As I sit down to work on a project with an important deadline, I am beset with revisiting the website I just “completed.” What is it about the way I think or believe that makes me feel like nothing I do is ever complete? Is it perfectionism? Is it that I know that there is no real end, that everything in life is a work in progress?
Right now I feel compelled to write creatively instead of structuring a business plan I’m supposed to be working on. The thing about getting to be my age (let’s just say I’ve seen 70 plus years) is that I hate that I feel I need to answer to anyone, and that anyone else has the ability to dictate how I spend my time, energy, and money. This is a false belief.
Have I always been rebellious? When I look back at my child self, I recall trying to hide from my mother by running back and forth around our house as she called me to come inside. I had enjoyed a fanciful afternoon swinging on our swing set — daydreaming about what might be beyond the clouds and marveling at how they appeared so majestic. My inner self resisted the urge to go inside the house that felt like a prison. As mother stood at the back door, her voice becoming increasingly insistent, it occurred to me that it was probably a good idea to comply instead of facing her wrath.
This rebel streak is still in me. No amount of “good daughter, good student, good girl, good wife, good mother” programming has been able to keep me from following my basic survival instincts. Thank God.
This means being misunderstood, criticized, judged, and ostracized by some family members who don’t see what I see — the dysfunction, the darkness within the family line. They didn’t experience what I experienced. I was nicknamed "Little Lulu" for my middle name, Lucia, and the "always in and out of trouble, but mostly always in" label from that cartoon came with the name.
For me, the parental control was enormous — the expectations and DEMANDs to comply — or else. My siblings and adult children don’t feel all of this empathically like I do. The hooks and cords — the petty jealousies and backstabbing. I just want to be me, to follow my heart and share my life with love and goodness. Call me naive, but it that innocent part of me that believes this is possible is still alive and well.
My journey (thus far) involved from leaving for college while still a senior in high school to escape the family home, entering a marriage at age 20 thinking I had found safety and understanding, three moves from state to state so that my then husband could hold down a job without creating chaos, a return to NM to put down roots, entering grad school to to find a means of self-support so I could leave the marriage, a move to NYC to get away from NM, a move from NYC to AZ to find a place I hoped I could settle into, a move to another city within AZ to be closer to where I thought I needed to be (Sedona) only to find out that it wasn’t for me, followed by a move to TN where freedom supposedly could be found and instead I found judgment about the type of work I do.
Now I've found a landing place in the beautiful state of Kentucky where I feel more at home than I have anywhere else, thanks to the lovely supportive community I've connected with here (not to mention phenomenal greenery). Home IS where the heart is.
So what is the point of identifying all of this? The point is that there is no escape from oneself. There is only recognition and self-responsibility. Who is the common denominator in all this? Me. I was unhealed, immature, unrealistic, instructed, programmed, and many other things that I am holding myself accountable for, and forgiving myself for. I have learned to reframe everything I once perceived as a mistake or failure into a growth experience, for it is how we all learn. It’s the progression of life. Not everyone experiences life as I did, of course, but considering the controlled environment I was grew up in where I was not allowed to speak or think for myself, much less make my own decisions, it was my progression. So heck, yeah, I’m a rebel.
Yes, my life lessons have been challenging, and they were the impetus that forced me to leave the past behind, to change, to clear myself (and also do some ancestral clearing) from painful family experiences, and establish boundaries that have become inviolable. The church programmed me to seek sainthood and martyrdom. That programming is gone. I will no longer sacrifice my health, my self-respect, my sacred Soul for anyone or anything. There is not one person or one thing more important than my Soul and my connection to the Divine that created me.
This has been my journey — to learn to say no, to let go of people who don’t have my best interests at heart, who don’t value, appreciate, or respect me or the work I do. None of that matters, because here I am. I love myself. I value myself. I appreciate myself. I respect myself. And I am here because I chose to be, and because I was blessed to encounter the some incredibly gifted healers and teachers. I could not have done this alone. God has placed them in my life and I do not take them or my lessons for granted.
My willingness — no, my determination — to heal and grow is how I arrived at this point in life. I now have so much to contribute to the lives of others. It’s up to those who are drawn to my work and my essence to choose how they want to live. I love working with individuals whose passion for growth and healing matches mine, but I meet everyone wherever they are with love and compassion.
To me, this work is sacred. We are all Divine beings (even the family members I have separated myself from) — and we all have our own life plans. (And, yes, forgiveness is essential, but that’s a topic for another blog.)
There, this writing is as complete as it’s going to get for now. Time to get back to the business plan…
Carol Lucia Lopez
