FREE TO BE ME
Free To Be Me
I smiled as I looked in the mirror at my new purple hair.
I loved my hair, but what I loved even more was that I didn’t care what anyone else thought or if they liked it.
Later that day, as I thought about my purple hair and what it represented for me, I saw an image in my mind…a side-by-side comparison of my life now and my life before I made the decision to choose myself and my happiness and leave my 30 year marriage.
My life now is full of color. My home is filled with colorful artwork, colorful rugs, pillows, furniture…everywhere you look in my home you’ll see color. My colorful life feels free, safe and expansive.
I’m free to be my creative messy self; free from having to prove myself worthy of love; safe to make decisions and choose what’s right for me; safe to make mistakes. I can let my guard down and breathe.
Before leaving my marriage my life often felt like a grey winter day when the trees, flowers and grass are all dormant. I felt small. I felt like I was suffocating in a life with no room for me to grow into the strong, colorful, creative woman I am today.
As a little girl I dreamt of being a mom.
I was a stay-at-home for 20 years and spent that time dedicated to making sure my daughter and son always felt loved unconditionally and had the best childhood possible.
But, in the blink of an eye, my kids were grown and leaving home. Suddenly I felt completely lost and alone. I didn’t know who I was without my kids and I missed seeing them every day. I was deeply unhappy and scared I’d feel this way for the rest of my life .
I kept asking myself, “Is this as good as my life gets? Who am I and what am I suppose to do with the rest of my life”?
I set out to answer these questions, but what started out as a job search turned into a path of self discovery and finding the woman I was always meant to be, other than the identities of wife and mother.
I found the women I was always meant to be.
I found my true authentic self…the women I was meant to be before I was told, by society and the people around me, who I should be.
I also found more than a job. I found my purpose as a life coach and I knew, without a doubt, this was the thing I was meant to do with my life. I loved coaching and I was stronger, more confident and happier than I’d ever been.
Things changed when I stepped out of my “coaching world”.
When I stepped out of my home office, the strength and confidence I felt while coaching and interacting with my coaching community seemed to fade away. I felt small, as if I had to shrink myself to fit back into my life. There wasn’t enough room for the strong woman I was becoming and I felt like I was suffocating.
I was stuck and knew I couldn’t continue to grow as a woman and coach until I made the hardest and scariest decision of my life. I had to choose myself and my happiness over keeping everyone else happy by staying in my marriage.
But first I had to free myself from the web of shame I was entangled in.
I was ashamed that I’d stayed in a marriage that had made me feel small. I was ashamed that, after being told I was wrong for so long, I’d lost the ability to distinguish my own truth about what was happening to me. I was ashamed that I didn’t think I could manage life on my own. I kept my shame and this part of myself hidden for a very long time.
“Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it - it can’t survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.” - Brene Brown
With the support of my own coach and the close friends I made during my life coach training, I began talking about my marriage and how it made me feel. I began talking about my fear of putting myself and my happiness first. I trusted them to hear my story without judgement and without pressuring me to do anything until I was ready.
The more I shared, the more my web of shame started to dissolve.
I began to trust what I knew was right for me.
After the divorce was finalized I felt like a caterpillar who instinctively knows when its time to form a protective crysalis around herself and begin the process of dissolving so she can emerge as a beautiful butterfly.
I’ve spent the past 2 years in my chrysalis but I’m emerging , full of color, and ready to fly.
