As I round out my personal self love journey, I appreciate everyone who read these posts and support me. It means so much to surround yourself with people that give a damn and want the best for you. Also before I continue, for my husband... Yes we are ok, anything I posted about divorcing or problems are based off of my previous marriage, or things I have seen friends go through recently. Sure we fight and have our ups and downs and want to kick each other in the balls, but when I said till death do us part, I meant... he's only getting out of this by death parting us lol.
That being said, marriage is a very easy way to lose ones identity. We meet someone, we like them, we find things in common, and sometimes through infatuation we change ourselves to please them. Let me just go ahead and say that never works long. At some point we come back to who we are out of laziness or, we sink to a low point of being upset, depressed, or angry and not knowing who we have become or why. I definitely lost it in my first, and though I have been 95% me married to Sasquatch, there is that 5 I lost somewhere along the way.
This go around, abandonment and worry took over my personality and prevented me from being myself and enacting loving myself. I pushed a lot of people away b/c abandonment will do that to you. Those of you that have known me for so many years know, that's not me. Before I lost my parents and a few friends, a couple of aunts.... and a couple of friendships, I was a bubbly hugger, unafraid of putting myself out there. People would call me crazy, but it was a good crazy, that likable crazy like the girl who loves to sing Sir Mix A lot songs when ever she's around a karaoke machine.
Abandonment and trauma made me feel insanely out of control. So I hatched up the wonderful "control freak" personality. I will say, and my husband may disagree, that I was not the battle ax asshole wife with a leash on her husband control freak. It was mainly stupid things that caused worry, that brought the abandonment to the surface and the fear of failure, leaving this world one day no better than I found it. When my therapist said she noticed my light was gone... I knew I needed to snap out of it.
So I started learning about myself, about life coaching and through that the answers all bubbled to the top. Trying to figure out how to love myself was really scary, I didn't want to have the answer because I didn't understand it. So my first effort was to make a list of all of the negative things I see about myself that I want to change. Out of that list a very small percentage was internal. Once I had that laid out I wrote next to it, the good in the bad. It looked a little something like this....
My c-section scar makes my abs look like shit, they will never look good and its embarrassing...
My c-section scar is an amazing reminder of the work I did with God for 18 months forming the two most amazing things I have ever created.
My arms have bat wings and no amount of push ups has changed that.
I have arms, I can use them to hug people, give necessity bags to the needy, hold my children and grand children one day, they do so much for me.
I feel abandoned and alone, a lot... I miss my parents, I really wish I could hug my dad
I AM so lucky to have had him for the 35 years I did, and even though my mom and I had our issues there are still many good things she taught me that have helped me in life and will continue to do so. I am not alone, only when I shut people out am I alone.
Y'all that felt so good to write that list, it proved that there is always a positive in what we see as negative. It helped me to realize love and appreciation is way more powerful that self limiting fears and self loathing. I wanted to be happy and feel better, and it felt better. Our insecurities are not us. They are a false perception of ourselves and we should love our insecurities. I was laughed at and made fun of for being fat most of my childhood. My dad even called me thunder thighs thinking it was funny and though he wasn't trying to be hurtful... it was. I carried that with me for a very long time. Shedding that self limiting idea and insecurity honestly made me feel like this giant weight was lifted off of my shoulders.
Every time I look at my body now, I thank it, I appreciate it and I don't compare it to anyone. I pray more, and in doing so I worry less. I gave up my control. What good was it doing for me, and slowly the 5 % is coming back. It won't happen over night for sure, its something that is more like a bad habit. I am still moving forward every day because I deserve to be happy, and I know the crazy lady inside is ready to jump right back to the for front. We can't blame our spouses for when we change, we only have control over ourselves. When we enter into any relationship and change who we are for that person, it's already setting up for failure and pain, and its your fault. If you are not happy with yourself, you will never ever be happy with anyone at all, not matter the relationship.
We need to be happy with who we are. You know the saying from Field of Dreams "if you build it they will come"... If you build yourself up and you are happy with who you are the right people come along and stick around. The ones who don't? Well you can with zero guilt, unapologetic tell them not to let the door hit them where God split them. It's a life long process and people will always try to tear you down. Its happened to me since I have started my journey, but.... I refuse to yield to myself standing in my way b/c.... I AM ENOUGH!
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