MY LIFE - AS IT WASTHEN AND AS IT IS NOW

Today started like almost every other day. I got out of bed, fed my cat and made sure she had clean drinking water, then I scooped her litter box. From there I made my way into the kitchen where I fixed myself a cup of coffee topped with flavored creamer and home made whipped cream. I turned the outside lights off, raised the thermostat to 68 (in the winter) and finally sat at my kitchen table. 

I have four large windows across the back of my kitchen. My back yard is mostly woods so when I sit at my table I can see into the woods. After taking deep breaths and just looking out the window, I begin my morning ritual of writing in my journal followed by reading something of a spiritual nature. I like to start my day by checking in with my body, my surroundings and my spirit. I generally do not like outside noise first thing in the morning, unless it is the sound of birds singing or wind rustling the leaves. I love the quiet and I love easing gently into my day. 

Looking out one of my windows

This morning, like so many mornings, I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for the life I have been given, and for how I get to live that life. I live in the woods, which I love, surrounded by trees on the outside and people who love me and care about me on the inside. 

I have chosen this quiet life. I find quiet affords me the opportunity to go slow, be introspective and give myself and my body the nurturing and healing energy it deserves to have.

As I contemplate where I am now, I am filled with memories of how my life was, and the one thing it was not, which was peaceful. I packed a lot of hard living in the first 60 years of my life. I was a stay at home mom until my youngest reached junior high. I raised four children and a grandchild. I have had three careers and three businesses and I am on my fourth career as a writer and author. It feels like I have run the gamut on ups and downs in both my personal and professional life.

I was not a happy person and I lived for years in the pit of depression, feeling overwhelmed by panic and anxiety. Hypervigilance was my constant companion along with working hard to try to feel okay about myself. This was all I knew. I was not born this way, but many negative experiences in my childhood and young teens helped to shape the path my life took.

I survived it all, including my daddy leaving when I was around three, and my being told he did not care about me, being ostracized by a group of teenage girls, who I thought were my friends, and told they did not want to hang out with me anymore, being raped at gunpoint when I was seventeen, being thrown out a non-denominational church on a Sunday morning in front of a packed crowd and  somehow winding up as the pariah of my family. And yet, despite it all, I am still here.

There were many times when I did not know how I was going to make it through; but I did. I never dreamed I would one day be in the place of peace and contentment I am in today.

I tell you about these events not for you to feel sorry for me, but to show the miraculous resilience of the human spirit and how a life can heal and change. As I look back on the wonders of life and the events that brought me to through to where I am today, I feel deep gratitude. The human spirit is awesome and I know from experience that it can be knocked down over and over and still get up, brush itself off and take the next step.  

It has taken time and an enormous amount of healing, introspection, good trauma focused therapy plus a deep hunger for light and life to get to this place of quiet.  Along the way I have engaged in a lot of excavation into my being to heal my childhood wounds and to recover my sense of self and find my self worth. My healing did not happen in an instant or a day. What really matters is that it happened and is continuing to happen. I keep giving myself over to light and life. I keep looking within instead of focusing on what is going on around me and who is doing what.  It has taken time for me to learn that I am the captain of my ship and I can be defined by self-love and gratitude or I can allow myself to be defined by my perception of my childhood experiences or by others thoughts and actions. 

By: Alex Elle

Would I change any of my life if I could? No, I would not because it has all brought me to where I am today. Somewhere along the way I was given the gift of willingness to question the status quo and what I was taught and groomed to believe along with the desire to find my authentic self. As a result, I have arrived at this place of peace and contentment with myself and life. 

The way my life was and the way it is now are light years apart, yet I know one is the result of the other. Thanks to creator energy I now live the life I love.