Preparing For Disappointment....The Sky Is Falling Chicken Little

I was talking to Lady Mentor yesterday and I was able to share with her this huge Ball 'O Fear that I have been carrying around lately. I am not just talking about your everyday kind of fear. I am talking about the kind of fear that clouds everything in view. The kind of fear that taints the world. It is a free floating anxiety. In every area across every spectrum in my life. No cause that is in front of me that I can see and not an effect of something that exists. Just fear.

I couldn't wait to get to Lady Mentors office....I just needed safe and she is safe. As soon as I sat down I burst into tears. I was safe and I had to give away what was inside tormenting me. I was just scared.

We tried to nail down where it was coming from. What area is creating this fear?

As it turned out there isn't an area of my life that isn't filled with fear.

I try so hard to be strong. I try so hard to not react to the feelings inside. I try so hard to take the thoughts captive and surrender them. But there is no capturing these thoughts. I present myself as strong. I present myself as a survivor. I never lean on anyone. I have never been able to. So I suck it up....stuff my guts back inside and move on. Step by torturous step. Knowing that my kids are counting on me. Knowing that I am all they have. And I always feel like I am not enough. I am almost empty.

Someone asked me the other day "when was the last time you could RELY on someone??" and ya know for the life of me I couldn't remember a time when I ever could rely on anyone but me. I couldn't rely on my parents. My spouse. My boyfriends. My kids. My church. My pastor. The only thing that I have ever really relied on other than God was ME. And let me tell you....that is a pretty scary thought. To go thru life without being able to count on anyone other than me. I have felt all my life like I was alone. Alone carrying the weight of the world.

Getting back to Lady Mentor..... She said something to me that was one of the biggest truths I have ever heard spoken over me. Ya see I can discern and prophetically speak over others but myself?? No way. But when I hear God speak thru someone TO me I know it is for me. And here is what she said.....

"You Prepare For Disappointment"

And so I received that word spoken over me. Processed it all night. Cried several hours over it. I am now feeling it to my bones. At the very center of who I am. How is it that I can live my life preparing for disappointment? Where did it come from? There are so many lines to trace back. So many "tapes" to unwind with this one. I know that if I expect to be disappointed..then I am not completely caught off guard when the disappointment comes. It doesn't hurt as much. I doesn't cut as deep. I am not nearly destroyed as I would be if I had not expected it. But the question that I am wrestling with right now is this: IF I am preparing for the disappointment then am I setting myself up for failure? Do I have a natural propensity to expect failure of me and others? Am I just waiting to be hurt? Left behind? Abandoned? Tossed out? Thrown away?

But the one part of this that is most profound about the chewing of this truth is that I realized that if I am preparing for disappointment...then I am not truly living in today. Then I am anticipating failure. MY failure. My demise. I am trying to prevent pain and disappointment from touching me and my kids but as a result of that I am kind of shutting off and out some major stuff I think. I am not sure about this....but I believe that is how this is working in my life right now.

I am not enjoying the journey if I am in a constant state of hypervigilence. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Processing that thought was difficult in a one hour time span with Lady Mentor. But we were able to nail down quite a few things in my life that are spinning out of MY control that would induce and propel this anxiety and fear of disappointment.....such as:

My finances and the potential for a layoff.

My relationship with my kids and did I do everything that I could to prepare them for life?

Child Support and the fact that the Absent Father is $24K behind.

Kids graduating high school this year and will they make it and THEN what?

My goal to go to nursing school, how will I pay for it? Will I be able to handle the schedule?

Will I always be single and alone?

What is to become of me????

The sky is falling Chicken Little.....