What I have discovered in my journey to the Real Me is that I was not being me a lot more than I realized!
I used to think my life wasn’t that bad and I had it pretty good because I didn’t experience half of the painful childhood experiences as some of my closest friends did, and really I didn’t, on the surface.
My Mom did the best she could, she always gave us as much as she could being a single parent. She would do fun things with us and all the other kids thought she was the coolest Mom. I agreed, and I love her for never outwardly judging me, she always accepted me for who I was. It was ME who was my own judge and jury. I didn’t need anyone else to help me although I did have help along the way in my early life experiences, they just weren’t ‘traumatic’.
What kept me stuck was I wouldn’t let myself relax and have fun, I would resist it to no end. I felt self-conscious and awkward when I saw my Mom and sister being silly, dancing, and singing … it made me want to die of embarrassment. I wouldn’t take risks, I was always scared, and then I turned 13 and something shifted. I remember feeling so left out while I was waiting for them to get off the Flyer at the Exhibition, thinking I was sick of not having any fun and if I was meant to die on a rollercoaster ride then so be it. 😉
So that’s when I started taking risks and unintentionally gave my power away over and over again. To boys, to peer pressure, to society, to feel accepted. It was a traumatically painful year for me which put me right back to playing it safe. And that’s how I rolled for the next 30 years, being who I thought others wanted me to be and squashing who I really was, I lost myself without realizing it.
I met my soul mate early on in life and we had a family in our early 20s, we owned our own home by the time I was 25 and life seemed pretty good. On the surface it looked like we were doing really well and truthfully we were, on the outside looking in.
If you know anything about soul mates, they are here to teach us and learn from us and we did just that, it was a lot of years of the ups and downs of emotions, the good, bad and ugly. We always came back to love but it was turbulent for both of us and still can be at times, but since we have healed so much of our past it’s farther and few between.
I’ve now accepted that we just feel deeply together and I denied that for a very long time. I believed that it was wrong to be emotional, sensitive and express feelings such as anger, which grew into resentment. I don’t recall getting angry much in my past, I stuffed a lot of the injustice I felt because I was scared of conflict. That led me to becoming passive aggressive in my approach because there was an internal battle going on within me between who I really was and who I thought others wanted me to be. I always chose to be the later and that caused me to judge myself immensely. I didn’t realize how hard I’ve been on myself over my life until just this last year as I’ve dug in deeper.
My story is a familiar one, so many of us experience these types of fear feelings due to feeling separate and alone. The opposite of love and feeling connected to others.
This is our biggest lesson we can learn here, to love our self despite all of it, who we are, what we have or don’t have, what we have done or have not done, what we are thinking … we judge it all and are conditioned to do so.
We must commit to taking ownership of our life and discovering and accepting our ‘bad’ qualities hidden inside, so close yet buried deep underneath with a wall of protection because our heart closed. We will become physically diseased if we don’t do something different, I know I was growing Cancer in my colon and I found out when I made a change and took a chance on me.
What I have learned on the journey to the real me is that pain is pain, I never before acknowledged it, validated it, and witnessed mine, I didn’t feel worthy of it.
I learned I must unlearn most of what I thought was true, what I was conditioned to believe. That involved healing the past because this is why I experienced it, why I forgot my truth and had to find it.
No shortcuts, I had to feel those feelings I avoided all along, I had to embrace my ‘bad girl’ and take risks of failure, rejection and the thought of doing it alone to take my power back. I had to practice believing and trusting myself.
I’ve been through many experiences to bring me to where I am and will continue evolve. I have discovered I am quite the opposite of who I was being for the majority of my life so I get it.
These are some of the adventures of our soul that we didn’t realize we were signing up for when we took on this mission.
All of the above has to happen before you can release the old stories and create a new story that is the truth of who you are. Oh and we don’t have a say in the timing, we can only follow and trust with what we know of in this reality and keep moving along, having gratitude for the adventure of it all.
I think you can see the theme here, it all boils down to self-love and self-acceptance. So every day be your own biggest cheerleader no matter what. Whether you mess up or shine bright, love prevails because it does not judge, it only loves.
Namaste.
Besides impacting the lives of others to ‘be real and love life’ the most powerful thing about the work I get to do is the reflections of the teachings that come back to me. I always receive some type of wisdom, healing or blessing from the experience, whether it’s a private, group session or a speaking event.
Whatever the message is that I’ve conveyed I am somehow reminded of how it applies to me as well and it guides me towards the next stage of my growth.
Being aware of the subtle messages that are being sent to guide us forward is very empowering.
Last weekend at the Soul Full Day conference, I guided a group of 70 women through a visualization meditation to identify and let go of a fear story holding them back from what they truly wanted for their life, freedom to live their love story.
It was remarkable to witness them releasing the fear and claiming their love stories, seeing and feeling themselves living in the higher potential of their dreams.
This week I’ve been deeply reminded of the fear story that I’ve been carrying, ‘not being well enough to live a fulfilling life because my digestive health is failing’.
This is the same story my grandmother carried, and she died in fear with this story in her which was unconsciously passed on to me, and I accepted it.
For 8 years now I’ve been having various challenges with my digestive health. I’ve seen many different professionals and tried many different remedies and lifestyle changes. Some have worked and some haven’t. Over time things seemed to have mostly settled, then just a month ago the issues flared up again in a bigger way.
This brought up the old fear story for me as I prepare for a trip of a lifetime. I’m going to Egypt on a sacred pilgrimage to the visit the lands and ancient sites with 13 other women. This will be my first trip overseas and I’ve always been fascinated with Egyptian history, never thinking I would get the opportunity to visit until it showed up to me. I was very drawn to go, and decided I was going, even though it felt way outside my ability to be able to take such a trip.
Worries and a wide range of emotions have been coming up for me since these flare ups have been happening. My mind races and makes up stories based in old fears.
What if I am not well enough to fully experience this trip? What if I am stuck in my room and miss the tours, or what if I am not able to digest the food there? All that disappointment and money spent if I might not be able to full experience it.
These stories are very similar to what my grandmother used to tell herself. She was afraid to go far from home, let alone on a plane to another country. Everything centred around her digestive limitations and she was petrified of having an ‘accident’ while out in public. These fear stories debilitated her and she became a hermit and was very lonely in her later years.
I will never forget seeing her in the final days of her life living in fear. I visited her almost every day and seeing her like that was very sad because there wasn’t much I could do other than comfort and reassure her that she would be ok.
What it did do was motivate me to face my own fears and not go down the same path as she did. In this regard, she was a great teacher to me and not long after she transitioned I was divinely guided to take the Radical Forgiveness Master Coach 10 day training in Atlanta.
It was a huge step for me, and again way outside my comfort zone, but in the end it was one of the best things I could have done for myself because it set me on the trajectory of facing my fears, and the journey of living my love story.
I am eternally grateful to be on this path of self-forgiveness and self-acceptance just as I am, and in time I have learned to love myself. I’m still on this healing journey however this year I’ve had some major shifts in this area of my life and feel truly worthy and deserving of this love for myself because I have freedom from the fears.
This is where the synchronicity comes in again.
It just so happens that this Friday, the day I fly to Egypt, is the 9 year anniversary of my grandmother’s passing, and it’s a full moon! You just can’t make these things up. I didn’t realize the mysterious alignment of these dates until just a few weeks ago.
In numerology the number 9 represents endings and completions and I have a strong intuitive feeling that this trip is going to be transformational for me as a new beginning.
The other day when I was dancing my grandmother came to my mind, she was dancing with me, and I know she is leaving me these breadcrumb signs to follow to complete this stage of my journey. I made a promise to her that I was going to end the cycle of fear she carried and commit myself to healing into wholeness.
I have no doubt that this is all happening for me, rather than to me. And unlike my grandmother, I will face my fears and take this trip and I will trust in the divine unfoldment of it all.
I am reminded that everything is always working out for me, even if it doesn’t seem that way and she is cheering me on all along the way.
These are the same phrases I spoke to the women when I was on stage just a few days ago and they echo loudly in my mind as the beautiful blessings of having the freedom to live my love story.
If you would like to experience the guided visualization for yourself listen to the audio recording so you too can be free from your fear story and claim your love story.
In my next blog I will share about my travel adventures so stay tuned, and if you would like to be notified when I share it you can join my email Love Letter list at the bottom of this page.
Until next time… thank you for being here.
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