One year ago I began this article after returning from a weekend shared with friends which was both painful and deeply humbling. I had separated from my partner a year prior to this and I was slowly coming to terms with single parenthood with two small kids. I was, so to speak ‘in the eye of the storm’. It has taken me a full year to finish this article which you are now reading. With time comes healing.
The learning I gained during this time of deep pain and ‘unravelling’ is something that I have wanted to share so that it might help others, and I now feel ready and able to. This is a story of my personal growth, a story of learning to love myself in a whole new way, that for many may seem obvious, but for me has been the greatest gift provided to me.
The Journey
Today, I have returned from a journey – yes there’s that word again – journey. I have a love hate relationship with that word. I have heard it spoken to me in conversations that attempt to find meaning in loss, I myself have used this word with others and more often with myself during my inner whispered conversations where I attempt to seek meaning in those “why me” moments where I raise my arms to the sky shaking them and crying “why me universe…why oh why!”
Yes… Journey… I do find a whole lot of meaning in that word, so much so that I got it tattooed on my left foot in my twenties, fortunately I had the wisdom to scribe it in Japanese. This permanent mark ensuring that I would be forever reminded of this word for the rest of my days – in this earthly body anyway.
Today I find myself sitting down at my kitchen table to write, as I return from yet another journey. One that took me to meet friends who love me and have supported me for as long as I have known them. Travelling to the Glen of Aherlow in Co. Tipperary I found myself in one of the most majestic sites in Ireland but my inner journey took me to the depths of my pain, to the belly of the beast, literally to the bottom of the valley where I encountered what I’ve been fleeing from for most of my life – my vulnerability.
Meeting myself here is not something I ever enjoyed, it’s not something I like nor is that girl someone I have liked or loved very much, indeed perhaps have only despised until today when I realised that only she holds the key, meeting me here in the depths of self-loathing and pain gave me such an immense gift that when I arose from the valley I hadn’t just climbed a mountain, I’d pulled myself up it to realise that everything I had been doing, every coping mechanism I was using up to this point simply was not working. It was like one of those ‘Aha!’ moments, when finally Ruth woke up and got it!
I thought I had it sussed…
You see I thought I had it sussed. First off, I thought leaving an unhealthy relationship would bring me peace, that it would provide everything that had been lacking in my life up to this point. Leaving the misery, I believed could only bring fresher brighter pastures. With this in mind I decided to marry myself, I bought a ring, I took the vows, promising to love and cherish myself. Unfortunately married life was not what I had expected!
Life got worse, in fact it got a whole lot worse. Instead of loving myself I felt nothing but criticism and more criticism and then a whole lot of shame piled on top of that. There was nobody to criticise at home anymore, apart from my children so I started on myself. So low and behold the relationship I hoped for with myself, the one full of liberation, celebration, empowering new beginnings full of joy and freedom, turned into one full of grief, anxiety, despair, rage and an overwhelming feeling that I was failing.
Failing at coping, failing at being a good mum, failing at being a good person, failing at being healthy, sane, together, able, capable of anything, yes failing at it all. Chronic insomnia adding to a general sense of insaneness in the world. But this has been the journey, and I encountered some horror along the way. This was where it took me and within it many familiar feelings were revisited, memories reawakened of all of those intensely difficult times in my life when I simply had to cope alone, doing it day in day out and by myself. This has been the most painful part of the journey but the most valuable. Because the Universe will hammer down lessons on you until you finally wake up and get it, get that Aha! moment – it took me a while to wake up…
The concept of reaching out
I read it in too many self help books, spoke it in too many therapy sessions, “yes…yes”, I would nod my head in agreement, the good client understood it, in my head, easy, but I hadn’t got there in my heart, that took much longer. The importance, the absolute necessity of reaching out never resonated with me in my heart, not really anyway. It’s always been too scary, too risky, it’s simply not in my DNA. Will they still love me if I have needs? This was the eternal burning question in my psyche. More often than not my inner critic jumped in with a very quick answer, out of the dark shadows comes the resounding statement, a clear and harsh message, blueprinted each and every time- “Don’t risk it Ruth! They will leave you, they’ll disapprove of you with all of those annoying needs Ruth, just do it yourself, that you know girl, you can do that and you do it oh so well, you’ve done it all your life, so just stick to what you know Ruth, DIY.”
Please stop telling me that I’m strong!
Well guess what shadow man, it’s not working. Never have I felt my fragility on a daily basis to this degree and I can finally say that it’s been my greatest gift. I’m not strong, please stop telling me that I am. In fact I’m falling apart, the seams are finally unravelling, the seams that were so tightly bound over the years. This is what happens when you’re always together, coping, the seams stay woven and double knotted. Today they’re unravelling and it’s scary as hell but it’s the only way for me to gain understanding in my heart of what reaching out is all about and be able to say “Help” not just say it scream it for a while if I need to.
So please stop telling me that I’m the strongest person you know. I don’t want to be, because that notion has always been tied up with perfection for me. Today I’m fragile as hell, I’m on the edge, depleted completely, done in, exhausted of all coping mechanisms and I’m finally so grateful for it. This warrior is finally throwing down the shield and taking off her super hero cape. Laying down tools of protection, tools that she has carried since a small girl, today she is placing them down on the grass, lying down and feeling completely naked.
The road back
This is the road back, this is the only road back, to admit defeat, to surrender, yes I need you God damn it, yes I need your help, I need lots of help, so risk it Ruth ask for it and see where that gets you. It couldn’t start until I was this broken. My journey brought me to places of self criticism, to places of terrifying vulnerability. All of it felt like a horror story and this is one story that I now cherish and honour as I move forward a more humble, less perfect warrior and hopefully a wiser one.
Learning to love myself in vulnerable moments meant rewiring my brain…
… Like I said it simply wasn’t in my DNA. Thankfully I chose to change that. I chose to be a better role model for my children, I chose to listen, really really listen, to my soul, a voice deep in my belly rather than one that lurks in the shadows of my head. And this now is a daily practice, my cruel shadow man still lurks waiting to pounce, this new practice doesn’t always come easily, it’s a new skill, and like all new skills it takes time, patience and commitment.
As I said at the beginning I began writing this article one year ago. And today I find myself with many more gifts, one being that of hindsight. Today I’m still standing on top of that mountain, but my view is one where I can look back on the motherfucker of an incline that I pulled myself up from, as well as having a view where I can see what lies ahead for me. The landscape is awesome, vast, uncertain and really inviting. The road ahead looks a whole lot brighter but don’t be fooled it’s by no means perfect. There are plenty of potholes, potential pitfalls, rocky bits, thorny places and that’s all okay.
Today I embrace it arms wide open. The perfection of imperfection. Today I carry a different set of tools to help navigate my new territory. A good headlamp to assist in the darkness, a first aid kit to help heal wounds, open it up and you’ll find a handful of friends who are loyal and true.
Today my journey continues, perhaps a new tattoo is in order as I claim this land as mine, I stand ready, open and confident, feet grounded arms open and raised to the sky. “Why me universe… Why not me, bring it on!”
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