Stop taping your mouth shut.
There have been so many times in my life I thought it was all going wrong.
There have been so many times I thought “I’ve really messed it up this time.”
There have been so many deeply painful times I’ve gone through where I thought I would never see the light again.
But I did.
Every. Single. Time.
And for every time, I can look back & see the blessing in it.
When I met my husband, I was hooked. I instantly felt a deep, energetic connection to him. He was the ‘strong-silent’ type. It’s like I could see a whole storm of emotions & things going on inside of him when I looked into his eyes & it mesmerized me. I saw SO much potential in him. I saw so much potential in the life we could create together.
And I fell hard… for that potential.
Things moved fast between us. We had a baby, multiple cross-country moves, we had a wedding, we bought a house… all within a few short years.
We kept moving fast. I saw the signs, the red flags.
But we kept building despite it. I kept my eye on the dream. I kept my chin up and I sought for the sunny side of things, even as I felt myself disappear.
I had built my life on sand.
I got to this point where I had all that I wanted, the house, the kids, the great community, the dog, the chickens… but I realized I’d built it all on sand.
I didn’t feel like I could talk to my husband about anything.
If I brought up any discontent whatsoever, it turned into a huge fight.
He would say awful things about me and he would go down his own shame spiral of never being good enough. It never felt like a safe place to express any emotion; not even joy.
If I was ‘good’ then we were ‘good’.
If my emotions went out of that range of ‘good’, everything fell apart.
So, I kept them as ‘good’ as possible.
I felt as though I was walking on eggshells all the time — and what’s worse is that we were teaching our kids to do the same.
Homes are for free expression; they are our refuge from the world; the place we get to be fully ourselves & loved unconditionally for it!
Our home didn’t feel that way when he was there.
My mouth felt taped shut.
I felt for a long time that I couldn’t speak up, I couldn’t find my voice — like I had actually lost it, or that my mouth was taped shut.
I felt alone. SO alone. And I felt ashamed.
I knew better. I blamed myself. I blamed him. It was the darkest and loneliest place I have ever known.
There was nothing left to do, so I prayed. Hard.
And through this prayer to whichever god would listen, I began to see specks of light.
I saw specks of light in articles that brought self-awareness, in nature, in books, in art, in my kids, and even in movies!
I could see specks of light in women who were sharing their stories and seeking their Truth.
Through the specks of light, I began to see clearly that this was an inside job.
Sure, there were many external factors that were at play & needed to change, but first, the inside.
In the specks of light, I could see hope. I could see the bigger picture.
When I started to look for the lesson, for the LOVE, in the situation, I started to see it. I can see now that this dark time was my gift.
My husband isn’t a ‘bad guy’. We are here to teach each other.
I have learned this last year, that no one will save me. I have also learned that I HAVE to learn to love myself because, until I do, no one else will know how.
I have learned that I must place my Trust in Source, because there is no other way. I have learned that our external circumstances reflect our internal stories/beliefs.
This, the darkest time I have known, has been my greatest story of Grace.
This has been my big story of foundational transformation. This relationship has brought to light all that I want to let go of from my past, to live closer to the Truth that’s always been inside of me.
I still can’t imagine what the full unraveling will look like, what the falling apart will look like and it terrifies me. But, what I can see now, through a year of deep self-reflection and a decision to learn to love myself fiercely, is that I will be ok.
My girls will be ok.
My husband will be ok.
It may be uncomfortable AF, but it will be ok.
