Learning to F.L.Y.
(First Love Myself)
Living by Proverbs 3:5-6
On my journey of surrendering to join the community of
bloggers the question was posed to me; What
will you blog about?’ I was
completely overwhelmed. I literally felt like I had so much “stuff” in my life
the thought of where to begin was too much.
Do I start with my childhood and the violence I witnessed? Do I start
with the traumatic experience of giving my firstborn daughter up for adoption
at age 19? Do I start with the deaths of very close loved ones I have lived
through………….too many to write about. Do I start with betrayal, lies, gossip,
stolen identity, shrinking my world to only include my husband and my children.
Do I begin with all the years I tried to run and hide from who I am, my mission
and destiny and the destruction that was left in the wake of those years? Where do I begin – and who could possibly be
interested????
I pondered that question further, BAM, my Angela Shelton
workbook fell out of my bag. As I picked it up off of the floor, I knew
immediately this was where I was to begin. My word for 2015 was Listen…….. As I
listened, I was led to begin Angela Shelton’s Be Your Own Hero Warrior Workbook. A 52 week journey used by thousands of
therapists, support groups and survivors of abuse worldwide. I was in the
middle of this workbook course, it was already written and ready for me to
blog. Really – this is where I begin?
In January of 2015 I sat in a chair across from my
husband, knee to knee in what we call at Discovery Training a “dyad.” We were getting ready to do an exercise we
both had done many times in our years of volunteering as TA’s for this
training. The exercise is called; “Things left unsaid,” and you are to
visualize the person sitting across from you as someone you need to speak to. A
broken relationship, saying good-bye to a loved one….you get the idea. I looked
at Carl and went through the list of people I had already used in the exercise
and could not at that moment come up with anyone else. At the last moment I realized I needed to
speak to myself and confront my deep
dark hidden secret……..I had to admit to myself, out loud, say the words and
stop lying…….How much I hated myself. The self-loathing of allowing my weight
to get so out of control. I felt ugly, ashamed and disgusted with myself. I
thought about all of the years Carl had been building me up, never once making
me feel unattractive, quite the opposite. I felt ashamed for not believing him.
All of a sudden I realized I had really cheated him. I realized the lie at that moment-----“You can’t love anyone unless you love yourself first.” As I looked
at my beloved I was ashamed. I loved him so much – and our children too. But
because I did not love myself, I could not allow them to love me either.
How could I? I wasn’t worthy of being loved. Yes, I could love them, pour
everything I could into serving them, and everyone else. This was the perfect way to hide my
self-hatred. How completely devastating to now realize that as much as I loved
my husband and my children, I never allowed them close enough into my life for
me to accept their love. Boy – did I ever have a lot of wreckage behind
me – a lot to make up for. My husband deserved for me to learn to love myself –
so I could accept his love for me. I now realized how truly perfect he has been
for me all of these years. Allowing me to be me, loving me, encouraging me to
do whatever I needed to do, standing up for me, fighting for my heart. Wow – how is it that I allowed so many years
to go by before seeing this.
I now know that everyone over probably the age of 45 knows
that if we could go back and raise our kids with all that we have learned from
life – most of us would likely do things different. As a young adult and young parent, it would
have been wise for me to ask for older women as a mentor with life experience,
I didn’t and I do not know many young parents who do. Instead, in our less
experienced youth, we make the mistake of thinking we are doing things right and do not need the
“old-fashioned” advice from our elders. I know I did. In my youth I didn’t know
that I had a lot of wounds that needed healing much less what those wounds
were. I didn’t want to face anything that might have hurt me. That was in my
past, something I couldn’t change anyway – so why even go there? Now I realize all that did was build the
self-hatred wall taller and taller.
So – In February of 2015, I was led to this Angela
Shelton workbook. I start a small group in my home and we meet every Thursday
night for the entire year……What comes my way during this year is worthy of my
time to write this blog. Once I stopped lying to everyone, especially myself, I
was now at a place to allow God to teach me how to F.L.Y. - First Love Myself so I could love Him with
all of my heart, and then love my husband and my children, and most importantly
feel worthy of and accept their love. Who wouldn’t want to go down this path? I
hope anyone who is reading this and can relate to self-hatred will ask God to
put you on a path to learn how to F.L.Y.
My first workbook lesson on February 18, 2015 asked me to
think about what I was ready for and to
make a commitment to myself. The Question: What are you willing to receive and what are you willing to give up? (Ex:
If you are ready to receive being a warrior, then you must give up the role of
victim).
This is what I wrote on my workbook pages:
I AM READY TO
RECEIVE:
·
Acceptance
·
Self-Love
·
Health – Spiritual-Physical-Emotional
·
Wholeness
·
Vision
I AM WILLING TO
LET GO OF:
·
Self-Doubt
·
Denial; refusal to look at myself/behavior/rejection
of self and others/disapproval/insecurity/ neediness/abandonment of self
·
Ego, selfishness, poor self-image, negative
tapes, negative language toward self
·
Laziness, self-doubt
·
My broken parts, mainly my self-image. (I am
fat, ugly, bad hair, ugly legs, not smart. All of these things make me feel
ugly. They are lies and I have to let them go, stop believing them, to be
whole.)
·
Judgement, insensitivity, comparing myself to
others… I am not as good as………
As you can see I have a lot of work to do at age 57. I
hope and pray there are many younger women reading this blog who will stop and
consider the trauma in your life and how it has affected you and your
relationships that matter the most and not wait to face it. It is only by
facing it that we can attempt to heal from it.
Children deserve to grow up with whole and healed parents.
Hugs and Blessings,
Kim Mayer
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