Thursday, September 26, 2013

Loneliness...

What is loneliness. I'm dwelling on that this evening.

It's been a rough week, a longer day and I'm wide awake at 2 a.m. instead of sleeping like I need to be, like my body is craving and my mind won't give in.

I've been feeling lonely lately. Interesting how I felt lonely almost all of my marriage and then the loneliness changed. I'm growing, changing and realizing that I crave a social life. I need to be heard... That's what I discovered tonight. I need to be heard, I need someone to hear me, to be listening.

Loneliness is not always simply the state of being alone, for me it is often the state of being unheard. Of not knowing who is near or far, no knowing who wants me, who misses me... I don't know the thoughts of others. I know the people who love me, the people who care... but I can't know what they are thinking, I fear when they don't communicate that they are tired of me, that I have become less important in their lives. I allow myself to be easily set aside, to be walked away from. I don't fight for people to stay in my life for very long or for very hard. I'm sure my best friend might argue with that, but I can quickly accept (right or wrong) that someone just doesn't want to be around me anymore.

Sometimes it's hard to dance alone all the time. Sometimes I crave a partner, even a temporary, short-term friend who is willing to dance with me. Some days I just need someone with skin on (who is older than 18 years old).

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Seeing the 'Muscles' Grow Stronger

Tonight I am sitting here and I am realizing...

I am beautiful.
I am worthy.
I am valuable.
I am special.
I am enough.

Tomorrow, I might need reminding. I am learning to appreciate myself, to value myself and to see myself as someone special, someone worth knowing, worth being with.

I realize that not everyone may feel that way about me. Well, I actually KNOW some people don't feel that way about me. I'm learning to be okay with that too. Honestly, there are some people already that I don't care if they don't like me... I could even list names for you, but I won't. In fact, there are some I would rather they don't like me because I wouldn't want to be liked by people of their caliber. Abusers and narcissists top that list!

I can see the healing God is working in me. I feel the strength beginning to rise in my heart. Dancing with God truly is great exercise! I highly recommend you try it.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

I'm learning

I'm learning to be okay with me.
I'm learning to allow myself to be set free.
I'm learning that I am enough
I'm learning that I am okay
I'm learning that it's okay for me to heal
I'm learning that it's okay for me to be happy
I'm learning that I am wanted, valued, loved

I'm learning.

When I was in my early 20's, I spent a good 5 years in counseling. During that time, I made choices that deepened the ingrained belief that I was not worthy of true love or happiness. I also learned tools that when push came to shove, I was able to realize my mistake and heal from it. I learned it was okay to take the time to heal before moving on.

What I didn't learn was that it was okay to not lock myself into the consequences of a future mistake. See, I got myself engaged to a man who didn't really want me. In fact, he told me at one point that he was only with me until "someone better came along". It was a month before our wedding when that someone better came along. I was heartbroken, but I think (looking back) that I was more heartbroken about the wedding being cancelled than I was about him breaking up with me... I think I expected it to happen sooner or later. Now, I'm eternally grateful to God for breaking us up because he turned out to be a lousy husband, a philanderer and abuser.

The other thing I didn't carry forward was into my next relationship the forgiveness towards myself for past relationships and mistakes. See, I had made myself a promise and when that promise was broken, taken away, I still felt I had to honour it. I decided that I had "made my bed and must lie in it". I was mistaken. If I had been able to forgive myself, to set aside my actions and feelings from the reality before me, I could have saved myself from more heartache and disaster.

I made my choice. If I had to go back, I'd probably make the same one because I can't imagine life without my boys, but if I could advise a woman in the same situation, I would give different advice.

For example, just because you slip up, make a mistake, sin, fall, however you want to word it, you aren't stuck with a bad choice, with a bad relationship because of it. I would advise that you step away from that moment, action or decision and look at the relationship outside of it, would you stay with that person if that moment had not happened, if that activity did not exist? I wish I had asked myself that question - in fact, I went out of my way to not ask myself that question. I thought I owed it to God, to myself, to my family, to my reputation.... to do the "right" thing. I did the wrong thing.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm in a state of reflection lately and while I regret my thought processing in this matter, I cannot say for sure what decision I would have made if I had thought it through differently. I'm not the same person today that I was then. I've come a long way, done a lot more healing, educated myself better about relationships.

Which is to say that relationships still terrify me! I pray that should God provide a next relationship (and I pray He does), I will be wiser, freer, and more careful.  Should I make a grave mistake in my judgment, in my actions (in my own eyes!) I will be more forgiving, give myself grace and not allow it to be the basis of a long term decision.

God has brought me to a forgiveness for myself. He promises that He does not hold our past sins against us, that when He forgives, it is gone. As long as I choose to accept Him, my sins died on the cross with Christ, all of them. If He does not hold them against me, if He has already taken the consequence up on Himself, if He has already washed them clean, what am I saying or doing when I cling to them? If I cannot let Him take them away from me, if I insist that I still must face the eternal consequence for them, I have not accepted His gift and I negate the sacrifice that He made for me. I'm grateful for His Gift, His sacrifice and I have no desire to throw it back in His face or devalue it.

With this forgiveness... and some days I must remind myself of it when Satan is out to try to make me forget it! ... comes a freedom previously unknown. It means that I can walk with my head up. It means that today is a fresh start... that today is a clean slate... that tomorrow can also be a clean slate.

It means that I can dream, and love, and live, and dance lightly, happily and joyfully as I move into the future.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Dancing free of the cobwebs

I'm having flashbacks regularly lately. One seems to lead to another, one memory begets another memory and I am learning / remembering more and more of my past. Unfortunately, I can fend off the memories until I lay down at night and then my brain is flooded. Last night, the flood came to the point that I couldn't keep my eyes closed and yet opening them didn't stop the flood. Last night, I realized there was more to my marital abuse than I was ever willing to admit or acknowledge. I've taken responsibility for things that were not my responsibility. I am stunned to realize that my marriage was based, not only on the lies he told me, but on the lies I had told myself, the decisions I made because of those lies.

It started with a memory a few weeks ago regarding a childhood incident that I had always instinctively known must have been there, but couldn't remember. Now I remember. The memory came in a flashback with feelings and thoughts, which lead to other instances in my life where I have felt those emotions, which lead to a time immediately after I met my ex-husband. One memory regularly leads to a whole review of that portion of a relationship and I have been battling nausea with the realizations shown to me.

I will no longer be stunned into frozen. I won't  allow my boundaries to be bulldozed, my desires ignored and my voice silenced. I will look at a situation and no longer expect one thing, but will state my expectations ahead of time. I will expect to be treated with respect from now on.

I feel as if my brain is dancing free of the cobwebs. With the freedom comes the memories both good and bad... I'm truly okay with that. Even if I am left reeling from reality, the fog is lifting and my thoughts become clearer, my future starts to look brighter and my hope begins to rise that something better is actually out there.

This is just another part of the dance to freedom. I feel God's hand, firmly but gently, leading me down this road. He wants good for me. He wants me to escape the prison walls abuse has built around me, the moat I dug within them in case someone tried to breach the walls. We're filling in the moat, breaking down the walls.

Is it safe?

Only when He leads the way.