The thing about guilt is that it has intruded every facet of my life.

The thing about guilt is that I never really give it up.

My list of lifetime guilts is 4. Pages. Long.

I, apparently, have a lot to feel guilty about; down to not brushing my teeth more often.

4 Pages, on thick glossy cardstock scrap paper, doesn’t burn easy.  Not when it’s freezing outside.  It’s kind of perfect really.

I’ve carried the items listed on those 4 pages for a very long time.  Some goes back to my childhood when I made up tales about where I grew up (one such being that I was from Kentucky; not true).  Sometimes I recall those guilts and feel the emotion attached to them all over again.  Never releasing the emotion, the pain, the fear.  Never finding the forgiveness.

When I was holding the lighter to those 4 pages, each flame kept going out once I put the page in the fire ring.  The cold wind would just swallow up the flame, and not allow that list of guilts to disintegrate into ash.  But then 1 page caught, and when I put that 1 in with the other 3 pages, they all burnt up together.  Smoldering into an ash.  Releasing up above with my prayer that with this flame that I could find forgiveness.  Not that I would forget, but that I would remember, and move on.  That I would not need to be held accountable for some guilt from 20 years ago.

I can’t promise that I won’t still beat myself up about some of things.  I can’t promise that I have found remorse in them, that I have corrected or changed my ways on a few of them.  I can promise that some of those guilts were merely put upon me by others opinions and what I thought their opinions might be.  I can promise that if I think upon them now, I can remember burning them in that fire ring on this night.  I can promise that I asked for release, and hell or highwater, that’s what I’m going to push for.  Release.  Unleashed.

Unleashing myself from the guilt.

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Week 2 Challenge: Expectations.  This has everything to go with my control issues.  How I attempt to control things, how I let others control things, what I expect out of situations, what I expect myself to do, what I expect others to do.  My Week 2 challenge is to learn to let these things go.  To let happen what will happen and stop fighting it.  To give up control.  To become more free.

My week 2 challenge is to let go of control and expectations of 1 thing each day and to write down how I did it, how it made me feel, and then follow up on what happened once I did let go.

Here’s to unleashing myself and letting go of control.