Sweet Sorrow: Battles and Breakthroughs

OK you guys – I am having the worst travel karma this year!! Not sure what is going on but it’s been brutal. Could have something to do with the fact that all of my flights have been on United?! Not blaming them (well, kind of am), just saying they are the common denominator. I am sitting at the airport, going on my 2nd delay of the day; what was originally supposed to be a 5 hour travel day is now turning into another 12 hour travel day. Sigh!

Battle: Airports! Breakthroughs: Time to write my blog post!

I was originally thinking I was going to write the next ‘mini-series’ of Sweet Sorrow on betrayal, but honestly, I just wasn’t really feeling it. Now that I have 3 additional hours to really think/type this out, I realized that writing on betrayal would be forced and not authentic. While I have lots to say about the topic, it just isn’t the time. So as I sit here in my ultra-comfortable airport seat, staring at my computer screen and eating my gluten free crackers (doing a cleanse! Traveling is that much more painful when you can’t eat much of anything), I decided that it is time to wrap up this series for a bit and end it with battles and breakthroughs.

I wanted to write around this topic of Sweet Sorrow, as a way to illustrate that life can just downright suck sometimes (or sometimes a lot of time). The journey can be tiresome, burdensome, difficult, etc. And no one is immune to it! We all have chapters in our lives that are full of battles, and other chapters that are full of breakthroughs. Life is about balancing both and trying to find the breakthroughs during the battles.; trying to find the sweetness in the sorrow. 

I’m not a people person in the sense that I like being around a lot of people all of the time; I am a people person in the sense that I like getting to know people on a much more intimate, quiet, deeper level. The reason for that is because 1. I shut down in large groups and have sensory overload and 2. I love learning about people’s stories and their journeys. We all have one! A story as unique to us as our fingerprints! And more often than not, what draws people into our stories - or what we relate to the most with other people's stories - are their battles, The trials and triumph they went through, most of the time never aware on the surface of what people have gone through in their life.

So what do we do with the cards that are dealt to us? What do we do in moments of hardship, sorrow, betrayal? What I am learning is that we pay attention during the moments we are in battle, that we hunker down for the storm and stay calm. Alternatively, during the moments of breakthroughs we learn to be thankful, to take time to stop and appreciate the moment and to use the breakthrough moments to get us through the battles.

Just some of the flowers along the freeway on my way home from work

I am reminded of this daily right now as I drive around So. Cal. This season has been a wet one! We have had so much rain, all of which has been desperately needed. While traffic has been a nightmare (the stereotypes are true, we can’t drive in the rain), the brightside is that I can now take a shower longer than 3 minutes and not worry that my water company is going to send me a fine for using too much water! The rain has brought some battles of its own; leaking roofs, flooded roads, potholes (EVERYWHERE), etc. But it has also brought life and growth! It looks like Kuaui or Scotland; the hills are so green and dancing with artistic displays of wildflowers everywhere. It has been a few years since mother earth has had some relief and able to show off its beauty. While we have been enjoying years of sunshine and near perfect temperatures, the ground has been hunkering down, trying to get through these seasons of no rain.

It is no secret that there are no flowers without RAIN and SUNSHINE. They need both to grow and evolve into the perfect creations they were destined to become. Our lives are the same. We need the battles and breakthroughs to become the people we are destined to become. But it takes ownership, recognition, stillness, and fortitude to grow into our most authentic self. It takes the ability to be able to learn the lessons during the battles, and to appreciate and rejoice in the breakthroughs. We have to be willing to walk through the difficult times with an open mind, an open heart and open arms – and we have to be purposeful to walk through the happy times with a thoughtful mind, a giving heart, and embracing arms. When we can learn to look at the moments that challenge us, bring us to our knees, or sometimes downright break us – as moments that can be used to help ourselves and others – then it makes seeing the light at the end of the tunnel a little easier.

That is what I have wanted to get across around this topic of sweet sorrow. To try to remember to rejoice in the trials and tribulations of life! It’s those moments, the moments we are getting flooded with rain that will allow us to blossom and bloom in the sunshine. It isn’t easy, this I know. I still struggle with remembering to find the positive in every day battles; so much so that I have a daily gratitude journal I write in every night before going to bed. To help me to find three things a day that I am grateful for, to help train my thoughts to search for the breakthroughs and not just focus on the battles. Sometimes I could write 100 things I’m thankful for, other times the only thing I can come up with is being thankful for my bed.

Sweet sorrow is about remembering to be joyful in the midst of sorrow. It’s a choice how we see the rain. We can choose to see nothing but cold, wet, dreariness – or we can choose to remember that the sun is just on the other side of the clouds, waiting to use the rain to transform us into something amazing. Each of our battles different and unique; just as each of us is as different and unique as all the flowers on this earth.

http://strangesounds.org/2017/03/38california-desert-super-bloom-california-2017-pictures.html

To each of you, I hope that these posts have been able to resonate on some level with you and your life?! That is my purpose, to use my story and my journey to help others along their journey. Life can be freaking difficult, but don’t be defeated. We are in this together!

Wish me luck on the rest of my journey! If my flight is delayed again my next post is going to be about how full of crap I was in saying that we should try to find the good in everything. LOL!

<3,

Kristin