I never realized how desperately I needed to be loved by myself. I have held her back for all her life, only allowing her to shine through others. It is enough now. It is finally time to shine for myself.
The lunatic on the floor
Not too long ago, and I am talking about a year, I found myself lying on the floor stretching after an intense but fabulous workout class. A song came on that caught me so off guard, it left me scrunched up and crying like a lunatic right there amongst strangers on the workout mat. I felt naked, completely vulnerable, and so desperately sad.
I cannot explain what happened in that “WTH” moment but those broken minutes changed my life.
You are the Reason by Callum Scott
“There goes my heart beating, ‘Cause you are the reason, I’m losing my sleep. Please come back now.
And there goes my mind racing, and you are the reason, that I’m still breathing, I’m hopeless now.
CHORUS – I’d climb every mountain and swim every ocean, just to be with you, and fix what I’ve broken.
Oh, ’cause I need you to see, that you are the reason.
There goes my hands shaking, and you are the reason, my heart keeps bleeding, I need you now.
If I could turn back the clock, I’d make sure the light defeated the dark.
I’d spend every hour of every day keeping you safe.
CHORUS –
I don’t want to fight no more, I don’t want to hide no more,I don’t want to cry no more.
Come back, I need you to hold me
(You are the reason)
A little closer now, just a little closer now, come a little closer, I need you to hold me tonight
CHORUS – “
A real love story
Weeks turned into months, and my running partner would be me and this damn song! I could not fathom why every time I heard it I was brought to my knees, but one morning the penny just dropped. I will never forget that moment of clarity, through my tears seeing the sun casting its reflection off the lake, and realizing that the tears were not about a love story of another, but a love story of a loss of one’s self. This love story was the loss of me.
The lyrics
The little girl and woman that I so wish I could of protected, loved and kept safe. To turn back the clock and make better choices, to defeat the dark. The lyrics opened the door that I have so neatly kept locked, to an understanding beyond my own reasoning.
Expectation
We are born so beautifully new and perfect in our parents eyes. We take our first steps and we believe we are capable of anything, even on those wobbly unsure legs. The beaming faces of excited parents there to catch us when we fall. Then slowly things change. We get older and we take the reigns and forge forward trying to shape our own lives. I guess you could say most of what followed in captaining my own ship was pretty much a blur of good and bad, right and wrong. The more I did wrong, the worse I felt, the more I did right, the less I felt I deserved. I took all this shame and self loathing and I flogged myself with it through most of my adult life. I no longer felt deserving of being caught by my parents to kiss my boo boos. I truly did not believe I deserved to be happy, FULLY presently happy, and even if I did, I worried that it would be taken away from me in punishment somehow. How does one deserve a beautiful life, if there are moments that make you feel so dark and very shameful.
I have forged forward and I have worked hard, played hard and I loved hard, and by the grace of God I have met the love of my life who has embraced all of me and together we have created a life of such joy with our daughters. Yet, through all the change and all the hard work of forging ahead, I have felt undeserving and truth be told, still a little sad. I have felt such guilt about it. Who am I to feel anything but sheer joy for all my many blessings?
Self
This song made me soul search and I guess you could call it my silent therapist. The word SELF. So easy to say, but what does it really mean? Self is not a wife. It is not a child. It is not a parent. It is not our children. It is not our friends or our jobs. I have spent most of my life defining myself by my past actions, my career, who I was as a child, a friend, a wife, and the hardest, being a mom. I was so lost, until I realized that Self it just that:: MYSELF.
Self is all those things, the good, the bad and even the ugly. I had along the way lost so much clarity of who Self is and who I was before all the blurred lines made me forget my dreams, and my ideals and who I was as a person before everything else. The relentless voice repeating that I was underserving. All my tears of longing and sadness were just that, sadness at the loss of self. We are one with ourselves. We are both good and bad. We all deserve to forgive ourselves and see the best version of ourselves.
In this moment of clarity I decided to take that broken part of myself that I was so angry and disappointed with and to forgive her. To stop fighting with her, to hold her, to love her and to nurture her. Because she is the reason.
Fast forward
In the last few months, I have taken this whole new human being and I have embraced all of her and am truly making an effort to let her live a full happy life. A deserving one. I signed with a modeling agency at 44, I am writing, I am being me. I cry, I laugh, and I love. I love my life, and in embracing that inner child and finding Self, I am fully happy. Happy for my children to see their mom loving herself, a husband to see and support his wife living her best life, not only for him but for her, and realizing that you are never too old to re-in-vent YOURSELF.
Find yourSELF
Kiss your boo boos, get up, brush off your knees and go and live a full life, not for others but for yourself. I cannot promise that it is easy, but the first step is admitting that there is a problem.
Find your song.
The rest, it all just falls into place.
What sparks you to make you happy, to get you driven? Share your stories of finding SELF.
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