If you have been following my blog for a while you probably noticed that I didn’t blog much over the summer. Now Blogging is one of my favorite things to do… I love to write my thoughts and I love the connection with others about those thoughts…
When you are a blogger every life experience is a possible blog entry… Life is unfolding before your eyes and your head is already writing the post… It wasn’t so much like that for me this summer. I had a difficult summer. It was difficult in many ways and it was difficult because of all of those many ways piling on top of one another creating a very hard season. I lost my creativity, I lost my effiency and I even lost my joy. The times I spent away on vacation were great… they were an escape and change of scenery but when I was home I was struggling to find the motivation to do anything at all…
When I am struggling I cannot write… I have a really hard time expressing myself when I am in the midst of a struggle. I don’t know how many times I sat down and tried to write about what I was feeling and I would just keep deleting sentence after sentence because I felt that I could not accurately explain was I was feeling. I am an internal processor “BIG TIME”. And it’s funny because I am such an open person about any thing and everything… I will answer any question and answer it honestly and the deeper the better… I love it. But when I am struggling the words don’t seem to come out.
I don’t do it to be inauthentic or not honest about how I truly am doing, I do it because I literally do not have the skills to be able to effectively communicate how I am feeling. I know part of my problem has to do with not giving myself permission to struggle. I get very hard on myself thinking… Come on… You know better… Snap out of it… and that paralyzes me in the area of trying to communicate what I am feeling.
This is a very frustrating part of my marriage for Jason. He is so good at expressing how he is feeling right in the middle of a struggle and I just pull away. I can’t talk… I can’t explain it… It takes me a really long time to make sense of my pain so I just ask God over and over to help me, to teach me, and to give me the strength to overcome…
My Blogging friend Laura, well she is actually a live friend too, (Bloggers have blogging friends that they have never actually met… funny eh?) Anyways… back to Laura… she did a post a while back talking about how people process their own struggles… She posted after a conversation we had about the different ways we use our blogs as a part of the overall process of the struggles we face.
Where my blog becomes a part of the process of my struggle is on the other side of that struggle. When I have learned the lesson and when I feel I can make sense of my struggle I will start to talk about it… then when I get the slap upside the head… you know the "HELLO MCFLY" knock on the head from the Lord saying I have had your answer all the time… I write and write and write and write…
I love to write and I love to dream and when I am doing well… my writing and dreams are never ending… I am doing well right now… I have more posts saved up then I have time to post them. I find it so fascinating how we each process things so differently…
How do you process struggle or difficult times? If you are a blogger… how do you use your blog to process struggle?
Lori – I so appreciate this blog because it expresses quite clearly what I experience. I am a journaller (sp?) who has found, especially recently, that it is very hard to write. I’ve gone through this type of season before, albeit not such a long one, and wondered why I find it so hard to write at some times and not at others. You have hit the nail on the head!
Now…I’d like to get on the other side!
I’m going to think about my answer to that…himmm. I like your question. I feel priviledged to hear your process, in ‘real time’ or later, it’s good with me.
Lori- I wrote my blog late last night and then to come to yours this morning, I feel like God is giving me a confirmation. I am in the midst of processing a struggle. I love to blog, I love to write and it’s great to process that way. But knowing there are people in your real life that maybe will read them gets a little daunting. One of my biggest struggles is trust in myself in stepping out in faith. I hate confrontation of any kind, and as Im working this struggle out, I’m hitting constant confrontation from people I love. There are times where I throw up my hands and say I’m done.
But I know that my God Almighty has me in His bosom and he’s holding me. Today, I’m facing a daunting mountain, but I’m not doing it all alone. God is much bigger than my mountain. Thank God for you and other bloggers like Hope and Laura and others that we can all express ourselves and not be worried, well look at her. We are all on our journey’s and climbing our mountains. Great Post LORI… So timely!
I usually process then blog. Sometimes I find myself editing my emotions, like you – not to be inauthentic – because I don’t want to be a downer. I want my own blog to be uplifting to others. But we really need to let this slip from our heads to our hearts: encouragement is best taken from someone who has walked the path another is now walking.
I so understand the not even being able to articulate what is wrong – it’s like there’s a total disconnect between my being and my spirit. Physically and emtionally I acknowledge there’s got to be something wrong but I’m so deep into it that I can’t even identify it – so how can you blog when you don’t know what the problem is. I can say this, it sometimes seems easier when someone is willing to just let me ramble on until I finally figure it out but my ego doesn’t like people listening to me when I sound like a dufus. XXXOOO
Lori,
In the past when going through struggles I use to sit and have all these conversations in my head. Sometimes I drove myself crazy which lead to a season of depression. Lately I find myself writing everything down, that’s not to say I don’t sit and process internally, oh no – I’m a thinker -but I’m forcing myself to write more rather than have these head conversations with myself because I found when I write things down I’m able to see it in a different light. Sometimes when I look back to some of the things I wrote, I’m amaze at the things I was bothered about but at the time they were great big mountains. I love your blogs. I’m still getting use to the openness and honesty you portray. It is totally amazing, just like you.
I tend to hide in the midst of the struggle. I, like you, am a very open person; it’s not that I don’t want people to know, so much as, again like you, I think I should know better, shouldn’t feel this way, and also, don’t want to spew poison on others either. I have no problem sharing the deal after I’ve come through it, or at least am starting to come out of the funk, but when I’m in turmoil my blog lies dormant.