Waking Up To Your Realest Life

 They don't tell you that waking up can be so hard. They always say that to awaken to the life you were meant for is to find something awe-inspiringly wonderful but they don't let you know that it will come with such pain. They don't give you a warning ahead of time - you just find that, one day, there you are. And you surprised: surprised by the prospect of a new beginning yet grieved at what you'll have to leave behind. You are hopeful: looking ahead and opening your heart to the reality that there is another way but also dying at the same time to a version of yourself and your life that you know you'll never see again. It is equally the most agonizing yet amazing journey you can ever embark on. And somehow, holding both feelings at once is the heaviest...  

Maybe I expected something different when I went through such times myself and it deepened my suffering in ways I could've perhaps avoided if I'd prepared myself accordingly. But the fact is, you aren't really prepared to wake up so violently. You don't imagine it's going to cost you so much: relationships, money, time, energy, locale, community. It is an uprooting that you sense, deep in your soul, is unavoidable but no less gut wrenching. You find yourself less understood, less able to converse with others, less in touch with current events yet seeing humanity with the most clarity you ever have, less connected to the demands of society yet more in touch with the inner call of God. It is the strangest paradox to ever live through: that knowing that this pivotal point is the place of both taking the hand of God and letting go of the expectations of everyone else at the same time. 

It's a harsh reality to confront when you suddenly begin to see that you've been living a life you settled for instead of the one you were made for. Somewhere along the way, the invaluable qualities that you were born with were sacrificed on the altar of human ambition, selfishness, and control and the voices became louder that told you a certain picture of the "good life" was the only one there is. Gradually, that inner guidance you came into the world with became silenced... one little move at a time... until you were left with a shell of the person you once were. You chose to settle and accept everyone else's definition of reality rather than question the fantasy and, if you dared to do so at any point, you were called crazy and reality flipped on you once again. 

The day that you start to see through the mirage and finally look at the proverbial elephant in the room is the day that a simultaneous death and rebirth occur: the death of your connections as you've known them, the death of your past priorities, the death of your old habits, the death of your generational curses and toxic family cycles and the parallel rebirth of that person that was you, imagined in Heaven for such a time as this and for more than what you've been accepting. You feel like the bubble that's been your daily motion for most of your life has popped and a bewildering combination of opportunity and heartache collide in one powerful point in time. 

See, they don't tell you that you'll miss the old life for awhile - even if you know now that it hurt you beyond words and was worth bidding goodbye to. It's what you knew and you sometimes question if the choice to leave was worth it. They don't tell you that you'll struggle for a season to figure out what reality looks like on the other side. They don't tell you that you'll cry a lot, be depressed, feel alone and out of place while also carrying this indescribable peace and contentment that keeps calling further into healing and the life you know you want more than all this disfunction and pain. They don't tell you you'll endure false accusations and guilt trips as those you distanced from try to reel you back to a place where they can relate to the person they knew, not the person you are turning into today. 

But what you find is that the more brave steps you take, the more courage you gain. The more moments you keep looking up, the more strength you find. The more you lean into this new way of being, the more the old way starts to slowly become less appealing. The changes become more normalized. A life where your nervous system isn't constantly on fire starts to feel regular. You breathe deeper. You sleep better. You find people who help you feel safe instead of controlled and threatened. You create a world around you where grace is at the center. You accept the things you cannot change and change whatever little things you can. You allow others to find their own way and instead, focus merely on yourself. 

Like the slow process of a seed finding it's way to the surface, you push upward every day, moving through the dark into the light, discovering along the way just how much you are loved and wanted by the One who destined you to be alive right now for a purpose He planned before time began. It is staggeringly beautiful even as you see the mess that's left behind. This will be slow. Take time. Perhaps a long time. But it will be good. And you will be held all the way through. You are waking up, and that is a holy thing.