Graduation Day :)

Yesterday was a very monumental day in my life. It marked the beginning and the completion of a full year commitment to participate in group therapy called DBT.  I have been working toward personal healing and emotional wellness after a lifelong battle with dysfunction, life shattering and life altering catastrophe's. Yesterday I graduated from DBT and I am in awe that a year has passed and I have become the person that I am. This journey has brought me across the expanse of my troubled life and transformed everything I am. It is a miracle that I am here and I thank God for all that I have discovered and continue to learn in every moment of every day!

A year ago I met a woman who has been instrumental in showing me what life looks like through the eyes of love. She is my therapist. I never in a million years ever imagined having such a powerful and life changing experience. Especially since I had been in and out of a therapists office since I was a little girl because of everything I was going through while I was growing up. I had a horrible taste in my mouth about the “professionals” that were notorious for sitting blankly as they stared and listened to me pour my guts out for an hour and then had the audacity to ask, “How does that make you feel?” All I could think of was how do you think that it makes me feel...dumb ass!” Obviously I'm coming to you for a reason. If I knew how to understand and get beyond the “how it makes me feel” thing, I certainly wouldn't need to come here and see you, would I?

Wow!

So I had come to the end of myself a long time ago with trying to find any therapist who would actually be able to help me figure out all the things that have caused me to feel and choose the things in my life that I have. It seemed like every therapist was disconnected and didn't know how to use their heart. That was until October 2012 when I met the woman I have been working with. To be honest, I didn't even think that I was going to like my therapist. I felt weird trying to explain all of the things that had been happening in my life that finally landed me in her office. It was hard enough trying to go through my life and history, but frankly I was sick and tired of thinking about all of the crap that hurt in my life and being reminded of it again and again and again. But she was different. I couldn't explain it and I am not even sure that I really needed to.

When she suggested this “group” called DBT I had no desire to do that. And when she told me that it was a year commitment I was like “Seriously?” But I was at the place where I knew that if I didn't do something different than I had always done that the likelihood of healing or ever really learning to live life as an unbroken woman was virtually not going to happen. I have been through so much horror and abandonment in my life that I knew if I didn't do this now I probably never would. So I did, and it was by far one of the very best decisions that I have ever made for myself!

In order to be in the DBT group I had to commit to the full year which was going to be every Wednesday and then the requirement was that I would have to go to individual therapy once a week as well. I liked my Therapist a lot and so I really hoped that together we would be able to navigate through the dark recesses of my mind and broken heart. And we have! Over this past year, we have traveled together through the deepest pits in my heart, the suffocating darkness of fear and self loathing and for the very first time I am finally on the other side of me.

I finally see that things are not what I spent my life believing they were. I also have found the courage to let the light of love wash through the places in my heart that I was always too afraid to go. Together we have opened the doors, let in the light, and swept away all of the scary spider webs. For the first time in all of my life I am clean, I am whole and I have the skills and tools to be able to open the doors that I didn't know how before. Without everything that I have learned, chosen, realized and experienced because of choosing to go to DBT none of this would be possible in the way it is today! This is truly humbling and amazing to me all at the same time. I am so thankful!

In the beginning of DBT I never thought I was going to make it for a full year. I didn't have any desire to sit in a group of complete strangers once a week, every week for an entire year. I never did groups before and I didn't have any desire to start then. Besides, I thought it was going to be something like the scenes in the movie Anger Management when Adam Sandler has to attend the group for the conditions of his probation. Seriously, none of that was for me.

I thought that I had actually grown so much through these past few years and was so certain I was already living my life effectively. I was facing giants in my life and overcoming the impossible without a single DBT class. So I had no idea what the whole point would be to commit to something for an entire year when I could barely imagine beyond the day I was in. Plus I had so many other things that I was set on doing and this seemed like just one more delay in a long list of other delays. I had no idea just how crucial it was going to be for me to learn and live the DBT skills for me to go on and be able to live successfully within every area of my life. I have been given the knowledge and understanding how to live mindfully and to participate in my life. I'm not just on autopilot anymore thinking of everything else except what I am doing.

I needed to do this for myself and I knew that if I didn't I would end up being another year older and still trying to muddle my way through my life, my past, and doing it all alone. I wanted to learn the things that would make living my life successful, and I was desperate and determined to be free from the holds and bondage's of the past.

So whether or not I wanted to do DBT became of less importance than choosing to see the year commitment as a way to invest in myself, heal the past, understand the roots and reasons for why I have done the things I have and chosen as I have throughout my entire life. I wanted to be able to recognize old destructive habits and processes and learn how to mindfully maneuver every day effectively.

I guess I never really imagined just how possible it was for a curriculum and connection with other group members to empower me in my journey. It didn't take me long to see that I wasn't just traveling through the journey of my life alone anymore. Everyone in the group became a part of my journey and they were doing it with me. We were all doing life together. 

This has shown me just how powerful connection really is. As I began to share the things that brought me to the group I was amazed to see just how strongly everyone else in the group was able to identify and understand exactly where I was and where I had come from. We may have all been different, but there was a common thread that began to weave us together.

The greatest fear I had about being in a group and sharing things about my life was how other people would look at me or judge me. No matter what I shared or what I was going through nobody ever judged me. In fact it never ceased to amaze me how willing everyone in our group was to open their heart and extend compassion and the light of insight and perspective even though they were in the midst of their own life's struggles and pain.

We each found friendship and understanding. We each allowed our hearts to be vulnerable enough to open the doors that had been closed for only God knows how long, and we let each other in. It is a place that became more like sacred ground than a life skills platform. It is a place where I learned that no matter how much I have spent my life living “wrong” that nobody else looked at me funny or treated me like I was unworthy.

In fact, it was their unconditional acceptance and reminders to be gentle with myself that has shown me how to open my eyes and see myself in a whole new light. We were each going through our own pain and we arrived to the place of togetherness. This was where maybe for the very first time in my life I felt like I was really safe, and safe to reveal so many things that I always felt I had to keep to myself because of what they were. We weren't just hurting people who met in a DBT group. We found our way to the same place because we were sick and tired of being miserable, broken and defined by everything we had been told and ended up believing because of our pasts. But in the process we became a family whose hearts are forever interwoven together, and that is something I have never experienced at any other time in my life!

I have decided to share my journey and hold out my hand, my heart and my experiences because there is such awesome power in knowing you are not alone. More than that, there is hope and promise far beyond our wildest imaginations! So much of life is not pretty, but I am here to remind you that you are beautiful, you are special, you are a one of a kind gift and you are loved! Thank you for taking your time today to be a part of this awesome journey we call life! God bless you and keep you safe always!

Love,

Elizabeth