My own path

Over the past 5 years I've read a lot on various divorce topics. I've researched quite a bit on topics regarding high conflict divorce and narcissism, bi-polar disorder, PTSD, sexual abuse and BPD. I'm no expert, I'm no professional and I don't have any letters after my name. But I have good common sense that has gotten me through the last few years and I've managed to survive something that many didn't think I would or could. And so I've come to a way in which I live life, paying attention to karma and energy, God and kindness and how my life and the way I speak, act and react effects everyone I come into contact with, especially myself. I do not have all the answers, but I have learned I can only control myself, my bubble and my tiny, tiny, tiny little section of the world I choose to call my own. This is where my self-healing began.

I know a lot of my entries focus on the ex and what has happened or what actions I'm directly dealing with. I've read how taking time to share it, speak it, repeat it can all cause more negative energy to come my way. But I tend to disagree with this. We are each created differently. I am one of those beings who when forced to walk around with something on my soul, it gnaws a hole into my heart and my body creating sickness and injury . . . much like they say abuse can do. And so I must find a way to release it. I do so in the most healthy way I know how. I write, i blog, i share it all here. It is not just a way to cleanse my soul, it is a way to share what I have gone through, what I continue to go through and hopefully help others see the red flags and realize that just because you decide to divorce or have no contact doesn't mean that is going to change the other person and they are suddenly going to abide by your request for healthy boundaries. Quite the opposite, it's going to wake the sleeping wolf in his lair and he's going to come at you stronger, stealthier and more determined than before.

And so I find ways to create positive energy in my life in other ways. I do things for me and work on my issues that caused me to meet, match and mate with someone so unhealthy and to continually convince myself that it was the best I deserved. I am not a survivor of childhood abuse in any form. While my family is dysfunctional with a few nuts in it (literally) the years of therapy I have spent on it has been healing and I accept and love my family for who they are and am thankful for them because they have taught me so much. I believe full heartedly that children pick the families they go to, so the mumbo jumbo of having to heal our inner child doesn't fly with me. I chose and accepted this family and while their love may not have been to the standards I had hoped, they still loved me with all they had and never abused me. And so I cannot blame some childhood scars on picking my ex. Not even my bio father and his abandonment is a big enough excuse for me anymore. And so I am left with something that I never really thought was true.

I simply did not love myself enough to demand and accept healthy love in the manner it was meant to be shared. I did not hold enough self worth to realize that I was selling myself short and that I am no hero, it is not my job to save anyone but myself. These realizations have been slow and tedious over the past few months. I have logged many miles on my walks and runs and it is where I am myself the most clear headed as I work through these issues. This divorce, overcoming the narcissistic abuse, surviving the fear and anxiety of custody issues . . . none of it is about him. It is about ME. And yet, I never even gave myself enough credit to put myself on the list of things I needed to work on, until i subconsciously realized I deserve to be happy, whole, healthy and healed.

So the last year the slow and tedious work of healing has been about me (and my children of course). And here is my little list of things I have done to find my own path of healing through all of this:

• I make time for me. I have latched on to the theory that motion cures or helps bring out emotion, as it holds very true for me. And so I take the time weekly to get in physical activity. With three children, one of which is only two this is hard. BUT, where there is a will there is a way. One of my best purchases to date has been a well made and rather expensive jogging stroller that has held up over the last year and the 120 miles I have logged. I am not able to do it daily, due to the schedule and demands of my children but I commit to at least 3-4 days a week getting in as many miles as I feel up to. It started with running, me searching for that high of running and a way to self medicate. Then I realized how good it felt and I stopped caring about how many calories I was burning or how many pounds I was shedding. With the pregnancy, I can't exactly lose weight or get into shape so it's not about that. Instead it is about time that is completely my own, taking care of my body and giving it what it desires. The endorphins from a great work out are healing and healthy. The thoughts I am able to process as I make my trek up and down the local hills is freeing, clearing and helps me process many of the things in my life that don't always make sense. And it gives me a time to be alone and usually uninterrupted as my son always sits so intently in his stroller that he usually passes out for a nap. He loves this time we have together, each of us immersed in our own thoughts breathing in the beauty of the world around us with the wind in our face and the sun on us. 
• I work hard at squashing the self doubt and negative self talk that has been programmed into my head from the last decade of an unhealthy relationship. I chose to get out. I chose to finish the divorce. And I chose to not remain in an unhealthy relationship. There is NO reason for me to continue the toxic and negative self thoughts that ran my life for so long. When I get a chance I tell myself in the mirror why I love me. Whether it be for my strong body that can walk 4 miles in a day or for the ability it has to gestate healthy babies to term, I make sure and praise myself as often as I can. It isn't very often, more often then naught I catch myself looking in the mirror with no make up on, exhausted from the day of single parenting three children and I think those negative thoughts that my ex use to say to me. And then I correct them, "I deserve someone not based on my looks, but based on my amazing, strong and loyal heart" is a good one for me lately. I say affirmations as often as I can, eventually you start to believe something if you say it enough. 
• I have stop focusing on what men want from me. This is a hard one. Being the middle child of 6 girls and one of the more precocious ones with an athletic and sexy body didn't do me any favors growing up. I attracted the wrong type of men from the time puberty hit. Little has changed. But somewhere over the years I grew to accept that this was ok. The last few months I have been focusing on my body in ways that aren't about accenting the curves and the cleavage. I find myself comfortable and feeling cute in a simple pair of work out shorts and a baggy tank top and a baseball hat. I no longer focus on the parts of my body that drew the most attention from the opposite sex and instead I am focusing on the parts I have always loved but ignored like my legs, my fingernails (quite biting them), my hair. I do little things for ME and not for the reaction I will get out of the opposite sex. I still wear make up and still put a skirt on and heels from time to time, but when I do it's because I want to feel girly and not because I want to attract a guy who's going to want to take me home and sleep with me.
• I've given myself permission to stop being sexual. I'm taking a break. I've always known how to please men, somehow it came naturally. I used it through out my marriage to keep my husband interested as much as I could. And I let that become an evil, I fell into it shortly after the divorce too and then woke up and gave myself the right to not just be someone's sexual satisfaction or sexual focus/flirt. It's a hard habit to break when you've spent all sexually active life pleasing others just for their attention and affection. But the more I tell myself I deserve to be loved and to be made love to, the more I accept that healthy sex and love are out there and when I am ready I will find it. There is no rush for me to date because I know with it will come the temptation to fall back into this role, one I have decided to forever retire. I can love someone and be loved in a healthy relationship and fulfill their needs without having to only focus on what I can do for them. This has been a very slow but big realization for me. I don't have to feel dirty or bad after sex in a healthy relationship. 
• I've given myself a break from needing to be loved by a partner. My whole life it is all i ever wanted. To be loved. What's that saying in Moulin Rouge? "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return". I still believe this is true, but with one edit. The greatest thing I will ever learn is just to love and be loved in a healthy relationship". And so, until I have come to a place where I am ready and able to make the discernment between healthy and unhealthy love, i have told myself it is ok to take a break. There is no rush. If i spend a few years single and without love from a mate, it will not ruin me or my life. I have allowed myself to find empowerment and joy in being single and that it is ok to love myself. 
• With that one comes, I have learned to demand that my fear of abandonment is not capable of ruling me any longer. I have spent many years in an unhealthy relationship due to my fear of abandonment. The feelings and emotions that come after being 'left' seem as if they will kill me, it is that painful for me. But as each day passes, i remind myself that it has not yet killed me. That i am not only surviving i am THRIVING and finding so much beauty and joy in my life. Abandonment was in fact a blessing, not a curse. And so I work at changing the verbage, i was not left . . . I walked away. I hope to continue working on this so that I no longer fear abandonment (im getting closer) and it is something that is just simply a way of life. 
• I am learning to be the mother who puts the oxygen on myself first and then on her children when the plane catches fire. I always was the mother who tended to everyone's needs but my own and lost my identity in becoming a mother and wife. I am slowly but surely learning by all the steps above to due as I need, so that I can in turn be a better, healthier and happier mother. The difference in me is amazing. I have blossomed and grown so much as a mother and my general view on life is much more 'zen' then it was a short two years ago where I felt as if i was being sucked dry by parenthood and marriage.
• I am following my dreams and listening to the inner whisper within my soul. I am no longer scared to be who I am meant to be. I have enrolled in college, I have started paying off debt and I have set up savings that I plan to slowly add to. I am doing things that are important to me. I always wanted to be a working mom. So I am following the career path I want to do. Once upon a time I said that the greatest gift we can teach our children is how to follow our own dreams while still being good parents, I still believe in this. But now, i actually get to do as i say and model this to my children. The next 6 years has me so excited for my future and the stability of what may come reassures me. I have always had the capability, and so now I fully intend on doing it. 

There are many more things, but those are just the highlight aside from monthly therapy, cutting out booze and other bad habits, getting more sleep and remembering that life is beautiful.