I was contemplating leaving my relationship. I went as far as to organise a granny flat to move into. Now before you judge me, consider this!
When I found out my man was coming home permanently at the end of the year. After not being together for almost 9 years, he worked away for the whole time we’ve been together… 2 weeks away, 1 w/e home… I got scared… it really terrified me to think that I would have to face this man every day, at the end of the day… now! You may think that this isn’t a big deal… and to most it wouldn’t be… most would be excited, but when you’ve lived the life I have, you consider the situations as each and every one arises… as a threat… my man coming home permanently means EVERYTHING WILL CHANGE! Yes! I began to do what I do best! I began to prepare to Run!
I was told when I was a very young girl (aged 7) these 3 things…
“You are nothing! No one! You’ll never make anything of yourself! You’ll never succeed in anything! Because you are a no one.”
“You’ll always be barefoot and pregnant. Any man who touches you will use you as a baby making machine because that’s all you’ll be good for.”
“You’ll never be loved for who you are because of who you are… you’re unlovable.”
When you’re so young and the person you’re being told this by is the one who you look up to. Your caregiver. The one who is meant to love and adore you and be the one who cares for you and helps to make your days brighter by loving and hugging you, taking you in her arms and making you feel safe, secure, pushing you along, in the directions that are going to take you where you need to go. Believe in you! Be proud of your achievements. When this person is meant to be the one who takes you in her arms and wipes away your tears when your heart breaks from being rejected or being hurt by others in your life. When this person is the one who gave you life and was meant to be there! Through everything… when this person is your mother…
This is the result of those damaging words…
I get so close! I believe in myself and I KNOW I’m capable of great things… I just totter on the edge of success… I’m looking down from the top and it’s scary… I’m afraid I’ll make something of myself, especially when everyone tells me I’m wonderful! I’m amazing! I’m destined for a fantastic life… then I hear those words… and I run! I fall! I sink into the pit that is lying in waiting, always there ready for me to drop into when I fail! When I get that close to making something of myself I remember what I was told and I withdraw… these are known as limiting beliefs… the words I was told when I was just a young girl have rung in my ears all my life… I have chased after my dreams, that’s who I am, a total believer in what is possible and then just as I’m about to reach them… I draw back and I turn around and I run!
All my life I’ve run! When I told my man that I was preparing to leave him. He was shocked! He didn’t understand why! But he wasn’t even going to try and stop me… he said “I don’t want to keep you somewhere where you’re not happy”.
I took this as being he doesn’t care. But it was those words. Those words I was told had become the pinnacle of my life. A precedence to what was going to be the rest of my life…
I was unlovable. He works away because I’m unlovable. He doesn’t want to live with me. Because I’m unloved and not the one who he wants to share his life with. I took it he was emotionally unavailable. I truly believed he didn’t care. Didn’t know how to care. Only because I knew that if he did, that would go against all I was told and all I believed. And that wasn’t ok! He never said I couldn’t do anything. In actual fact he believes in everything I do do… He doesn’t try to stop me from doing what I believe I can do because deep down he is the one I’ve been looking for all my life. Another thing my mother told me was that I turn men violent. I believed this as I was told it at a much vulnerable time in my life, when I was going through all the domestic violence and all the pain and suffering that I had seen my own parents go through. I believed I turned the men in my life violent, because they were. Because I couldn’t keep myself together and I was no one! I didn’t deserve to be loved and therefore I made it, constricted it, to not be loveable. I did everything possible to be hated… but I don’t believe I turned my men violent… because I had 2 relationships, the one I’m in now and my previous one where there hasn’t been and wasn’t any violence present.
I’ve gone through my entire 43 years believing I’m no one! I’m not worth anything! I’m useless! Not loveable! Not worth anything more than having babies. I’ve lived every single day with the voice in my head, the one I was told was a crazy voice… telling me I’m wonderful! Just do it! Don’t stop! Don’t give up! Don’t allow yourself to become who your mother told you, you were. My guide. Who I later came to know as Alair.
I wrote my book! I wrote poetry and journaled and then blogged since I was 7 years old. A lot of the poems have been destroyed. They’ve been burnt and or lost along the way. When those words chased me in a nightmare I had as a child. I was terrified.
This is the scenario of this nightmare…
I would fall asleep and I’d be in darkness. All of a sudden I would begin to see something coming through the darkness, towards me… when it became clear enough to see, it was revealed that these were letters of the alphabet. Huge! These Letters were towering over me! They were so terrifying! I began to run! I would run so fast but I couldn’t get away and when I looked back they were looming over me! I would run and run and run! Then all of a sudden I would feel them almost upon me and I’d wake up! I’d be sweating, crying, screaming inside to stop! This dream hounded me over and over again! My mother took me to a dream analyst. It was revealed through my session that I was being chased by the letters as a result of what I was beginning to do. He asked me if I wrote? I told him I wrote a poem about clouds. This poem was deemed, by my teacher, to be so profound, that it was in fact pinned up on the teacher’s notice board in the staff room… my teacher told me she could see me as being a wonderful author one day. My analyst told me the same thing and told me that the letters would chase me down until I kept using them. Then he told me, next time I had the dream, nightmare. To stop myself running and turn around… reach out and touch a letter… I couldn’t believe what he was saying to me… that very thought terrified me! I was being told to allow them to ‘kill’ me. I told him, if I do that they’ll fall on top of me and they’ll squash me to death… I wasn’t that brave and I couldn’t do that… so I left the session. I didn’t know what to think, say or do… I just knew I wasn’t brave enough to do what he told me to do. When I had the dream again, the same night, it all began the same as always. But something in me changed. Something ‘told’ me to stop running… turn around… so I did… I stopped running, turned around, closed my eyes and reached out… I felt a letter touch my hand… and then instead of feeling the crush, I braved up and opened my eyes… every single letter in front of me began to dissipate into thin air… every single letter was disappearing and I could feel myself absorbing them, all of them. Into my body. I felt strong! I felt like I could stand tall, taller than I ever was, as tall as the letters were… I was then able to see what had happened… I became the letters… from that moment on, when I woke in the morning, I wrote! I wrote poetry, journaled, scribbled. I even wrote short stories, all of which have been lost now. But unintentionally I was writing my life. I wrote like my life depended on it. I am the words… I am the letters in my nightmare. Then over the last few days, I realised this could have also been another metaphor for the words my mother told me…
The letters were huge! They chased me for years as a child and when I refer to that dream now I see it differently. I see that dream now as the letters of the words that my mother told me when I was 7. I see them now as the looming terror that chased me down. The ones which were destined to be the unfolding of my life. The darkness they hid in were indicative of my mother. The letters were the words and the terror I felt was the fear I’ve lived in all my life. All the fears I’ve experienced were predestined from my mother’s words. The whole of my life has been based on how I was bought up by my parents. The violence was the norm, all I was used to. So I sought it. The anger I experienced, myself, was what I was taught and so I went on to portray that. The love I have learnt to feel and give throughout my life has been discovered as a result of me being a mother. The mother I became was the result of not wanting to be my mother. The result of me being where I am right now, is knowing how to love… unconditionally, not only my children, my pets, my friends, my family and yes! Even my mother. Although I often feel that I am who I am because of who I was told I wouldn’t be. I’m a rebel. I won’t go with the grain. At times I’ll even fight against the flow. Trying to make everything happen now!! Not willing to wait! Yet! Knowing if I do, I’ll get more then I ever imagined. Better than I even wished for myself. I won’t comply by any rules and yet I’m not disrespectful of authority figures either. I truly believe all is am and all I have been through in my life has been the journey I’ve had to take to be here. Where I stand. The journey I embarked upon, 50,years ago, was one of amazement.
I always aspired to be a great author… I believed, as a result of my teacher, the analyst telling me, that I would be a great author one day… then the limiting beliefs that destroyed all my dreams, one by one, as they surfaced… I had to see the truth for what it was…
I am capable of anything I put my mind to… I am amazing! Wonderful! Extremely talented! Beautiful! Unique! I am me! I am not the words my mother told me… I am not the words that chased me down… I am however the words I absorbed, the ones which made me stand tall, the ones that are now those which are going to make me a success! The ones which are going to bring me to where my mother told me I wouldn’t be! These words are the ones I use every day on my Fb page, in my counselling, my meditations, my readings, these are the ones I use everyday, in my life…
Please be aware that what you say to your beautiful children will, in fact, be those that will set the precedemce to the rest of their lives. Use kind words always and show them love, even when they are unlovable… it is then you should love them more… no child should be given false hopes but every child should be encouraged in what they decide to do… even if you don’t agree with their choice… don’t make them feel like they’re less than they are… they are all perfect in the eyes of their mother…
When I was ‘discovered’ by a mistaken identity email… a publicist who believed in me… who truly believes my book could possibly be a top seller… I realised this could possibly lead to success! Me! A top selling author! And I ran! I did everything possible to not get it to where it was meant to be! On the shelves for all to read and for everyone to see me for I am… and for all I have been! Those letters that chased me in my dreams… they were the ones that prompted me to recognise the mistake that was going to bring me to where I’m meant to be… the ones that are now being compiled into the pages of my life memories and all the words that were jumbled, mixed up, misheard and mistaken are now the ones which will lead me to where I’m meant to be…
I will become who I’m destined to be… I will become who I am predestined to be… who I was born to be… I will be All I’m supposed to become…
I AM NOT NO ONE! I AM NOT NOTHING! I AM NOT A BABY MAKING MACHINE! I AM NOT UNLOVEABLE! I DO NOT TURN MEN VIOLENT! I AM NOT GOING TO FAIL! AND IF I DO I WILL PICK MYSELF BACK UP EVERY TIME AND I’LL FIGHT TO BE WHO I’M MEANT TO BE!
My mother’s words mean nothing to me anymore!! I am 50 years old and I am beautiful! I am talented and I am unique! I am more than my mother’s words said I am!
I will do wonderful things in this life, I already have… I will be at the top and I will be the voice of those who are muted as a result of their limiting beliefs…
Don’t follow me! Don’t walk in front of me! Walk beside me! AMD I will be there to support everyone when they need it most…
I am those letters, huge, standing tall, not afraid of what the darkness brings…
Hear my words and heed my advice… listen to me and stop me when you’ve had enough… criticise me with loving words and I’ll listen… tell me what you’re thinking and I’ll support your thoughts…
I am UNBREAKABLE!!