DAY SIX - I'm taking my life back...

Hello friends!  I'm just going to be honest with you...I always have a hard time trying to figure out how to start out my blog each day and sometimes even what to say.  Being a Type A and the fact that I don't have a schedule of when to talk about what and a template to use when posting has thrown me for a loop.

Let me start off today by taking a moment to think about my brother and his family.  I received a text from him last night that their dog, Minnie, was no longer with us.  Minnie has been in their family for over 10 years and was such an adorable little girl, but had been suffering from AIHA for a few years now.  I can't imagine what they are going through right now so I would like to take a few minutes again (as I did yesterday) to think about them and wish that I could be there for them during this time.....................

Sometimes it's just hard to stop for a few minutes and just feel the feelings you are having...

Now to move onto my journey...I took some time out yesterday from the scrapbook that I am doing for those awesome students, to work on keeping the momentum going on my new journey.  I watched one of the May Mentoring with Pamela sessions that I thought would really help me that was about finding your passion.  I watched it in bed lying next to my husband hoping that he would listen and maybe start thinking about it himself as well because he keeps saying that he doesn't know what he wants to do.  Apparently he was listening but he didn't stop to think about the answers, which was the key to the whole session, but this blog isn't about him.  It's about me and yes I took the time to answer those three key questions.  You know it really wasn't that hard because I kind of already knew them and knew that's what I have been missing.  That's part of the reason I decided that I needed to go on this journey to what Pamela calls our BIG life - and rightly so.  As you can see in my blog description I completely agree that I am meant for something BIG.

Now to move onto my gratefulness, I am grateful that I am fortunate enough to know what my passion is and to have the drive to do something with it.  I know it's going to take time because there are things that I probably should have done over the past 15-20 years that I chose not to do.  I was trapped in a life of just going with the flow, just coasting along and hoping to get by without too many difficult challenges, but I always felt...lonely and unsettled, like I wasn't where I was supposed to be.  So once a year, sometimes more often, sometimes less often, I would become obsessed with changing something hoping that it would make me feel "at home" and not so empty or lost.  Sometimes I was able to buy that car I wanted so badly..or buy the house that I grew up in...or move to that new apartment or new town...or have another baby; all thinking that it would fill that emptiness that I always felt inside.  That emptiness that I now realize I began feeling when I lost my beloved grandmother, Sarah, when I was eight years old.  

I remember the day very clearly.  I remember finding out that she had passed like it was yesterday and yet everything after hearing those words is a complete blur.  She was my rock.  She was my support.  She thought the world of me and that I could never do wrong.  She loved me unconditionally.  She believed in me.  When I lost her - I lost all of that.  I felt so lost...for over 25 years.  And yet as I sit here writing this I realize that I didn't know how sad I still am about losing her and losing that piece of my life.  I felt like I lost my core, my center...and THAT'S what I have been searching for all of my life.  That's what I have been trying to fill up and replace.

I have been doing it all wrong though.  I have been trying to fill up that emptiness with material things and people.  Sure, in the beginning it always felt like it worked because of the newness and excitement of what it was - a new apartment, a new baby, a new car, a new relationship; but that newness, that excitement always wore off eventually and then that empty feeling came back.  I can't keep doing this to myself or my kids.  They need to see my shine.  They need to see the real me, the person deep down who has passion and a desire to change the world - and not just the desire but the drive.  I know I am capable of it, but the first step is going to be finding that person again and allowing her to just be who she is.  Allowing her to cry when she is sad or happy.  Allowing her to accept that she isn't perfect, but by God she tried as hard as she could and that's all that matters.  Allowing her to dream big and giving her the encouragement and support she needs to make it happen.  Loving her and accepting her for EVERY thing that she is because that's what makes her...her; and that's what makes her so unique and beautiful.

So here is to taking my life back and filling that emptiness with first, forgiving myself, and then accepting myself as I am, believing in myself and loving myself unconditionally.  I will leave you today with two quotes that I found that really resonate with me: 

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”
― Maya Angelou

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection” 

― Siddhārtha Gautama


Take care and remember...
Change doesn't come from the sky.  It comes from human action.
~The Dalai Lama
*hugs,
Mel

P.S. Don't be afraid to leave me comments below!  I would love your support in this challenging journey.  Just make sure to keep it positive please.  Thanks!