Get a "Real" Life

"She'll never choose real life", fears a fellow mom. Followed up with "She'll die before she ever lives".  Can you relate?  I sure can. 

We watch our children struggle in life with a Substance Use Disorder:  multiple overdoses, leaving treatment AMA , losing jobs, unable to get jobs, street to jail and back again, incapable of independent living, to name just a few common conditions.  Is that a real life?

Well, yes, yes it is actually ~  it is reality and therefore quite real.  I invite you to consider things that can also be real, can be as true, maybe even truer for you.  You decide. 

Truth?  The situations that arise with a Substance Use Disorder are very real, we just don't like it, and probably often wish things were different.  But they are real.  There are a multitude of people having real lives that look very different than what we might want for them.  Still, it's their real life.  It is the reality of things.  

More truth?  We just don't get to determine what another's life should be.  What is real? Is it the imagined future?  Whose version of real?  One day it's ok, then there's another version. Which one is more real?  Who gets the final say on a whole life and what parts are ok and what parts aren't, what parts are used for purpose, what's a waste of time or energy?  Who really, really knows?  Because if it's us, at least for me, it's most likely real trouble playing God and imposing our version of what real life should be for anyone else, no matter how complicated it is. We just don't have that kind of power or knowledge. 

Even more truth?  Living in fear, imagining those future scenarios becomes our real life in the moments of belief - complicated, very stressful - and it causes us to project a future onto our children too -  even more complication and stress.  Fear will take us away from real love, and away from what we really really want - a peaceful, loving connection with the children we really, really love, the real them, as they are. 

If anything is going to die before it lives, let it be our assumptions and expectations of what should or shouldn't be in a future we can't control and that doesn't even exist, except in our imagination. Of course we will experience fear and we will imagine a future, but just notice and come back to the realness of the facts of reality so you can figure things out with more clarity that brings you out of fear and into love.  Things seem very real in our thinking. It just doesn't make it true! 

This is a wild human ride, sometimes very scary, very hard, and it might take some time and effort to ride it.  Take the ride from fear, to truth, to love, because the ONLY real truth is LOVE. 

When fear dies, LOVE LIVES. Fear dies by acknowledging it, noticing it, questioning it, choosing to feel and heal.  That is real healing!  

Let's open our hearts and minds to that kind of real life and love, and let fear have a good death.   

Love wins here!  

Joanne

PS:  Here are some of the most effective ways I've found to take care of worry and fear that you can find in my free guide:  How To Find Peace When You Worry. Hope it supports you too. Let me know ok? 

Website:  https://www.joannerichards.life/