I must be a Spiritual Gangster!!

I need to be a spiritual gangster today in a really bad way. I’ve been breathing one deep breath after another & NOTHING seems to be working on this heavy dread I have in my chest. That is where I carry my frustration & anxiety. Why there? Maybe my heart is afraid of being hurt again. What is so troubling? There is a family wedding today where I will be seeing my mother & brothers whom I haven’t spoken with in awhile.

My Mother. I have struggled w/ this relationship my entire life. My mother & I have gone back & forth over the years, speaking, not speaking, laughter, anger, jealousy, love, hate, friends, enemies; until it became a natural, normal way to live. I became so good at it that I didn’t even realize that it was affecting me. It was normal to feel this way.

Recently though, I became aware of how much this back & forth was affecting me. I don’t want to continue this dance anymore. It would be great if we could just keep the dance going when things are good, but we’ve proved over & over again that we cannot. I’ve been trying to master that my entire life. And thus, I have been doing battle my whole life. And I can battle no more.

Battle is too stressful. I realized how stress was affecting me, so I decided to remove myself from these unwinnable battles & eliminate stress in my life. It was a hard, sad decision that I struggled with. Everyone else seemed comfortable with this dance. I was the only one who had a problem with this exhausting dance. I needed to learn a new dance. So I let someone else cut in & I stepped away.

My brothers. I can’t explain their arrogance & ignorance & judgments. If that is what they have to offer me, I have no room for it in my life anymore.

I’ve been feeling great with yoga & therapy. I started focusing more on myself & what was good for me! I feel more confident, positive, Iighter & better than ever before. Until last night that is. I started feeling some intense anxiety & no matter how many deep breaths I took, or mantras I said, it wouldn’t go away.

I struggled for months about going to this wedding. I finally made a decision to just go to the reception, for 2 hours at the very most. I don’t HAVE to go at all. It’s my choice. But right now, I just feel that 2 hours of stress (not including all the stress leading up to this) will be easier than a life time of blame. Blame is tricky & I haven’t yet mastered that.

So today I plan on going to 2 yoga sessions in a row to prepare for this spiritual battle. I plan to release this stress & find some peace. Then I plan on holding this peace all day long, along with Fletch’s hand, and taking it with me into this stressful situation. I plan to be a spiritual gangster and hold my head high & smile brightly! I can do this!!

Peace, Peace, Peace & Namaste!