Unwritten Journey

My Painting- Italian Villa

I am amazed. I am amazing. It is easy for me to write that I am amazed. It is a little bit more difficult for me to write that I am amazing because somewhere deep within myself it feels like it is arrogant to say that about yourself. I am amazed that I am amazing. Hmmmm. 

That was still strange for me to write, but it is this duality that makes these two halves whole and complete. Without them, all there will be is an incomplete hole.

I am inspired by so many things and people and moments, but I never thought I could be inspired and re-inspired by my own writing and experiences. I have spent the majority of my life looking out for the answers that are supposed to tell me who I am or how to become everything I dream of. The only thing with this is that I am still discovering how life is made up of moments that ultimately become a collection of clues. Not so much the clues that tell me which way to go or what to do next, but they always point me in the direction that leads me back to me. This has been my biggest problem in my journey of this life. I couldn’t believe that little me could possibly have any answers. If I did then why the heck would my life have turned out this way?

It seems that I give myself my own answers. For instance, take the question I wrote just 2 sentences before this. I asked if I have the answers then why the heck would my life have turned out this way. Immediately I was clued into the words “turned out.” My life was turned inside out because I never really went inside to take care of myself, and for the most part I grew up having to listen to everyone else. Which meant that there was very little room for learning how to think or trust myself.

As I go through and read the things I have written, I am truly reignited inside and my heart is moved. It’s amazing to me how much of my life was spent writing for everyone else. Writing for me was my escape. It was my place to go where I could feel alive and for a moment inspired because beyond that the feelings faded and in order to feel that way again I'd write another piece or article. I loved everything about how I felt when I would write. The feelings were so strong and so deep that just by writing about the things that move me and that I have experienced along this unwritten journey I actually believed that I was living the things that I was writing about.

Writing was my resource for external validation and worth. I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be great. I wanted to color everything that I wrote with the paint of my passion through the brush strokes of perspective. Why? Because I believed in the beauty of inspiring others.

Once upon a time, writing was the only way I could access my heart. I loved the way it felt when I was able to pour myself out onto the pages, and for a brief moment the inescapable torment of darkness within my life was transformed into the light of understanding, compassion and connectedness.

Writing for me was safe. I was able to say what I wanted to say and figure out the best ways to get my point or thought across without being shut down or rejected. Well, at least while I was writing it anyway. I was never comfortable trying to talk about things that hurt because I was very shy and scared of people. Or it could have something to do with the fact that since I was 2 years old I had “professionals” prying and probing me to talk to them about my life.

I had my first experience with one of these professionals was when I was only 2. My mom was at the end of her rope with me because I was constantly throwing temper tantrums and she didn’t know how to handle me or what to do. So she brought me to a shrink. Apparently in our first session I was trying to psychoanalyze the doctor, and my tantrums didn’t really get much better. Needless to say I didn’t have to see him too many times.

When I was 5 I used to get into trouble at school because I wouldn’t stay sitting and I liked to get up and try to run around and kiss the little boys who were in my class! I wasn’t very cooperative and so more often than not I used to get a sad face on my daily card that would go home to my mom at the end of the day. My mom used to ask me why I was misbehaving in class. I didn't know what to say when I got in trouble and I was afraid of getting spanked. I didn't know why I was being a "bad girl."But in all seriousness I looked up at her and told her “I’m thinking.”

For always “thinking” so much I grew up not really having a clue how to think at all. I learned how to react, and I learned how to do as I was told mostly because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. I have learned that when you are afraid there is no thinking going on. Well, I mean there is thinking going on but that is more like obsessing over ruminating thoughts about whatever it is that is happening, has happened or is going to happen.

I remember growing up constantly afraid. There were 2 different kinds of afraid though. There was the fear of the unknown like being afraid of the dark. Nothing ever really happened but imagining something "could" happen gave me creepy feelings and that felt really icky.

The other kind of afraid is the one where you have personal experience and know what is going to happen. Like when my mom used to try and hold me upside down by my ankles and spank me with a wooden spoon. When I was little I either got spanked, my mouth washed out with soap or I had to kneel on a pile of uncooked rice in a corner holding a heavy phone book on the top of my head. The thing with punishment is that none of that really changed me or stopped me from doing the “bad” and “naughty” things. I just got better at hiding and hoping not to get caught.

I was raised in the “Children are to be seen and not heard” era. As a child being silent was associated with obedience, and it determined what other people thought about how well you were doing as a parent. “Acting up” and embarrassing your parent(s) was an absolute no-no.

I didn’t have much of an outlet for any of the anger, pain and fear that I remember stuffing down inside. That's why once I learned how to write it was like opening the floodgates of my soul. It was more therapeutic than all of the counseling I had ever gone to put together, and writing became my greatest friend.

Through the years I have learned so much about myself through my writing, but it is only over the past year and a half or so that I have stripped away the security blanket that I used to cover up the real me. My writing used to be a way for me to appear to have it all “together.” I developed a large vocabulary when I was pretty young so one of the perks of using big words was that it made others think I was really smart. That made me feel really good about myself. As with everything else in my life, my vocabulary became nothing more than just another cover to hide behind.

As I have undergone transformation after transformation I find that rather than just writing about things and hoping to become that some day, I finally discovered how to live the things that I write. This has changed everything! I used to cringe when I read things that I have written over the years because I used to think I was some kind of expert about everything I have gone through. I wrote like I had overcome everything when the truth is I hadn't even gotten started. Instead of judging myself and being critical, I have learned to read my work and see just how much I have grown throughout every step of each process and season of my life. I have learned to simplify everything that I write and just be myself. My real self.

I am not concerned anymore about whether I sound smart or not. It is most important to me that I am real. I have worked very hard to face myself and learn how to live a totally transparent life so that what you see is really what you get. I don't live one way in front of people and another behind closed doors anymore. Everything I have ever hidden has been exposed, and all that I spent my life hiding and hiding behind has come to light. I have nothing left covering me except the life giving light of love! This is a miracle I never imagined could really happen in my life! Reconciling me with myself has been the most epic road of my journey and I have never been the same!

I am completely committed to being honest especially about the person I used to be, who I am today, and what the process from there to here looks and feels like. I have become authentic, real and trustworthy. I am also exposed, vulnerable, and totally alive for the very first time in all of my life!

I am in a place that I have never been before and it seems everything I am facing is outside of my comfort zone. However, I have learned quite recently that a comfort zone is not something that has a negative connotation to it as I always thought it did. Being in your comfort zone is being in any place where you are gifted or have a developed ability to do a particular thing well and fairly effortlessly. Which means you don’t really have to exert yourself to face the challenge in order to do it.

I am challenged every time I write because the “old” me who tried to sound super smart and complex knew the words and could make them sound impressive. I wanted everyone to think that I had all the answers, meanwhile my entire life was spinning in all directions and I was totally out of control. I was a hypocrite and I didn’t even realize it. So I made a decision almost a year and a half ago that I am done trying to hide how flawed I am or trying to sidestep the embarrassment and humiliation from all of the things I have chosen, caused and experienced just because it would be easier to just “leave those things out.”

Rather than just writing from my head and what I “know” I continue diving deeply so that every time I write my heart has been poured out into every word that I have written on every page. Love is the only reason I am and I am certain more than anything else that love is the only way true life and transformation is possible. In the end which is the beginning, the only thing that is more powerful than all of the negativity and fear rampant in life is the awesome power of never ending love!

I have been scarred from the inside out and maybe I always will be. I am learning to accept every scar as a reminder that I have fought in the battle of my life, I have won and now I have the scars to prove it! I am still here, and that is a miracle that I can’t sit back and just keep to myself. Because healing is only a belief away! Everything is possible when you are inspired to believe!