Brave Enough To Be Bliss

After a while, though, I began to see myself in a different light. I began to see that I had choices. Sure, I had some bad things happen to me, but when I became aware I was the one who was keeping me in that misery, no one else, I began to hate hating myself. I became as disgusted with hating myself as I had been disgusted with myself for all those years . And I became determined to become the person God created me to be because I knew He didn’t keep me alive so I could walk around this earth wishing I was dead and hating on His creation, me.

The reason for living I had found 30+ years ago was to “ help keep other hurting people alive, ” but now I had a chance to do something so much greater. I had a chance to model how to live a life worth living.

I had to break down my fears, where they really came from and what they were really about, so I could begin checking them off one-by-one. I had to understand I had no control over anyone except myself. I had to be willing to let my daughter decide for herself if she wanted to learn to live or die, to accept I truly could not stop her. And I had to show her I trusted her to make the decision to live. I did that kicking and screaming inside, but once I had faced the biggest fear of my life, losing her, the other fears didn’t seem nearly as big . I kept chipping away at the list until I began to believe in my mind I could do it as much as I felt in my heart and soul I could.

And when the heart, soul and brain are working together, we humans are unstoppable.

“And if, when it is all over, I’m asked what I did with my life, I want to be able to say , ‘ I offered love. ’” Terri St. Cloud

I have openly shared the very confused thinking of my brain. I have revealed my darkest secrets and exposed the most intimate details of my life. I have disclosed my dreams and declared my desires. And I have fully bared my soul. I have made a conscious decision to make this e-book available to anyone in the world with internet access at no cost in order to ensure I am as inclusive as possible. I have taken myself to very dark places in my mind where I no longer live. I have intentionally let the voices out of the basement in order to write in a way that reflects how I felt back in those times. I then had to push the voices back down into the basement and lock the door with them pushing against it with all their might. I have then painstakingly pulled my mind back to the present day where I am safe once again. I have invested countless hours of time, endless amounts of energy, tremendous thought, and buckets of tears. I have paid attention to every nudge reaching out to people who may think I’m crazy. I have listened for and documented every word upon waking whether it was 2 a.m., 6 a.m. or anytime in between, and even when I haven’t understood what the messages mean. I have carefully considered each word that is printed on every single page of this book.

I am unemployed with dwindling savings, but I have gone away for months to seclude myself in order to make this book a reality. So, you may be thinking, “W ow, how dumb are you? ”

And I would say, “You are worth it all.”

I have invested and risked this all for you. I want each of you reading to know that my heart is big enough to care for you without needing to know you or ask for anything in return. I want you to have the opportunity to know things I didn’t and to understand there are endless resources and people who can help you with whatever hurts you. I say all this for you to understand it wasn’t easy, but I did it so maybe, just maybe, you would take a moment and reflect on your own life and relationships. That perhaps you would begin to see how the pain of your past may have hardened you or softened you to the point your relationships have suffered as a result. How perhaps you may owe some apologies and some changes in your behavior in order to truly, deeply show loving care to all those in your life. Or if you are in relationships where you are being hurt, that you will have a sliver of hope

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