From Running to Receiving: Learning You’re Never Alone
At a time where I often found myself running from my emotions, taking a step back to reflect was a transformative practice. My recent journey to Italy reminded me of the importance of facing my sometimes sneaky feelings to find access to healing old patterns of behavior that never served me.
June was a month of significant anniversaries for me, including my 45th birthday, my 1 year divorce anniversary, and what would have been my 27th wedding anniversary. I chose to celebrate myself and I decided to extend my trip to Italy from a couple of weeks to an entire month with a one way ticket and no plan. This decision served as a demarcation line in my life; it was a commitment to discover what I loved, much like the Julia Roberts character in Run Away Bride. I wanted to discover “what kind of eggs I liked” without anyone else’s influence. Having been engaged at 17 years old and married the day after I turned 18, I never had time to develop parts of myself that are very important to develop. There is more to this pattern that had me married so young, and that is a story for a later episode.
As I prepared for her solo adventure post-sailing, I decided I wanted the challenge of not knowing where I would stay each night. Instead of opting for a single Airbnb as a homebase, I felt drawn to experience Italy in a more dynamic way by moving around nearly every day. This spontaneity created a process that allowed me to embrace the unknown without fear while learning to listen to myself and deeply hear and trust myself.
What I began to develop was a deep level of self trust that I didn’t know existed. I thought I was learning what foods I liked and how I liked to travel. And those things were also true. However, the deeper lesson I learned was that when I could trust myself so deeply, I could be more open than ever before to trust God as well.
Here’s what happens. We can only know the level of trust that we experience with ourselves, it’s what we are familiar with. And when I deepened my personal level of knowledge and self trust, I had access to a new level of trust in God.
As I was developing this new trust skill there were still patterns at play that I needed to recognize and clear out of my life. One particular pattern was the feelings of isolation and the belief that I had to achieve everything on my own. My journey from being married at 18, then a fairly young mother of three, and a wife of 26 years left me shocked when I chose to navigate life alone choosing divorce at 45 years old…and it was not easy. I missed my kids at home, I missed having companionship, and I had never experienced life on my own.
When I was home alone I often felt trapped by my circumstances and an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, which I had never experienced before. So I would hop on a plane and travel for work or to visit friends and that created a sense of freedom and I felt empowered. But I was running from feeling. From the grief of an ended marriage, the quietness of an empty nest, and an uncertain future that had me wondering what was left for me.
