What creating a few empty hangers did for me (inspiration)

I always hesitate posting topics like this whenever they hit a little too close to home. However I think this may be important for some of you, so I'll risk it and jump off the deep end... :)

Truncated post: click to read more below

It doesn't matter what kind of car you drive or house you live in. What your marital status is, or how many kids you do or don't have. Or even what kind of job you work at. We all have stuff we have to work through to make life tick.

My own 'stuff' at the moment is a little over the top for what is comfortably manageable. And the result of that is generally chaos in some given way. Don't you agree?

There's no need to 'worry about me', I'm just attempting to prove I'm like anyone else.

So here's what happens to me.

Some days I'm running in so many directions I forget which one is most important. So I grasp. I do whatever I can whenever I can and generally fall short because I'm preoccupied with what's next. So everything I tackle is about half baked.

At times I'll take a short hiatus from all things that ail me, but if I do that for too long, the walls can come tumbling down pretty quick. Running away never seems to solve much.

So what's one to do?

What do you think it means when every message delivered in church appears to be pointing directly at you? I either feel incredibly needy or unbelievably lucky. :) Today's message was about working through the bad which can ultimately free you. Which really means, walking towards the pain in order to be pain free.

Hmmm... truer words have never been spoken. I know well what it's like to hit bottom wondering if you'll ever come up for air again. But I also know, every time that's happened, I've always come out even better than before. The trick has been to deal with the issue head on.

Here's another take. Life is built in a series of valleys. Each valley holds a valuable lesson. And with each lesson learned, it enables us to climb a little higher than where we were.

The hard part is being stuck in a difficult valley. But it's all workable. You just have to find the root of the problem, pick a path and work through it.

So today after church and a short chat with my pastor (thank-you!!),  I tuned into one valley that was bothering me. Once I got home I visited dusty corners and closets and ended up filling 7 garbage bags thrift store bound. :)

It was just a small move. But know what happened? I started to climb. I could have run for the covers and moped about all things that ailed me but being proactive made things feel more manageable and the one valley just that much more shallow.

Here's one little trick I find myself doing when things are out of control....  try cleaning out one drawer. Seriously. Don't plan it, just do it. Dinner will hold for 5 more minutes.  And next time your stress level hits a 10, go look at that drawer and allow it to be a reminder you CAN manage your current valley in the smallest of steps.

Being proactive is really, really hard when your spirit is in a difficult place. But the sooner you start your hike up, the sooner you'll be enjoying the view from on top.

I have lots of valleys and big decisions ahead of me and aim to step out of my comfort zone many times in order to work through them. I'm just glad I'm not doing them alone.

How about you? Care to go for a walk?

Lots more inspiration posts can be found HERE.

Here are a couple of other stories on how I jumped some major hurdles:

All about me: a story of Hope.

Summer Changes.