When we want to quit, instead we can take a break.
What can your break look like?
What can a daily break look like for you, and what is keeping you from getting it?
If you are going through trauma, and most of us are in one way or another, you need a daily break. A funny show. A handful of M&Ms. A walk outside. A nap. Something just for you. Take it; do it. Make sure you haven’t given in to martyr syndrome.
What can a monthly break look like for you? A quarterly one?
You have permission to take breaks and be renewed. Do you believe that?
When we want to stop loving, we can choose to place healthy boundaries.
Who in your life is the hardest to love?
What can you decide in advance to do to no longer respond the same way to their difficulty, their need, their codependency, or their personal problems?
You are allowed to stop feeling bad that you can’t fix them, and that you’re stuck in a cycle with them. You can acknowledge the relationship is not as healthy as you wish it was, and maybe that you don’t know how to get it to a place of health. You can set boundaries and still love. You can see things for how they are and not be “negative”.
What will your boundary be, for your own personal well-being, knowing that no one else’s is your sole responsibility?
When we don’t think we can go on another moment, we have options.
We can rest.
We can stop and breathe and write it out, sing it out, yell it out, whisper it out to God.
We can accept there are no quick fixes and lament as long as we need to.
We can place it in God’s hands and choose to praise Him just for who He is, in a great exchange of our human depth of emotion for His divine download of strength and peace.
In praising Him, we remember Who is in control. We are put in our place and it’s okay to be little. There is joy and simplicity in being little.
When we are small, we realize how appropriate it is to expect less of ourselves…how appropriate it is to take breaks rather than giving up altogether…how appropriate it is to turn course, set new boundaries, think creatively, let go of guilt, stop thinking we are the end all be all for people.
We get to choose our perspective and our responses. There is a beautiful power in that which was given to us by God.
