Life Happens

[SimplySheri]

~~For some reason it's always when you least expect it, sweet soul.  It all comes together at the most unexpected times.  So you might as well....You might as well let go, trust and go with the current...because you'll warmly look back (when it's all come together) one day and think why you didn't.  Open up your clenched fist around life.  Let it breathe.  Let your life breathe.  Let life breathe in you.  Let yourself breathe in life.  It will bring about everything you need.  Life has a funny way of doing that, just not in the way we image.~~  S.C. Lourie

Life's been incredibly busy for me lately.  In between the visitation center and teaching GED classes, my children have been going through life and need my support.  Now, I used to think that I'm overwhelmed.  I used to feel stressed.  I might even complain that I have no time for myself.  I might have even...gasp....smoked my way into righteous indignation.  Like "I need this cigarette because my world is chaotic".

Can you imagine????  How silly of me!!!  Life is chaotic.  Life is messy.  Life is exhilarating and funny and challenging and continuous.  Of course it is.  But the best part of life?

It happens.  Life happens.  You can't control it...although you may think you need to.  You may try to hide from it...through addictions such as smoking...but life will find you.  You may even try to bargain with it..."if I quit smoking, I will need peace for a while".  Life doesn't work like that.  It just happens.

Once I figured out that life will happen no matter how I feel about it or what I think about it, I began to just...let it happen.  Life is busy?  Ok.  Life is sad?  Ok.  Life is challenging?  Ok.  It is what it is and I can respond, react, feel, think whatever I want to.  Life will happen anyway....so why not just let it be?

I let life happen now.  It just feels...right.  If my life is busy...well, I am just busy.  It doesn't mean I don't have time to myself.  I make the time for yoga or for a friend or for a hug.  If life is challenging, I rise to the occasion. I may make a mistake...but it's a learning opportunity, it's not a life sentence of regret.  I find that I can get through those challenges and I can get through the hurts and I can get through the obstacles.  Stress?  Stress is self-made and I refuse to make it anymore.  When I find my stress level rising, I think about why and simply breathe through it and let go.

Smoking for me was an addiction started by my desire to find acceptance as a teenager and then carried on through my adult life part out of simple habit and part out of a desire to mask my emotions.  Quitting was tough in that I had to learn it's ok to have those emotions....positives and negatives.  And the more I learned about me, the more I learned about life.  Its gonna happen.  And thank God for that, right?!!  Allow it to breathe and allow yourself the opportunity to just let go and allow life to have you.  It does anyway.

Enjoy today...it will never happen again