So I started focusing on releasing.  Detaching and going with the flow.  So my personal relationships might not be where I want them to be.  But I still loved my family and wanted nothing more than to feel close to them again.  So why not just start there?

I started praying and meditating on detachment.  A lot.  I still felt so stifled and sometimes wanted to scream my truth, but I was so fearful.  Fearful of how people would react.  Fearful that I would just be seen as this new age hippie who just needs to come back to Jesus.  I was worried that if I spoke of my internal struggles and pain, people would just blame it on me leaving the Christian faith – if I wasn’t happy and things weren’t going the way I wanted them to in life, it was because I needed to get right with Jesus.

Then, like a light bulb illuminating over my head, I realized a very simple truth that many have been telling me over the past two years (first told to me by my brother Mike over two years ago when all this shit hit the fan):

What other people think of you doesn’t matter.  All that matters is that you love yourself.

It was an Aha! moment if there ever was one.  It didn’t matter how people reacted to me speaking my truth.  It didn’t matter what opinions they held of me, whether they thought I was right or wrong.  I’d been living my whole life constantly thinking about what others thought of me, and it wore me down.  Completely.  I finally realized that I just needed to be me.  The beautiful, loving, radiant, compassionate me that I am – “Christian” or not.  So not only did I need to speak my truth and be the real me, I needed to release the pain I’d been holding onto.  The pain that was telling me I was wrong.  The pain that was telling me things couldn’t be the way they used to be.

But how do you do that?  How do you “release the past”?

It comes with the realization that it doesn’t exist.

The past doesn’t exist.  It’s just a figment of our imagination, so deeply engrained into our psyche that we let it control our life even though all that matters is the here and now.  Each and every breath you take is an opportunity to create a new reality for your life.  Breathe in joy, breathe out sadness.  Breathe in relief, breathe out despair.  This requires a massive shift in thinking.  And that’s where I believe all great transitions begin – with a shift in thinking.  Yes, I could sit and replay scenes over and over in my head where I was wronged and hurt.  Yes, I could write letters I’d never send and practice speeches where I’d get that last say.  But what’s the point?  Did I want to drag all that pain up again?  Did I want to start more arguments and debates?  No.  I just wanted to be at peace again.  I wanted my family to know how much I loved them and that all I wanted was a relationship with them again.

Once I fully comprehended this, I was able to start releasing all that pain.  I released the grip that the past had on me.  I didn’t want to live there anymore.  I wanted to live in the present and be who I wanted to be.  So I started to reach out more to those I cared about.  I let go of my fear and started to be more vocal about the things that were important to me.  I started to live my life for me, not for others.  And I felt good.  Not great, but good.  I still felt distant from my family, especially my mom and dad, and felt like some things needed to be said in order to bridge that gap, but I trusted that the perfect opportunity would be provided at the perfect time.  All things that needed to be said would be said at the right moment.

I finally felt a little peace and that I was headed in the right direction for my heart to be healed.