
[…] I still have many fears and am working through them daily. Sometimes they feel so real, as if at any…, I will be without a job, people will hate me, that I will have to go back to waitressing. I will go completely deaf. A fear of the Future. The abnormal fears. They run the gamut. […]