I am my architect, are you?
I don’t often post motivational blogs, but in an effort to post more and with a better schedule, I’m starting this week off with a #MondayBlogs #MotivationalMonday post.
Really, this is the result of much self discovery and a snapshot of battles we all struggle through. Some of us survive while others do not. I have two friends who divorced and are mending. I am so in love with the idea of them and have muddled through the swamp with them to find they aren’t muddy at all. They are discovering themselves again and opening to loving again because they have decided to be their own architects. For them, this means they will control how they communicate, the love and the anger they put out there for the other to receive, and how they want their new world with one another again to look and feel.
I am the architect in my world.
I create what I would like to have in my life and I control who I allow to live in it with me.
It’s funny to think how much I have changed, how much I am the person I used to be, and how much I was willing to tolerate because as my world changed and evolved around me, I became more and more unaware of my own surroundings, and that changed me.
One of my children spoke to me about negativity in their world earlier this week. We face it so often. Anger on the road. Frustration with those around us. Impatience in the grocery store line. People in our world who don’t know how to communicate effectively all project negativity onto our path.
How do we stop them?
How do we build our own world without these things?
The answer I gave my daughter was kindness.
Kindness is the path to greatness.
But it’s not all that simple. And it’s not easy.
“I used to love her, but I had to kill her.”
Those were the words I heard once when I called my lover’s phone by accident.
My lover.
My support. My rock. My I do.
‘I used to love her, but I had to kill her’ is the title lyric from a Guns and Roses song. I remember the song. I used to jam to it when it first came out. The line ends with something about putting her six feet under and still hearing her complain.
This is not the world in which I wanted to live.
“This is my love song to you…” these are the words which start a different song I hear often. When we argue. When I’m upset. When she’s upset. When we question the world around us. When we wonder if we’ll make it. When she wants me to know I am her lover. I matter. I am important. I am loved and wanted.
We get to build our own world. Build one you want to be in. Build one you want to live in. Build one where you will thrive. Build your world where you are loved, supported, accepted, and able to be who you are.
It took a lot of building to create a new world where I am comfortable not only with myself but with those I allow inside. Be your own architect. Don’t fear letting go because once you do, amazing things open on the other side.
So, I’m not really motivating here, in my motivational post, but I wanted to share because I am still hit with negativity every day. And I put a wall up to it. We will always have those in our loves who bring us down, those who want nothing for us but to bring us down, but it’s how we build our worlds and support systems that will make the biggest difference in how we handle that negativity.
I have days I don’t know how I am going to make it. I have days I want to curl up and cry all alone because no one could possibly understand. But I know you do. You get it. Because you have those days too.
It’s not always easy to get up once we are down.
Building a world which can carry the weight of negativity and the power of grief is the key to surviving the times when we are so far down it’s difficult to get back up. Creating a support group, or a tribe as I call those, those people who are there to lift you up and hold you until you are steady, brings us up to a place where we can not only survive but thrive as well.
Getting out of survival mode is fucking hard.
Yes. It is. I said for many years I was in survival mode week in and week out. I had a small tribe. Those I called when my migraines were so bad I couldn’t stand in the kitchen long enough to cook macaroni and cheese for my children, but I never leaned on them for much else. I never told them about the song my lover had as a ringtone for my phone about loving me one time and then killing me another.
Breathing day to day is tough, breathing moment to moment is tough when you are only surviving. We go from task to task, day to day, week to week, waiting for something new, a change, hope, or the one thing our world truly lacks.
Reach out
Building a new world and being your own architect includes building a tribe. We need infrastructure and a team who will carry the weight we cannot when times are tough. Find those people for your personal tribe. And invite yourself to be in theirs as well.
Be an architect in your world. Plan your world out so you are loved. Plan your world so you are free. We are out here to support you and hold you up. Just come find us.
Peace, Love, and Life.
~Stella