Before The Past

I read once that 'the wound is the place where the light enters you.' These were the words that brought me comfort after a breakup left my heart shattered into a million pieces. I thought of all the many avenues that were open and the light flooding in, molding those pieces back together. It was so vivid I could see it, and the best part of it was, I believed it. The light would be love that enters me everywhere. There would be plenty more opportunity for the light to enter as things got rapidly worse and more cracks evolving as I became more broken after repeatedly engaging in self-destructive ways and making choices that showed my lack of respect and value for myself. My fictional self was beginning to be too much and consuming as I quickly lost contact of my true authentic self.

I found myself lying on a bottom bunk of a jail cell for 174 days. I wish I could say the road ended here but it did not. It would be a road of judgements to follow, a now criminal record, an ex-husband trying to gain custody because he could now show how worthless, horrible and dangerous I was to be around children, and I have been arrested, and so on and so on. It felt as if I was at the bottom of a pit so incredibly bottomless there was no way of climbing this one out. Who was I? When did it get this bad? How did I get here? It all happened so fast. I was a broken shell of a person who couldn't even remember who I was, where I came from, stripped of self confidence and self-esteem. Every now and then glimpses of who I was would enter my memory. I was an elite athlete, I was a mother, I was a sister, a daughter, I loved the mountains. I loved adventure, I loved freedom. Ironically while incarcerated I longed for freedom, but it wasn't the freedom of being released, it was so much more than that. Freedom never came with being released from jail. The prison of bad mistakes follow you like a shadow and worse, become to define you. It was if I couldn't love myself for making mistakes of gigantic proportions, but that was a result of not being able to forgive myself. I found myself trapped in a cycle of hell and standing still and felt trapped but was not sure why or from what. Was it the constraints of the courts? Was it the grueling custody battle? Was it the challenge of finding a great job only to fail the background check? Was this the real me?

A few years after that time spent in the dark, I found a holistic approach to healing from addiction. As if I didn't have a choice (and I didn't) I went. After the first session I felt comforted. It just got better and better from there. We were assigned a book to read "The Power of Now." This book changed the course of my life. It taught me that we are not our mistakes. They are mistakes that happened to us. They do not define you. It taught me to live in the now, the present, much like a child does, and that depression, anxiety and fear only live in the past or the future. It hit me that I was living in the past with these enormous mistakes I had made and living in the future with the worry of the consequences of these mistakes. It taught me to love myself, that no matter what I am Love, NOT my mistakes! This is what I told myself on a daily basis while people still cast stones and passed judgements, I stayed the course and true to my now belief that I am NOT my mistakes. That's it! It was so simple! It was as if blinders had been removed from my eyes. From that moment on I became bulletproof as I forgave myself and love and light filled the void inside by broken self. With my new found thick skin I decided it was time to put all of this baggage down from my past and allow my authentic self to shine through.

And shine through she did! She returned like the warrior she is. She fought for her children and won. She was offered a head coach job coaching high-school after impressing the board and administrators with her impressive background and accomplishments in the sport. She gained yet another directorial coaching job working with young children. She is back. She is following her dreams. She returned stronger. She had to lose everything and become empty for that powerful light of love to enter through.

I am now living my authentic self on a daily basis and have her back after my fictional self was taking control over all of those years. My authentic self, lives fearless and boundless, alive and without limits and inspired. I have found purpose unclouded by negativity and a false sense of myself. Mistakes? Sure, I make mistakes I am human. I don't let those mistakes define me in a bad way, but see as an opportunity for the light to enter and shine through.

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