inner worlds

This is trending right now: If you want to see change in the outside world, the first step is to withdraw into your inner world.

I'm not an introvert. I get energy from hanging out with people. I love talking to my close friends and my family. I often choose time with others over time on my own. It isn't much of an effort to build relationships and keep up with my friends, I really like it. People are my jam.

Withdrawing to my inner world takes a LOT of concentration and intentional planning on my part. It takes saying, "no", it takes being strong and to combat our culture and try and not care about what people think. Inner worlds are scary. Taking quiet moments to learn about myself, that has been the work of the winter of 2015. (Well, probably the work of my life)

If I can't take really good care of myself how will I ever take care of those around me for a sustainable amount of time.

I work in an extremely high needs school, it is year eleven so I talk a lot less about it's emotional impact on my life than I use to. Back when the shocks of my students' lives would rock my world to the core. I wouldn't say I am now use to the poverty, violence, loneliness, and hunger that happens, I would just say that I have managed to balance what I can do and then accepting that there are things I can't do. (and sometimes hating that all I can do is cry and pray for them).
 
I was in DC this past weekend for work. Martin Luther King's son spoke. It was inspiring and surreal.  He said, "be ashamed to die until you've won a victory for humanity" MLK III.  I believe those victories will look different for each one of us. Maybe mine might now is caring for myself, so I am a stronger person in order to better care for humanity, maybe that's my victory right now, to learn how to care for this human, myself.   MLK III was elegant throughout his talk and then he left us all with his raw advise on how to manage difficult children, "just love the hell out of them." I think that is exactly right.  That's how we make small victories, we love the hell out of those around us. That's my hope.

Anne Lamotte says, "the main difference between me and God is that he never thinks he's me."  Today I am thankful for my faith, thankful that I believe in someone bigger and higher than me, thankful that it's not all on my shoulders.

For me, these days, there is a struggle between trying to "be God" or stopping to turn inward and learning about authenticity and real and beautiful love from an inward and quiet place. A kinda love that makes this world a place where we honestly say to one another, "I need you, you need me."  We are all on this planet together, and somehow we can make sense of it all, together, with some inward moments. 
Let's just love the hell out of each other.