It has been a while since I’ve written.
And I guess the biggest reason for that is that I’ve been writing – just not here. I’ve been writing in my group (are you in there yet?) and I have been writing for my program and I have done a lot of writing in my journals and notebooks…but I have not come here and shared from my heart like I used to.
Sometimes the Facebook Memories posts pop up and I read about all that used to be part of my life….the constant hospital stays, the constant medical information being thrown at me, the constant toll of trying to be happy fun mommy to my other three babies while also being nurse/therapist/scared to death mommy to my youngest. And so often, doing so much on my own.
Thats sometimes what gets me the most….my resolute refusal to acknowledge that I was drowning, and couldn’t reach out for a lifesaver device.
Why did I do it like that? 
What story was I so firmly believing about myself that blocked my ability to say “hey, this really sucks and I could definitely use some help…and I don’t even know what help means or looks like I just know that I am close to breaking and I don’t want to break so please please please just come help me”?
I don’t think I’ll ever know what my reasons were then, but I know that I have spent a lot of time the last few years trying to crawl out of that traumatic season of life.
I have unpacked and analyzed and excavated through layers of bricks I’d stacked up around myself to try to keep the pain out and keep me safe…and I’ve learned so much about myself in the process. I’ve rediscovered myself in the process. I’ve learned to really truly love myself in the process.
It’s not an easy process. In fact, most of the really hard days ended with more tears than I’d ever like to admit.
I used to think tears were such a sign of my weakness.
In spite of my proclamation to HATE crying, I sure did it an awful lot.
Part of this process has been coming to the realization that tears are actually very healthy. Being so affected by something that you shed actual tears is an indication that you are releasing the pain associated with that thing. You are ready to face it and change it. You are ready to release it.
And of course, sometimes tears are just the only thing left when you’re completely totally depleted. Exhausted and empty.
Tears are good. Tears are healing. If you’re going through something hard, cry it out. It’s completely ok.
And here’s something else I’ve learned –
Any reaction you have and are dealing with – it’s all ok.
We all experience pain of some kind at some point in our lives.
Even in the most idyllic of childhoods, and the seemingly ideal-est of circumstances….bad things still happen. Expectations aren’t met. Hopes are crushed.
Grieving and frustration and anger are all a part of every human experience as much as joy, elation, love and peace are. Trying to avoid feeling those emotions is when we stuff them down, ignore them, and let them turn into poisonous toxic energy buried deep in our subconscious minds. They turn into stories we tell ourselves, coming back at the most inopportune times to remind us of our failures and inadequacies and shortcomings and making us question our own amazing greatness.
Discovering all this about myself has been the work of the last few years.
Digging in deep to excavate through the rubble of the walls of my carefully constructed brick walls that ended up caving in on me. I thought I was building them to keep me safe from the pain…but all they ended up doing was blocking me from finding my path to paradise, to the life I’d always imagined for myself: where I was happy, and I felt loved and whole, and I could say so much yes to my kids.
This work has been hard, but oh so worth it.
So that’s where I’ve been.
And now I feel like it’s time to come back home from that journey.
And start sharing more of what I’ve discovered. Because I know that if I felt like this, so many others have too. And maybe, like me, you have no idea how to even ask for help because you’ve started to believe your own story that help = weak, and you aren’t even sure what help might look like anyways.
I am here to tell you that that could not be further from the truth.
If I’ve learned anything that I want to share with you over the past few really hard years, it’s that asking for help is one of the bravest things you can do. It means that you believe in yourself enough to know you want/need/deserve better. It means you trust that someone else can be a part of your journey. It means that you have a spark of a huge will to LIVE – and I mean really truly LIVE your life, not just survive it.
And I think that’s beautiful. It’s courageous. 
So I’ll be here. Sharing more of what the journey of the last few years has held for me. A journey back to me if you will. I talk about it in my group on Facebook, I am sharing some of these lessons on my podcast, and somedays I even put some of these lessons into “mini-blogs” on Instagram. I’m also going to blog more. Promise this time. I’m writing a lot these days, including a few chapters of what will be my “first” book. I say first because I feel like there’s definitely more than one in here….but I gotta get these thoughts organized somehow.
Anyways – that’s about all I have for today.
How is it already the 5th of March? I gotta catch up.
If you read these blogs, and they resonate with you at all, please leave me a comment. Or send me an email. Or somehow let me know you’re out there, reading, learning, cheering me on. I don’t know if I’ve fully ever expressed to you all how much those comments mean to me, and how they spur me on to more. Share the blog with a friend who needs it, share it on your Facebook page, send them a link to my podcast, anything and everything helps!
Ok I’m really done now.
Peace out party people.
T.