Hi.
It’s me.
I just have a few things I want to tell you, because I miss my little bloggy corner of the world, and because I am feeling like someone out there really needs to hear what I am going to say.
It’s been a year.
Literally.
Full stop.
Deep inhale, and a harsh exhale.
Sure I could delve into what has happened over the past year – but the thing is, we all have our own stories, our own experiences, our own lessons learned, and our own reasons for maybe wanting to forget that 2020 ever happened at all.
Wherever you are on that spectrum, it’s all ok.
No one can tell you that you’re “supposed to” feel or think or remember last year with any sort of direction. Like, it’s completely individual.
For me personally, there were some really awesome things that came from a year of having life on pause, and there are other things that aren’t necessarily my favorite.
But the biggest piece of what I am taking forward with me is this:
The Beauty of Becoming.
No matter how ugly life has been, we get to Become something new, ever changing, every single day.
We get to CHOOSE to become.
This may not sound easy, or fun, or like anything you want to hear right now.
And that’s ok.
i’ve been there too – so stuck under the muck of stuff piling up all around me – things going wrong, diagnoses that sucked, the weight of financial stress threatening to bury me, feeling like I was fighting the world alone – that i wanted nothing to do with anything pretty or positive or happy. I’ll just stay here in my dark cave with my own thoughts thankyouverymuch. Go sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here.
And you wanna know what that got me?
Exactly nothing. And nowhere fast.
I honestly couldn’t even tell you exactly what it was that shifted for me –
exactly which book I read or podcast I listened to or blog post that got me. I know it was shortly after I got that sign from the home depot – you’ve heard me talk about it before I’m sure. The one that says “Good Things Are Going To Happen”.
But I started to feel a spark of….hope. Hope that maybe good things finally would start happening. That good things might even start happening to ME. For ME.
That after all the pain, and the wounding, and the betrayal, and the bullshit…
That good might come.
That I wouldn’t have to cry myself to sleep anymore.
That I might have enough money in my bank account to not be in a constant state of panic that I was going to overdraft and have the lights shut off and lose the house.
That maybe, just maybe, someday i’d even be loved the way i craved.
That someone would see my crazy mess and love me in spite of it.
Whatever that spark of hope was, I am so glad that I caught it.
Or that it caught me.
And that it turned from that one tiny spark into a whole damn flame.
I BECAME that fire.
What I thought would consume me, I became.
The beauty of becoming.
But what does it mean, that I became this fire?
Well – it means I learned what it looks like to actually love myself to have and hold boundaries. It means I leaned in to the hard work of undoing years worth of hurts and wounds and stories that kept me from really loving myself, exactly as I am. And loving myself enough to change the parts of me that weren’t really ME.
It means that I stopped being a victim of life, and I started being my own heroine.
It means that I stopped getting stuck in saying “no” to things because I was scared of what that would mean…and i started saying Hell Yes to life on my terms.
Not just “I’ll think about it….” or “sure that sounds nice…” or “maybe someday”….
do you understand the difference? Can you feel the difference?
Pretend someone just asked me if I wanted a nutella filled holiday pie with a side of FRESH sushi….do you really think that the REAL terra would be like
“oh…sure… maybe….” and then go back to knitting a cozy for my cats?
NO.
Let me translate that for the people in the back.
NO. NO. NO.
The real me – the me that’s always been right here – would say HELL YES that sounds AMazinG!!!! LET’S GO RAAAAAHHHHTTTT NNNNNAAAAAoooooooo.
But see, i’d lost sight of that Terra.
She’d been buried under years of muck and pain and hurts and trying so very much to fit in to the box she thought she belonged in. Anxiety, stress, depression, a healthy side of C-PTSD from multiple medical issues, avoidance, boundary issues….on and on and on….I mean, it’s the kind of baggage that most of us carry around these days, right? On some level at least.
I tried to NOT be those things, and I disconnected even further from myself. I couldn’t even trust myself or love myself enough to be able to say “hey, maybe this isn’t a healthy way to live, yeah?” I doubled down on my efforts to be a “strong independent woman” who could handle it all on my own.
Thank God for a friend who could see through all that pain and hurt, and could call me out on the BS. It stoked that little spark of hope into a bigger flame. Just big enough that I could start to dig in to uncovering the real me again.
I put in that hard work.
I cried more tears as I excavated through layers of stories and beliefs that were holding me back and keeping me stuck. Beliefs about what i deserved, and didn’t deserve. Beliefs about how the rest of my life would be as a divorced mom of 4 girls with very little prospect in sight of a promising career due to being a full time mom/nurse/therapist/etc….Lots and lots of beliefs and stories that in no way reflected ME.
so much learning has happened between then and now. And healing too.
I could write a book about all that (and I am, actually. For real. It’s 10 very disjointed chapters right now, but it’s getting closer to being in your hands, if there are still any of you out there who are with me on the book journey!)
In the meantime, while I’m waiting to hit the Amazon best-seller list, I’ve been putting everything I learned into a way to help others heal, and find their hope. This is my purpose, my mission, my passion.
I’m kicking it all off with a little something I call the “HY5 Challenge” – That stands for Hell Yes (I’m kinda here to make it a movement!) 5 day challenge. Maybe the hell yes isn’t resonating with you – and that’s ok. shorten it to HY. High. HY-live, HY-vibe, it all works. But know that you can BECOME that high vibe version of you – the one that’s been buried under the years of “stuff”…
Become her again.
Become YOU again.
Don’t just settle for barely surviving in life, start THRIVING.
You are worth it.
This life is worth it.
anyways – I gotta run to the pharmacy and the grocery story and feed these offspring who keep wanting meals on the regular.
I hope you’ll stick around for more blogs, cause they are coming.
And podcasts and videos too.
I’ve realized I actually have a lot to say, and that those things are meant to help other people. That feels really good.
I’m glad to have you here.
Go check out the HY5 Challenge HERE. I’d love it so much if you joined me. We start March 15, but there’s plenty that will be going on in the special secret HY5 group before then too. If you have questions, I have answers. Just shoot me a message.
I love you all, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Keep on Keepin On, Party People.
Love,
T.