Failure is growth, if you let it be.

I used to hide from accountability. I would get defensive immediately if anyone ever came close to critiquing me in any way. Making excuses and deflecting blame was a natural reaction for me and as you can imagine, pretty off putting to those around me.

When I think back to my years in the dark, fighting all the inner attacks until I learned the tools I needed to get free, I really don’t remember ever addressing failure as a trigger for my PTSD. While working my way out of the darkness and into a place where I have successes, I’ve developed an unhealthy fear of failure.

There are many manifestations of PTSD that will stay with me forever. Some are small and relatively insignificant while others are pretty important to stay on top of because they have the power to derail me if I’m not careful.

At a certain point in my recovery I started to fear failure. I can’t put my finger on when or why because it didn’t show up at first as fearing failure. I started finding myself subconsciously looking for ways to not have to take responsibility for my actions. This was disturbing for me because a huge part of my recovery from PTSD was owning my actions, good or bad.

To me, owning my actions means being humble and accepting that failure comes more often than success. While dealing with success is generally relatively easy, dealing with failure is hard and so learning the tools I needed to help me deal with failure was such an important part of this process.

I started putting unnecessary pressure on myself because I felt like if I reverted or failed, all of my successes would have been for nothing. It’s embarrassing to admit when you’ve made a mistake or failed at something. Failure, however, holds important lessons if you’re willing to look for them and make changes based on what you learn. You have to set aside your ego but so much growth can come from it.

I’ve been feeling pretty good about my life for over a year now. Once I returned from Spain in December 2022 after writing about my past, I found a pretty happy life waiting for me and it has gotten better and better as time has gone on. That’s not to say that it’s all been easy, it certainly hasn’t been.

I’ve struggled finding work which has been frustrating. Mostly, however the road has gotten rocky when I’ve become complacent. Complacent about my recovery. Complacent about where I am in life. Complaceny that keeps me from remembering a cold hard truth about life; it’s brutal and unrelenting.

That complacency has and probably will again cause trouble for me. There’s a balance I still seek. A balance between living a peaceful, happy life and staying diligent about my mental health. I haven’t found a way to feel at peace while also feeling confident that my boundaries are in place and well protected.

I am either on high alert which protects my boundaries and keeps me on top of my mental health game or I’m at peace but to truly feel that peace I have to let go which, in theory, weakens the security of my boundaries.

To find the true peace I crave I must find a way to trust myself to let my boundaries run on autopilot so I’m protected without having to be constantly “on duty”. The moments of peace that I feel when I have briefly trusted myself, fuels my desire to solve this problem because on the other side lies one of my main objectives in my healing; peace.

The problem manifests itself by me ignoring problems, or making up things to either make it not seem so bad or to avoid accountability all together. The worst way it manifests itself is when I get defensive and especially when I get defensive with my fiance.

She came into my life at the perfect time and because of her I have grown so much and have a future that I am beyond excited about. She told me once that the two of us shouldn’t ever feel the need to be defensive with one another because we’re a team now and in this life together.

For one thing, having that type of honesty and vision in a relationship is amazing. I feel so fortunate to have her in my life. Secondly, she’s right and that’s what made me realize I should be writing again and ultimately led me to start writing about living in recovery from PTSD.

Learning to trust that she isn’t ever criticizing me but only wanting to make me better will be the foundation I need to avoid becoming defensive in other situations. Listening to another’s view of a situation and really hearing it, paying attention to the differences doesn’t come naturally but is such an important part of life.

Failure is a part of life. I know that I have done a lot of work on my emotions and my mental health over many years and that I’m in a good place in life because of it. No amount of failure can take away the strides I’ve made even if I regress sometimes. I’ve always tried learning from mistakes and it’s time to go back to that approach towards failure as opposed to always putting up a wall. I can’t expect perfection from myself.

I really appreciate everyone who reads these posts. It’s one thing to document what I live with on a daily basis but knowing that people read and take solace or find motivation in my posts pushes me to remain diligent in my own life. It also keeps me humble which helps me maintain control of my emotions and allows me to look at situations more objectively. Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love.

A new focus and more writing.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my book. It’s a fun, frustrating and slow process but it’s moving along. A lot of the book comes directly from the blog posts that I wrote a couple summers ago. Those posts were my springboard to being in trauma recovery as opposed to recovering from trauma.

Writing my truth and posting it on line for the world to see was humbling, freeing and empowering all at the same time. It was as if my pain slowly left me through my fingers onto the keyboard. This blog healed me.

The combination of writing my truth and the love and support I received lifted me up higher than I could have hoped for. While working on my book today I realized how much I missed writing those regular blog posts and decided I need to write regularly again.

A new focus for my blog

I thought about what I should focus my writing on now. Travel? I love travelling and I have learned some tricks along the way but I’m in no way an expert on any travel subject so I set that idea aside.

Sports? Meh, been there, done that. In all seriousness, if I had an opportunity to write about sports for pay it would be a dream job. Writing about it just because I’m a fan of certain teams or players doesn’t interest me. Who would want to read what I think about sports anyway?

As I said a little earlier, I cherish the feedback I received while telling my story. I thrive when I’m able to help even one person and that is really why my writing was so impactful for me, and others. It was the encouraging messages, the comments under my posts, the outpouring of empathy that wrapped me up and made me feel safe to tell it all that set me on my healing path.

I want to be able to impact people positively with my writing again so I decided that I should write about my continuing trauma recovery journey. I’m in no way cured of all the struggles I’ve written about. I am, however, empowered to take control of those struggles and of my emotions so I can transition into actively living after so many years of just surviving.

I have embraced the fact that I will be in recovery from my trauma for the rest of my life. I know that any of the challenges that held me back in the past can and will reappear. The difference is that I’m prepared now but I have to stay diligent.

The new life I have earned is a day to day work in progress. The road gets rocky at times still and I struggle to fight through it when it does. Over time, it becomes easier to navigate the rough times but only if I actively maintain strong boundaries which isn’t always easy to do.

I believe that writing about these ongoing struggles and successes as they come will be very beneficial to me and my continued trauma recovery. I hope that by being 100% real, others may benefit from my writing as well, again.

As always, thank you so much for reading. I’m looking forward to getting back into the flow of healing through writing because writing is healing. One Love.

Dating an understanding soul

I’ve never given up on dating. I am a hopeless romantic so no matter how frustrating it got or how many times I wondered if I would ever meet “her” I never gave up hope.

A big part of my recovery had to do with dating as a secondary focus. I had been in relationships in the past and I had failed at them all for one reason or another. I’m certainly not suggesting that I was the only reason for these failures, the person I was with also holds responsibility. Their responsibility, however, has no impact on me because I can only control myself.

When I began to really work at my therapy with the intention of eventually being able to live a happier and more peaceful life, I knew that the focus had to be only on me. Only on my overall shortcomings in general because once I took control of my emotions and my life, I would also be preparing myself for the right woman to enter my life.

There were times that I thought about the idea that she would arrive at the wrong time, when I wasn’t ready for her. When I wasn’t ready to be the person that she would deserve for me to be. That anxiety was not at all helpful in my recovery and so I developed a way to set aside my concerns about her arriving before I was ready.

I realized that as long as I was working consistently towards my goals and kept moving forward that anyone who showed up before I was ready wasn’t “her” any way. I kept my head down, put in the work and slowly but consistently, I got better. I got better at controlling my emotions. I got better with my anxiety as it has completely disappeared. I started to realize that the peace I sought was actually within me. I found that the peace within me became stronger and stronger all the time. That peace, as it turned out, was one of the most important milestones of my recovery.

Not only was my life more peaceful than it had ever been, but when I was presented a challenge as a test when I was fired from my job unexpectedly, I found out just how far I had come in my recovery. I handled the stress and shock of the situation better than I could have hoped .

My next indication that I had come further than I knew was when suddenly and randomly, “she’ showed up. I spent a lot of the last few years meditating. I should probably say that I spent that time learning how to meditate. As time went on and meditation became a bigger part of my life, I began to understand the process of manifestation.

Manifestation really boils down to the simple concept of speaking your desires into existence. Think about what you want in a job or a home or anything. Think about every single detail of it. Think about every step it will take to achieve the goal, leave no detail out. Create, in your mind, that you already have the goal, that it belongs to you. Manifestation.

I started dabbling in manifestation with small things like weight lifting goals at the gym or my desire to be better organized in my daily life. Eventually I moved on to bigger topics like a job and then I faced the prospect of manifesting my soulmate.

I believe that manifestation is real, I have lived it myself several times. I also believe, and maybe this is my superstitious nature more than anything, that it is a powerful tool to posses and should not be used for trivial things.

In my opinion, manifesting something like someone’s looks would be trivial. To manifest important personality traits in a person, however, would be the opposite of trivial, so I set out to understand what is most important to me in a partner.

Once I knew what would be most important in order for us to have a strong, healthy relationship, I set to manifesting those things in “her”.

Honesty, emotional intelligence, calm demeanor, good, positive energy, good conversationalist and someone who will challenge and support me.

These were the top traits I identified and they are the things that I hoped I would find in a partner and I hoped that I could find at least half of them in her, I would consider myself fortunate.

Not long after I unexpectedly lost my job as I was attempting to understand how I might pay my bills and as I began the long and tedious task of looking for another job, my soulmate arrived.

When things got hard for me on July 7, 2023 and I felt the tight squeeze of anxiety trying to take over my life again, every single thing that I manifested in a partner showed up in the form of the most beautiful and amazing woman I have ever met.

As we started to get to know one another I began to see these traits in her. At first I felt like maybe I was blinded by her beauty and was seeing things in her that maybe weren’t necessarily there. I quickly found out that she was indeed the real deal.

The first time we met, we talked so long that the bar closed around us and we were asked to leave so that the staff could go home. Deep, meaningful and impactful conversations are a constant with her and I can’t adequately explain what that means to me. As much as we talk about real things we also laugh together more than I have with anyone else. I can’t stress how important that has been not only for my psyche but also for the development of our relationship. We both realize just how serious life is and how important keeping things lite is.

I started writing this post in early August 2023 when our relationship was still so new and we were still navigating the waters of getting to know one another. Even though it was still so early, I knew. I had no doubt that she was who I was waiting for, hoping for. It’s now December 31 and as we prepare to start a new year together, our love has flourished and we are planning our future.

In the grand scheme of things we are still very young in our relationship. But when it’s right, like this is, the time doesn’t matter. Whether we’ve been together 4 months, 4 years or 4 decades we have established the foundation for the rest of our lives. The trust we have is pure and real and there are no hidden agendas. I want her to be strong and secure in herself as an individual and for our relationship to support that and be a source of strength that allows her to live her best life. I want the same thing for myself, so does she.

Relationships take constant work and I don’t think I necessarily understood that in the past. The work won’t always be hard, but sometimes it will be. Getting through those times together makes the relationship stronger and more full of love and they empower us as people to be the best version of ourselves.

The support and love I feel from her today is better and stronger every day. We understand each other as we are today and we also understand each other’s past and how those experiences helped us become the people we are deeply in love with today. This woman is now my future and I feel fortunate and somewhat vindicated by having so much love and peace in my life now. She brings out the best version of me and I will make sure that she feels nothing but love and support in us from me for the rest of her life. Peace, love and security…

Thank you for reading, writing is healing. One Love.

A predator in the pulpit

Every Sunday he stood and spoke with fake joy. With contrived affection for his flock he welcomed them in and accepted their trust, building on it with every warm smile and cunning joke he told. The people loved him and looked to him for spiritual guidance and funny football anecdotes and everything in between. But there was a predator in the pulpit.

He became a friend, a leader and most of all, a trusted member of the community. He knew what he was doing from the day he arrived, he knew his end goal and he wouldn’t be deterred in his pursuit of preying on the vulnerable. There was a predator in the pulpit.

Like a lion stalks its prey in the serenghetti, he sought out the small, easily manipulated lost souls. The children in the youth group or the left behind or sick. There was a predator in the pulpit.

In time he got what he wanted, what his sick desires longed for and eventually he went to prison where he’ll die. A trail of shattered lives and damaged souls left in his wake. There was a predator in the pulpit.

As victims we process and we heal in our time, or maybe we don’t. Regardless of how we handle our trauma it is a part of our lives because there was the predator in the pulpit.

Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love.

Stand in your power

A lot of times the idea for a blog post will come to me randomly during the day. When that happens I can’t stop what I’m doing and write, so I get on the wordpress app, open a draft, name it something vaguely referring to my topic and then write as many rambling words to explain my idea as possible in a minute or so. This is why I currently have 39 posts at varying stages of completion, but it also exciting because I have so many topics still to share.

Stand in your power. I first heard someone use that phrase on a pod cast I was listening to. I was driving but the phrase resonated with me, so as soon as I could, I put the title in a draft so I could write about it another time. Now is another time.

When I first heard the words they bounced around in my head for a moment and then I realized how well those four words describe the changes I’ve gone through in the last couple of years. Stand in your power. I suppose those words can mean many different things to different people, to me it told me I was on the right path. It was validation.

Confidence has been a struggle for me most of my life. I had become good at faking it, especially if I was with someone who expected confidence from me. I had no faith in myself, no belief in my ability to do just about anything and it was only getting worse. Confidence hasn’t been a focus of my therapy throughout this healing process, I never even remember it registering in my mind as a problem. There were so many problems living in my head at the time that to focus on one would have been pointless.

Rebuilding confidence

There was a time in the process when I realized I was feeling better about myself and that’s when it occurred to me that I had a confidence problem. I never thought that I was down on myself, I only realized it when I started to actually fell good about myself.

Since it was getting better as I worked on other issues, I still have not directly addressed it. It has continued to improve and as it stands today I have never felt more confident in myself, in all aspects of who I am because I know myself today better than I ever have.

When I heard that term “stand in your power” I thought of confidence, the first image that flashed in my head was a person walking into a crowded room, head held high, chest out, shoulders back. Confidence. That image is not why I am writing this post though. While I still think of confidence when reading those words, that’s just on the surface.

Setting boundaries

Learning to use boundaries took me years to understand so that I would be able to use them in my daily life. I was confused about them, scared that I wouldn’t know how to let them be known or how to react when someone pushes them, or otherwise disrespects them. Eventually I learned that the boundaries are for me, they are mine to manage and mine to police. I get to decide when I set them, with whom, for what and most importantly for me, how I respond to them.

I have had many times where I tell myself that I don’t allow something in my life and when it presents itself in a person I then choose how to respond. I’ve talked to people and explained my boundary and why and pointed out their behavior that crossed the line. Some of them appreciate the honesty and recognize I have boundaries and then respected them. Some didn’t and I simply won’t talk to them again, there’s no point to it. When I verbalize something important to me and ask for it to be respected, that’s me standing in my power.

I know that sounds cold and I don’t want you to think that I just shut out anyone who crosses the line. This is where boundaries become tricky. What if the person disrespecting your wishes is someone that you can’t walk away from, a family member or close family friend? How do you deal with those people? This part has been a much more difficult challenge but one that I am working through successfully so far with communication, remaining in control of my emotions and meditation.

Humble confidence

Standing in my power feels good, it feels peaceful. It feels almost like a reward for the mental anguish I’ve been fighting for a long time now. Standing in my power feels ego free. I feel humbly confident and it gives me excitement for the future. I remain hopeful that I can find a path for myself earning a living helping anyone who is struggling with mental health, feeling alone and hopelessness. That’s why I have suffered, that’s why I’m here.

Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love.

An unexpected test

Most of my post so far have been about the past and how I have been affected by the past. This post is about something that happened today, Friday July 8, 2023 and how I have responded to it.

As some of you know I have had a very hard time finding a job these last three years. Some of it was my mental state, fighting through depression but mostly I was having a hard time because of my leg. I have a disability, Enchondromatosis or Ollier’s Disease. I’ve written about it in previous posts detailing the chronic pain and the vulnerability to small fractures from extended standing and walking without adequate rest.

The majority of the jobs I’ve worked in my life and specifically the three main positions I’ve held all required a level of physical ability that I struggle to maintain today. They all required extended time walking or standing so while looking for a new job I was looking for positions that I had not ever held although I have many transferable skills for. Eventually I finally had the sun shining on me and I landed a fantastic job with Hertz as an operations manager at the SFO location.

I loved the job immediately and connected with a lot of good people quickly. Two weeks ago, after working in the position just over two months I worked a shift where I was needed to stay longer than the ten hours. Toward the end of the ten hour shift I had started to feel pain in my leg where the screws are in the bone, but I stayed because it was needed. The next morning I woke up in a lot of pain and knew I had hurt it being on my feet as long as I was the day before.

I’ve experienced pain after a long day before but it lasts no longer than a day, this has lasted two weeks now. It has improved a little bit but it’s still a level of pain that is more than I am used to dealing with. My initial doctor’s note had me returning to work today, July 8 and so I went to work with the use of the cane I’ve been using to help me get around. After working for a couple of hours I was called in to the GM’s office and fired, failure to pass probation, too many absences.

I was stunned and as you can imagine my emotions started to swirl and churn and I could feel tears welling up. I needed a minute to take in what I was told and compose myself but it wasn’t easy. I tried speaking but really didn’t know what to say. So I gathered my things as they got a driver to take me home because I had a company car.

I was not looking forward to a 90 minute drive in a car with someone I did not know while trying to process what had happened. Here’s the reason for this post, I had taken a step back and calmed myself enough to remember that I was in control of my surroundings. So I politely apologized to her and said that if she didn’t mind I wasn’t going to want to talk. Setting a boundary, which I never would have even thought to do just a couple years ago. She was really nice, said she understood and respected my boundary.

I was texting a few people on the ride but then I started to realize my emotions were still right on the verge of me losing control of them. I closed my eyes and started to meditate. In my mind I identified every emotion I was feeling; fear, anger, frustration, sadness, embarrassment to name a few. I let them run through me and tell me why they were there, what earthly problem did I now face because of what just happened that created that specific emotion in me.

I saw that I face a scary financial situation. Realizing that was where my fear came from allowed me to come up with a plan to address it and alleviate the fear. I face the fact that my leg has now caused me to be fired from a job and the frustration from that was the most powerful emotion I was feeling. I can’t change the limitations my leg puts on me now and that is frustrating. I identified everything I was feeling and worked through it all. By the time I got home I was already job hunting on my phone.

This may sound strange because I just lost a very good job that I loved doing and had waited so long to get but as I’m writing this I feel great. I feel great about myself, the work I’ve done and the blueprint for success I have for my future. I’ve known throughout this journey that I would be tested. I always hoped that a really hard test wouldn’t come until I was truly ready for it. This test is a big one, the layers of stress involved in losing this job are piled high and I have handled the initial rush of emotions and stress well. I guess I was ready!

I’m going to be ok. I’ll find a good job close to the community where I live and I will continue to grow in strength of mind, body and soul. This has been a very therapeutic post to write and has been the perfect way to end a day that tried to break me but couldn’t.

Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love

Emotional Intelligence

For as far back as I can remember emotions have controlled me. As a child and even as a late teenager I was prone to angry outbursts, punching walls and doors. I was out of control at times, because my emotions were controlling me.

I feel like it was a lot worse when I was younger, 14 to maybe 20 years old. There were posters and pictures all over my bedroom walls and each was covering up a hole I punched. I had a large NBA banner I hung on my bedroom door because I had punched it and kicked it so many times you could walk right through it.

Clearly this is not normal or healthy behavior but I don’t remember ever thinking there was something wrong with it (except when I got in trouble), it was just how I processed things. I was an adolescent trying to learn how to grow up in my body and mind but I had a hidden, insidious force working against me; trauma.

A hidden reason for my instability

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the pain and trauma I was suffering at the hands of my priest was the reason I was acting out. When my still developing brain felt overwhelmed about what I was holding in and what was being done to me, it needed a release. That manifested in violence, transferred pain and an unhealthy base I was building from for my future.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I was a relatively happy young man. I had passions that I was drawn to, mostly sports. I was very into my teams; Giants and 49ers. My emotions ran deep watching my teams play. When they won I was beyond overjoyed, but when they lost I reverted to my learned energy release of violence as a way of dealing with disappointment or failure. It was the infancy of a major problem in my life that would take over 30 years to address and be able to find the peace it took to change the behavior.

I still marvel that after what I went through in my youth, the trauma I suffered and the way it manifested itself in my daily life, that I became a police officer in my early 20’s. The anger issues were still there. My inability to process emotions properly as an adult were still a problem for me. I passed several police hiring processes with this silent beast living inside me including multiple lie detector tests and psychological tests and evaluations. Nothing uncovered my darkness. Was I that good at hiding it so as to appear as a normally functioning member of society or was/is the hiring process including mental and emotional health evaluations that flawed? That is a topic for another post on another blog.

Alcohol made it all worse

For the most part I kept my outbursts relatively private. They happened in my bedroom, the bathroom or maybe my car. When I drank too much the ugliness would creep to the front of my personality. There were too many days I woke up not remembering fully what happened the night before and worried about what I would be told I did. Usually what I didn’t remember was an angry outburst or that I was scaring people with the way I was acting, I was very volatile.

In recent years, while exploring my challenges, I spent a lot of time trying to understand why I never made meaningful change to my behavior. I was repeatedly facing the fact that the behavior was unacceptable yet the cycle constantly repeated. One insidious, unforeseen obstacle I faced and one that probably was more daunting than I still give it credit for today was that I was being gaslit. My closest friend was one of the people who made sure to always talk to me about my behavior. He would always make it into a huge issue that needed to be dealt with especially the fact that alcohol always made it worse.

Fighting an unexpected battle

He was a very influential person in my life at the time and so I would listen. I would look deep inside me and try to understand how to take positive steps to at least avoid the alcohol. There were so many struggles in my life at the time that I was confused, I wanted to change but had no idea how to. I wanted so badly to be better that I would set myself on a course to be better. Better for myself and my health but also better so that I wouldn’t let him down after one of his talks about my behavior. Within days he would hand me bottles of my favorite whiskeys or rums while laughing and saying what an enabler he was. Being controlled, manipulated and confused that way, I really wasn’t able to make any progress on getting better.

Once I recognized the toxicity that had been in my life I felt a lot of anger. Anger because another person kept me under control for years due to his own deep mental problems, years that I will never get back and could have spent getting better. Mostly now I feel relief and joy because once I realized where the trauma was working from and didn’t have a saboteur in my life I was able to dive deep into my damaged ability to control my emotions and make real changes in my life that I am benefitting from now.

Tools for emotional growth

Learning how to control my emotions has not been easy as you can imagine. It has taken hours of therapy, developing tools and then putting them in to practice. In order to have control of my emotions when I have never had any control over them I had to first learn how to not react. I learned through conversation and behavior analysis that situations quickly overwhelm me and I lose the ability to control myself within the situation. It was important that I learn how to foresee a problem so I could prepare my response to it.

I was very skeptical of this at first. In theory it felt unrealistic and stressful. I felt like I would have to be on guard constantly for a situation that might trigger me or for the welling up of feelings inside me. Initially it was not easy. I found that the majority of the work I was going to have to do would be internal, learning what it feels like when my emotions are being awakened. This allowed me to mentally prepare for what was coming from within and gave me that moment of pause so I could remember the most important part of gaining emotional intelligence, feeling it.

Going for a ride

I always felt like my emotions ran me over. I liken this new process to slowing down the car and hoping in, going along for the ride instead of getting run over by it. The most important thing for me to learn has been to sit in the emotions and feel them. Let them come at me from every angle and try to understand where the hurt, sadness, elation or any other feeling is coming from. That pause also gives me the time I need to realize that the feeling I am experiencing is not as intense as it initially felt.

I now understand that I can handle it, that I am mentally strong enough to overcome myself and create a life for myself that is built from a strong base of emotional intelligence.

Constant improvement

It will always be a work in progress. I’m not going to be able to see every problem coming and prepare for it. The more I address my own emotions as they come at me, the easier it becomes to reel them in when they do get outside of my control. This knowledge has changed my life. I know that I can handle whatever is thrown at me. I also know that when it gets to be too much, I have the tools I need to re-center myself and move forward in strength and I know that it’s ok to falter.

Emotional intelligence is not something that was taught in school. It wasn’t even something that any therapist talked about with me during the first terrifying years when I was trying to adapt to the new life I had thrust upon me. Trying to still be the person that my family and friends expected me to be, the person they knew, while I was losing my internal identity more every day, was disorienting and very scary. I’m not upset that it wasn’t discussed, at that point I was living in survival mode so focusing my therapy down to one aspect of recovery at that time would have been pointless.

It has taken many years and many failures and successes for me to be able to write this next sentence. I feel extremely in touch with my emotions today and I am confident that while I may not always react the perfect way, I will always use my emotions to my advantage in a respectful way while making sure my emotions and their manifestations are healthy for me and those close to me.

As a kid I had no idea why I was acting out the way I was. I had no understanding of why I was so angry and reacted the way that I did. My healing process has taught me why and also how my history of pain and abuse as a child created a place of such resentment and anger inside me that whenever I became overwhelmed by life I would angrily and at times violently lash out. The peace that healing has brought me, especially in regards to my emotional intelligence, gives me a foundation of love and caring to respond from when I feel my emotions and that has made all the difference in the world for me.

Behind the astrological eight ball

As an attempting to be functioning adult my new understanding of my own emotional intelligence should make a big difference in who I surround myself with and who I bring into my life. I am a Pisces and I wear that like a badge especially when it comes to feeling emotions, I am a true empath. While I absolutely love this about myself, it posed a significant challenge for me in gaining control of my emotions.

I first had to learn how to not feel the emotions of strangers. If I were to encounter someone who was clearly upset on a ferry ride or at the store, I would take on their outward emotions myself empathizing with the person. Sadness, anger, joy, happiness whatever the emotion, I would feel it. That was too much, exhausting. I learned to save my deep energetic feelings for myself and those who I love. At times even that is overwhelming.

I’ve learned to control the empath in me and how my heart reacts to other’s emotions. I say control because it is an important part of who I am and not something I would ever change completely. Taking control of this key part of me will be important for all of my relationships that I build or rebuild from now on.

Emotional peace

My emotional intelligence grows stronger all the time because I actively work on it every day. It becomes a part of a daily routine and in time creates a very healthy emotional foundation to deal with the ups and downs of life from. Find little ways to work on yours, it will lead to bigger ways. You won’t regret it!

Thank you for reading. Any questions, stories or other comments are always encouraged. Writing is healing. One Love.

The Importance of Positive Self Talk

When I started peeling back the layers of my trauma and recognizing the many manifestations of it in my behavior, I was very overwhelmed. There were so many things to work on, I felt like I would never make any progress. My breakthrough came when I realized I could separate out all the different areas for improvement and work on them one at a time. The first area I worked on was one of the most important, positive self talk.

For me, the most important thing to master in healing is positive self talk. Once I started telling myself I’m worthy and good and caring and that I deserve good things in my life, everything started changing for the better.

The dynamic of healing is strange at times. You work so hard and struggle for so long to get better. Hopeful that ultimately there will be a reward for perseverance. At first you strive to have better minutes and then better hours, then better days, weeks, months and ultimately years. You put all of your energy into moving into a new phase, a new you and new outlook on life and most importantly, new behaviors.

New behaviors lead to a new life. More self supportive, more aware of the little things in life that trip you up. More aware of triggers and how to deflect them or feel them and move on. A whole new life. This is the goal, continuous growth. Personally, I’m finding an unforeseen challenge for me as I grow has been that I miss the old me.

This caught me off guard. There were so many times in the last three years where I looked in the mirror and saw a shell of who I believed I was, or wanted to be and thought how desperately I wanted to leave that person behind and move in to a new chapter as a new man. I never thought that as my life began to balance out and blessings started coming my way that I would long for the old me.

I miss the isolating, brooding, miserable person that I was. How could I possibly want that over the positive, healthy, thriving man I have become? I didn’t have to think too hard to realize that the answer is comfort. I spent so many long days finding a comfort zone inside my misery where I felt safe from everything. Today, at times, I still feel the need to retreat to that dark, secluded, yet safe place when I start to get overwhelmed.

I miss that safety because in that place no one could touch me. Not lovingly, not spiritually, not in any way. No hurt, no love, no anything and that was far preferable to the risk of being hurt or taken advantage of again. That “safe” time in my life contained only one, safe emotion, no emotion.

Clearly, retreating within your own misery is not a path to healing, but there are times during the journey when you can’t take any more. You need your safe place so that you can settle frayed nerves and refuel to continue your battle with yourself . Ideally, as you heal and grow you learn new tools to use instead of retreating. New awareness and new behaviors are what finally got me moving in the right direction.

For me the new behaviors started with how I spoke about myself. Not only how I spoke about myself to others or around others but even more importantly, how I spoke about myself to myself. I spent a week writing down everything I told myself during moments of reflection, or solitary moments when I was talking to myself. I especially paid attention to my monologue when something happened. How did I talk to myself internally or externally when I made a mistake or when I was successful.

I was pretty shocked at how much negativity I was brining into my own life even after doing good. I was never good enough, even when accomplishing my own goals. Instead of being proud or gaining confidence, I’d knock myself back down. I was simply never good enough…for me. If you’re not good enough for yourself, you’ll never have the foundation necessary for a serious relationship, romantic or otherwise.

It was time to make that change, to start the process of self love by speaking to myself as if I love myself. This sounds easier than it is because those negative attacks on myself aren’t just words, they come from a place of deep self doubt. They come from the idea that I am a failure and even the good I do will fail eventually. I didn’t only have to change dialogue, I had to change a deep-seated belief that I had about myself; I am a failure.

There is no true peace or real internal happiness without self love. Talking to yourself with kindness and understanding makes all the difference. Being patient with yourself the way you would a partner or your child or any other loved one is the real key to growth. I never realized how insidious my own internal dialogue was until I started to change it.

The process to move past all of the doubt about myself has not been easy. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those times that I have missed the old me was during days when I had put myself in an uncomfortable situation knowing that growth would come from it. Being uncomfortable would make me subconsciously seek a comfort zone, but in this case that comfort zone is what I am battling to get away from.

The desire to revert back to the comfort of the old me still pops up from time to time. Just like the journey of healing that I’m on, it will always be there only maybe lessened over time. When these urges present themselves it’s my new positive self talk that makes the difference. I am confident now and I can stand up to the depression bully because I tell myself that I can, every day.

The new place that I have earned in my healing where I am confident and resolute in who I am will eventually be the new comfort zone that I seek when I need support. I know, however, that the old one will always be there just in case I feel like regressing back to it, of which I have no intention of doing.

Thank you for reading. As always, comments, dialogue are more than welcome. Writing is healing. One Love.

Path to Personal Evolution

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

“The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be” -Oprah Winfrey

I’m not sure exactly when I finally had the epiphany that my healing journey had no end date. For the longest time I looked for and waited for the light at the end of the tunnel. I wondered what the day would feel like when I would be whole again. When things would go back to the way they used to be. Back when everything was “good”.

The problem was that everything was never “good”. Everything was very bad, boiling under the surface of my days and nights. Literally waiting to explode. Once it did, my life was turned upside as I’ve described in detail on this blog. Once I finally, actively attacked my ptsd and set myself on the path to healing, I still wanted to know when it would be over, when I would be ok again. I didn’t understand.

I feel like not understanding yet that there was no end date was a hinderance to my healing. Many of the starts and stops of my therapy were because of feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand. Specifically that the journey was open ended, there was no assigned stop date.

Even when I realized why I couldn’t get traction with my therapy , I still solved the problem by not truly understanding it. I decided that I was in such a bad place that my journey’s end date was so far in the future that I couldn’t see it yet. I convinced myself that if I could take it one day at a time and if I didn’t overthink things, eventually the light at the end of the tunnel would start to show itself.

I’m grateful today for many things. One thing I’m very grateful for is the clarity of mind and the peace it created within me to allow me to start moving forward with my healing even though I had this barrier in front of me still, wanting to know when it would be over.

Baby steps eventually turned into adult strides and eventually the reality of my life came into focus. There was no single incident that brought the focus. It was time, coupled with hard work and eventually the realization that my journey is not ending was clear and exciting.

I had become a stronger version of myself mentally, emotionally and physically. I felt peace with my past and I also felt excitement for what comes next. That was when I finally understood that I was never actually seeking the way it used to be. I was seeking the peace in my mind that I needed in order to have the capacity to strive to get better every day.

For a long time the idea of growth was scary. I was living a life in survival mode, leaving my mind exhausted and in need of a break at the end of every day. Even just thinking about evolving as a person, a man, a father, a friend was overwhelming. I had to find some solid footing for myself before I could start taking proactive steps in mapping out my plans for growth and for my future. The exciting part was that I knew this now, I understood it and it wasn’t scary. Suddenly the idea of evolving and growing in all aspects of my life was exciting.

It’s no coincidence that once I felt confident in my future and excited about my path, things started to fall into place for me. I learned over the last few years to accept the hand fate dealt me in order to leave it in the past. This taught me the patience that I needed to let the process run its course, knowing the right situation will present itself at the right time.

There are several examples in my life today that show me I’m on the right path and that timing is very important. One such example is my job. My job hunt has been difficult for years. There have been times when I felt very confident that I was going to get a job and then didn’t.

Disappointed and frustrated, I would always tell myself that it was because the right situation was on its way so don’t give up. Keep trying and eventually you’ll be rewarded, and I have been. I am blessed with a great job that I am good at, with great people and that I love doing. Looking back at the jobs I was disappointed not to get, I can see clearly now that I was in no way ready emotionally, mentally or physically for any of them. I would have failed had I been trusted with any of those positions.

Growth touches so many areas because so many areas of your life have potential for growth. My growth areas I’m focused on for now are as a father first and foremost. I thought for a long time that it was selfish to put myself first. I’ve learned, however, that putting myself first is how I am able to be who my child deserves me to be.

Secondly, as a friend. The people who have been true to me throughout my struggles in all different roles, deserve the very best from me. I intend to continue to learn how to be the best friend I can be.

As a leader. I have an obligation to others who have suffered and are suffering. I owe the use of my experience to those who need help through hard times. I owe my empathy to anyone who has been deeply hurt and seeks answers or comfort. I owe my life to organizations like S.N.A.P. and I owe my salvation to my Faith. A big part of my evolution as a man will happen when I am working with others, helping them the way I was helped through the darkest times of my life. I look forward to this part of my future.

My focus now is gratitude. I am so grateful for the experiences I’ve lived, regardless of how hard they were. I feel in my soul the peace I have never had. It’s allowing me to think deeper, to be more inquisitive, I want to try new things and explore the depths of my own soul. I’m grateful for the people still in my life and I’m grateful for lessons learned from others. I’m grateful for new opportunities and I’m grateful for the chance to evolve and understand myself better.

Evolve, change, become a better you through an open heart, an open mind and an open soul. Allow foreign concepts to marinate in your mind. Listen deeply and think deeper. Surround yourself with others who think and listen deeply. Open minds, pure hearts and comforting souls fuel growth, be that.

Writing is healing. One Love.

Isolation

When I left for Mallorca in May I knew I was fast approaching a crossroads in my life. I had been working on myself for years yet I still was running up against barriers that I simply could not break down. Isolation, accountability and immaturity are a few of the major challenges that I could not overcome. I needed to really step out of my comfort zone and be honest with myself about these problems. Honest about how I wanted the rest of my life to go.

Accepting who I am today

For too long I had been subconsciously awaiting the magic pill that would make everything better. Lazily hoping I’d wake up one day and this all would be gone forever, giving me my old life back. I’ve finally learned what should have been obvious, I don’t want my old life back. I need to understand myself today and forge my happiness within the depths of me today. Accepting of all of my flaws and loving myself for them instead of blindly waiting for them to somehow disappear.

I had to also accept that on some level I would have to live with these things forever. That I would remain immature in some ways and develop the tools to deal with it. That I would still struggle with accountability but would find a way to be conscious of it and mitigate the problem through self awareness and honesty. Isolation will also probably always be something I battle and is the challenge that I have struggled the most to overcome.

Understanding why

In my darkest times I shut myself away from everyone. It didn’t matter who it was. I couldn’t handle interaction with people and the little bit of human contact I did have because it was necessary was excruciating.

I’ve successfully worked my way past that extreme but the need to isolate is still there. I struggle with finding the necessary balance of allowing my mind to feel at ease while enjoying the basic need for real, meaningful, consistent human interaction.

I used to hide from the world when the noise in my head got too loud. Through work and time and practice I’ve realized that I’m not striving to eradicate the need to isolate from my life, I’m looking for balance.

Accepting that the trauma response of isolation is a common defense mechanism was the first step. I thought there was something wrong with me, that I was destined to live in misery because of the powerful pull in my mind of just avoiding the world. Once I understood the mechanism and began to work through it, I was able to find the middle ground where I am today.

That middle ground really isn’t ideal but it is significantly better than it used to be. Where I used to wake up and actively come up with reasons to not leave my apartment that day in order to be able to get out of bed, I now can work through that urge. Those days used to be every day, now they are significantly fewer and fewer all the time, but they are still there.

Frustration of isolation

It sounds cliche, but it’s all about healthy boundaries and tools. Sometimes I wonder if it has actually gotten any better at all or if I have just grown stronger and more capable of pushing aside the urge to isolate. It’s such a confusing situation to live with.

When I’m alone all I want is to be with people. When I’m with people, all I want is to be alone. The latter seems to win more often than the former. When I’m in public or in a situation I don’t control, the stress that it causes in my mind can be exhausting. It’s a non stop churning of pressure that mounts. The pressure is unrelenting and does not subside until I am back home.

It’s so frustrating because I don’t actively do it. I love being out in the world, spending time with people and I really don’t like sitting alone in silence. The only benefit to being alone is the peace in my mind, the lack of noise, the calm. The traumatized mind can’t differentiate, it only knows two gears.

It knows high alert any time I’m not in my safe place. It also knows peace when I am in that place. My safe place, to my traumatized brain is by myself, alone, no threats, no danger. Ironically, isolation is damaging in its own right because it worsens depression.

How it affects my relationships

Isolating does now and probably always will affect my relationships, romantic or otherwise. I’ve already hurt people, people who trusted me and with whom I had pure intentions. Not understanding the damage I was dealing with yet, I treated them poorly. I can’t change that and I feel awful about it. I have to be sure that I don’t cause anyone else pain again because of my own problems. Awareness is key for me. It’s hard for me though. I do crave friends and I do want romance in my life, I just don’t trust myself still.

Acceptance of the situation and a steadfast commitment to live each day singularly as it comes keeps me focused. Part of that acceptance is the reality that if I can’t get to the point where I trust myself with someone else’s emotions, I need to accept that I may just have to be alone for the rest of my life. Acceptance is not acquiescence though. It removes the pressure and allows me to do real, honest work toward the goal of self assurance.

Honesty is key

Honesty with myself and honesty with those close to me is so important. It isn’t easy to admit weakness even though doing so is actually a sign of strength. When I’m able to break the cycle of pushing aside the damage and pretending it isn’t there in order to be who I want to be for someone then I will be on the right path.

When I say pretending, it sounds devious or disingenuous. It sounds like I’m manipulating another person purposely and in effect I am, that’s why people have been hurt. I have been manipulated and it is so hurtful and disorienting. I’ve spent a lot of time beating myself up for doing the same thing to people that I’ve had done to me. The difference, I’ve realized, is that I truly had the best of intentions. That does not in any way comfort those I’ve hurt or make it ok. The realization gave me the ability to start to work my way out of the practice of being someone I’m not. It gives me the ability to be honest with myself and with others.

I’m not the monster that narcissistic manipulators are, breaking people down for their own sick needs. I was just trying to be the good man I know I can be and want to be. I was taking the easy way out though. Not doing the work, not taking the necessary time so I could fix the deep seated problem. Instead I was ignoring the problem and hoping it just wouldn’t reappear. It always did.

Don’t give up

Today I have developed boundaries for others in my life for many aspects of my healing. For this problem I have had to also develop boundaries for myself. When I accept that isolation is part of the damage and that with time I can mitigate it, I can start to move toward more happiness. Honesty with myself and real self awareness about my emotions allows me to not act impulsively. Honesty with others about where I am in my healing journey gives them the understanding to be able to protect themselves and their emotions.

For years I have believed that isolation was a punishment because it felt that way. Once I started to understand that isolation is there to protect me and to protect others from me I was able to start to develop the skills necessary to lessen the need to isolate. It’s a struggle and sometimes its so exhausting I still just withdraw in order to regroup.

The important thing is that I don’t give up. I need to stay focused on the end goal of a happier, more fullfilling life. Understanding the process helps me remain hopeful that one day it will be a lot better. Until that day I will keep my head down. I’ll keep putting in the work and stay honest with myself about who I am so I can eventually be who I know I can be, again.

Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love.