Brave Enough To Be Bliss

I added this to my Christmas playlist last year and it brought me peace, so I’m hoping it may for you too.

I read this somewhere online below also and thought it was worth sharing. It made me remember you telling me whenever you let yourself be happy something bad always happens. It’s time to write a better story. I am and you can too. You do hard things e very day. You are brave. You are special. You are worthy. You are loved.

Here it is: Your brain is full of stories. Most of these stories are tired, old, and worn out, and you need to stop reading them. You've read these stories so much the books are falling apart. The story that you're too much or not enough. The story that you're unlovable or too damaged for love.

The story that you need a ton of work before exploring a relationship with someone. The story that everyone you love will leave you if you show them who you are. The story that you'll never find love and die alone. All of these are stories that you actively choose to believe. You pick that book up, and you read it. And you believe it, time and time again. It's time to put those books away. Picture all these stories as individual books in your library. They're all there, in front of you. As you go through your day and life, you suddenly find yourself reading one of these sad stories. *Poof* now you're reading the story of how you're never going to find love. Or the one about being too much. Once you catch yourself reading that lame story — you have a choice: To continue reading that tired, old story, or to put that book away right then and there and pick up its counterpart. ✨ I Am Enough Just The Way I Am ✨ I'm Not Scared of Loving Big ✨ I Will Die Happy and Full of Love ✨ I Am Loved, Loving, & Worthy of Love So, you choose. You choose to keep reading those tired old stories, or you decide to pick up another book. Or even better, write yourself a better story. I will warn you that the following paragraph may be difficult to read, especially if you are a man. While super raw, these words describe my first feelings of actual anger toward the man who raped me. The event happened sometime in the early months of 1986, I remembered it in 2013, and it would be nearly 35 years before I allowed any anger to surface. So, when it finally did, apparently, I wasn’t inclined to show any mercy to him or the part of his body that violated mine. It may make you uncomfortable, you may want to laugh, you may want to cry, you may want to be angry…and all of that is alright because this isn’t easy stuff, in fact it’s quite awful. But it happens and the more we can talk about it, the more it will become safe for others to talk about whatever their feelings are too. And when those feelings can be expressed instead of stuck inside their hurting minds and bodies and spirits, healing can take place and that is what every single survivor deserves. So, feel whatever you feel and show yourself compassion, because there is no right way or wrong way to feel. I captured these words in my phone upon waking … I woke up wanting to cut his dick off. Not just in one piece but into tiny, little, minuscule pieces. Over and over again making each piece as small as it could possibly be so I could get all the rage out of my body for what he took from me. For taking my innocence, for laughing at me and hurting me physically and emotionally in ways that no human being should ever be hurt. For the fact I felt utterly powerless and unsafe and alone and ruined and filthy and disgusting for all those years. The shower didn’t wash those feelings away and because my brain refused to remember trying to protect me from the pain, they became engrained parts of me. With each piece I cut in my mind I was chipping away at the anger that I had buried and allowing myself to chop and cut and feel the anger instead of pushing it down allowed me to eventually start laughing. Laughing because I had waited over 30 years to be angry at him because all those years, I was scared to feel anything. Scared to feel the pain, the rage, the hurt, the despair, the ugliness, the loss…scared to feel pissed off as I had every right to feel. Laughing because he’s damn lucky I didn’t feel what I felt this morning on that night w ith a knife in my hand. Laughing because I am safe and warm in my bed and now that I’ve felt the anger, chopped, and sliced and diced that thing up…I can allow it to be fully in my past. It, his dick, has literally been out of my body for decades, but oh how my body and my mind had “It’s an act of bravery to feel your feelings.” Gayle Forman

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