Stop Surviving and Start Living!

For the first time in my life I am beginning to feel and proclaim that most of the dreams I have ever had have come true. I have all of the peace and joy and love and comfort that I could have ever wished for myself. Wow! That is such a cool thing to share with the world.

It is not the picture of what I may have imagined “All my dreams coming true” would look like though. It is more of the emotional experience of all of what I have longed for in the many years I have been healing from anxiety.

I have pushed myself through many things in my life because of this anxiety. I have learned to cope, learned to persevere, learned to meditate, learned to notice my thoughts, and learned to be more present in my body. I have worked on myself for so long in order just to survive the day emotionally.

A History of Trauma

Coming from a background of many traumas, you could say I have had PTSD. I think the term is actually CPTSD. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The thing that makes it complex is not just a very specific event, it is the compounding of chronic conditions that created stress in my system.

I was having total panic attacks by the time I was 19. I have described it as feeling like I shattered into a million pieces at this time. The stress had been building after my father left me and my 7 siblings when I was 16.

The full truth is that things were not perfect before he left. The environment at home had become increasingly stressful as my parents kept having more children and the financial stresses seemed to be growing. I also know now that my parents were going through a lot of interpersonal stuff that had been kept behind closed doors.

The Healing Journey

Well, let’s fast forward. I have been lucky enough to have done a lot of therapy, trainings, gotten a lot of education, bodywork, and have gone very deep to heal and put back together all those parts that had felt so shattered.

I was willing to do anything to figure myself out to just,simply, feel normal. I stopped drinking, smoking, learned about nutrition, went to massage school and explored the relationship of the body and the emotions. I have also learned how to monitor my thinking and my feelings.

All of the steps on my journey have been super important and led to the next step. At first just having a therapist who would listen to me was enough. The next step was being involved in some sort of group work, where I could explore being me, being accepted and heard within a group. All along while doing these things, I was working on spiritual principles and experiences. I grew up with religion, but the experience and understanding of having a more personal relationship with God, the Divine was a totally different story.

Body-Centered Therapy

As I moved along with this for 5 years or so, after my dad passed away and I had a breakup with someone I had been with a while, I needed to go deeper. I was having physical sensations that wouldn’t go away. There was a heaviness in my chest and a discomfort in the right side of my face and head. I tried massage, acupuncture, chiropractic and yoga. It persisted. Then I found Body-Centered Psychotherapy. This was the next step on my journey. It was time to feel all the stuff that my conscious mind had not been able to cope with. It was stored in my nervous system.

I fell in love with this work and, eventually, trained in this modality. I went full force with this for over 10 years. I dove so deep and got such a deep understanding of my past traumas from the core of my nervous system. I went deeper than 99% of most will dare to go. This served me so well.

I had gotten married in 2007 and by 2011, that marriage was on the rocks. The way that marriage dissolved triggered a lot of things about my father leaving and what I had picked up from my mother. I went through another phase and the body-centered work could only do so much. I was searching again. I began going deeper on understanding the mind, and how we create our reality.

I will never regret the deep trauma clearing work I explored. It was so important for me and for others I have helped. I was fortunate to learn that with all of the focus on trauma, I also needed to keep buoyant. I needed to learn that life becomes what we focus on.

Learning to Control My Focus

Earlier in my life I would not have had the capacity to “focus” on the things that create ease in my life. My nervous system was so fragile. I did not have the ability. My healing journey had begun in 1995, when I started therapy. By 2011, I had enough footing to start to really know I could harness my thinking and build the life I desired in a totally different way.

I have since been practicing how to choose what I focus on. I have been learning how to start each day pre-paving in a morning meditation the ease, love and joy that I want to experience each day. I did this to manifest my new marriage of two and a half years. I am now in the process of claiming I want to experience this in my career. I want and deserve a career that I love and feel fulfillment in. I am also in the process of claiming a new level of health and sense of inner beauty. I, we all deserve to feel good in our bodies and have health and vitality.

I feel all of the steps I have been through have been important and necessary. I still use a lot of what I learned in the past. For me, at this time, such a vital part of this is managing what I focus on. Oh, and, let me not forget to talk about how important surrender is.

Surrender

Surrender is certainly a topic worthy of it’s own article. For now, may it suffice for me to say, that to believe there is a Higher Power that wants what is best for me, that guides me, and that will take the burdens, fears, hopes, dreams and whatever is pressing on me, off of my shoulders, is everything.

I have learned that there is a spiritual solution for everything. Sometimes I have no notion what that solution could be, but if I surrender this issue in a prayerful space to a Loving Source, I will be guided to that solution. I have had the good fortune of having this experience throughout my life. Interestingly, I have also gone through long periods where I forget that there is an option to rely on this Beautiful Provider.

I have continued to be present for myself, practicing what I have learned when needed, and for the first time in my whole life, I am in a position that I feel a lot of peace, ease, joy, fulfillment, and connection to my loved ones. I have a home I love, people I enjoy all around me, the beautiful privilege of caring for my pets, a lot of free time, a partner I adore, and lots of creative outlets.

Having said this, it is an interesting thing when you realize your dreams have come true…sometimes I feel a little lost. What’s next could some up a lot of what I have been feeling. Having had anxiety and striving and working hard the theme of my life, what am I to do with myself now?

Looking around now at this turning point in my life, I do feel a little rudderless sometimes. I feel I am now at a time of going to the next level, of getting to actually be a part of choosing what comes next. I am also learning to allow things to be revealed to me as I stay in surrender and see what gifts, adventures, and experiences God has in store for me.