Love Yourself: You Can't Concentrate On Good and Bad

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to share my story. I have always felt a pull towards this, and often thought about how I wanted to do it. For a long time I didn't recognize it, acknowledge it, or act on it. I was stuck in a comfort zone area where if I didn't talk about it a lot, it just didn't exist. I had lived there so long, that I always felt I was missing out on much more. 

From my heartbreaking childhood, through confusing lost teenage years, to the hard learning twenties... I skated through, never really acknowledging or listening to the voice that kept telling me this was not the right path. Instead burying it further inside when it tried to surface. And we know the more your inner voice is pushed down, the faster and harder it will push back up to the surface. Now in my 30's this voice has become very loud. Taking over parts of my life that need the change. We never know how long we will be on this earth, and I hope everybody gets the chance to listen and act on that inner voice before their time comes to go. That is exactly what inspired me to take that plunge and listen to my calling. With four kids growing quickly and my middle ages looming ahead much sooner than I anticipated, it was time for me to just do it. But how?

This is exactly what inspired me to write this. I didn't realize I had been figuring it out subconsciously along the way. Almost as if my brain wasn't in tune with my intuition. While my brain was trapped in a maize, my intuition was in survival mode. I have felt this way all of my life. I was led to the right places to help break away bits of the problem, but only just enough to relieve some pressure. This has gone on for the last 35 years. Highs and lows all the way through, but one thing I've noticed has stayed consistent, every time I come out of the lows I come back so much better and stronger. It tells me that at least I can find the right path at times. 

I started really facing my fears and trying to change the negative parts of my life when I was in my mid 20's. Bit by bit, piece by piece, I started working my way out of the darkness. I had been through it by this time. From an alcoholic abusive father, a mother that didn't want to raise kids, to a brother that I lost the chance to grow up with. All leading to the unhealthy relationships I built as a result of not dealing with my feelings and emotions from these traumas. Therefore, this was the worst most hurtful time of my life, and it all came crashing down after I had become a parent. In a relationship that I didn't understand and neither one of us was ready for, was actually then when I learned the most about myself and was taught the most valuable lessons of all. I started college when I was 23. I had managed to get my GED early even though I never made it through my sophomore year of high school. Ironically they say I'm super smart, so I got it a year before my class graduated. School wasn't for me in those years, I still couldn't handle my childhood emotions, so I rebelled. But college was exciting to me at this point. Especially the sociology classes that they offered. I took all of them, and all of the women's study courses they offered as well. Lets just say I would have a double degree in both subjects but failed to finish my core classes first, so when I had to quit school to care for my kids by myself, I was missing these classes and didn't even wind up with an associate's degree. I should be frustrated about that, but in these classes is where I learned how to help myself to get better and get past the hurt long enough to realize it was holding me down. I also got to meet my mentor professor. He was an older gentleman with the best personality. His classes were packed full every semester. My first class in my first semester I learned from him what I will take with me forever. More than any frustration over not having a degree, having lots of student loan debt, and feelings of failure that I couldn't finish. The first packet he gave out was worth more than all of that, on the first page it had four powerful words: 

                                             
                                              Rule one: Love yourself

At first I passed over it, went through the packet some more and listened to the rest of the lecture. After hearing the rest of the lecture I really started thinking about it. Hm...sounds easy. The thing was.. he was saying that you can never truly love another person if you do not love yourself. Your own self image reflects in everything you do and everybody you meet. Over the next 6 years I studied everything I could on human behavior. Hours of research, papers, studying and learning. In that time I also did a full self image evaluation (yes 6 years worth, there were 20+ years of past abuses to deal with) but after I came out of it I was so much better and more aware. From testing my wings and raising my kids on my own in a positive loving environment, to taking my time to be by myself with them and heal my heart and my mind. Exercise, yoga, and meditation were really helpful for the stressors of my circumstances. Because really the main person that could heal me was me.  Others may help, but it is how you are able to perceive the help and how much your mind is willing to accept from outside sources. You have to change your way of thinking and most importantly find yourself. It is very hard to love yourself if you don't know yourself. Spend the time to get to know you, ask silly questions to yourself, think about what makes you happy. Focus on the positives. You can't concentrate on bad and good at the same time. Start pushing the bad away, peel it back layer by layer, too let more good in. Start slow and small, compliment yourself. Build your confidence from the ground up, and don't let negativity tell you what you can and cannot do anymore.