Denial is not an Action Plan
You can't always choose what happens to you. Sometimes you can choose how you act in response to what happens, but you can't choose what is happening. A common place to get stuck is in denial, and denial itself is debilitating.
Usually, denial is telling us something significant that we should sit with and probably have big feelings about: "I didn't want this to happen." This is a big deal, and we can't skip over this place to get to decision-making. We need to sit in it. It is grief, and mourning is often a requirement. Whatever is happening, we are grieving the loss of what could have been. Whether there is truth in the could, or whether it is simply a different reality in our own mind doesn't matter. The loss is very real.
But denial is not an action plan. We process denial so that we can take steps forward in response to what is happening in our lives. No matter how small, these steps are significant. It is all too easy to embrace denial as a lifestyle and remain stuck in anger/regret/guilt, justifying this vantage point with repressed grief. It is ironic to me that when we try to rush the process, we actually remain stuck. The quicksand is the elusive "but this wasn't supposed to be."
And to that, gentle reader, I say, but this is what is. We can laugh about it, cry about it, be angry about it, and maybe there is a call to some action here. But God is mysterious. Sometimes the only two roads forward are acceptance or denial. When we choose the path of acceptance, though it may look barren at first, the journey continues to landscapes beyond our imagination.
~c
This Week’s Reflection
“You can’t understand how an oak tree grows out of an acorn. Why would you understand God?”
Featured Photo by Violet
"Have you ever noticed that the dumber an animal is the happier it is?" Violet said to me the other day in the car. "Sometimes I spend time with the goats just to remember to enjoy what is going on rather than think."
A lot could be said about this observation, but a simplified version is this: sometimes our brain is our greatest asset, and sometimes our ability to think and replay a situation is the only thing keeping us from enjoyment.
This is Fern. He enjoys eating, breaking fences, and convincing people to pet him, unless he has broken out of the fence. In that case, he loves a good game of tag.