One thing I remember doing a lot was playing this game of worst case scenario… This was my way of dealing with anxiety and stress. I would literally run every scenario I could think of through my head and formulate a plan to each, then remind myself I would be fine because I had a plan for all of them. And if something happened I had not prepared for, I would simply develop a plan based upon what I had already thought through. This helped me cope through my entire life, yet it was also creating this idea negative things were going to continuously happen to me.

While this was not my intention, the cycle continued with difficult challenges coming into my life. Of course, all of those challenges I believe were opportunities to learn and grow. I also know each of them happened for me, not to me, nevertheless my thought patterns were not helping shift. Going to see a counselor eventually, helped me begin the process of making those connections.

My Journey With Trauma (part one) relates to my bodies ability to survive, yet when the time came to no longer be in this mode, my brain and body had already been conditioned and never learned another way. I would now have to undo, re-learn and trust fully through the process to restructure my responses. This is by far the most difficult thing to accomplish (from my humble perspective).

The fascinating response my mind/body/spirit has had to this life is to see so many perspectives I can literally find compassion for anyone… And I do mean “anyone.” It is as if my brain needed to understand “why,” therefore I started looking at others and thinking, “wow, they must have had something bad happen too and perhaps they have not had the ability to find safety or security in life so … this is where they are now.”

While I could find quiet compassion, this did not mean I was a push over and allowed people into my life, rather opposite actually. Because I could see and feel peoples truth I would often “recoil” because I knew what they were saying was not aligning with what I could see and feel (however, I would second guess because I wanted to believe people). This is one of the gifts I have in this life and resulted from the journey through my childhood.

While being able to see other people’s perspectives is fabulous it comes with a cost. This cost to me was my personal perspective being lost and no longer valued (by myself or others). This continued a cycle of not being heard, not being valued for me and not being in love with myself. No matter how much work I had been doing, this piece was limiting my potential to see my own value.

If I cannot see my own value, how would others see this? If I can see other peoples potential and want to help them, yet I do not seem to have significant value to myself how can I truly assist another? While I believe we land exactly where we are meant to be, this realization has opened a very big door into a discovery of self I had not explored. For this I continue to be grateful.  I share in the warmest place, with great love and compassion as we all journey through our ponds of muck and mud. <3