Dear Friend,
Welcome! This blog/website is for everyone and anyone, and I am happy you are here!
I call you friend because you and I are both on this journey called life.
That is a fantastic starting point for any conversation we may have! Speaking of conversation, I have an important question to ask you as a conversation starter.
What defines who you are?
As you and I both ponder that question, some of my thoughts on that are below.
We all hold different roles in our lives. Depending on our life stage it may be our position on a job, being home full time raising our children, being a student, or retired from the workforce.
In personal life we hold familial roles such a being a daughter, son, wife, husband, mother, father, and so on. We may have authority over others in some of these roles. We all have some accomplishments, skills, hobbies, connections with other people through a variety of ways. All contribute to giving our life meaning, purpose, and identity.
As all these listed above contribute to giving our life
meaning, purpose, and identity,
that leads me to another conversational question.
What would happen to you, and in you, if you lost any of these things,
or if any were taken from you?
In this current time, spring 2020, that question has even more relevance in our conversations considering what we are all facing in our country and in our world.
I used to define myself and my existence, my life, my purpose, by the roles I had, my job, my abilities. I was fortunate because none of these were ever taken from me nor did I lose them. However they did change depending on the season and stage of life I was in.
Regardless, there was a part of me that felt purposeless and drifting even while firmly and actively engaged in the roles I held as a daughter, student, friend, employee, wife, mom. I was defined by what I did, and how well I did it. My life from young on was a relentless cycle of trying to live up to expectations (whether others or my own; whether real or imagined), perfectionism, and the crushing agony of never being “enough”, whatever “enough” was.
Have you ever experienced that?
We can certainly enjoy life, be successful, be looked up to by others, be moral and honest, be kind and loving and generous to others, or even be outwardly religious and yet, be missing an absolutely critical component to life, our identity, and our future.
For a very long time (37 years of my current 53 years of life) I definitely was missing that critical piece. However, I just as definitely did not recognize that I was missing anything, nor would I have recognized it had someone clearly pointed it out to me. I simply did not see it, yet.
And then, something changed. March 2004, 37 years 4 months old. It was the beginning of the end. The end of myself. Radical, life-giving, eternally impacting change. I saw what that missing critical component was. It changed everything. Forever. The enormity and beauty of this is larger than anything one can even imagine. This blog/website exists to help explain it. Let us start in the most logical place, at the beginning.
You have an open door. All are welcome. Please, come on in!
With love,
Diane
