I have made a major breakthrough at Boundary School. For the past week or so, I was letting some bullies that I had in my world send me into paralysis and control my recovery. I knew that I was "safe" as long as I was at home with Shadow, but the minute that I ventured anywhere outside of our home or online in some social media arenas, I would see the bullies out of the corner of my eye just waiting to jump on me and drag me back down and back to the beginning. I spent an hour with Dr. S the other day practically in tears because of the defeat that I felt from these bullies. But ya know what, I win!
I was hunkered down in my safety dome knowing in my inner soul that what I was creating and doing and achieving was magnificent, although different from what I had been doing, it was magnificent in the terms that it was being created by a TWO TIME STROKE SURVIVOR, a daughter of the King of Kings. That's the part that makes it magnificent. Not because it looks cool, or is hot and trendy, but because I am beating this monster. But then the bullies would start to linger around the edges and the main one, the Demon of Doubt, would start bellowing about how "you ain't done squat....just go back to what you know...ain't nobody got time for this new stuff..." blah, blah, blah...and the tirade would continue until I literally was in a paralyzed state sitting at my desk wondering what I was doing.
Then, Dr. S pointed out that I was using avoidance as a method of coping. I was avoiding showing the new stuff to a lot of people. I was avoiding making hard decisions and announcements to the bulk of my customers. I was avoiding some people because I didn't have the strength to say, "enough is enough. I am tired of your drama." Even though I had stated those decisions and boundaries privately to those in my inner circle. Those in my inner circle were supportive and yet, I still had a hard time saying "no" to those outside of it. Then, I would beat myself up after I had said, "yes" to something that I knew darn good and well that I could not do. I didn't say "yes" to challenge myself, I know if I absolutely HAD to do the task...life and death situation, I could, but at what detriment? I had to let folks know that there were new boundaries. I was living with the Bully of Other's Expectations. I feared that people would expect the same stuff out of me as I had produced previously. But I just can't do that. It's not in my heart to do that. It physically hurts me to do that on some instances. This left me paralyzed a lot recently too.
But then, I spent one night just truly praying about things. Asking God where I needed to go, what I needed to do. Do I close my business for good? Which direction do I go? Remember when I said that I get lost a lot when I'm driving? I get lost a lot no matter what. Even sitting perfectly still, my brain works overtime and now after the damage from two strokes, there are still some roads in my mind that are blocked and I don't realize how to get around them....that if I just go up one more mile and over a smidge, in my brain that I have a clear path to where I need to go.
Finally, yesterday, I woke up feeling physically better than I had felt in the past week, more rested, more alert. And I did the one thing that has held me paralyzed for so long. I announced to the world (or at least my little section of the world) loud and clear, my boundaries for my business. I left no room for self-interpretation (or at least hope I didn't). I left no wiggle room where folks could squeeze in and say, "but you said, xyz so didn't that mean it was okay for me?" It was probably one of the scariest things I've done so far in Boundary School. Because even though I knew that I had my inner circle and I have God on my side and even if every single one of the 2800+ fans that I have on my social media site was to rebel and say, "Well forget you, we're going to play in another sandbox." being a people-pleaser, it was scary to have to say, "no more". But I did it. I outlined the way I was going to proceed from here on out. The boundaries that I am setting.
Only a handful of the 2800 have left to go to another sandbox, and ya know what, I'm okay with that. Because I know that they were the "dirty kids in the pool"...you know what I'm talking about. There are always those kids at the public pool (at least there was when I was growing up) that during the summer, it was as if their mother sent them to the pool to swim instead of taking a bath all summer. When they got in the water it was like the water changed from a crisp, cool blue to a weird yellowish green color (may be that some of them took this opportunity of immersion to also pee, but who knows)...but we were always given "the eye" from the guardian we were with to let us know to stay out of the area of the water that the dirty kids were in for fear of being drowned (these are the same kids that had no idea of how to act in public) by one of the fools or catching some horrid water-borne disease that our guardians didn't know any better about back in the 70s and 80s...
Those folks that have left were the "fit-throwers" and high maintenance beyond the point of stressful...those folks were the ones that I would have to redo orders for 3 or 4 times because the bow just wasn't angled right or the color of purple was just a tad shade more blue than red. Didn't matter that the bow was SUPPOSED to be angled or that the color of purple was what they specifically picked out from my color deck of over several thousand colors. They didn't like it. Re-do it...and by the way, those same folks were the ones that would want a discount and it to be redone with no further compensation. As if it was a huge inconvenience to them to have to wait another minute for you to get it magically fixed. Good riddance and safe travels to them.
My heart is calm now. I feel more at peace. The paralysis has lifted. God has started drawing me a new road map, complete with a color legend and a working compass.
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