Double Dare: What Happened in 2011 Stays in 2011
2011 was not my best year ever. Parts of it were downright brutal. There was one thing in particular making me crazy. I was wasting hours of my life obsessing on a situation I could not change. It was the last thing I thought about going to sleep and the first thing I thought about in the morning.
I decided this is NOT coming with me to 2012. I pulled out a pad of paper and started writing. I told that person everything I wanted to say. I recorded in angry scrawls, that cut through the paper, the complete unfairness of it all. I let tears run the ink and make the paper soggy as I wrote out the hurt and betrayal. I wrote pages and pages for two hours, until every thought and every emotion had run it’s course.
At the end relief. A sense of cleansing. Waters running clear again. And there was another unexpected gift.
By writing and writing whatever came up, once my pissed off 5 year old tantruming about the injustice had worn herself out, a voice of wisdom emerged.
My situation in 2011 was simply my rock bottom of a pattern that had been a disservice to me for years. I found myself chronicling event after event where I had set aside my well-being to make sure someone else didn’t have their feelings hurt. Again and again, the pattern repeated. Had I listened to my instinct. Had I trusted myself. Had I believed being loved is a right we are born with, not something that has to be earned. I never would have been in those situations.
Bright yellow flames leaped up from the pages when I put the match to them. As the burn slowed I watched the embers move through paper. The words were still visible on the ashes until a touch of the poker sent them tumbling through the grate. And so, what happened in 2011 stays in 2011.
The next morning when I woke up instead of writing futile letters in my head I found myself thinking about how to reach my goal of 100 speaking engagements in 2012.
That’s the beauty of hitting rock bottom. If you don’t chose to give up and just lie there your next move is the bounce back.
What are YOU leaving in 2011?
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Filed Under: Choose Your Reality • Double Dare
You bare your soul. I love that. Why? Because I do it too! Thanks for sharing. So many of us have gone through life’s frustrations, but never had the courage to deal with the issues and move forward. Congratulations. And now, on to a fantastic 2012!