Seriously......... WHAT IF??

I began this blog to have a place to vent. To have a place to share bits of my life. To be able to give others a view into what goes on in the mind and the world of your average, everyday, good hearted pagan. I do not consider myself to be anyone special. I mean, I KNOW what my value is and I know my self worth. That is enough. What I mean by no one special is that I am not famous. I am not a movie star or a music icon. I am not a pro sports athlete. I am just me. I am just a woman that lives her life the best way she knows how to live. I raised my children and made mistakes. I love my grandchildren more than I ever thought I could love anyone; including my children. I am married and live in middle class America. I stay at home to raise my 3 year old daughter and teach her the things that I hold important and dear. Until very recently, I was a full time working woman and had been for more than 28 years. I have held 2 and 3 jobs at a time in order to do what was needed to provide for my family. I have been a single mother and was for many years. I have been a step parent. I have been a bonus mom and I have had children that came along with a relationship, that when that relationship ended, the child and I continued and developed our loving and nurturing relationship. To this day and every day beyond, I still call her my daughter and she still calls me her mom.

No matter how many hats I have worn in my life, from mother to wife  to sister to daughter to step parent to ex wife to Nana to pagan to witch, the one thing I have never been able to wrap my head around is how anyone could preach unconditional love and yet NOT love unconditionally. This happens all the time. At least more often than most of us are even aware.

I have loved my own children no matter what choices they have made. Whether I agree with them or not, my love and acceptance of my children has never wavered and they KNOW that. I have loved the children of my spouse and his previous partner as they were my own. We have had the same struggles that any blended family does, but I have loved each and every one of those children as if I had given birth to them myself. After divorcing my previous husband, his daughter and I remained extremely close and to this day she is MY daughter and I challenge anyone to tell me differently. Including him! I love the children of my current husband as if I had given birth to them also. His son is very warm and welcoming of the relationship and his daughter has chosen to push me aside and resent me. Those are their choices as individuals and they are entitled to them. This has not changed my love for them or the parental instinct to help them if they needed help. With all of this being said, I can not imagine turning them away if they needed love or support. Most of you say you feel the same way. But do you?

My children do not all have the same religious beliefs or the same spiritual path that I do or that their siblings do. I can not imagine condemning my child or disowning my child for being an individual. People do.

Here is the real point of this blog. What would you do if your child were to come and tell you that they are gay? You have spent your whole life preaching your version of faith and religion and you have taught them that following your religion is the only way that is right. What kind of turmoil do you think you have caused in the mind of a child that wants to do what is right, but can not help how they feel? Are you so hung up on your belief and your religion that you will turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the needs of your child? Or are you a parent first and do you listen to your child and try to understand and support them? Are you so stringent in your belief that your child is too afraid to speak to you? You say they can come to you with anything, but can they really?

When your child over hears your gossip with the other church folk about how bad it is that someone left their spouse for a member of the SAME sex and they listen to you condemn that person to hell, do you think they are going to want to come to you with their own sexuality? When you openly throw bible verses to prove the wrongness or the sinfulness of an act is that comfort to your child? What happens when your child is so worried about pleasing you and doing the right thing that they suppress all of their emotion so that they don't have to think about being gay or about your disapproval? Do you have any idea the damage you are causing psychologically? Do you even care? Or are you one of those people that no matter WHO is gay, you believe it is a choice they make and that you can convince them to change their mind?

I tell you right now, my sons are not perfect in ANYONE's eyes. They have done things that are very morally wrong. Things that I disagree with and things that I will NEVER condone or approve of. I am well aware of the things they have done. This does not mean that I do not love them. I love each and every one of my children. I love them UNCONDITIONALLY! I don't tell them, "I love you but only if you don't go to jail" I say, "I'm not proud of your choices at times, but I love you and I am proud of YOU". I don't say, "I love you but only if you don't beat your girlfriend." I say, "You know I do not agree with what you are doing, but I do love you." I may encourage them stop the behavior that I do not like but I do not disown them or stop loving them. If my child came home to me and told me they were gay, I would be supportive of that in a world that is so condemning. If my white skinned, blond haired boys brought home a black girl, an Asian girl, a Mexican girl, a Korean girl OR any other kind of girl I would welcome her into my family and love her as I love my own children. If my white skinned blond hair boys brought home a black man, a Mexican man, a Korean man, or any other man, I would welcome him into my family and love him as I love my own as well. The same thing goes for my daughter. Although she is in a very loving and happy relationship with a wonderful man, if she were to bring home a woman and say to me, "Mom, this is so and so and she is my girlfriend." I would open my home and my hear to my daughters mate no matter who it was.

This my friends is what unconditional love truly is.It is the ability to love without condition, without judgment and without hesitation. This is unfortunately NOT the way some people love. Some people are so hung up on what is right or wrong that they never consider any other way. By having a preconceived notion of what is supposed to be, you are putting conditions on your love. By preaching to the world that being gay is a sin, you are telling your child that if you are gay, I will not love you. By preaching to the world that being a pagan is a sin, you are telling your child that if you do not believe what I believe I will not love you. By worrying about what everyone else is doing, you are damaging your own.

People PLEASE! Stop and understand the damage you are causing by having such a closed mind! If it is not right for you, no one will make you do it. That does NOT mean that it is not right for someone else. Somehow we have come to worry more about others than what it is our own home and our own hearts. We have callused ourselves to anything that is other than what we want, choose or believe. What happened to love and be loved? What happened to live and let live? Why are we all out to prove everyone else wrong or to hate anything we do not understand?

I am telling you now that until you have a relative that is gay, you have no idea HOW you would react. Until you have a loved one that is something different than you are, and could not help that or choose to be different than that, you have no idea WHAT you would do.

Would you stop loving a child or disown a child that was disfigured or had a disability from birth? Would you reject or deny a child that was born with a physical or mental difference than yourself? If you can answer no to either of those questions, then why would you not love someone who is different in other ways? Why is it alright to pick and choose your prejudices? Why is it right to be prejudiced at all?

By having a closed mind and a vocal hatred for things, you are causing more harm in the long run. Your children hear what you say. They know in their hearts and their souls who they are from a very young age. Listening to your discriminatory and derogatory comments affect them in ways you can not even imagine. They learn to hide things and suppress things. They learn to lie to others and to themselves. They learn to pretend that what is -- isn't. The problem with this is that years down the road, and often times MANY years down the road, the lies have worn at them. It has affected their self esteem. It has affected their relationships. It has affected their lives in so many ways that you can not begin to count. Eventually the lies, as with any infection, will seep to the top and begin to ooze out. Eventually they can no longer suppress the secrets and the horror of mixed emotions is unbelievable!

You can not imagine the hours of therapy that it takes to get your head right when you have spent your whole life living a lie. When you know in your soul that you are one way but you have pretended to be another in order to make your parents happy. So that you wouldn't be judged. So that they wouldn't stop loving you.
I am glad for this reason that although I do NOT approve of some of the choices my children make, I have never given them a mold to try to fit into.

This may actually make sense to some of you and you may stop and look at what you are doing, but I am sure the one's that really need this are the one's that will probably judge me also.

I don't care who you are. I don't care who you do. I only care that you are a decent and respectable person toward me. When I say I try to be the best person I can be, I mean that.

What happened to "God created man in his likeness"? What happened to, "Judge not lest ye be judged"? What happened to, "Love thy neighbor"?

No where did it say God created all man in his likeness except gays. No where did it say you can judge others as long as you use the bible to hide behind. No where does it say to love thy neighbor unless they are gay, or black, or pagan or different from you in any other way.

Most importantly, stop lying to yourselves. Stop telling yourself that it is okay to pass these judgements. Stop teaching your children double standards. Stop teaching prejudice and hatred.

If you have to resent gays or blacks or pagans, then do it peacefully. You are most definitely entitled to your own opinion, but that doesn't mean you need to be so freely sharing it. If it does not affect you directly, meaning it is not your spouse or your house, then mind your own damn business and keep your damn mouth shut.

In the meantime, as a spiritual counselor, I would like to say that my job and my life would have been a whole lot easier if it were not for the parents that teach their children nothing but conformity. If you were a little more in tune with LIFE and a little less worried about control, you might have seen some of the signs. Instead, you have spent a lifetime in denial and given your child a lifetime of misery and self loathing.

Can Anybody Hear Me??

Sometimes I feel like I am screaming my head off and no one is hearing me. Sometimes I feel like I am asking for help and no one is listening. Sometimes I feel like I can't scream or ask for help because nobody cares.

As a woman who is well on her journey, I am very well aware that life happens how it is meant to. I am also very well aware of the fact that everything happens as it should. There is a purpose to everything and though I may not be aware of that purpose, it does not mean there isn't one. I have spent many a day and night counseling others in such matters. I have listened to so many who needed an ear or who needed a shoulder. This is my calling and it is what I do. I love what I do. I love the opportunity to help someone through a rough spot or to help them find the first steps on the path of a life time. I find it extremely satisfying to think that I may have played even a tiny role in the happiness that others find in their lives. Sometimes though, I feel as though I am invisible.

Sometimes I feel that because it is my calling to lead others to peace and understanding in their lives that I can not ask for a little guidance of my own. Sometimes I feel like others think because I am there to help guide them and remind them of the greater plan that I never need any guidance or understanding of my own. It is a difficult position to be in and you can begin to feel burned out rather quickly sometimes.

It is not only a blessing but also a burden to be the one who helps so many others. The blessing I have stated above, with being even a small part in their growth and development. The burden is the part where people come to you repeatedly for their own guidance and support yet no one realizes when you need the same. It is almost like being a child in the fifth grade when you think your teachers know EVERYTHING!

I am human. I need support from time to time as well. Sometimes I need to fall apart and not hold it all together, Not for me and not for you. Sometimes I need someone else to hold me and let me fall apart only to tell me it will all work out and then help me pick up my pieces later. Sometimes I am quite capable of doing this on my own and other times I am not. I am human.

Sometimes I feel as though everyone is so caught up in their own problems and their own sorrows that they forget that others out there may be suffering as well. It seems (again) that if you are a healer in any way, you can not need any healing of your own.

I don't need everyone to flock to me now and ask me if I am alright or if I need to talk. By the time it gets to the point I feel that I am screaming and no one can hear me, it is beyond the point of compassion. By the time I get to the point that I want to crawl in a hole and never come out, I am beyond needing a shoulder or an ear.

Sometimes this is my own doing because I won't tell anyone when I need help or I feel that my issues are issues that can not be discussed. I am not perfect. I am human. But please, do me a favor and remember that while your issues are serious so are the issues of others. Remember that even though you feel like your situation is the most pressing, so does everyone else. And please, remember to have some compassion for others and take the time to care. Don't ask if you don't care, because we know. But if you do care, make some time no matter what is going on in your world to listen and to be there. You never know when you might be needed.

And to those that are always making the effort and always available, thank you deeply for being who you are.  People like you are the people that matter the most to people in need. <3 <3

Some Things Change; Some Don't

Have you ever noticed how you can tell when things change in a persons life?

If you are friends and you chat daily on Facebook or on the phone it's probably likely that you would notice when things change for them. If they don't talk to you for a few days or even weeks, you assume that they are busy or you were busy with your own things and you are glad to see them when they return. What happens when they gradually start pulling away. Do you even notice?

Honestly, I doubt you do. We are all so busy with our own lives and our own woes that we seldom even realize who is in our world from day to day. With a combination of our busy lives we tend to over look people more and more regularly. It isn't that we mean to. We simply just carry on with what we are doing and all of a sudden out of nowhere we realize there is a piece missing. Sometimes we dont even know how long that piece has been missing before we discover it.

We really have over loaded our lives with stress and pressure. We don't take the time to tell the ones we care about how much we really do care. Even more importantly we don't take the time we need to reach out and touch the lives of those that have held such a spot in ours. Part of this I would say is the growth of society and technology but honestly I think that this is so much simpler than that. I think we have all gotten selfish and lazy.

How many of you were raised with the values that you spend holidays and traditional celebrations with your family? Remember going to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving? All the family was there and all the cousins played together? Remember birthday parties for the kids and all the adults gathered and talked like they were still kids and the parties were still for them? How many still call their mother once a week? How many take the time to visit?

I have to say that I am as guilty as the next. I try to reach out to those I love and I try to stay connected but the truth is, I too get so wrapped up in my own life and my own affairs that I forget to make that effort. My mother crossed the veil when I was 21 so my children didn't have grandparents growing up. I had no one to call on mother's day and no one to visit for Thanksgiving or Yule. For many many years I have had just myself and my children. As the children got older, they spent special holidays with their in laws or extended family so I found myself working more and more.

Im sure that we all understand these situations even if they are not describing you. What happens though, when you have that disconnect with your spouse or your children. Can you live in a house with someone day in and day out and never connect? Can you go through the motions and never really have the feeling? What happens when you wake up and realize this is what you have been doing? Is there a way to re connect? Are you sure that you even want to?

What happens when you disconnect from your friends? When you stop making even the little effort you used to make? Do these friends reach out to you? Or do they let you fade into the back ground?

I think there are so many answers to all of these questions. I think that the answer for each and every person is as individual as they themselves are unique.

I think that we need to find time to connect with those we love. I think we need to find time to slow down and enjoy the connections before they are lost. I think we need to retrain ourselves to reach out regularly. You never know when you are going to be the ONLY one trying to reach out or how badly someone may need you to reach out for them.

We do not pay enough attention to each other these days. Now that everything is electronic, I can drop you an email or a text to let you know I care, but is that really personal enough? In some cases it is. But in some cases, you can see a whole lot less in a text or email than you could in person.

If you care you should make some time. Even just a little time. We do not realize who is shutting down or who is crying out if we are not paying attention to those around us. Take some time and reconnect with those you care about. Make an effort and stay connected.

I will too.

Where Do You Draw the Line?

How do you know when you have crossed that line? I mean is there a sign or a warning when you have finally crossed that mental line? When your stress becomes depression, is there a flashing sign that says you have finally lost it? When you know you are doing the wrong thing and that it will have a VERY negative effect on the ones you love, is there a warning bell or a flashing light? I mean of course there isn't REALLY, but mentally... is there something there to tell you that you are about to cross a line of no return? I mean I just don't understand how some people can cross a line that will so blatantly change their lives and then the only defense they have for it is, "I'm sorry."

What are you sorry for? Are you sorry for crossing the line? Are you sorry that it had the effect you knew that it would? Are you sorry that you knew you were making a bad choice but made it anyway? I mean, how can you say you are sorry when you made that choice knowingly. If you were truly sorry wouldn't you have made a different choice?

For me, there is definitely a warning. I know that I am about to lose it. I know that I am about to go ape shit crazy and lose my marbles. I know that if things do not change I will go mad. I know that I have enough stress that I am at a breaking point and I don't want to break. When I have a choice that is going to affect those around me and I KNOW without a doubt that it will not be something good, I have to hesitate before I make a choice. I have to weigh my odds and decide which is going to be the worse of the outcomes and then I make my choice. PERSONALLY, I would choose NOT to do something that I knew would devastate my world or my family. I would choose NOT to do something that there is no changing. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks the same way I do. Sometimes you cross a line in a momentary impulse and once you have crossed it there is absolutely no going back. Some people, once that line is crossed figure that since they have already crossed, they may as well stay and play a while. Never realizing that the longer you stay on the other side of the line, the more damage you cause. Sometimes it doesn't matter how long you are on the other side of the line, the fact that you even went there is enough to destroy all you have built.

I guess the point to all of this is to THINK. Seriously, think about what the hell you are doing and how it will affect others around you. There are always options. If that line absolutely MUST be crossed, there are more ways than one to cross. I mean you can cross at the corner or in the middle of the road. You can choose to do this and keep it to yourself until it is exposed and pay double the price, or you can discuss it ahead of time and try to consider your options.

If you know that the decision you are about to make affects someone other than you, maybe you should discuss that choice with the other person that will be affected?

Sometimes your crossing the line can be the catalyst to another crossing a different line. Like that line of mental clarity vs loss. Sometimes one person's bad choice results in another person's mental break. Or one person's mental break can result in another person's crossing a line.

When your life is tied so closely to the lives of others, all of your choices, good and bad will affect the lives of those others. If you have any love or compassion for them at all, stop and heed the warnings. Pay attention to the alarms and warning bells. Don't be so selfish as to cross lines that you can not uncross. Don't be so careless as to throw someone's life into the drain or across another line.

Remember when you make a vow or commitment to another, that all of your choices and all of your decisions will now affect that other and therefore, you should include that other in such choices and decisions.

Your consideration could save someone a mental break. Your accepting responsibility beforehand rather than apologizing afterward may just be the thing that helps them deal with a situation in an adult manner or being emotionally charged and making wrong choices.

Understanding that we are all connected and what one does will affect all others in one manner or another is a huge part of making better choices. Of course you have to want to make better choices and you have to care about the others in order for any of this to matter.

In the end, no matter which way you handle your line crossing, you had better be ready to stand up and take the backlash. There WILL be a back lash. You can either take it like the adult you should have been and try to repair the damage caused and clean up the mess made, or you can be immature and play the blame game and lay fault. Again, the choice is yours.

We have all been hurt. We have all been on the verge of a mental break. I dont know about you but I dont like being place in either position. This is the reason I try to be conscientious of the choices I make and who is going to be affected by them. Its your life, its your choice, this was just my rambling mind with an opinion I felt I needed to voice.

Live well and treat those you love with courtesy and respect. Be the best person you can be and try your damnedest NOT to be the cause of someone's mental break.  Love and be loved.

Things Are Not Always As They Appear

Isn't it ironic how you can think you know someone inside and out only to realize that you have no idea who they really are?

I had a phone conversation with an extremely dear friend of mine yesterday and this was one of the topics we covered. It is amazing to me how we can show other people only what we want them to see.  It is even more amazing to me that you can spend your life with someone, day in and day out, and not know them like you think you do.

I am the kind of person that for the most part, presents myself as I am. I may not let you see me angry or upset. I may not let you see me cry or tell you when Im hurt. I tend to keep the "bad" parts of me hidden so that I will be liked and so that you won't think me a whiner or complainer. But, for the most part, what you see is who I am. I am open, honest, (sometimes to a fault) compassionate and caring. I do not present myself to be something I am not, neither better or worse than I truly am. I just am. Of course, for those friends I have made online, those who don't get the joy of seeing me in person, they may not see as much of my "negative" side as those who are close and in person. Not that I am an overly negative person, but when I am having a very tough time, I tend to get quiet online or I just do not bring all that to the computer.

For my closer friends, the ones that I go to with all my love, my pains, my fears, they get more information and see me in more emotional situations. This would be the same in a day to day life with no online friends. We tend to put on smiles for certain groups of people and allow ourselves to fall apart in front of others. This is a normal thing that most people do. At least I believe it is.

BUT..... what happens when someone who is close to you, someone you bare your soul to, someone you trust hasn't granted you the same intimacies? What happens when someone so close to you has been keeping secrets from you? Whether it is intentionally or not, when you discover those secrets you are crushed. You are hurt on a level of deep that can not be described by words. It feels like the ultimate betrayal because you have trusted them with everything that is sacred to you, yet they have held back or kept something from you.

Why is it that we feel its okay to hide bits of ourselves but it isn't okay for others to hide bits from us? Why do we tend to be hurt or upset when we discover things that were not voluntarily shared? I mean, we do expect our own privacy right? So why do we feel wounded when someone else has theirs? I am not talking about the lies and secrets that can destroy a relationship, that is a whole other matter. What I am talking about is simply incidental information. Example, my favorite color, my favorite song, my favorite thing to do, or my favorite food. How many of my friends truly know these things? They are every day mundane bits that I don't think to share, yet most people who know me might know these things. There are other things that are maybe a tad more personal that I don't share because the relationship from my perspective may not be close enough to share it such as relationship situations or family events. These are things a bit closer to home and sharing privacy of others and therefore are not things I share as openly. You all may know I took the children to Disneyland, but you don't have all the details of the trip or the conversations shared. We all do this.

Where the hurt and the betrayal comes in is where we feel that we have close relationship with someone and they don't feel as close on their side. If we feel closer, we share more. When we share all we have only to find out that the other person didn't share, we feel betrayed. That betrayal can sometimes take on a life of it's own.

It is difficult for us to accept that others may have secrets we don't know. Well, others that are our friends. Strangers have a plethora of secrets and we don't seem to be bothered by that.

I guess my whole point here is, how well do you really know someone? How well can you? At the end of the day when it is all said and done, no matter what YOUR perception is, you only know someone as well as they allow you to.

Self reflection is not selfish

Why is it that when we feel slighted or disturbed over a situation that we tend to become selfish? I say we because I have noticed that I do this also. We become self centered and forget that there are other problems bigger than ours. No matter how severe our problems seem to us, the ones we complain loudest about usually are not life threatening. Usually the ones we complain loudest about are things that we play our own role in but can not see the role we are playing for the misplaced emotions we let overtake us. Those who really have a right to gripe are those that smile and wish us well while never moaning of their issues or the unfairness of it all. We sometimes tend to judge others by a standard we hold for ourselves. The truth is we can not hold another to a standard we live by any more than we like them to hold us to a standard of their making. Why can we remember this when it's time to remind others yet can never seem to recall when it is ourselves passing the judgment? Why does a double standard seem to be so commonplace? I have made a more conscious effort to abstain from such judgment and although I struggle at times I am learning that no matter how I feel at this moment or my moment of hurt, there are so many others with issues that are much more severe than mine. It doesn't mean my issues aren't important it means that when handled with poise and grace rather than selfishness and pain, I have better clarity and focus which leads to a more positive outcome rather than the misery that comes with the negativity and the complaining.

There are people that have failing health. Critically failing. Terminally ill. Of course you don't feel well when you are running a temperature or have a virus, but the fact is, most times it is a common cold or virus that many others suffer as well and you probably will not die from it. We all want someone to take care of us when we don't feel well. We all want someone to take care of us. Instead of being angry that I am ill and no one is babying me or checking on me, I try to remind myself that I will survive this and that there are many many people with illnesses that they may not survive. Is this slight temperature something I should be so negative about? Or should I be grateful that it is only this and not something terminal? 

There are many people out there with relationship issues. Do the problems I have, the ones that seem so overwhelming to me, really outweigh those of another? Of course not. My problems seem like they are the most critical and the most severe because they are MINE. That is the selfishness I am addressing here. Just because I may have some issues that need to be resolved and they are important to me, does not mean that MY issues are the only ones with importance or the ones with the most priority in the grand scheme of things.

I think this world would be a much happier place and we would all be much happier people if we stop living in our sense of self and remember that there are so many others and that each and every one of them is suffering as well. Whether or not they share their suffering is their business. But don't fool yourself for a moment into believing that because someone laughs and smiles and acts as though they have not a care in the world that it isn't exactly that, an act. 

Everyone handles their issues in their own way. Some of us are whiners and complainers and some of us smile and go on as though nothing is wrong as they fall apart on the inside all the while. Don't fool yourself into believing that you are the only one aching or that your ache is any more severe than anyone else. 

How you choose to handle your aches and complaints is your business and it is not my place to judge. It is simply my personal opinion that if we all were a bit more compassionate to the misery of others and a lot less focused on our issues of self, this world would be a much happier place and a lot more people would have a lot less reason to complain so often.

Rebuilding Yourself

I had a friend of mine share a challenge she had undergone. It was a challenge to learn to love yourself. Not just to say you love yourself, but to really learn to love who you are and what you are and all of you deep inside.

I had undergone a transformation some years back that taught me to love myself. I learned that I was a good person and that I was strong enough to handle life on my own. I didn't need a companion. I didn't need a man. I could take care of myself. I could support myself. But most importantly, I could BE myself. I didn't need to pretend to be less than I am. I didn't need to pretend I wasn't as smart as I am. I didn't need to watch my attitude or change my language. I could just be ME.

I learned that if people don't like me for who I am and how I am, then they don't really like me at all. I have learned not to settle for less than I deserve and also not to settle for less than I expect. I was in no hurry to have a partner because I had learned I could do this alone and that made it much easier for me to be selective.

I had spent my whole life, very literally to that point, being told how ugly I was or how fat I was. I was told that I was stupid and that I would never amount to anything. I was told that without "him" whether that was the step dad or the boyfriend, or the husband.... that without "him" I would never be anything!

I always knew that I was better and that I deserved better, but it was hard. It is hard to break that shell. It is hard to get out from under the doubt that you are taught from day one. I never thought of myself as beautiful. I never thought of myself as attractive. I never thought I had anything to offer and so I settled for the first man that came by and told me he loved me. I didn't know then that he didn't know what love was or how to love in a healthy manner. I was injured and unhealthy so I didn't recognize that he was too. Looking back I know that we attract what we perceive ourselves to be.

I came from a childhood of being told how fat, ugly and stupid I was only to marry into a relationship that expanded on that. I was no longer a fat, ugly and stupid child, now I was a fat, ugly and stupid wife. Now I was worthless and I was an idiot. I was a bitch and a whore. I was miserable and deserved to be because every beating I got, I had asked for. At least that was his version.

I knew I deserved better and I knew my children deserved better. My problem is that I didn't see myself as better and therefore had a longer and harder struggle in front of me than I could even imagine. Skipping many years of gruesome details let's fast forward to the point where I learned the lesson to love me and to know that I am not the worthless things they told me I was. I did learn that I didn't need a man and certainly NOT THAT MAN!

I spent several years living by myself and taking care of myself without the help of anyone but especially NOT A MAN. Then it happened. One day this wonderful man came into my world and I found the love I knew was out there. I found the man that treated me the way I KNEW I deserved to be treated. He respected me and he treated me with love and compassion. He didn't raise his voice let alone a fist. I learned to believe I deserved love and respect and then it found me.

All of that being said, I am still very insecure. I still don't see my beauty and I still hide from cameras. So this man can love me, but I don't really understand why. I just knew that it was too good to let go of. I am a good person. I do good things. I care and I tend to those I love. THIS is why he loves me. When he tells me I am beautiful I choose to believe that it is my actions he is complimenting not my appearance. I have never learned to accept the beauty of who I am and have spent my whole life (which is creeping quickly toward 50 yrs) being told and believing that I was ugly and fat.

Back to my friend and her challenge. She took a picture of herself every day and posted it online to help with her self esteem. She told me after a month it made a huge impact. I decided to try it. I have done this now for 7 days and I get all the compliments she said I would but I am still having a difficult time believing them. I do this every day because I told her I would. I want to grow. I want to love myself completely. I want to feel free to be me and not worry about what others are going to think. I haven't gotten there but I am on a road that will take me there.

I have to share that the thing that hit me the hardest and really opened my eyes was the email I got from a male friend of mine. We are simply friends and nothing more but to have a male who is not my husband say to me the things that he said truly brought tears to my eyes. He saw me for who I am. He saw my beauty and my strength. He saw my struggle without even knowing my past or my history. Reading the message he left me literally brought tears to my eyes. For a moment I could see what he was seeing and it was beautiful. What I saw was that beauty is not in your face or your hair, it is in your soul. If you TRULY love yourself and believe in yourself your inner beauty radiates so brightly that even if you had no outer beauty, you would. I understood this when he told me but I have to admit I am still having difficulty applying it to myself.

The words he told me are very simple and yet they were so profound that this is now what I tell myself every day as encouragement to accept the challenge of posting my picture. He told me
 "So, do you think that metamorphosis is easy for the butterfly? Yes, that's right; I said butterfly, not caterpillar. Because that is not what the creature is, a caterpillar. It is a butterfly. It is just evolving into what it was always meant to be. It might be easy to stay a caterpillar, but it would not achieve it's destiny, it's purpose. You are greater than you think you are, more powerful than you know. I'm not trying to shuffle buffalo here or blow smoke
 Become the butterfly. Become. BE.
Just BE. Be yourself, be real and LOVE yourself.
Perfect? Well . . . yes. You are perfect being you"

Become the butterfly. Become. BE.

This is what I tell myself every day and honestly, this is the most helpful thing I have heard. 

I can say thank you a thousand times to this dear friend, but I don't think I can ever tell him how much he and his wisdom truly mean to me. So for now, I will continue with my selfies and as my metamorphosis begins, I will continue to thank those who steered me to this path and those that have helped to guide me down it!