I have spent a life time wallowing in my own recovery. I know it had to be done so I don't fault myself but I feel I have missed a lot during my suffering. My desire is to somehow help other people take a short cut to finding healing for emotional trauma.
I think it is important to know where you come from and whose words shaped you into the person you are today. Sometimes it isn't words it is maybe a look or in my case a lack of interest in me at all. As kids we take this stuff in and we believe it because it is our only experience. We think it is true because it was one on the first things imprinted in our little minds.
To find happiness for myself I have had to look a my own thoughts and the phrases I say to myself to find out what opinions I have of myself that hurt me. At first I had to stop the negative comments I constantly made to myself. I had to make friends with the woman in the mirror.
That was a good start and gave me a lot of peace in my life but I still felt like something was missing. I knew there was more because sometimes I would feel sad and lonely and words of blame would surface. I would go over everything that brought me to the place I am today. All the mistakes I made and the people I trusted with my heart.
What I have realized this past year is that I can't change the past but I can stop blaming myself for where I am today. I am only suffering because I chose to feel the weight of not only my choices but the choices of every other person in my life. Life is messy and people are messed up. We want to fix the past so we stay there too much.
I don't believe that regurgitating our past does anything to heal us. It is a bad habit that must be broken to move on. It is narcissism at its best and will keep us from finding happiness with where we are today. We can identify the beliefs we created from those events but then let them go. We are no longer experiencing them unless we relive them in our minds. It is a story and telling our story over and over gives it power over us. We are not our story unless we want to be.
I have been lost for a long time believing that I was somehow "not good enough" and this was why I didn't find the life I imagined I would. But really it is this believe that kept me from enjoying the times in my life that were really wonderful. I wasn't emotionally engaged and surrounded myself with people just like me. It was where I was comfortable being invisible lost in my own painful thought.
I have had a good life and even though sometimes I wish it was more like a Hallmark movie - who doesn't? I am thankful that I am healthy and my mind is good and I have a job that I love. I know now that I can decide to enjoy the day and not wish for something more.
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