How full is your life?

Have you ever thought of what your life is comprised of?  Do you have a full life or are you left feeling empty?  We all go through varying levels of satisfaction, but do you ever really examine your life to ensure fullfillment?

I once had a man tell me, I’m not fulfilled because I hadn’t found my faith.  The words hit me like a lead balloon.  Mostly  because he spoke it so calmly, like he knew something I didn’t.  But he was right!  At that time, I hadn’t.  And to be honest, on some levels I still struggle today!  But I haven’t given up and God knows it.  I’m just going through it all in a different direction than many people.

At that time in my life I didn’t have a lot of fulfillment.  And though faith was one component; there were many other factors as well.  At that time I was working and had a boyfriend and I was in the midst of losing that boyfriend because it just wasn’t working out.  And I wondered to myself, if I don’t have him in my life, then what do I have to look forward to?  It was an awful feeling and one that left me feeling empty and lost.

Then, I read a book that made me see things pretty clearly.  It was called, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyways” by Susan Jeffers.  It was a great book with awesome information that I needed to hear AT THAT TIME!!!  It basically spelled out my issue.  Other than my boyfriend, I had work and nothing else.  No real friends to speak of; no one really to turn to.  I had put my whole life into him. So in the absense of him; this is what I had:

The impact of the loss of him was very hard because it was half my life. As I read further into the book I realized that I had shortchanged myself.  I wasn’t doing anything else and therefore I needed to add things to my ‘box’ of life.

In the end, that relationship ended and I met what is now my husband.  Over the course of our many years together, I have built upon the readings in this book and it’s helped me a lot.  My box now looks like this:

It’s a lot fuller life with a lot more areas to focus on!  The downside of all this is I’m pretty tired most of my days.  But the upside is my life is way fuller than it used to be and if I were to lose anything from my box (God forbid), the impact will be difficult, but I will still have other areas of my life to focus on and I might not be so devastated (of course if I lost my husband or my kids, I dare say I WOULD be devastated), but you see my point.

Sometimes we get complacent in our lives and forget to look at the bigger picture.  It’s important to keep your eyes open to the possibilities and build upon what you have to offer others in this world.

I have a friend who has two boys who are in their later teen years.  She is just NOW getting back to things she used to love because her whole life was built into her sons.  It happens.  We love our kids and we can easily get absorbed into their lives.  But I am glad she is coming back to herself, because as a parent, we tend to put ourselves last on the list.

It’s always good to check in with yourself.  Life moves quickly and we need to stay focused.

Make sure your life is full and not pigeon holed in to one area of your life.

We all do it.  But we can all UN-do it.

Happy Wednesday!