Waking Up is Hard To Do…

I was a zombie before it was cool.

A card-carrying member of the walking dead – dead to my feelings, my pain ate me alive until there was nothing left but an empty shell. I had lost myself somewhere along the way.

I was talking to my therapist about childhood trauma I experienced at a young age and questioned her about the validity of such things – did everyone with this type of trauma grow into adulthood with this amount of pain?

She explained to me that when you’re a part of a healthy, functioning family unit you’re not afraid to talk about problems. Talking openly and working through problems is a part of how relationships work. She explained that in those situations, when abuse or some other trauma occurs, parents and caregivers are aware enough to know something is going on or the child feels safe enough to talk about it. When that happens, the problems are faced head on and dealt with. Saving the child and the entire family unit a lifetime of pain.

I knew in that moment I wanted to live like that.

I took the blue pill and thus began my process of waking up. I decided to face the stark realities of my life.

It is a process. One that is still a big part of my life today. One that I hope I will always be a big part of my life.

I looked at the things I was hiding, sweeping under the rug. The places I was lying to myself and to others and most importantly, how I was feeling. My feelings, my needs, were long ignored because I was too busy holding it all together and making sure everything looked good on the outside.

 There’s the problem in waking up - it’s hard because when you make this choice, everything begins to change and sometimes that change isn’t pretty. I don’t think I changed as a person necessarily, but instead have become more myself, and who I was created to be without the baggage of my pain and the expectations of others to slow me down. 

But:

When you wake up, most of the people around you don’t like it;

usually due to one of two reasons – sometimes both:

1.       Your decision alters the way you relate and therefore the dynamic of your relationships.

2.       It sometimes begins to awaken others about the realities of their own lives. If someone isn’t ready to face this, your new normal won’t be well received.

I was checked out

I came to learn I was an equal opportunity medicator.  Having grown up in a family where alcohol was blatantly abused, I was too smart to have an outright addiction so instead I went from one vice to the next masking and medicating my pain. Food, alcohol, sex, shopping, drama in relationships, were all used in a nice cocktail combination.

I also came to learn how I was trapped in codependency. And yes, trapped is the right word. The fight to keep myself whole is an everyday battle. Still.

Waking up created a shaking in my life.  The kind of shaking effects real change – the kind that matters and established wholeness.

Are you living your fullest life? Or do you have waking to do?

Take a minute today to ask…