What are you leaving?

Linking up today with Five Minute Friday with other writers who are silencing the inner critic and just writing for fun for five minutes straight. Today's prompt is "leave".

I like airports and I always have.

It’s the hustle and bustle of passengers coming and going. The planes sitting out at the end of those long tubes that you have to walk through to board.

I think airports are a metaphor for life.

People leave and people arrive.

We are always leaving something and arriving at something else.

Where are the airport people leaving for? Are they leaving, only to return again, or are some of them leaving for good?

Where are the passengers arriving from? Some distant land that was a momentous journey, or a business trip that unfortunately took them away from their family for too long?

What are you leaving? Are you leaving that baggage behind that no longer serves you? Are you leaving the past in the past, or are you still carrying it around like a heavy bag through the airport?

What are you arriving at? Hopefully, as you are leaving something behind, you are arriving at a better place. Hopefully, you’re arriving at a new, dream-filled, much anticipated place. A place that is better than the one you left.

I’ve left a lot of baggage in the past. I’ve decided to set much of it down. Setting it at the baggage claim, never to claim it again.

I’ve decided to camp out at the arrivals. I’ve decided to set my sights instead on arriving at a new destination even if that destination is a new one each and every day.

Blessings to you friend!

Thanks for stopping by!

When you might need eight tissues

This is the first time I've been 'brave' enough to join in with the 5 Minute Friday group at lisajobaker.com. This week the prompt is the word, "brave".

The idea is to write for five minutes straight, unedited. Just raw words. Here is what I wrote today. Head over to Lisa's blog to join in!

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GO:

I picked up my pen and grabbed my notebook. Experience tells me that this neck pain is not from a physical or structural cause. It is from negative emotions. I start to write about whatever comes into my head. My lack of good, consistent sleep, blah, blah. 

Then, I start to hit on something deeper. Some feelings that are very hurt. Some feelings that my sub-conscious has been holding onto for while. This time, just a short week or so, but long enough. As I write these feelings down, unedited, I start to sob. I sob so hard that my stomach aches into a tight knot. Before I know it, I’ve used up my napkin from breakfast and eight tissues to mop up the tears.

Why did I not realize that my body was holding on to all of these negative emotions? I kept writing and sobbing and before I knew it, forty five minutes went by.

I could feel guilty for holding on to these emotions.

I could put that on myself. 

But, I didn’t even know that I was doing it!

I’m choosing this time to let myself off the hook and instead embrace my inner self for being able to tap into these feelings and release them. I tell myself, “Anne, you are a brave soul to look deep inside at the pain and write it down. You are brave and I’m for you.”

As my pen layed down on the page, my pain lifted. I’m free.

STOP.