I LOVE being a woman. I AM comfortable in my own skin. Both statements are profound and bold for me to say. I have not always felt this way about myself. I mean that is not profound on its own, so many women have these very same sentiments, albet they never have the courage or conviction to admit it aloud or even to themselves. Two and a half almost three years ago I had a life changing experience, I ended a seven and a half year romantic relationship. You ask, "well people break up all the time h0w is this life altering?" That is true, but for me, it was and still is. For the first time, I was truly on my own. I went from living at home with my mother to moving in with him. I had never had to be completely self sufficient, now I had no choice. I had always lived under the guise of never being good enough. Although, I was able to put on a brave front and convince everyone, including myself that I was just fine, happy even. Truthfully, I was panged with feelings of inadequacies, self loathing and unhappiness. I lived my life for others and in the process lost who I was, or maybe I never truly knew who I was in the first place. These feelings lead into the arms of a man who on the surface was kind and loving but underneath was bitter, angry and self loathing as well. This is where my true downward spiral went into full force. His verbal assaults became a constant and my pit of self loathing became almost common place. But he said that he loved me, that should have been enough, right?
I chose to build walls and live in this aura of denial that everything was fine, but truthfully I had become almost numb to all feelings, it was safer that way. I turned to food to comfort myself, a practice I witnessed my mother do from the time I was little, to comfort her pain of feeling trapped taking care of a terminally ill controling man; my father. In the process, I gained a considrable amount of weight and now a new level of self lothing could be piled on top of the already existing pile.
Then one day, while out for lunch with a friend, she was able to break down a few bricks of my coccoon of emotional numbness. Once a few bricks came down the whole wall crumbled. Pain, fear, grief, all kinds of emotions came flooding back to me. I felt so raw so exposed, but I WAS feeling. That was my turning point. I no longer wanted to live with no feeling. In fact I just wanted to live again. In that very moment I made the decision to get my life back on my terms. This is where the real work began. I made a conscious decision to no longer skate by in life but to really look deep within myself and do the work. It hasn't been easy. Each day got a little easier, I became more confident in my abilities and my worth. I did come to terms and confront traumas, obstacles and occurances that happened to me in childhood. This is where the real work came into play. I discovered that I had a lot of pain pushed down deep and covered with denial and food so that I wouldn't have to deal with it. Once I looked at it dead on, felt the pain and let it go, it was like I was free and almost lighter. A miraculous thing happened along the way, I found the real me. She has always been there, waiting, coming out every once in a while to remind me she still exists but would quickly retreat back into the recesses. I've missed her, the fun, joyous, silly, loving and self confident woman. She now has the staring role, no longer the background player. Do I still have days of feeling not so confident? Absolutely, we all do, but now I don't let it take over, I know that it will pass and life, my life will go on. I am not perfect by any means, I make mistakes, wrong choices and bad judgements like everyone else. But now I can honestly say I am ok with it, it does not define me. I chose to live in the moment and really be present in this crazy thing called our lives. My journey is far from over, only now I know how to stop and really take in and appreciate the view. xxoo
