“Remember that freedom from fear doesn’t mean the absence of its existence, but the refusal to let it control your decisions and actions.” – Joyce Meyer
I’ve been thinking about how to write this post for a few weeks now, then I saw a post by Aubert Bastiat on Instagram in which he was visiting his mother in a memory care home. I immediately became tearful seeing the short video, for so many reasons. I could see the love in his face for his mother, and her love for him and her grandson. I remembered my grandmother before she passed away at age 91, she suffered from dementia. I could tell that something inside her remembered me, even if her mind didn’t. She sometimes forgot my name, couldn’t tell me whose daughter I was, but she always called me “baby,” and gave me her bendición every time I said goodbye.
I thought about my son, and how lovely it would be for my son to love me as much as Aubert loves his mother when he grows up to be an adult. Then I thought about how dementia, diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments run in our family, and that I don’t know what the future holds for my health and how that will impact my son.
As someone who has been working hard to heal from trauma, reprogram the way my mind works, taking care of my body, committing to being a lifelong learner, and aspiring to break negative intergenerational cycles, the idea of forgetting all of this at the end of my life is terrifying. It’s wonderful to have financial savings to pass down to our children, but I want to also pass down any tools and revelations I have acquired as well. I want to grow old and stay sharp, enjoy time with my loved ones, and be able to share any wisdom I can. I want to be a feisty, wise old lady who doesn’t care what people think and has a plethora of different colored wigs to match her snazzy outfits.
Since I do not know the future, and I am incredibly flawed when it comes to consistently eating a completely cancer-fighting, Alzheimer’s-fighting, heart-healthy diet, I have to bring myself back to the present moment. What can I do today, to inch myself toward the future that I want? And if that is not the future that God has planned for me, how can I leave a legacy for my son that he can access whenever he needs me?
I will admit this to you: my fear of the future is one of the strongest motivating factors for building ALIGN 22:39 and creating content for this business. I definitely don’t want to forget my life, but I guess I also don’t want to be forgotten. Neither are really in my control, but I have committed a long time ago to live life with no regrets. So I am going to do my best with the skills I have and the gifts God has given me to create content and services that help others, while also leaving a digital legacy here for my son.
Has anyone purchased those “tell me about your life” journals to give to their parents and grandparents? I have, and I love seeing them on my parent’s and in-laws’ desks with pens wedged inside. This is because I know that after they’re gone, not only will I have their memory with me, but I will also have their written words about their life in a book that myself and their descendants can read whenever we miss them.
I am afraid of the future. I am afraid that this business endeavor won’t prosper. I am afraid that my son won’t care to look into anything I have written. Yet I am going to move forward while allowing for this fear to exist at the same time. I am going to take Joyce Meyer’s advice and “do it anyway, do it afraid.” I am coming from the heart and all I can do is put myself and this business in God’s hands.
For any of your fears, is there any way you can funnel that fear into energy towards the greater good? Energy towards doing everything you can in the present? What is one small thing you could do today that your future self might thank you for? That your loved ones might thank you for?
With love,
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