Why I haven't posted for 9 months...
Wow, I fucked up my life.
That’s the thought I had in my mind this week.
You see, 3 weeks ago I made a huge life change. I took a huge step to move my life forward and it was scary as fuck.
And I don’t mean scary in that I was scared to launch my program because I thought it wasn’t going to sell. I mean scared like I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it out of the situation alive or in one piece. Last week, I took a leap of faith without a safety net.
To be honest, I’m still scared to some degree, but there was one thing I heard this week that made everything in my life make sense.
4 years ago my life changed in so many ways. I had found the book called, “A Course in Miracles.” Which helped me find my spiritual path and discover that my purpose was to share my story with others in order to help them live their best life.
When we decide to change direction and start down a spiritual path a few things happen. One, things start to shift, and your life can transform in the best possible way, very quickly, and that’s exactly what I saw happening in my life.
I started manifesting incredible things super quickly and my future looked so bright. I launched a business coaching women in fitness and immediately started helping clients. It almost seemed TOO easy.
The second thing that happens is that when you start to see your life become easy and amazing your ego freaks *the fuck* out. And my Ego was definitely freaking out.
Ultimately, the job of our Ego is to protect us. To keep us alive. In your Ego’s eyes, change is scary and should be avoided. If you’re walking into the unknown aaaaanything could happen and your Ego doesn’t know how to handle unknown situations. It’s much more comfortable to deal with whatever is already going on, even if it’s terrible, because it is predictable and your Ego knows how to protect you from things it has dealt with before.
Our Ego will keep us stuck in the most horrible situations because they feel familiar. My Ego saw that I was finally on the right track and was progressing quickly. The more quickly you make progress the more your Ego resists, and mine took me waaaaay back to my childhood.
I recreated the worst time in my life. The part of my childhood when I lived with a covert abuser who systematically wore down my self-esteem. Four years ago, I became involved with a man who made it his mission to make me feel like I was crazy, wrong, and not good enough.
As I built up my coaching business I was secretly being torn down. Every day was a struggle, a battle for my life, the life I wanted and the life my partner and my Ego kept trying to push me into.
My fear and lack of boundaries kept me in an abusive relationship that destroyed my self-esteem, my income, my dreams, and my personal power. I could have walked away at any time but my Ego fought HARD for my limitations. I let my partner convince me that I couldn’t survive on my own without him, that I wasn’t capable of paying my own bills, that I would slide backward and lose all my progress unless he was around to make sure I didn’t do that.
I was coerced into creating a life that was HIS dream and a complete 180 from what I wanted and knew would make me happy.
During a free challenge I hosted recently, I compiled a bunch of images for things I want in my life to create a dream board. When I finished I realized nothing on my board would come true if I stayed in that relationship, because he didn’t like those things he would actively work against me to make sure those dreams didn’t come true.
I went from feeling inspired, powerful, and spiritual to feeling shame, worthlessness, and embarrassment. I was too afraid to share what was really happening behind the scenes because I was so ashamed that I let this happen to me.
I am smart, people like me, I have thousands of people who love to be in my positive energy on social media, and for over a year everything I posted felt like a lie. How was I supposed to lead strong, powerful women into a life they deserve when I was wallowing in darkness?
Depression came over me and I felt like an empty shell, like a ghost of who I truly was. I had spent so much time working on my coaching business and I hated to see it just go down the drain. So I would occasionally host a challenge or post something online but for the most part, I didn’t feel like being inspiring, or in the spotlight, or being seen at all.
Through lots of hard work I was able to secretly build a support system for myself. The people in my new support system wanted to see me, they wouldn’t let me hide. They forced me to look at myself and evaluate my situation and myself. Through a lot of hard work and tears I managed to muster up the courage to escape.
They say that on average it takes 7 tries to leave an abuser before it sticks, and over the last 4 years 7 is my count as well, at least from what I can remember. But this time was different. This time IS different. I didn’t stay quiet this time. I reached out to all my friends and family and found out how long I could crash with each of them. I didn’t give him the opportunity to manipulate me into coming back, I skipped the merry-go-round fight and took off while he was out of the house. I cried and let myself feel like shit without turning back to him for comfort.
I know that this isn’t over yet. I still have more emotions to work through and more feelings to feel. I have a lot of healing to do, and a lot of things to learn and relearn. It’s only been 3 weeks that I’ve been gone but it is the longest I have ever gone without talking to him and with each minute away I can feel myself coming back to life. It doesn’t always feel good but at least I’m not being ridiculed for looking sad or being criticized multiple times a day.
It took me a year and a half to finally leave after I made the decision to, and this week I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself for allowing myself to have gone through all of that. Now I am starting to shift my thoughts. Going through all of this has given me insight and education to help a whole new group of women that I wouldn’t have really known how to help before. It brought all of my childhood and young adult traumas to the surface so that I can finally heal them. And, best of all, it taught me how to fight for myself, what is most important to me in life, and showed me what I am unwilling to sacrifice.
It was a long painful journey but I realize now that I have so many people in my corner. So many other people suffered when I suffered and the only way to relieve their pain was to help myself. It’s like what I always teach my clients, when you prioritize yourself and do what’s best for you, it ends up being best for everyone. Sacrificing yourself to please another person does not work EVER.
This is where I am now. In a safe place, surrounded by people who love me, in an environment where people want me to succeed and grow, where I am free to be my silly self and be as happy or as sad as I need to be at any given moment. It’s a place where I really am free to help others because I know I am finally safe physically and emotionally.
I have the energy and time to focus on building my businesses (bikinis and coaching). I have the choice to do it in a way that feels right for me. I have the clarity to be able to help others, and the desire to help women shine on the inside and the outside.
I am so grateful for finally getting out, for all the people who supported me and for those who were honest with me.
If you want to hear more about my story I started a podcast. I began recording it while still in the relationship so you can hear the chronicles from a few weeks before leaving. The episodes recorded while leaving will be up soon and I will continue to share insights, tips and techniques to deal with abuse, and chronicle my healing journey.
If you’re still reading, thank you. I know this is long, but I felt compelled to share in the hopes that I can inspire at least one person to make a positive change in their life. I would really appreciate it if you could take a minute to check out my new podcast and share it with someone you feel might need to listen.
Listen to Through the Fire: Escaping and Healing from Abuse on your favorite podcast platform or visit me here:
https://throughthefirepodcast.podbean.com/
