Ok, so after letting out all my relational/personal problems yesterday, I, indeed, felt so much better. Also, I have people in my life... people I mentioned in my post yesterday who responded with words I needed to hear.
One response was from a close friend, she said:
The blog is great Whitney! You needed to get that out, walking around carrying it with you is so debilitating. It will start eating away at your spirit. Writing is a great therapeutic way to get those thoughts out and no longer carry them around as a burden.
Mourn this Whitney, and let yourself cry and eat chocolate and really allow yourself to feel these emotions. You have a broken heart, and its ok to be sad. Don't let yourself or anyone else tell you that its ridiculous or try and minimize what you are feeling. Because in order to heal, grieving is the first loss. The best thing anyone ever told me about broken heart was to treat it like death. Not like literal death, but the stages of grief:
* Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
* Anger (why is this happening to me?)
* Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
* Depression (I don't care anymore)
* Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)
I love you, and this will get better. You are already in the right state of mind spiritually, let God do the rest! But its OK to cry and be sad, it isn't a sign of weakness. Its healthy and natural! I love you so much! THIS TOO SHALL PASS!
Can I just say how amazingly thoughful and insightful my friend is?! How God knew I needed to hear those words... and she is right, I need to feel it. To cry. To be sad. All my life my way of fighting is to hold it all in.
Don't let it get to you and it won't mantra... little did I know, just because I walk around with a smile on my face doesn't mean there isn't something internally going on.... like my Doc said when he diagnosed me Hypothrodism (Graves Disease) and said my Adrenal Glands were exhausted.... "
How long have you been stressed out? It has worn on your organs!"
I wanted to respond...
You have no idea... but instead my habitual "suppressing-of-the-emotions self" SMILED, and said...
Haha, I'm not stressed... when really I was thinking...
All my life...
So basically every one stresses... but when you only let it out once in a blue moon... like me, when I watch a happy movie and bawl my eyes out while everyone around me wonders why I am crying like my puppy was just run over... or when I see a love movie and cry all the way through, the whole way home, and am still an emotional wreck a couple of days after (this happened in Sex and the City movie, The Time Traveler's Wife, Marley and Me.. and I can keep going, but I will spare you!) ... or when (in my past) I would drink too much and get hysterical for no reason....
The emotions/stress/worry needed to get out... and it would take any opportunity it could...
Hearing those kind and honest words from Meghan yesterday were deliberate for my life. I did need to feel. I did need to cry. I needed to let it out.
Let it out, to let it go... hm... that may be the title of my first book... it just came to me! AND
I did just that. I cried yesterday, when I read my mom's words, and Meghan's, then I reread them and cried again. Then last night I wanted to go see the movie
Love and Other Drugs with Jake Gyllenhal and Anne Hathaway.. but I felt better by that point an figured that was just abusing the crying.. haha...
This morning I woke up feeling well rested and ready to
let it out, to let it go again. So I jumped on the treadmill after dropping the guys off at school and ran hard... even walked as fast as I could.... lifted weights...
I sweated it out.
Man was I feeling good. I didn't realize that crying was so liberating... but I always knew Sara Bareilles' lyric
"I learned how to cry and I am better for that" always caught my attention. So I listened to it this morning while exercising. And
"Many the Miles" the best song ever for knowing you are on the right path...
"How far do I have to go to get to you? .... Many the miles..." Loved it.
I learned through Meghan's words, my tears, sweat, and contemplation... that there are ways I add stress to my life instead of taking it away. Like when I go to the gym... I get an idea of a workout in my head and won't stop until I run that 3 miles at this specific speed... or I have to stay on the treadmil X number of minutes, elliptical X number of calories... STRESS... when it should be doing the opposite... relieving!
I give myself these ridiculous diets I obviously cannot stick to... then over do it...
I tell myself if I lose this amount of weight, wear this size, look this way, drive this car, go to this church,.....
I will be happy, healthy, married, in love,.....
So basically... to sum it all up... I am extremely hard on myself... and stress myself out... and continue this cycle... then when other things come up in my life and they add to it... I try to remain in control... I try to think, think, think, evaulate... evaluate more... until.... I am exhausted, spent, and then find myself crying when I see a father holding his daughter... partially because it is sweet and loving... and I have a little bit of father issues... and then my brain goes into stressed out overdrive... will I find someone to marry, have children with, who will be a good father... love me forever... BLAH BLAH BLAH.... I bet you are exhausted reading this, huh?
Well guess what... my Father in Heaven REALLY REALLY REALLY loves me...
Because when I got those amazing words from Meghan yesterday and I started to feel and let go of the emotions... and let it out... I also received other words... from her...
I love you and regardless of geographical distance we have between us, you have my full support, love, and empathy. I will always be here for you, if not physically, I will be with you emotionally, spiritually, and any other form of support I can offer you! No one wants to hear "oh you have good things coming to you, just wait" because even though it IS true, it isn't comforting. We all want the day to come to us where something 'good' happens, but when we sit back and observe our life and surroundings, we see that we already have 'good'. You have so many great things going for you and most of them lie within yourself. You are one of the best people I know. You have a HUGE heart, that is open to love anyone and everyone. Instead of seeing that as a flaw (because you can get hurt) look at it as one of the rarest most valuable attributes on earth. That is why people are drawn to you. You are infectious. Your appetite for life is something I long for. You don't let your past write your story, you choose to push through bad times, and persevere. Do you know what that says about your character? How strong and amazing that makes you? You would rather laugh than cry, but when you are doing either you do it with passion. You are simply incredible human being. Beautiful inside and out, but your spirit and heart is what makes you Whitney to me, and I will always see that, regardless of what you do, or decisions you make or anything else. I love you. You are so strong and amazing. You are a hero! And I think that you should hear that from time to time. I'm privileged to have you in my life and to call you a friend!
WOW. Brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. Which has been about 10 times in the last 24 hrs. Because this one person, whom I love very much and have been through A LOT with over the past 5 years and is a best friend of mine, and I think of very highly, not only thinks I am special, wonderful, unique.... but she loves Whitney exactly how Whitney is. The me inside out. And I know there are many people... my family and friends included who love me exactly as I am... as I do them... every single person in my life.... and that is how every person feels about you... they love you for you... as you love them for them... we are the ones who think otherwise... our own worst critics, as it has been stated before... we hear the negative people have told us through the years inside of all the positive...
And God sent me this devotion this morning... because he loves me, too.. and wants me to be happy in Him... to share my joy and love of Him to everyone... to only need, trust, and believe in Him... like I said yesterday... because he will take care of us... like he sent kind words from Meghan, my Aunt Ginny, and Mother yesterday... he gave me the umph to go exercise it out this morning, he gave me the knowledge of self reflection... and he gave me this devotion:
Don't Overthink It
I mean do I need to even quote my devotion after just the title? I seriously walked in my house after my amazing workout and looked down at my email on my phone, saw this title, and just smiled. God really does have a sense of humor. Because while I was walking/running I was thinking about my blog today... thinking what to write, who to think, how to put my contemplational thoughts into words.
And this is what I saw.
Don't Overthink It
Not to mention what I have been writing about continuously. God telling me to just believe. Trust him. Not to worry. And here is what verse was under the title,
Don't Overthink It....
"Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done." Philippians 4:6
I mean, wow. Thank you Lord. You know daily what I need to see, read, hear... He is an awesome God. This is what else it says (The whole devotion, by the way) :
I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life – and I'm running out of time to figure it out. What if I never find it? Will I always be unhappy and unfulfilled? Will I never achieve my purpose? What will God do about that – will He call me a bad servant? But I can't help it. Why doesn't He answer my prayers for direction?
Maybe I'm just too sinful or something. I know I should read the Bible more. Is this limbo I'm in some kind of punishment for that? Am I really so much worse than everybody else? Maybe I just don't have any special gifts or talents. Or they just never got developed. Maybe that's it, and maybe now it's too late. So what do I do now? I don't know what I'm supposed to do …
Does this resemble your thinking sometimes? Perhaps not about your calling, but about finding a spouse, or affording a house, or exercising regularly, or a conflict with your mother or boss. Do you tend to overthink things? To worry and ruminate? To endlessly, passively, excessively ponder the meanings, causes and potential consequences of your problems? Do you dwell on them?
Many of us believe that when we feel down about something we should try to evaluate our feelings and our situation from every angle to attain insight and find solutions to relieve our unhappiness. However, a host of research in the last 20 years has shown that dwelling on thoughts like this creates negative outcomes: it sustains or worsens sadness, fosters negative thinking, depletes motivation, saps energy, interferes with concentration, and typically impairs our problem-solving.
Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky writes: "Although people have a strong sense that they are gaining insight into themselves and their problems during their ruminations, this is rarely the case. What they do gain is a distorted, pessimistic perspective on their lives." She adds, "You need to free yourself from the clutch of your ruminations – in other words, immediately stop overthinking."
Based on what he wrote in Philippians 4:6-13, I think the apostle Paul would agree with the professor. Pause and scroll down to read the whole passage now in the "Power Verses" below and then come back.
As we see, in verse six, Paul gives three clear instructions for those of us who ruminate on our problems. He says:
1) do not worry about anything
2) pray about everything
3) thank God for everything
What if today we took this instruction to heart and put it into practice? What if today we decided not to worry about anything? What if when we found ourselves worrying, we stopped and handed the situation over to God in prayer? What if we then thanked Him for taking care of the issue?
In fact, what if we spent most of our mental free-time today thinking about what good care our awesome God takes of us?
What if we counted our blessings and God's acts of faithfulness today – and again tomorrow and next week too? What would happen then?
Paul says in verse seven, we will begin to experience amazing peace – a kind of peace we can't even imagine. Peace that makes no earthly sense! This kind of peace is so powerful that it has a protective function on our hearts and minds – which only makes it easier for us to stop worrying and be thankful.
That sounds like a state of happiness to me! So let's not over-think it today. Let's not under-pray it either. Let's actively choose to have a happy, thankful day. And then let's get up tomorrow and do it again.
Dear Lord, I'm turning over all my fears and problems to You to handle today. I can't fix a single thing by worrying about it - but You can fix anything because nothing is impossible for You! Thanks for being in charge of my day. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
http://proverbs31devotions.blogspot.com/
Man. How awesome? If anything... you should be astounded by that great BIG all knowing God up there! Because you saw what I wrote yesterday and you saw what I read today? Coincidence? I don't think so. God? Yes. How do I know, you may ask?
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." -Jeremiah 29:13
I am seeking him, and I am finding him everywhere in my daily life. Everywhere I need him, everywhere I want him. He is making me whole. He is going to take away all of my worry, all of my longing for answers about the future, and you will see a brand new, whole, Whitney. One that is filled with God's love. One that needs no Joey or any other guy... because she has all she needs in her heart. Not that God will not send me that person one day... but I believe that day will come when I am ready. More on this subject tomorrow, ladies. I love you all. Thank you for following this life of mine. And what the Lord is doing with it! 
