Skipping Stones

Skipping stones on the way to the big wave.

In my life I’ve encountered many obstacles just as any other person.

 I experienced a lot of bullying diminishing any kind of self-love and confidence I had at the time. It took a lot of work and patience within myself to overcome the lack of confidence that existed deep inside of me. The very lack of confidence led to being in my head about my voice and whether I was liked, it left me feeling like everyone in the room very much disliked me and I certainly was not welcome. I became incredibly defensive in the depths of trying to heal myself emotionally. I lacked communication skills and was often perceived differently than what I was trying to portray, which led to greater anxiety surrounding the trust of people around me. I even believed the incredible man who chose me as his bride MUST have some ulterior motive, he simply could not really love me. How wrong I was there! When I escape the grasp of that anxiety, I know this is not true at all. Of course, I will always encounter people who don’t accept me and that’s ok! I don’t need to be part of their tribe just as they don’t need to be a part of mine.

I easily forgave those who apologized to me, but the biggest obstacle was learning to forgive and let go of those who simply never would; I was tired of carrying around the hurt these people caused knowing they slept just fine about it at night. I had to move on, I LOVE ME, my children love me, my husband loves me, and when I started accepting my own self love and even more importantly, the love of those around me, I quickly discovered that I had a whole world of individuals cheering me on. Each person knew my potential, saw my diamond, and the best of them are still around to see it shine.

Overcoming childhood pain, the typhon life of being diagnosed with things like PTSD, anxiety, ADHD, ADD, and ODD when the true underlying issue was not at all being addressed. I didn’t have anxiety at all, I never knew TRUE anxiety until adulthood, but I THOUGHT I did because someone with a degree once told my mother I was experiencing extreme anxiety. I did not have ODD; I had a lack of love and affection that I was overly needy for. And as for ADD and ADHD, I function calmly in adulthood unmedicated and although I take on a million tasks at a time, lists help me keep them straight and activated self-healing pathways in my brain make focus so much sharper!

The biggest toll on my emotional health was losing my daughter to sepsis at the young age of 18 (read Paislee’s Birth Story). The incredible emotional turmoil and grief that spawned from that devasted me for the following year. I hated myself, hated this world more than anything. Truly believed that she deserved to be here but certainly not me. I longed for something I could never have, I still long for that, it was a huge factor in our decision to keep having children or not. I was a child myself, laying my brand-new baby to rest. I was learning about nursing and the power of breast feeding while trying to save my preemie. I endured pumping for a baby that would never receive my milk to eventually giving up and having extreme pain from stopping cold turkey because the physical pain would never compare to the emotional emptiness and severe grief in my heart. Only later in life, being stupidly attached to my babies because I knew the importance of breast feeding but simply could not let down for the pump. I call this pump trauma and it is real! For many other reasons, not limited to bereaved mothers.

So now to answer to big question: How did I personally overcome this? You must know, I have yet to hit the big wave, but it’s in view! So much patience went into the beginning of my healing, so much learning. I had to be willing to be a novice, to maybe look foolish, to ask hard questions, and to learn from others. I had to drop any sort of pride or ego I had and accept that there were much more knowledgeable people like me out there and I needed to take the opportunity to learn from them and that would only come in the form of learning how to listen, effectively communicate, accept not being accepted, and what we call choosing my hard! It was hard to suffer like this in life, incredibly hard. It was even harder to heal from it! Like anything else in life that was once hard, healing became like second nature to me. It was a part of my subconscious routine, it became easy!

Guess what else was hard, accepting the challenges life presented me with, taking it on with a calm mind, and considering it an obstacle that is going to feel amazing to overcome! I trained myself to become absolutely free of bias, prejudice, and most importantly: expectations! I learned to look as challenges, crisis, chaos as an opportunity to learn, grow, and overcome! Perseverance is a major word in my life.

At the same time this was all happening, I was learning about health and nutrition which both played large roles in the grand changes I began seeing. I started practicing yoga and meditation, taking time for myself and that self-love I was working so hard to develop. I began seeing tremendous divine intervention, things, people, places, adventure, opportunity, began coming to me in mounds. I didn’t know what to do with it all being the do it all mentality that I carry. I’m incredibly grateful for the journey I was on. Every part of my story shaped my life now, and I couldn’t be more blessed with my family and loved ones and the opportunity to live the life I love with my family.