This moment…

I am finding something really fascinating at this moment.

I have always been one who believes things happen for reasons and sometimes we don't understand why until later, but this week in World Religions we studied Tao and their primary text Tao Te Ching. Tao literally translates to "way" or "path" and this is what Tao is all about, one's way or path. There are three specific meanings that go along with Tao, first, ultimate reality; second, way of the universe, ultimately transcendent, interconnectedness; third, way of human life when it meshes with the Tao of the universe. Basically because the Tao is ultimate reality it cannot be perceived or clearly conceived because it is too vast for human rationality to fathom. Because it is the way of the universe, it is the norm, the rhythm, driving power in all nature, and the ordering principle behind all life. Finally, it becomes way of human life because one is interconnected with the universe. (Huston Smith, The World Religions, pgs. 198-199)

I gave this background to come around to say I believe currently that because I am living with this principle (though did not realize it 100%) things that are currently happening in my life make so much sense.

Understand I am working on finding principles of different religions that I believe are valuable and finding a way to accept my God for who they are and living the best possible life…I do not know if this means that I will be taking several principles or if I will be finding a religion that I feel is right…that too is a part of my journey.

Let's take a moment a do some background information, so maybe there will be an understanding as to where I am coming from:

I am 29, soon to be 30, college graduate as of December 2009, married to an incredible woman named Laura, know there is a Higher Power (will explain more later), who has come to a fork in the road and has decided it is time to begin a true soul searching journey in my heart to understand why I am the way I am and to understand where things stem from.

The journey that began for me was I begin to experience incredible amounts of anger, unexplainable anger, and felt very out of control and knew it was time to face this and find out why everything was coming out in anger. I made the step and entered into counseling (not my first time at this rodeo, but I truly believe this is now the right time) and ended up with an incredible counselor who has already been able to find my triggers, understands my body language, understands how to provoke me (she is in my face and very confrontational, exactly what I need even though I hate it) and within the first session I learned things are coming out as anger because I have never truly allowed myself to grieve or feel the emotions of my childhood. I come from an incredibly abusive home; my father is an alcoholic, child sex offender, aggressive, hateful, sorry excuse for a man. I blew my counselor away when she asked me to share some of my story from the beginning and I very matter of factly and simply told her I was sexually abused, physically abused, and emotionally abused from the time I was incredibly young until my mother found the courage to leave when I was 8. She looked at me and said, "Why are you not angry about this, but angry about everything else? Should you not be angry about this and not accept this as an everyday fact? People do not deserve to be abused; people do not ask to be abused, etc." Duh, I am angry about all of these other things because I am so angry about what he has done that I have now accepted it as an everyday fact of my life. She looked at me and said, "get angry, get mad, cry, scream, do whatever you need to do to grieve that little girl." You know what is sad; I have to give myself permission to grieve…why? Because I discovered I have allowed my father to be my master and I am still living the way that he programmed me and trained me as a young girl.

That was the first part of this new journey, the second part of my journey is discovering what I am supposed to be doing for graduate school work. I have known that from the moment I was working on my undergrad that I would go on to get my graduate degree, but I had no idea as to what the path would be. I accepted the fact that I would take this semester off and research what my road might be. Low and behold right after I began the journey of counseling for my own voice, heart, mind, and soul; the graduate program I am supposed to enter appeared. I found a Master of Science in Social Work at UTA with an emphasis on Community and Administrative Practice and I found that they have a program that I can do all of my hours in a legislative field to learn advocacy and policy making. That means I am giving a voice to those who currently do not have a voice, but deserve to be heard.

How does this come into play with Tao and interconnectedness? I am finding my own voice to pass it on to those who need to be heard, but are currently being held silent. I became angry, facing why I am angry, finding a voice and giving it permission to be heard, to giving others a voice and finding ways to give them protection that they may not have had.

The other path this has lead me on is following some other passions and stepping forward to actually do some things that I have wanted to do for years, but keep putting them off. I am about to begin training to volunteer at a Woman's Shelter and also to become a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children who are being abused and neglected.

One final thing: it was reiterated to me in counseling that for the last 30 years I have been dog paddling, when I got tired I rolled over and floated; now it is time to swim, take long strokes, and find the shore. I am currently working on coming up with an acronym for SWIM that fits me, because we all have to find a way to SWIM. Swimming for me means not carrying anyone else, putting myself before others in a healthy manner, and taking responsibility for myself and my actions, but not very everyone else's around me.