Vision In The Valley
Finding inspiration, even in the low valleys of your journey and appreciating that the Lord speaks to us wherever we are. You are at the foundation of your next victory, your next peak...and the only place to look is UP!
Vision In The Valley
Finding Equilibrium: Navigating Life's Vertigo with Faith and Balance
Dedicated to: My Sheros: Lisa & Angelica; My Prayer Partners & Sister/Friends: Lana, Loretta, Drea, Mia & Paula & Lastly My Bo (Beau)
Have you ever felt like your world was spinning out of control, both literally and figuratively? Join me as I recount my bewildering journey battling stress-induced vertigo, a condition that turned my life upside down and led me to profound realizations about balance, faith, and purpose. Learn how what seemed like a health scare opened doors to a deeper understanding of equilibrium and even ignited the spark for an exciting new venture—a boutique designed to support women in transition, all thanks to an inspiring partnership with my friend Lisa.
Hear about my transformative breakthroughs in communicating faith and balancing life's forces with intention, as well as the role of God's word in grounding our lives. From the excitement of planning the perfect boutique space to the daily challenges of maintaining health and energy, discover how faith and gratitude can guide us through both adversity and triumph. Join me for an inspiring and heartfelt exploration of finding equilibrium during life's transitions.
Welcome back to Vision in the Valley family. You know that I believe in miracles, signs and wonders, and I am reminded on a regular basis that they still occur. So I'm recovering from stress induced vertigo and, for those of you that have experienced vertigo, you understand what I'm recovering from stress-induced vertigo and, for those of you that have experienced vertigo, you understand what I'm talking about. Vertigo is a condition where you feel dizzy and in some cases it's a reoccurring episode or episodes, and in other cases it may not be. Symptoms can last from a few hours to a few weeks, which was my case. I am on the third week of feeling this dizziness the severe dizziness, sometimes associated with nausea as well, and originally I thought that the dizziness was due to my inner ear needing to be irrigated. I thought maybe I just needed to have my ear flushed, because I have a lot of allergies, and something similar has happened to me before, although not this extreme. I was so sure that this is what was happening that I diagnosed myself, and I ended up having to go to the urgent care and I told the provider what I needed. Now that's really funny, right, but after looking in my ear, she explained that there was no wax, there was no buildup. And I responded with like really Well, check this ear, cause I had gone into the place telling her which ear I was feeling the pressure in and everything. So she looked at the other ear and she's like nope, I know you're disappointed, but something else is causing you to feel this way. And she was right. I was disappointed because that would make sense to me. Like this, all of a sudden feeling of dizziness, overwhelmingly so it would make sense to me, it would be logical to me that if my inner ear was misbehaving, that's the reason why I was feeling like my equilibrium was off and that's the reason why I was feeling dizzy, like my equilibrium was off, and that's the reason why I was feeling dizzy. I couldn't understand what was happening with my equilibrium if that wasn't the cause. So let's delve into the meaning of equilibrium. The definition of equilibrium is a state in which opposing forces are balanced. It can also be defined as a state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces. To help us further understand this, I'm going to offer a few synonyms. So symmetry, balance, evenness and steadiness are all synonyms of equilibrium. So you know I have a story, so let me just jump in and share with you.
Speaker 1:In the last few weeks I gave up my dressing room and there was chaos all over the house. So you've been following me. You know that I had two dressing rooms at another location, so I've gone from two dressing rooms to one dressing room to now just having a regular degular closet. Nothing's wrong with that, but that's not how I had envisioned things. So now that I'm giving up this last dressing room, I had racks and I had clothes and shoes and belts and jewelry just everywhere. Everything was just a mess.
Speaker 1:I had a really good reason for doing this transition, and this is just another example of God's intentionality, because in this time I partner with one of my new sheroes. This lady is a true connector and the Lord is using her to bless me in such an amazing way. She and I had connected in the past. She actually headed an initiative at my church, not only to feed and clothe the migrants in our community, but also to bus them into our Sunday service and then later into Bible study on Thursdays. I honestly don't know where Lisa gets her energy, but I thank God for her obedience and for her passion.
Speaker 1:We connected during 12 hour prayer and I shared with her that I had more clothes and shoes to give away and that I wouldn't be ready to do that until about late July. I wanted to now focus on doing more than just giving the clothes, because I had mostly work attire now. I wanted to start talking about preparing people for work environments not just the migrants, but any woman in transition. I just I knew this was a time to talk about it. The spirit had been overwhelming for me to share this with her. So we talked briefly about a couple opportunities and, next thing, you know, I heard her saying you know, you should open up a boutique and I have the perfect location for you and I'll help. And I'm thinking to myself wow, she doesn't know that what she's talking about right now is actually speaking to another vision the Lord had given me and I.
Speaker 1:In that moment, we were like I said, we were at 12 hour prayer and I was so overwhelmed. But I also received in that moment the blessing that was coming my way. The interesting part about this, or at least one of the interesting parts about this, is that this whole movement, this whole, this whole movement I'll call it a movement because now you've got people who are going to have to help me to open this boutique, and this opportunity was triggered by my willingness to shift and give up some things to let some things go. That's huge. So all of this was happening and I was super excited about every angle, every possibility of it. It was all good stuff. It was all good energy.
Speaker 1:During the same time, I'd finally onboarded my assistant you guys have heard me talk about. I need some help. I need some help. So I see that the Lord is sending help. She is lovely and she's eager to see things progress and she's passionate about lending her expertise to ease my burden, and I'm so thankful. But we've got a lot to do with a lot of tight deadlines, but still it's all good stuff, all good energy.
Speaker 1:Again, I could see that the hope that the Lord had promised me was here. It was here and I could, physically and spiritually, see it Right. So here I am feeling off, here I am feeling dizzy, here I am feeling unwell. I'm like what's up with that? So then I began to pray about it and ask God for discernment. I had a lot going on and I'm feeling this imbalance, but it's due to all good stuff, all good energy, like how could that be the case? What's wrong here? Does that sound familiar to any of you?
Speaker 1:So in this time I had several dreams. You guys know I'm a dreamer and I had some very odd dreams. Some of you may say that most of my dreams are odd, but nonetheless this one was odd even to me. During this time I had one dream where my ears were replaced by elephant ears and it was kind of funny because I didn't wake up from that dream thinking about hearing, like I try to discern what my dreams mean, and I didn't wake up immediately thinking hearing. I woke up thinking about the fact that the elephant is my favorite animal and I've expressed that many times and the people who know me and love me they know that I love elephants. So I had to actually write the words in my journal elephant, more than I don't know three times before I connected the dots or connected the ears of the elephant to hearing. I'm telling you, even with those huge ears, I was off. I was not well. I'm telling y'all I was off, so my equilibrium was off. And I'm dreaming seeing my face in the mirror with elephant ears and I'm feeling dizzy. Y'all was feeling dizzy in my sleep. While I was asleep, while I was dreaming, I felt the sensation of being dizzy. I'm like this is too much. This is just what is what is going on. So why is the elephant significant? You ask Great question. Glad you asked.
Speaker 1:Elephants can hear from miles away, but, most importantly, they listen with more than their ears. They listen with their feet too. They feel the vibrations and they use both the feet and the ear to understand one, the direction that the message is coming from, to the distance, right and three, what kind of message it is. Is it like a mating call? Is it a cry out for help? All of that is happening. Go ahead and look it up.
Speaker 1:So after I had that breakthrough and connected the dots to the hearing, I said, okay, let's figure this out. I was in my office and I looked at a gift that another shero, angelica, bought for me. It's called a box of verse. It's basically verses on a card, but it's in this really cute decorative box. So I just casually went through them and right away I came across a verse on hearing. Look at God. Romans 10 and 17. So then, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's New King James version, but I'm going to share with you what the Amplified Bible says. So faith comes from hearing what is told, and what is heard comes by the preaching of the message concerning Christ.
Speaker 1:Now, the reason why this is significant to me is because when I began to feel off balanced, overwhelmed and unsteady, I also began to retreat a bit. I think that's our natural instincts. I didn't want to drive. I felt so dizzy, I was really concerned about being behind the wheel, but I just retreated. So I didn't go into church that first Sunday and I didn't go to Bible study. I did go to services online, but I didn't go in physically.
Speaker 1:Now I'm putting an exclamation there for a reason. I started to feel like maybe I really did have too much on my plate. I started to feel like maybe I really did have too much on my plate. But now you're talking about opening a boutique. Like how is that possible? I don't see my friends, I don't see my family. They think that I'm just being. I don't know what they think of I'm busy. So it's like how can I do this other endeavor, knowing that I'm still not reaching and connecting with the people I want to connect with right now? Maybe I do have too much on my plate and I'm launching this jewelry company and apparel line Like man. Maybe this is just. It's just too much. Maybe I did what I was supposed to do with this podcast. Maybe my assignment is complete, is complete.
Speaker 1:I believe I needed to feed my faith by hearing and also by feeling the vibrations from inside the house of God. I'm going to just tell you that the ladies who I reached out to right away when I first heard about the boutique are the same prayer warriors that I sit with and have become friends with and now family with at church. So when we get together when first of all, none of us knew each other but Lana, drea, paula, mia, loretta we all got together. These are the folks that we see. I have other friends there, but these are the group of us that get together during 1230 service and when our prayer and worship goes up, I mean we go all the way up. We go all the way up and during that time, the vibrations you understand what I'm saying the vibrations from when we're together and when we're all seeking God desperately right and we can feel it, we bounce those vibrations off of each other. I miss that in that space. So I'm tying the elephant and how the elephant hears to how I needed to feed my faith by hearing and by feeling those vibrations you get me. You know, going online is okay when you don't have an option, but I had an option. It hits differently when you're in person. You know what I mean the vibrations of your praise partners, the worship of your sisters. It's a vibe. Y'all Now that's a vibe.
Speaker 1:So that was my first breakthrough. It didn't matter what caused my equilibrium to become uneven or unbalanced. It mattered that I understood what was happening to me. There was added pressure or added energy related to these new things. Right, and I was beginning to feel them. This added energy made me consider whether my journey with this podcast was over, because maybe I was supposed to shift and do some other worthy work. Not give up, but shift my focus, because surely I don't have enough energy to do all of these things. I just it can't be.
Speaker 1:All of those projects are related to who I know I've been called to be and what I've. What I know I've been called to do Right. But I'm still saying to myself it's not supposed to kill me. So maybe I'm supposed to free myself up. But in Romans 10, 14 through 15, when I tell you it snatched me back, it breaks it down. So well for me, I just it snatched me.
Speaker 1:I'm not a preacher, but I've been called to share his message. We've all been called to do this, but I know I've been called to do it in a very specific way. He gifted me to tell a story, to tell my story, and to weave that story into something tangible. Right, that's not me, that's divine. I feel it sometimes when I'm writing and I often feel it when I'm speaking to you. Right, you'll hear the emotion in my voice and I'm so thankful for that.
Speaker 1:If you recall, I started this journey two years ago. Yep, the podcast is two years old this month. That is crazy. But when I started this two years ago, I just took a couple of notes and then I spoke to you all from the space of what I experienced in a dream or what I witnessed in nature, and it went from there. But now I take whatever's happening to me and I find it in scripture. That's what being led by a Bible-based church will encourage you to do or to teach you to do. That's what I learned from Pastor Hannah and Pastor Glenn, I love the amplified breakdown of Romans 10, 14 and 15. Let me read that to you now.
Speaker 1:But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the one who can be trusted? And how can they hear if no one tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them unless someone is sent to do it? Wow, right, so that was my second breakthrough. That was my second breakthrough. So the elephant ears helped me to get to this point Tell your story until it's completely told, so that they have yet another reference point, because the Bible gives us plenty of examples, but you know, we need to have something that's tangible. So he's using my story and I'm having all kinds of breakthroughs in the midst of it. My third breakthrough came by way of my bow.
Speaker 1:We were talking and something he said triggered a whole new thought process for me. It connected the dots for me, right. It made me consider that force or energy is neither good or bad. It's just force, it's just energy. You see, he was explaining the relationship between the villain and the hero and the force behind each of their intent, and as he spoke, my mind just immediately went to how the Bible tells us that all things work together for our good. So it doesn't matter if the force began from an ill-intentioned person. If you believe God, the energy behind that force is counteracted by faith faith that he will make what the enemy intended to harm us instead propel us into our next.
Speaker 1:So force has to be countered, or matched, if you will, to prevent the imbalance. Even if what you're experiencing was all good stuff, all good vibes, all good forces, right, all good energy, it still has to be matched. I was experiencing an abundance of blessings all at the same time, all good things, but it was still tilting me over nonetheless. So imagine a book standing upright between two bookends. If you remove one of the bookends, it's going to lean. The book is going to lean one way or the other. It's going to lean in the opposite direction of what's holding it up. Right. So the pressure of it. You need another bookend, equal in size or weight, to press against it, to make it stand upright. Or think of a seesaw or a scale. An equal weight has to be added on the opposing side to bring balance or to level it out. Right, you following me? So there has to be a counter action, one equal to the force that's pushing. Now, I don't mean an equal force of negativity, I'm just saying an equal force. Even the pressure of good stuff is still pressure.
Speaker 1:I'm learning that even then, or perhaps especially then, I need to reach for the word of God. In the word, I found the passage that said this is not about you. Now, although you may receive some benefits and I do when I share my story, I feel like I'm in a therapy session. Right, I'm having breakthroughs, especially this season. This season is just blowing my mind, so I'm receiving some benefit. I'm receiving many benefits from it. In fact, the jewelry and clothing apparel came from the podcast. It was birthed from it, so I'm receiving benefit from it. But this is about what he called me to do and how he called me to do it. Your equilibrium is off. I'm saying to myself, because you're not leaning against anything strong enough to equal these amazing miracles you're experiencing.
Speaker 1:Who talks about opening up a boutique? That thing was buried so deep in my heart. That's been a 10 year plan for me and the kind of boutique I'm talking about, not just a boutique, but I got some plans y'all, and so for her just to talk about that and then to say, look, I got the space already picked out. I'm like it's gotta have some curb appeal because it's really important to me already picked out. I'm like it's got to have some curb appeal because it's really important to me. Everything I can imagine, the space that connects it to another space, to another, all of that is in this building, in the center. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:So when I tell you I'm not just talking about little things, these blessings are incredible blessings, I was leaning on my own energy. That same. I need a B12 injection every two weeks because I'm already depleted energy For real, for real. How was my energy ever going to be sufficient for anything more when I can barely manage my right nows? The word of God holds me upright and his grace is sufficient.
Speaker 1:So if you're feeling a bit off balance, god's word is the remedy. Seek him even then, or especially then, when you're flooded with all that good stuff, that good energy, because we know to call on him when we're flooded with the negative. We can't be tricked by the enemy there, or at least not long. We call on him in adversity. We're ready to go up in prayer and worship about what we need. But when the good stuff happens or is that just me? In the midst of prosperity, we can still become unbalanced, because it's still energy. Energy is energy, regardless of the intent behind it that's so key. So to keep a balanced, steady life, we need a force equal to what we're experiencing. What force do you know that can always match and equal another force, a force that's always prepared to hold us upright and in balance? I'm feeling so much better these days and I'm thanking God for his remedy. I can't wait to talk with you soon.