Not my battle..

There are plenty of times in life where we find ourselves in the middle of a battle, be it, emotional, physical, or spiritual. Battles come in all shapes, sizes and ways. Sometimes they are a personal battle that we must face; a battle that we have to come through alone. Sometimes these battles are with ourselves. These ones are the hardest to deal with, because there is no escape. I have fought, and am still fighting many battles with myself, so trust me when I say that I know it’s not easy. A lot of these battles have left me feeling alone and broken, and almost unable to carry on, but as I’ve pushed through them, I can honestly say that there’s not one that I regret. The truth is, that even in my lowest moments, these battles taught me some very valuable lessons. In those moments when I thought I really couldn’t go on, I found a little reserve of strength that I didn’t know I had.

This week, I have been fighting two battles that have caused me three sleepless nights, nightmares, anxiety and tension headaches. I’ve worried and agonised over these two situations. I’ve prayed that God will guide me and help me to know what to do. I’ve felt like I was losing my mind, and this afternoon, a very wise woman helped me to put my anxieties into perspective. She helped me to see that these battles are not necessarily mine and that I need to choose my battles wisely because my physical and mental health are too important to fight battles that were never mine to begin with. I have come away from that discussion with a renewed sense of myself; with the knowledge that one of the battles that I’ve been agonising over all week isn’t mine, and that I just need to draw a line and let it go because if I don’t then it will make me ill. She showed me that I need to focus on my energies on positive things, and my creative pursuits, rather than on things which aren’t my fight to begin with.

So I guess what I’m trying to say, is, please, if you’re reading this, and you’re fighting your own battles, please think very carefully about whether they are actually your battles to fight, and if the answer is ‘no’, please, make the decision not to take it on. You owe it to yourself, just as I owe it to myself, not to take anything into your life that is going to diminish your light.

For a long time, I believed that all the ills in the world were my fault. I took them all on and let them grind me down. It’s only now, that I’m beginning to realise that I can’t fix everything, and that I must allow myself to let go of the things that I can’t, and needn’t fix, because they were never mine in the first place.