Like you,
my life has also been touched by many hardships
I came from a typical and dysfunction family that "looked" normal with:
Just hang on!
- mental illness in several family members
- a highly negative and blaming alcoholic parent
- my other parent committing suicide
- many generations of dyslexia and attention deficit
- the loss of many close family members and friends to cancers
- many generations of alcoholism
- a lonely childhood, plagued by low esteem and self doubts
- betrayals of close friends
- divorce from my first love
And I had many, many health issues:
- a "sensitive" stomach, bloating, acid reflux from infancy
- chronic nasal congestion and almost year round "hay fever" to anything airborne
- chronic tension headaches and migraines
- dysplastic hip joints and degenerative spinal disc disease that contributed to loss of articular cartilage and early onset osteoarthritis and myalgia
- survived many horse riding falls with severe injuries that contributed further to my debilitating and painful muscular and skeletal disorders
- evaluated and told by two rheumatologists at age 40 that I would need hip replacement surgery within ten years (NOT!)
During my first 40 years of life, I believed I was very successful in making the best of all these unfortunate situations.
Yet I became an uncomfortable physical "mess" and was barely able to walk.
I felt stuck, powerless, even trapped to move forward in my life.
Immobilized.
Though I had been medically diagnosed and labeled with real and limiting physical ailments, it was not pharmaceuticals or surgery that healed me. Those choices did not feel right for me and I rejected them as only a last recourse.
What healed me was me taking responsiblity for how I restricted my own life.
I had strongly identified with being a caretaker, a fixer, a nurturer, a mother that was endlessly and compulsively caring and giving my energy and soul to others while neglecting myself.
I realized that it was my lifelong habit of saying "yes" to avoiding conflict situations and to settle for a life that felt very small, constricted and bitter.
I healed me through the process of learning to accept, nurture, forgive and empower myself in healthy, balanced ways.
At first it was difficult because I needed to learned through trial and error how to set up healthy boundaries.
For most of my life, I had suppressed and hid my emotions from others and even myself, because I didn't know anyone that would accept me and my feelings as me.
I realized that I had convinced myself to live proudly practical so I could hide all my disappointments in others and justify not having what I wanted.
I had worried circles around all possible future mistakes and pitfalls since I could remember.
I had focused so much of my energies on avoiding what I feared might happen, I was actually experiencing the very life I was trying to avoid.
I had to find the courage to politely but firmly say "No" without getting angry.
I slowly re-empowered myself by realizing I had a choice in when and how I gave to others.
The realization that I had to accept that I would NEVER be perfect and learn to love myself anyway was a pivotal change for my life.
Stop judging yourself through the eyes of others.
You are awesome as you are!
- I chose to stop worrying (over and over again!) about how NOT to make mistakes
- I chose to change my negative outlooks that I accepted from others' judgements
- I chose to realize how I was limiting my expectations for my own life
- I learned how to unplug from the negative victim stories of my past
- I learned to bring awareness to my old persistent and lingering hurts and wounds
- I healed by my own willingness to understand and forgive others as well as myself
- I learned to find appreciation and gratitude in the present, no matter what is happening
- I finally learned how to accept and love myself for just being imperfect, sensitive and wonderful ME, a continuing work in progress!
Love Yourself First and Everything Else Falls into Place.
Lucille Ball
