Spirituality

So I know in the past I have said that I will not talk about religion on this blog, well I'm going to break my own rule today.  At this point I understand if you don't want to read any further, I won't be offended, and I promise in future posts to try and keep the religion and spirituality to a minimum as I have been in previous posts.

For the rest of you though I have a question for you, how can a person undergo a journey into finding themselves and loving who they are without spirituality?  Well you do what I have been trying to do for the past however many years, you go through the motions and hope that one day things will change, something will click, and all of a sudden you will have faith.  (On a side note, I also hoped that this would happen with losing weight for a long time too...it didn't work for that either.)  I recently have begun to explore my own spirituality and faith again, and it's not easy.  The fact is that I am a preacher's kid, a label that many believe instantly means that I know who and what I believe in and would never question anything about my faith.  Well guess what...I'm just as lost as a lot of people are!

Due to the fact that I moved to a new city where I knew no one I knew that I was going to have to put myself out there and be proactive about meeting people and doing things, also not easy things for me.  One way I knew that this might be easier is if I got involved with a place of worship of some form.  As a matter of fact, I told my family I would most likely become active in the "mega church" of the area since they would most likely have people my age attending.  My reasoning had nothing to do with whether or not they shared similar spiritual beliefs to myself.  Well I have been to a lot of places of worship since I've been here, but the fact is that I still just feel like I am going through the motions.  One service though was different, I walked out of the service crying.  For those of you that know me well you know that I am not a very openly emotional person, as a matter of fact it's a flaw of mine but I feel weak one someone sees my emotions and I hate it.  I was caught off guard by this at the service, and made a hasty exit when the service was over.

After a week of thinking about it though, I know that my showing of emotion was a good thing.  Although difficult for me to handle, looking back I know that it meant I felt something in worship for the first time in a long time.  I attended services there again this week, and rather than fighting the emotions I felt through the service and trying to hold them in, I allowed them to happen.  Yup, I cried...openly...in front of people!  I refused to allow myself to think about that fact though, rather to just focus on my feelings, and worship.  You know what?  No one seemed to care that I was crying, no one thought less of me because I was sniffling and wiping my nose with my hand, and smearing the tears away.  (Mental note, keep more tissues in my purse!)  The fact is that everyone was worshiping themselves, focusing on their own emotions, allowing the feelings to just come over them too.  Maybe they weren't sobbing like I was, but everyone was wearing their emotions on their sleeves.

So what does being a blubbering fool in worship have to do with a journey to find oneself?   Well our beliefs form who we are, and when we try and hide those beliefs, or deny those beliefs we are not being true to ourselves.  For so long I just turned off the spiritual part of me.  I ignored the fact that I knew a part of me was needing this, and instead I just decided it was easier to ignore it, push it away, and pretend I didn't need it.  I can change eating habits, exercise habits, and social habits all I want but if I don't look at my spiritual habits I'm not really addressing all of me and I will never feel whole.

I've said it before, this journey has been far from what I thought it would be in the beginning for good and for bad.  I never thought that I would be addressing my spirituality last March.  I mean losing weight and your faith in God really only cross over when you're pushed to do just one more rep and then it's normally not really spirituality we're talking about, lol.  As I've discovered though, you can't address the external without looking at the internal and vice-versa.  My goal is to be a whole, healthy individual, and that means addressing my spirituality just as much as my diet.  I still don't know where I belong here spiritually.  Although I followed my heart to be here in Colorado, when it comes to worship I still tend to be locked up.  I'm going to continue going to services though, I'm going to keep meeting with spiritual leaders, and I know slowly I'm going to begin to open up that part of me again and find where I am supposed to be.  Eventually my whole heart will be exposed again.   =)

Moving Update!

~ My stuff will arrive on Monday!!!!!!  I cannot begin to express how happy this makes me, lol.  Please be thinking about me Monday as many of you know my OCD will be in hyperdrive...as a matter of fact you better think about the movers too, I promise I will try and not kill anyone.

~ Still no job yet, I put in anywhere from 7-10 applications a day, but really only hear back from one or two.  Unfortunately most of what I hear is in the form of a rejection letter.  I'm going to keep trying, but money is super tight so I really do need to find something soon. :-(

~ I got thoroughly lost for the first time the other day! Yay!  Lol.  While trying to find my way around downtown for the first time the other night in an effort to make it to a concert I made my GPS go crazy, and in the process got totally turned around.  Oops!  I obviously made it out, my GPS seems to be back to normal, but I did miss the concert.  Let's hope that that now that I have that over, getting lost will not happen again any time soon.