Quit from WHAT I THOUGHT I HAD LOST, I FOUND

I’ve been lost for quite some time.

Years. Decades.

Misled. Confused. Trapped. Hungry for shadows.

As lost as I have felt, I tread a specific path that brought me here. As painful as that path had been at times, it was also beautiful.

On that path however, I remained a slave to concepts, ideas, memories and feelings that I ended up realizing weren’t even my own. They were just, there. They weren’t me. They weren’t who I really was.

For reasons unknown at the time, I was driven into the mountains to wander amongst the trees and work out my own madness. The silence made me finally listen and helped me understand what was necessary to reclaim my soul.

I heard the whispers amongst the trees and felt the mountains ground me in truth.

And thus the transition began.

It wasn’t smooth.

Old pieces of me rebelled viciously. I fell under the control of bad habits, vowed to break them, valiantly attempted, sabotaged, failed, and rose time and time again. Never to quit. Never to lay down to die. Always to get back up no matter what and try time and time again.

I saw the potential of who I was deep down in my bones. I saw who I had been and how that kept me from being everything I was meant to be. I witnessed the broken thinking, the pain that still ran through my veins, the anger towards events that had happened in the past…

…and finally, I allowed myself to start to heal.

I have needed this time.

This time for me.

To be away from everyone and everything.

To mend the deep wounds of abandonment, betrayal and shame.

They drove me mad.

Hiking into the mountains became my daily pilgrimage towards my destiny.

I ran through things, the old and the new, and started to sort out this nest of my past. It was a mess. Months went by, multiple “ah-ha” moments arrived, and through the struggle…I have arrived here…far more clear than I have ever been.

Every once in a while, I come across a moment that is unlike any other. My future unfolds right before my eyes and the path illuminates.

I refused to answer the call time and time again.

I would put my toe in the water and change slowly in fear of what would happen if I just let go.

But my soul found its way.

It found its way back home again. It uprooted everything that needed to go and asked me to simple let it all slip right through my grasp.

So I have.

I’ve let go.

At times, my hands shake wanting to hold on.

But gently, patiently, I remind myself of who I really am.

What I thought I had lost, I finally found.

-Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project.