In 2002, I saw Mary J. Blige perform on the Grammys.  She sang her song No More Drama.   She sang it with such emotion and passion that I became emotional, stood up in my living room and, crying, sang with her: “No more drama!”

I decided that I did not want any more drama in my life.  I was surrounded by drama on my job and within my family.  Even though I wanted drama to end, I didn’t want to leave my job because I didn’t want to be without income.  I didn’t want to leave my family because I love my family.  But, sometimes, there are ways of being and patterns of existence that become incompatible with where you want to go and what you want to be.

There are always reasons to stay in the midst of drama.  As I’ve been working on myself all of these years, I finally realized, and this is something that Mary J says in her song, that “Maybe I liked the stress, because I was young and restless.”

Finally, when I ran out of oxygen, I saw very clearly that I don’t have any more energy to give to this.  I don’t want to take this anymore.  Because I let – yes, I let – drama into my life, chaos permeated my life such that, even though I could say that I wasn’t the cause of that drama, it still was so much a part of me that it affected my relationships.  I have said ok to things that I knew I didn’t want and knew that they weren’t going to work out; but, I thought I didn’t have any options.  I talked the talk, but I didn’t walk in faith without fear.

Though I walk through the valley of darkness, I fear no evil for you are with me.  Your rod and your staff – they comfort me.  What does it mean to live that, not just to state it?

Breaking away from the familiar is tremendously hard, even if it is restrictive.  It sometimes seems that when you try to break away, negative forces become more intense.

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