Twitty Tweets, Life & Being Brave

Hey everybody. Lots going on as usual and I thought it might be about time for an update. First of all, I have joined the masses of people who tweet or are twits or however you want to describe it, and I now have a Twitter account. I figure my life is crazy and I have funny and insane things that happen that could make for fun tweets, and it could help people keep up with me some. So feel free to follow me - my username is TiffLynne45 and hopefully soon I'll figure out how to use it and twitty tweets will follow!

On the thyroid front, it's been an interesting month or so. My surgery was last July and my levels are still all over the place. A little over a month ago, my levels tested really really low. So the doctor put me on a higher dose of synthroid, and after taking that for about 3 weeks or so, my levels spiked really high. I didn't sleep for four or five straight nights, I felt like I was on speed, and my hands literally started shaking. It was crazy. Obviously the dosage was too high, so we've settled on the dose in the middle of the previous two. It's been a couple of weeks now on that dose, and things are better. My body is slowly recovering, but in coming down off the high levels, I have had some struggles with feeling really depressed. Some days I'm up, some days I'm down....each morning when I wake up, I'm not sure how I'll feel. It's amazing. :) It has not helped to be dealing with all of this physical stuff in the midst of the madness that is currently my life. However, God is also using it to teach me lots because there are times when my coping skills don't work at all, which is forcing me to confront and deal with even deeper levels of healing. I would appreciate prayer though for my levels to balance out and us to be able to find a dosage that works with my body.

Tomorrow is the last day of March, and this means multiple things to me. First of all, I only have about 4 weeks of this semester left to go, and I have a TON of work to do. But wait - I only have about 4 weeks left in this semester!!! That means that I have survived the first three months of this working/school attending/internship madness. It also means that only summer and fall semesters stand in the way of graduation. The light at the end of the tunnel grows ever brighter, even when I'm not sure sometimes how I'll survive. Time is flying by though, even in the madness, and while I can't wait to be done with school, I also want to make sure I don't miss all of the opportunities I have to learn as much as possible.

Speaking of learning....since I started my internship in January, I have learned soooo much about people and myself and life and God. Sometimes it can be very overwhelming because there are so many things happening that I feel like I don't have time to process it all. I mentioned in a previous post that my word for this year was "brave". Sometimes I'm sorry I chose that word, but God knew I needed to. :) Already in three months, there have been ample opportunities to practice being brave, and I'm sure more will follow. In my last post, I talked about hitting a wall as I was being confronted with people's pain and feeling very overwhelmed. That stage of my journey has pretty much passed. Don't get me wrong - there are still days when I feel completely overwhelmed, like I have no idea what I'm doing and don't know what to say to the person sitting in front of me. But I know with more certainty now that I am exactly where God wants me to be and that this is the career for me. Instead, the stage I currently find myself in on this journey towards becoming a counselor is one of humility. I cannot tell you how humbling it is for another person to sit across from you and share things about themselves that they've never told another soul. Do you know what kind of courage that takes? I have found myself processing so much about this - what does it mean to share our stories? What does it mean to live authentically with others, being open, vulnerable, trusting? Why do we hide? What are we afraid of? As I've sat with my clients, I've realized that as they share their stories, they are speaking my fears out loud. They're saying things I'm afraid to say. They're telling me things or answering questions I ask them that I might not ever say in my own counseling. Why is that?

Granted, it's easier to share parts of our stories with strangers. After all, there's no emotional connection, and we can just walk away and never see the person again if we don't want to. But watching this process play out has forced me to confront my own lack of bravery. Because I have been hurt by others, I'm afraid to be that open - even with the people that I know love me the most. And yet how much am I missing because I don't allow people to prove that they're different? What does being brave look like for me?

Nikki and I watched the movie The Help not too long ago. Amazing movie. I loved what the character at the end of the movie said... "No one had ever asked me what it felt like to be me. Once I told the truth about that, I felt free." And that is what I have witnessed so far in my internship journey. As people share what it's like to be them - as they are honest about who they are and confront what they've walked through and struggle with, freedom begins to grow. Hope blooms. Isn't that what we all want? Isn't that what God has created us for? So while I had an idea of what being brave meant and how that might play out in my life in 2012, that idea is being transformed. As I sit with others and experience their courage, I am being challenged to express the same courage in my own journey/story. The question is will I? Will you? May our desire for true freedom and connection with God and others be greater than our fears of being known, of being rejected or abandoned. Love wins. :)