Sorting once again …

It seems as though I have struggled more than usual this past year.  It might surprise a lot of you to know that I have to work hard on maintaining a connection to my Higher Power.  It has always been like this.  Even as a child I lived with doubt about my future safety.  When I discovered that writing gave me a sense of the presence of God, writing became far more than just an outlet for me.  It became my profession.  And 29 books later, it is still like my security blanket.

Our family wasn’t religious.  Although I did go to Sunday School occasionally, we were not a family that talked about God or said grace before meals except on very special holidays when my uncle was present.  He was generally asked to say grace and as long as he wasn’t too tipsy, he’d wax eloquent about the blessings we didn’t deserve but had received any way.

I really didn’t know that families were ever much different from mine.  When new neighbors moved in who were Catholic, however, I decided that that religion was for me.  Patty, the daughter who was close to my age, gave me a rosary and I pretended to say it along with her.  It felt really special.  My mom said I could become a Catholic when I grew up if I wanted to.  That settled me down.  Oddly enough, I did convert before I married my second husband and then we were not married in the church any way, nor have we ever practiced Catholicism.

But back to the point of this post. I have been feeling a bit disconnected more than usual over the summer and getting the puppy seemed to exacerbate my “disconnection.”  However, I had a long talk with one of Joe’s sisters, (he has seven), over the weekend.  She has been a practicing therapist for many years and I got some clarity about a number of issues that have tailed me for years.  I am happy to say I am feeling far better since our talk than I have felt for the last few months.  Hallelujah.

The upshot of what I learned is that I have carried around my mother’s incessant worry and my father’s fear for decades.  And because of trying to manage both of those responses to my surroundings, I have over controlled, or attempted to, nearly every situation and person in my life.  My control is pretty subtle most of the time, and I have been good at hiding my fear and worry, but it has been present, nonetheless.  The result has been a disconnect from the source of all security, my Higher Power and the Present Moment.

I realize that just coming to understand what has haunted me for so long doesn’t necessarily “cure” the ill, but I do know that choosing to stay in the moment is a way to circumvent the old patterns.  And I intend to make that a practice, a serious practice, from this moment on.  Care to join me?