and the weight gain was a result of just “needing to put the fork down”—which just propelled my journey down the rabbit-hole of self-judgement and defeat even farther.
Then came my wake-up call.
My then husband and I got into a fight. I don’t remember what it was about, but he was sick and tired of me being sick and tired. He ended up leaving to stay at a friend’s house.
I made him take the children with him.
Later that evening, I sat in my bed crying…a small paring knife with a blue handle and curved blade pressed to a vein inside my left wrist.
So many thoughts played through my mind.
“I’d had my chance” I thought.
Battling BARE was my magnum opus and now I was just a sick, washed-up has been who blew her chance. My chances were over. There was no point in “trying” anymore.
I can remember closing my eyes and feeling the warmth of the tears running down my face. The pinching sensation of the point of the blade on the inside of my wrist. The cool feeling of the air going into my nostrils. The sound of the beating of my own heart in my ears.
The breaking open feeling when suddenly sobs ripped from my chest as I cried out to my Daddy in heaven—and no I don’t mean any god. I mean my father who I watched die from AIDS when I was five.
“Where are you? Why do I hurt so bad?”
And then, with my eyes closed, I saw the precious faces of my children.
I saw how they would look and felt how they would feel after having been told that I’d chosen to die.
I saw the reaction of countless other women who had looked to me for love, kindness, understanding and advice over the years.
I saw my mother. My sisters. My brother. My step-dad—who has been my father ever since I was little. I saw my Nanny and Daddo and Grandfather. I saw my Dad.
And I felt love.
The purest, most non-judgmental feeling I’d ever felt filled the room, and somehow, without hearing a word,
I knew that I needed to be brave enough, courageous enough to start opening these little boxes of carefully packaged pain that I’d been holding onto. That I had to step into my own power through the vulnerability of self-love and self-forgiveness.
In the world of human potential there are several sayings used so often they’ve become cliché. Cliché or not, they are true:
The best way out is through.
You must feel it to heal it.
What we resist persists.
Three truths that I’d been avoiding for a very long time.
Three truths I’d been too paralyzed by fear to face.
Three truths that were my literal keys to freedom—emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. Everything began to become lighter with every “box” of pain I “unpacked”.
I decided during that time that I would focus on myself. I would prioritize myself. I would do what felt good and I would begin allowing myself to not only face these mental and emotional fears, but also would allow myself to have fun again.
Things were looking better and better as the days, weeks and months went by.
I still posted on social media here and there, but I was focused on myself rather than over-giving, over-serving and over-committing to others.
I got a job, began repairing my credit, and things had never been better between my then husband and myself…or so I thought.
In our journey of personal development, we grow to a certain point and then there is some sort of implosion and then a falling away process.
The implosion is our old “comfort zone” and “normalcy” seeking to pull us back to “safety”. If we make it through that implosion, then we face the falling away process. This is when people, places, things that not longer serve our highest good fall away.