Power of the Phoenix

There are some moments that turn your whole world upside down. What was once your reality has now been altered and there is absolutely no going back. We all have these moments and no matter the situation there is no bigger or smaller amount of impact than another. It just is. You can call it whatever you want: change, an alternate course, a new path, a shift. The honest truth is that life just hits you, knocks you down, flattens you, and you are left picking up the pieces; broken, fractured, and shattered as they are.

This has happened in my own life several times. Each time forcing me to ask the same daunting question, do I have what it takes? Can I really get through this!? Jesus, how in the world do I even do this?

In those pivotal moments where my racing arrowed thoughts create chaos within my mind, I have to make a choice. Stay stuck or move on, stay stuck and held down or break free and get stronger.

I must admit that I have not always chosen the later. Sometimes it just is easier to stay stuck, to stay muddled in the chaos and held up within yourself. Yet what good am I that way? What good can I do when I am caught within my own mind, within my body, within my own soul and sorrows? None. None. None. One more time, none.

Life fractures us all in some way. It is inevitable. It is what we do with these fractures, what we do as fractured, broken people that speaks of who we are, that speaks of our character, that speaks of who you are as Authentically You.

You can choose to let those unexpected blips in the perfect plan you created in your mind set you back for the rest of your life. You can let the secrets, you can let the pain, you can let the un-met expectations, let the heart break define the rest of your life. You can let it take you down a road you never wished to be on. You can let it turn you into someone you never wanted to be or you can choose to rise above it. You can choose to have the power of a phoenix. 

You can choose to rise above it by just letting it go.
You can choose to rise above it by forgiving what you thought was unforgivable.
You can choose to rise above it by learning and changing your actions the next time around.
You can choose to rise above it by rejecting the lies and clinging to the truth.

There is a time and a place for every emotion, for anger, for sadness, for sorrow, for doubt, and yet I have learned the hard way just how emotions can become well-loved clothes that you never can quite take off. You can wear a coat of anger and sorrow for years and never know how heavy it is. You can wear a scarf of doubt and mis-trust for so long that you never realize it’s strangling you.

Authenticity calls us to let go. Authenticity calls us to be free from such heavy burdens. Authenticity asks us to rise above our pasts, our blips on the map, our world-altering moments and let them hold a greater purpose by serving someone else, by loving someone else, by reaching out to someone else, and by just getting out of ourselves. You know, our stories will always be our stories, but you must also know that our stories do not have to define what has yet to be written.

-Authentically Me