It’s been a rough month. And within it I’ve had to have some very hard conversations, with myself.

Those seem, to me, to be the worst kind. They are the easiest and most desirable to avoid. It’s also easy to assume that I already know what I’m going to say to myself and whether or not I agree, giving me yet another excuse to avoid the conversation.

Yeah.

I had to tell myself I was wrong.

I apologized to myself for steering me in the wrong direction.

I forgave myself am working on forgiving myself for not listening to my own quiet voice.

I’m sitting on my thoughts monitoring them for sneaky licks at my burgeoning self-esteem.

I haven’t been sharing. I apologize to you too. Me being off in the wrong direction has allowed me to distract myself from what I really want to be doing here in this space, with this life.

When I originally conceived of Get Caught Thriving, it was to talk about my struggles with being a victim and a survivor. Secretly it was to write a book. (Shhh)

We’ve all survived something, lifes’ little ups and downs, something much more tragic or traumatic, love, death, birth [our own specifically] – the list goes on and on.

After the first year or so, I realized I wasn’t interested in talking about the struggle so much as I was wanted to keep a record of my movement through the struggle.

Depression, shame, suicidal thoughts, disgust, anger, neediness, fear, hiding … all of those are normal parts of my life.

Also part of the movement are joy, curiosity, love, trust, faith, responsibility, truth, spaciousness, forgiveness, worthiness, belief.

I was always afraid to say what I thought and what I felt and what I believed about myself, about what happened to me.

Initially, I believed having a full complement of emotions that appear to cancel each other out, would at least leave me with some space, possibly even a little happiness. Nature abhors a vacuum.

What I’ve come to understand is that each emotion holds parts of who I am, a sensitive, caring human being who bleeds, cries, hopes, wants and changes daily.

When those emotions were stuffed down years and years ago, so were embers from the fire of me.

I couldn’t didn’t want to admit that I didn’t want myself.

I didn’t want to know I was responsible for the choices and their inherently pesky consequences. I didn’t want to stop laying blame as a sacrifice at the foot of victim hood.

All the things I didn’t want and putting all my attention on avoiding, helped me be sure to see exactly those things, as they popped up.

What I want. I just want to make my life, My. Life.

###

Maitri Meditation

May I live in safety. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.
Knowing how my personal pain shackles me, knowing what if feels like to cry, to rage, to doubt myself …

Knowing you want happiness and freedom just as I do, I say with all my heart …

May you live in safety. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

(Thank you Mahala Mazerov from Luminous Heart)