Who would have thought at this point in my life I would just now start to discover what true gratitude is. I’m 35, a Mom, wife and Registered Massage Therapist, those are my titles but who am I? Up until earlier today I would look around at things in my life that I had to be grateful for and would try to use those things to feel gratitude. I thought I needed to appreciate all of the things I had in order to have gratitude, that may be true for some people but that was not the case for me.

Today I learned that I needed to be truly okay with myself, all of myself. I just needed to love me because deep down I knew I appreciated all of the things in my life yet I would still force those things upon myself as a way of trying to feel gratitude. I was still hiding from what I really required to grow beyond this stuck point. I wasn’t letting myself feel that I just needed to be okay with me and once that happened it opened the flood gates for all of the gratitude that I naturally have but just wasn’t letting myself feel. I had such sharp edges I thought I had such a strong sense of self and self-esteem because I was tough but man was I wrong. That tiny ass little voice that kept pushing me on through all of my darkest moments was right. I’m so thankful I listened to that voice, it can be hard sometimes to identify what’s a real emotion or thought versus an impostor type emotion or thought. If you’re anything like me you have thoughts on overdrive, you can be in a sea of your own thoughts or stopping in your tracks staring off at nothing in particular and then randomly come to. The thoughts are voices telling me all the things, what I should be doing what I haven’t done blah blah blah all the terrible shit as a constant narrative you can’t escape from. So I had to purely trust because I couldn’t even trust my own thoughts and emotions at times. I had to take a leap of faith and hope that I knew what I was doing and feeling was right. Deep down I was driven and knew I was going in the right direction, the narrative tried to talk me out of it all the damn time but I knew this was right!

I knew I had to keep digging I had to keep fighting yet I had to continue to give myself grace and patience WAY more than I ever even considered. If you are going through any kind of mental health situation please hear me on the deepest level possible, if you take nothing from anything I’ve written please take this. Give yourself the kind of grace you would give your dearest love, whoever or whatever that is to you personally. A dog, horse, child, husband, wife, partner I don’t care what, just treat yourself like that. I believe at our cores we are good people and circumstances have shaped us. Some have smoother edges from a beautifully nurtured life and others more jagged from harsh and or cruel moments of time. I believe we are all capable of smoother edges, some of us just have to smooth them out ourselves. You see I lived a beautifully nurtured life with loving kind parents and experienced an event that would shape my life for years to come. I won’t for one second pretend I had a ‘bad’ childhood, in fact it was great. We went on vacations and we saw family all the time literally we all lived on the same road as my grandparents for most of my life. I tried to tell myself that because my life was so great I didn’t really have anything to complain about, I didn’t consider how brutally damaging that was at such a tender age. If you’re anything like me you have thoughts on overdrive, you can be in a sea of your own thoughts or stopping in your tracks staring off at nothing in particular and then randomly come to. The thoughts are voices telling me all the things, what I should be doing what I haven’t done blah blah blah all the terrible shit on a constant narrative. I will thank my boys everyday of my life for stirring up the coals and breathing air on them. It started with them and for them and over time it morphed into something for me, a beautiful selfish thing for me. I want to give them a healthy Momma this is quite literally the least I can do for them, we chose this family and they deserve whole, period! (With extra emphasis)

During today’s mediation I cried, quite a bit admittedly and I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before. I normally do okay with meditating but I drift off a lot. Today was different, I was able to let some more guilt go, apparently I have it in hoards. I feel like some light was shown all the way to the back on some deeper areas that I was inadvertently hiding from and I got cornered. So with nowhere to turn I felt myself give up but in the best way, I gave up the resistance. Meaning I made a choice in that mediation that I finally believe in my soul. I am capable of love and gratitude for myself first and foremost. That is even hard to type but I promise it comes with such a loving feeling that you just want to spread. I find myself looking forward to the days ahead, I feel less apprehension.

So which voice do you believe, there can be so many believe me I know. Take this or leave this but this is my two cents from all my digging. Listen to the voice that is the purest, the one that will lead you to love. I know it sounds soft and it is but that’s what I believe we are, love at our core. Anything else you hear is literal trash, just noise and filler and it’s damn hard to ignore, I’m actively ignoring it with every word I type. Several voices say no one cares and I will be judged and the single pure voice says who gives a shit it’s for you anyways remember and I have my answer, it was me all along, the higher me.

Anyone else feel bat shit crazy at times or is that just me? My thoughts are we are not growing mad, we are GROWING!

To be continued…