Living on Purpose: Smelling the Roses

Today I read a blog post written by a friend of mine about stopping to smell the roses. Her post really got me thinking and I'm going to share those thoughts with you. Most of this post is something I've wanted to write about for awhile now but I haven't because I wasn't sure how to formulate everything to make the most sense {I'm good at babbling - unfortunately}. The other reason I haven't ever written all this out is because this is a post that makes me vulnerable.

When I was a little girl, I was incredibly tenderhearted. The smallest things could set me off and I'd be so upset. I remember crying a lot {not to worry, I do have other memories than those of just crying}. I'm not sure how it happened - I'm sure it was a gradual thing - but I eventually learned how to turn my emotions off. I learned how to make myself stop feeling things. I did it because I was sick of crying, I was tired of hurting - because I hated being vulnerable. {This sounds pretty dramatic. Honestly it wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't let every little get to me. It never took much to set me off. Ask my siblings.}

Essentially, the purpose of turning off the emotional roller-coaster was accomplished. I stopped crying. I stopped hurting. But I paid for that choice in other ways as well.

I stopped feeling anything. My happiness was mild at best. Disappointment was the most I ever got out of hurtful experiences. The most prominent feeling I experienced was tiredness - and that's not emotion. Of course, the really bad thing I still felt bad things in a much stronger way than good things. The interesting thing about turning off the "bad feeling emotions" is that it really only diminishes all emotional connections, particularly the good ones.

The awful thing is I didn't know I had done this to myself. But looking back now {you know what they say about hindsight} I see so many months of my life that are blurry because I was living an unfeeling life. Now, again, writing all this out makes me seem like I was living as a zombie. {This sounds so much more dramatic than it was.} I really wasn't. I felt fulfilled and "happy". People who knew me never would have thought otherwise. I didn't.

The reason I discovered this unfeeling living was because of some keen and observant voice teachers at BYU-Idaho. The story is long {and this post is already too long - maybe someday I'll share the whole story} but suffice it to say they brought to my attention my absolute inability to express emotion {this is a problem when you're a musician}. At first I was hurt - really hurt, perhaps for the first time in a long time. But thanks to time {a great healer}, an insightful adviser, my wonderful hubby and a loving Heavenly Father, I was able to sort through everything and started putting pieces of the puzzle together. I learned that I wasn't expressing emotion because I wasn't feeling it. That's a hard pill to swallow. But it was a crucial step for me to make.

Fast forward four years and my motto for the year is living purposefully. With all this dialogue I'm sure you can guess why. Emotionless is a hard state to get out of. But being aware of how I was allowing myself to live, why I got that way and that I don't want to live that way, makes it easier every day to experience emotion in a deep, fulling way. And I can't really take credit. I believe God changes us when we ask Him to, when our desires are righteous. I can testify that He has certainly changed me.

I'm certainly more emotional now. I find myself tearing up at the strangest moments. I find this heartening because it means I'm feeling things in a deep, connecting way. And that's healthy.

So why such a long story about stopping to smell the roses? Because for me, the roses I need to stop and smell are the small moments of life that make us who we are, that make us feel something so deeply it becomes a part of us. If I'm not allowing myself to experience emotions in a deep, connecting way, I won't take time to lose myself in laughter with my daughter. I won't bury myself in the love that I feel from my husband. I won't seek out others in friendship, won't create bonding experiences. I won't live the life I've been given to live. I won't stop to smell the roses because I'm too afraid they won't be there to smell tomorrow and my emotional connection will cause pain. Or that someone will catch me in the act - *gasp!*. Of course, that means I also have to allow myself to be vulnerable. I have to be okay with loving and being attached to something so deeply it makes me cry if I lose it. Or that it makes me cry just because of that deep love. I have to be okay with hurting, with being "caught in the act". It's the only way to truly experience life.

For me, it's one way I'm striving to live purposefully.