People ask me if I am forever positive and upbeat. Hardly. I am the whole package of a person and sadness grabs onto me as hard as anyone. I look to survive tragic and dramatic and live on, healthfully, and have to do so time and again but it is not so easy, it commands energy and there are times when it feels just hopeless, like your sanity [my sanity] is on the edge, even if only for a moment.
It is still a vivid memory for me and yet it is from nearly 15 years ago. I thought my life had the elements I wanted — my home, my family, my marriage, my career. I can feel the clench in my gut as it all crumbled rather quickly and left me feeling desperate and worthless and hollow. Worst of all, it caused me to question my self worth and my place on the planet. This is not a story I share, but most of the stories in my life, this colorful life of mine, are not the stories that I share. When someone wants to dive deep, I am very good at listening and do what I need to deflect the attention off of me, me and the heartbreak I have had in my lifetime. Plus, why focus on the negative, the junk, I like to move into a better zone.
So, why share now?
As I have been working on the final edits and details of my book, Build The Strength Within, I am being asked to share why I wrote it and what I want to see happen. Good question, private question, genuine curiosity.
I wrote the book and created the materials that go with it because I was fighting my way back into my own life and into my own skin, trying to determine where exactly that was. I have survived deep traumas and dramas of life, not so different from anyone else; we all have pain of some sort because of our circumstances — our circumstances and how it is we choose to interpret them and handle them. And yet, it always feels like our own agony is by far the worst. These feelings are so isolating. A marriage that ends violently, desperately, in the face of fraud and a complete lack of integrity is something that will cause you to shake in your own shoes and be afraid to take the next step. I remember the absolute terror I felt every day, every night, for a very long time. The icy distance that replaced a warm and loving embrace was simply impossible to bear. I had lost the person upon whom I depended to be my partner in every important way and every frivolous manner– he was gone and some other crazy replacement was in my home and in my bed. The agony nearly cost me my life. I am thankful every day that it did not.
That tragic chapter is a haunting that I have replaced with understanding and forgiveness for things that were done to me that have taken years to understand. Allowing fear and sadness to be replaced with understanding and a genuine form of forgiveness is sincerely healing. That journey was one where I learned so much about the voice of the God and also about my connection to my inner core, my absolute self, my faith, my strength, my craving for the life I was destined to breathe in again. My gratitude drops me to my knees.
Losing my parents — that was nothing short of mind blowing unbelievable. I am grateful for the time with them both and will miss them forever, no doubt. It was a blessing, a genuine gift to be with them through their elderly years and to be a care provider to their last moments. I had prayed for that to be the case, I wanted to be an escort to their departure. However, that all takes a toll, it takes your breath away, it took my breath away, quite literally…..more about that health issue at another time, and it made me wonder, each time, do I really have a life to continue on into?
I believe that these are the questions so very deserving of our time and genuine attention. They are important to ask. If we never stop to feel about what it is that means the most to us, how do we know what it is that really matters?
I know, with every major event in my life, that this life is what I want. And I want to make it deep, genuine, rich, full of all that there is to experience. I’ve lived most of my life that way and see the benefit of reaching out to grab onto others also participating in this manner. I also find myself pulling onto the hands of many — inviting them to get up, and get out, and feel, experience, think, touch…do it all and do it now. The most important element of it all is the connection we have to others, the deep connection that is genuinely heart to heart, mind to mind.
I have sat in intensive care units, neonatal units, hospice facilities, homes where someone was ill or dying including having it all take place in my own home and with my own loved ones not just my patients and clients. I know the scene and know how I hope it is that I take my last breaths — with full memories and rich experiences and few regrets. I’ve traveled many parts of the world and also sat at home, been to lots of events and also sat quietly in my garden. I know that there is joy to feel alongside sorrow. More than anything else, I know I have in my own self a reserve of something magnificent to carry me through this life so that I am happy and productive and healthy–and so do you! My book, my work, is all about that and all about wanting to share, just simply share.
Sit now and think of who you are and who you want to be. Think of how you are treated by others and how you want to be. Think of how you feel right now and how you want to be. You can have the life that you want, it is yours to have. You can be whatever it is that you genuinely desire to be. Dreams are meant to be lived beyond the nighttime fantasy, this life is your opportunity.
You will find your inner peace as you explore your dreams and shape the life you crave having. Do it, your life is not yet over.
