I’ve been feeling a lot of tension in my life lately, and I don’t think I’ve been handling it in the best way. It’s gotten me down. I’ve been feeling very stuck. You might find yourself asking, “how could SHE feel stuck? She’s living in Greece and having the time of her life.”

Mindset doesn’t change as easily as geography, let me tell you that. We too often only think about what’s at surface level, what we see in people’s lives, what we envy or herald about their lives. Unless we get to know them, unless we dive deep, we don’t know what’s hiding beneath the surface.

So, I’ve been feeling stuck, and this feeling lives deep in my head and my heart. Proverbs tells us our thoughts have real world application: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Somehow, somewhere along the road of life, I developed this nasty belief that I’m not good enough. This idea is like a weed in a garden. I’ve worked hard to dig it up and stop it from choking the life out of my beautiful plants. But, inevitably, I miss a small tiny piece of root somewhere. All of the sudden the weeds are back. And, if I’m not watching the garden closely (i.e., I’m super busy or feeling sorry for myself or distracted with stupid things), those weeds can overrun the garden in no time.

Mindset doesn’t change as easily as geography

That’s where I am. This feeling of unworthiness has started to seep into my everyday thinking. I’m seeing life through this lens of scarcity, and it’s of my own making. I feel like Eeyore with his little rain cloud that followed him everywhere.

I know life is good.

• The weather has changed here in Athens, and we’re enjoying cool temps and the late summer breeze.
• I have the most amazing friends!
• My family is healthy and happy (for the most part, ha!).
• I’m making progress on my first book, which I hope to have complete by the end of the year.
• My friend Landra and I are rocking along with a podcast, and we’re loving the process.

Still, somehow right now I’m so focused on what’s NOT going right. That’s such a small list it’s not even worth mentioning. But, to give you an example – I was sitting at a friend’s birthday dinner the other day, surrounded by so much love and happiness, and my brain told me this: look at everyone around the table with their loving partners. You’ll never have that. You’ll be alone because there’s no one out there who matches your weird.

YUCK! That one thought ruined my whole weekend. Honestly, it plagued me for days until I head someone in a TikTok video say, “you can’t manifest from a place of expectation. It has to come from a place of surrender.”

It became very clear to me I had surrendered to the wrong thing. I totally gave over to the nasty logismoi of unworthiness rather than surrender in hope and faith knowing everything happens in its own time. In the Orthodox faith, logismoi are assaultive or tempting thoughts. They’re buzzing around you all the time, and unless you give them permission to land, they can’t do anything to you.

I not only gave this thought permission, but I rolled out the red carpet.

Now, I know you might be thinking that manifestation and faith (in the religious tradition) don’t belong together. For me, they do. Everything is conspiring for me to live my best life. God, the universe, the earth, the stars – everything.

Everything is conspiring for me to live my best life.

But I know my best life is much harder to achieve if I’m fighting for it my way. I understand the idea of surrender, and I’ve been able to do it successfully in the past. I don’t want this logismoi of unworthiness to live inside me any longer than necessary. I want to rip it out from the root. I want to surrender to the abundance around me while I still have time.

Editor’s Note:

Today is 12 September. Yesterday I was reminded that at the end of our lives, it isn’t our success or our careers or our things that takes center stage; it’s our love. I cry every year reading the memorials to those who lost their lives in the terror attacks of 9/11/2001. I remember exactly where I was as we watched those horrible events unfold. Thousands of people woke up that day expecting to live decades more. Their loved ones look back thinking about the goodness of life before that single day. It’s always a tragic reminder that every day is precious, and every day spent being unhappy is a day I cannot get back. Αιωία η μωήμη.

“Hey Jules, this is Brian. Ah, listen… I’m on an airplane that has been hijacked. If things don’t go well, and they’re not looking good, I want you to know that I absolutely love you. I want you to do good. Have good times, same with my parents. I’ll see you when you get here. I want you to know that I totally love you. Bye, babe. Hope I will call you.”

Brian Sweeney