Here Goes -
Here Goes -
I’ll be honest, even though I am a writer and life coach, I have avoided writing and publishing my blog because I was afraid of appearing imperfect. How would people find me “legitimate” when I have so much to work on in my own life?
For a long time I let it paralyze me. And then I realized, my story of imperfection IS my gift.
In my own defense, I have to say out loud that it’s not my ONLY gift. I am good at what I do. I am intuitive, empathetic, compassionate and optimistic, and I know how to get people from where they feel stuck to where they want to be. I can cheerlead the hell out of many a situation and get it back on track, and people seem to keep coming back, so not being perfect hasn’t screwed things up too badly.
But most people don’t see the times when I feel stuck myself, when I’m spinning around in the washing machine of my own pain and it feels like I’ll be there forever. They don’t see the times when I’m fighting with my husband because the triggers from my past have been activated and the child inside me has hijacked the bus, before the grown up part catches up to set it all straight. They don't see when changing cell phone plans sends me into a physiological tailspin because I feel helpless and unseen (man do I hate changing cell phone plans!).
Only a select few see those things, and when I’m in them, it is SO imperfect.
But that’s the beauty of it, right? It’s my life philosophy, in fact, that not only is it impossible to avoid imperfection, but that imperfection is a necessary component of transformation. When I go to those seemingly endless depths of ugly, I inevitably come out better, wiser, and another layer of healed. Every. Single. Time. I come out learning something new about myself or the world around me, learning from my mistakes, gaining a new skill, deepening old skills, remembering after the fact a skill I already know but forgot to use.
Having come from a past that included sexual, physical and emotional abuse, I am sometimes surprised at where I am today. Like so many people, my first exposure to mental health was being locked inside my own brain, not a soul with whom to share or process the depths of what was happening to me, my pain taking complete ownership of me and doing with me what it will.
As could be expected, I lost myself during that time. I went a little nutty. But over the years I have worked incredibly hard to transform my pain and create this life that, most of the time, I adore. My life is now sane when it once was crazy, hopeful when it was once desperate, and thriving when it was once a complete shit show.
If you decide to stay and hang out with me, you’ll learn more about my experiences, like how my father and I used to fist fight in the living room over the volume of the stereo, and how I didn’t want to have children because I was certain I would ruin them for good (I now have three of the most amazing kids you could ever imagine). Later, you will learn how those events, and tons more like them, became more than just crappy things that happened to me. They became the catalyst for tremendous transformation, a platform from which I altered the course of my personal development and became the me that I couldn’t have otherwise become.
That, however, is for another day. For now I will simply say that I have found my way out, into the light of day. I will say that my past experiences have shaped me, but they don’t define me; they initiated me, but they do not own me. And, having come from less than perfect, I have the honor of knowing what it means to feel lost, and ashamed, and unworthy. As difficult as it is to say those things publicly, I am choosing to do so, because in doing so I can support others who have felt it, too.
I have tried to stay small in order to protect the soft underbelly of my soul, but have found that that serves no one, especially me. I began to see that hiding behind my insecurities and holding myself back from what I know I am meant to do in the world actually started to affect me in ways that I wasn’t comfortable with. My soul screamed louder and louder until it got to the point that I simply couldn’t hide my gifts and my experiences without some significant consequences, so, I gave in.
I think that what I have gone through, and continue to go through every day in the name of growth and healing is worth sharing, and can help others like myself, who have felt flawed and stuck and in pain. Hell, I’ll settle for helping one person. One single person who can embrace their humanness and their pain, and become aware of their power to live a life that is better today than it was yesterday, and so on – I’ll take it.
So, here is the first in a series of many blogs. My journal entries, so to speak. It isn’t always going to be pretty, but there will always be another side, a side that feels like home.
And that’s the point, right? Not to be perfect, but to be happy...
