It poured this week. And when I say poured, I mean it did so both literally and figuratively. We've been submersed in record breaking rain and in life I was handed so much to handle that I finally broke down and did something that is the hardest of all things for me to do, ask for help.
And that's were the sublime comes in. One of my limiting beliefs is that if I require anything from those whom I love, if I deign to be my true, authentic self, I will be thrown away. Perhaps that sounds silly, but experiential evidence has shaped me to believe that falsehood.
Instead, I tend to play the role of the ever-amiable, always-acquiescing to every request helper who picks up the slack while everyone else goes about the business of being themselves. It's a terrible liar state that I've allowed myself to stay in over the years, even after I attained my freedom.
Anyone who has done (or still is doing) the work to defeat the habits that present themselves as the offspring of limiting beliefs knows that overcoming conditioning whether it was externally or internally imposed is a life-long, continual effort. But let me just state it right here for anyone who's reading this, the work to learn, the work to grow is always worth it. Yes, there will be discomfort, but it's a glorious pain that yields the greatest thing of all, you serving this world through the magnificent act of just being authentically you.
Which brings me back to me breaking down and asking for help. My hubs has been helping some dear friends on a pretty hush hush major project. He's been out of the state doing so, not terribly far away, but far enough that I have been handling everything solo. Now, I am more than capable enough to handle things, the problem is that our family does A LOT of stuff, from volunteer work, to running a farm, to the kids are both very actively involved in a lot of things, etc., and we didn't organize our schedule/to dos, etc., in a way that only one parent could handle if one left, especially since that one parent who stayed behind also works full time.
So what was happening is that I was running myself into the ground trying to do it all without acknowledging that the all was a schedule of things designed around two adults and two capable teenagers tending to it at the bare minimum. Every day I would get up and hit the ground running, telling myself that I could do it, because I wanted my hubs to be able to do his thing and the kids to do all their things.
Here's the thing though, it was hurting me and I was in denial about it.
So, after finally breaking down and admitting that I truly did need some assistance, I messaged my husband. Also, I wasn't all rational and logical when I did this, I was truly a wreck. Here's the thing about helper/giver personalities, we truly don't consider the fact that we might not be able to do that which helps those we love without harming ourselves. It doesn't even occur to us when someone we love asks us to do something that we might not be able to handle it. We are happy when those we love are happy. By the time we crash and burn from being dolts, damage has probably been done, and it's usually to us. The problem is that we have to learn that we have needs too, and it is absolutely okay to ask for help or to not want to do things.
Talk about a hard lesson to learn.
And then came the sublime part. My husband literally dropped what he was doing and was home in a few hours. He swept in like a knight in shining armor and lessened my burden. The amount of gratitude I feel towards him cannot even be properly expressed with any amount of words. I feel so loved.
Which brings me to today, A Sublime Sunday of glorious contentedness. As I finished my daily walk I meandered over to our finally blooming lilac bush to take in its soggy, yet still fragrant blooms. All the deluges Life has thrown at it has not stopped that marvelous flower from blooming, from exploding into its show of life, and I feel that's a perfect representation of my experience this week as well. The rain did fall but I endured, shook off the soak, and bloomed out in the most sublime way, displaying the glory of my growth after the storm.
A sublime thing indeed...
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's rather soggy and thankfully not stuck in some random bog iPhone.