Starting Over Better

I told Robert (my therapist) the following thought I had:

Maybe, all this loss and what I count as failure is an opportunity. It's stripped away, it's gone now. But maybe because it was rooted in fear and that is not a sustainable foundation, nor how I elect to run my life anymore. Maybe now that it's all gone I have the chance to start over and build up from love. Which is how I want to do everything, I want it all rooted in love.

He affirmed my assessment of how I made sense of my losses and my set-backs. It was a new assessment I'd come to because the one I was used to (The explanation that says these things happened to me because I did something wrong or I am something wrong) did not set well with my soul and left me with more pain than peace. So I decided to tell myself a different story about what it all meant. I decided to believe that I was given this struggle because I am strong enough to survive it and that I was given my gift of vulnerability to be able to connect my own pain to the pain of others in an effort to offer us both some healing.

And yet, I still struggled to truly let it all go. I'd had the words on my heart for a week now to ask my best friend but had not had the gumption to follow through. What if I am not as good as I think I can be? What if I am not as good as a writer as I think I am? What if I try to step out on my own and I fall on my face because I have no real talent? What if people then figure out that I am just some great fuck up who is building the ship as she sails? The thoughts had been with me moreso lately than normal. So much so that I began my familiar pattern of thinking about jobs in Higher Education that I would be qualified for. It wasn't until this morning my conversation with Robert resurfaced in another being...

Scrolling through my feedly I saw that blogger Necole Bitchie has decided to move on from celebrity blogging. Truthfully, I knew this was coming and am excited for her because I believe she has much more to offer the world. She is the only "celebrity" blog I follow and I started doing so because of her story. I wanted to keep my eye on her.  In her last post she wrote:

I had to start living a purpose-driven life. I had to start thinking about what I wanted my legacy to be, and what steps I’d have to take to start living in it...I realized it was taking me awhile to get the guts to walk away and pursue my true life passion because 1) I felt as though I was being ungrateful to walk away from what has proven to be successful  and 2) I began living my life in fear. That fear was not just because I was scared to fail – but I was also scared of how great I really could  be. [Too] many people are not living their dreams because of fear.  I DO NOT want to become one of those people.I had to destroy it, before it destroyed me. (Necole Bitchie)

Her words spoke to me so absolutely that I felt a sensation throughout my body and just had to close my eyes a bit and let it pass over me. Hers was a truth I recognized as my own. It is just like what Marianne Williamson says in her famous quote, it is not our darkness but our LIGHT which frightens us.  So I have to say to myself, "Jessica, be not afraid of your own greatness." And I say it to Necole too. I say it to all people, but especially women, be not afraid of your own greatness.  The courage we have to step into our own full power fueled by purpose--a greater purpose than money or fame or success in any Western sense of the word--that is what will change the world.  I feel like I have always known that, but sometimes I get so distracted by my ego...that need to be important in the worldly sense. I have to let that go. And as I breathe and cry and write this post, eyes closed like all my favorite posts come, I can feel the weight lifting off my chest.

Every thing that has happened to me in my life has been in preparation for me to be equipped to lead a purpose driven life. Not one single thing has been an accident or a coincidence. Even the rape when I can step out of the emotion of it, it too has been a great source of learning and growth for me.  All of which helps me to be better at what I know I am here to do: Help women see and step into the very best version of themselves. I have known it since I was 17 years old. And I have experienced to of perhaps the worst traumas women can experience, miscarriage and sexual assault. Two events that would drown me if I succumb to the emotion of them because they hurt that badly. Yet two events that wrap me so tightly in femininity, they are no accident. I choose to see them as opportunities...

When I worked the conference this past January I said that my intention was to recognize anger as a symptom of pain and an opportunity for healing. Little did I know how true that intention would be beyond those three days. It is no doubt that I am still hurting and healing from my assault, but make no mistake, I will come out of this stronger.  That knowledge, that....inner voice which is my navigation, the God that dwells within me, that voice has assured me of who I am, and she is not a quitter, she is not weak, and she is not a victim. She is a fighter.

So I thank Necole for her words which came at just the right time. I wish her well on her journey and it would not surprise me if our paths crossed sooner or later. The universe has a funny way of shifting winds so that people who should meet, do.  I was meant to meet her message this morning. Today in particular as I had already began to worry and fret about things that are beyond my control. Yet now, all I feel is peace, the gentle calm of recognition that this too shall pass. And that I am going to be okay. I always am.

Matthew 6:25-34