Changing Filters

The two-year mark was a force to be reckoned with in my mind.  Oh my ... well ... it's been *two years*, "I should" be doing better than I am.  "I should" have things more figured out, right?  Filters.  I need to explain them before I move on.  They are the emotional screens we use to take in information.  So for instance, if I have been wounded by a girlfriend in the past, every girl that gets close to me emotionally, the information I feed through my filter is that I've been wounded once by a girl and dot, dot, dot ... that filter twists around my thought process.  Because now instead of seeing a girl that could potentially be a great friend, I see a girl that may hurt me.  Part of my counseling experience has been learning to "unclog" the unhealthy filters I have in my life.  So if I am aware of that filter and my emotional response, it helps my mind logic its way out of the twisted.  

I had a counseling appointment two weeks ago where my counselor made an observation about my thought process since Max died.  Every *thing* around me and in my head has to go through a "grief" filter.  And that grief filter?  It's the size of a giant car tire that I carry around in my gut.   It's giant.  At first, even important things didn't make it through that filter, like paying bills (who cares if the bills are paid, Max is dead).  But slowly, I've learned that in spite of my monumental loss, it's still important to pay my bills.  But I'm still filtering far too many things through that grief filter, but more now on a search for purpose and meaning.   For instance, I took an extended leave of absence from my career to grieve and take care of myself. So I now look at an activity and think "does it help me grieve or does it help me take care of myself in some way related to grieving"?  If not, then I mentally reject it.  (Hence the suggestion to find something FUN to do in a day that has no purpose a couple of weeks ago if you follow my status updates.)  My filter is SEVERELY clogged since Max died with GRIEF.  She suggested I try to move that giant car tire circle I carry around as my filter from 'grief' to 'life'.  She said to think of it as a circle of sunshine, where grief is a ray ... she is not trying to take it away from me, I get to keep it in every way possible, but it doesn't get to be at the center any more .... "life" is at the center,  "grief" is a strand from "life".  (Easier to see as a visual, sorry I can't draw in some way on my blog).

And I have been so unbelievably STUCK since she gave me this as homework.  To draw out my two circles and figure out what using a "life" filter with "grief" attached to it would look like, what ELSE do I want to let in through my "life" filter?  I have ABSOLUTELY NO FREAKIN' IDEA what I want to put in my life now.  I have no clue.  None.  Nada.  I wasn't avoiding it, I just really did not know what "life" should look like now that my oldest son has been ripped out of it.   Truly I was clueless, lost.  And then I woke up at 2 in the morning and thought about 'The Birdhouse Project' and what I wrote on my foundation piece.  What is there - what do I carry inside of me that nobody and nothing can take away?  I actually had to go back and read my blog about it to see.  I wrote - "my relationship with God, my belief in eternal life through Jesus, my grit & determination, my organizational skills, and music".    So that seems a decent place to start, right?   Something else my counselor said MONTHS ago hit me after I was staring at my 'foundation' ... she had identified a core value I didn't even know I had.  A core value that relates to loss.  So there's another place to dig - core values. 

Why am I up writing this at 2 in the morning?  Because I finally see a way to find some answers to my homework assignment using my foundation and my core values!  Inspiration comes at the strangest most inconvenient times!  I am now excited about my counseling appointment instead of dreading it because I had no idea what to do.  I don't have the answers yet, what will and won't make it through my 'life' filter, but thankfully God shined a big spotlight on the starting point and I can now take the first step.  That's the most important step of all, wouldn't you say?  Because it makes all other steps possible!