Self Worth

As we go through life and try to establish a sense of self, we look for things that make us feel good about ourselves. We look for praise from others to make us feel worthwhile and important. Often we look to certain events, experiences, or people to give us purpose and worth. The problem with this way of obtaining self worth from the outside is that it is very easy to have self worth destroyed and ripped away.  

While growing up, my greatest desire was to one day be a mom. I babysat many, many children, even taking care of triplets from the time they were two months old until they were nearly two years old. I also spent a great deal of time with my nieces and nephews. I couldn’t wait for the day that I would be a mom and felt that being a mom would give me a great amount of purpose and worth.

I got pregnant within the first week of getting married. I was thrilled! We were both so excited to become parents! I can’t remember if it was the day we brought our beautiful daughter home or the second day, but my husband said to me, “We need to have my mom come over and show you how to take care of a baby and be a mom.” I just looked at him for a while then let him know I didn’t think that would be necessary. I felt I had enough experience to get us started. He greatly disagreed. He informed me that since I was the second to last child in my family that I knew nothing about raising children. He was the oldest and practically raised his siblings so he knew better than me. I quietly refused having his mom “show me how to be a mom” and tried to stumble my way through the next few weeks.

The confidence I once had with children was quickly stripped away. I was told regularly that I wasn’t doing things right or, “that’s not how my mom does it.” So many things that I had wanted to do with my children faded away as I shifted to the mode of trying to please my husband to keep him from becoming angry. All those years of planning and imagining how it would feel to be a mother left me feeling worthless, lost, and terribly disappointed, both in my husband but most especially in myself. I should have been strong enough! I should be able to create a home and environment that I felt was healthy! I should… I should… I should... So many “I should’s.”

All my childhood I had placed my worth as a woman on being a wife and a mother. But being a wife and a mother was not rewarding like I thought it would be. I was not happy. I was not satisfied. I was weak. I was depressed. I was worthless. My home was full of contention, tears, and pain. It wasn’t the safe harbor I had always imagined it would be. I felt I was a failure.

The years of self discovery in my older teen years became a distant memory as I thought my sole purpose was now to please my husband and get through each day alive and with the same number of children that I started out with.

I remember a time after our second child was over a year old. I was feeling like I needed to do something for myself because the Amy I once knew had become so distant. When I was younger I loved doing Karate. I felt that if I could get in a Karate class that it would help me to become healthier and give me some of that self worth that I had lost. I proposed the idea to my husband who began making fun of me for wanting to do Karate then spent the next  hour lecturing me on how that would be a bad idea. Who would watch the kids? Where would we find the money? How would this impact him? He never told me “no,” he just told me how wrong and selfish it was for me to want to do this and left it up to me to make the final decision. Of course I never signed up for a Karate class.

A short time later, while looking for a way to get healthy and exercise, I saw an ad for a belly dancing class offered in the community. I jokingly said I should do it and he immediately encouraged me to, offering to watch the kids, saying we could take money out of savings since we didn’t have extra in our monthly budget. I was a little surprised by the difference in this response until I realized that me belly dancing would bring him pleasure. When something seemed to benefit him, he was okay with it. When he saw no benefit to him, he didn’t want me to do it. This experience only validated all the other attacks on who I was and what my purpose was. At that point I felt that my only purpose in being a woman was to please my husband. There was no other value to me at that time.

By the time I realized that the only way for me to continue to live on this earth was to leave the marriage, I had no sense of worth. I had been told for a long time that our marriage problems were my fault, that our children’s behavior problems were my fault, that I was living in a fantasy world because I couldn’t prove to my husband’s satisfaction that he had any responsibility in our family’s issues. I had become so lost through this experience that I had no idea who or what I was.

Since leaving over three years ago, I have often wondered, where does self worth come from? How to I come to see the good in myself? How do I recognize the divinity within me that comes from being a daughter of God? How do I find and be true to myself? And how do I do all these things without being selfish or self-centered?

The Bible says that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourself. So that says I have to love myself. That can be a very challenging thing to do.

So who do I look to in order to know how to do that? I believe the Bible answers that. We have a perfect example in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught to love, not condemn. This doesn’t just apply to how we feel about others, but how we feel about ourselves. He taught to be kind, always. He taught to take time for yourself like he did when he retreated to the mountains. He taught that sin does not define the person. We can always change, grow, and become better.

I believe very strongly in personal evaluations. I like change and growth. If I am the same today as I was yesterday then I am doing something wrong. The goal is to one day reach perfection so that I don’t have to be constantly changing, but I am a long way from reaching that point. I believe that in following the teachings of Christ, it will lead me to find out who I truly am and help me establish a strong sense of worth.

I feel that the more I get to know myself, that my self worth can grow from the inside out. It is that true self worth that will withstand the storms of life and bring me strength of character to keep me going no matter what I am told from others. I can feel that growing inside right now. It also helps to know that the only being I need to please is God. In doing all I can to please Him, I feel myself growing and becoming. And what a joy it is to be in a position where I have the freedom to become all that I desire and God desires me to be!

What have you discovered about yourself today?

Who am I?

Throughout life, I have struggled with the concept of knowing who I am. Who am I in my family? Who am I in the community? Who am I in varying relationships with people? I had been taught as a child that I was a child of God and that my identity should come from that understanding. I truly believe that I am a child of God, but what does that mean?

When I was an older teen and into my early 20's, I did a lot of soul searching, took a lot of seminars, read a lot of books, and felt like I did a pretty good job establishing an identity and finding out who I was. Then I got married. Very quickly I found myself in an identity crises. I thought I knew who I was as an individual, but I didn't know who I was when I was with someone. I found that when in a relationship I became a chameleon, changing and shifting to try to make the other person happy. Even compromising who I thought I was in order to keep the peace and make sure he was happy. Life became all about him and worrying about how every choice I made would be responded to by him. Even my likes and dislikes became void. And when I did stand up for something I felt strongly about, it was met with a great amount of resistance and conflict.

A coping mechanism that I came up with very early on was to try to avoid having opinions about things. If I didn't have my own opinion and just agreed with whatever was said, I would be safe. This wasn't true in all things, there were some things I was extremely opinionated about, but as a general rule I would shift and bend according to the strong opinions of my spouse.

Another tool for keeping myself safe was to not have hobbies or interests of my own. Before marriage I loved watching professional basketball. There was a thrill for me in watching the entirety of a game and going through the ups and downs that accompany the viewing of a sport. Often I would turn on the television to watch my favorite team. One day my husband came into the room and changed the channel. I told him I was watching the game. He responded that he didn't like basketball and I could check the score later. After several times of this scenario taking place, I stopped watching basketball and to this day have never viewed a professional sport. It was easier to not have my own desires than to face the conflict of clashing with someone else's desires.

Over many years of being a chameleon, the true me not only withdrew, but began withering away into nothingness. I felt as if I was dying a very slow and painful death. If something didn't change, there would be nothing left to the real me. I was so caught up in trying to please others that I no longer knew who I was. That is the journey I am on today: to find out who the real me is.

There is an older movie with Julia Roberts that I love called, "Runaway Bride." In that movie the main character has left several men at the alter and just couldn't seem to follow through with getting married. At one point a reporter that was doing a story about her, questioned the men about their experience with Maggie, the main character. One question he asked was how Maggie liked her eggs cooked. All of the men answered the same way, "She likes them just like I do!" Maggie had changed herself to be whatever the man she was with liked. In order for her to have a true, lasting relationship, she had to discover how she liked her own eggs. She had to find her own identity and be true to it.

I feel like Maggie today. I am on a quest to discover what kind of eggs I like. I hope that as I form opinions and have new experiences that I will be able to establish my identity and come to know the answer to the question, "who am I?"

How do you like your eggs?

To Be a Woman

When I was very young I had an experience that caused me to feel unsafe as a girl so I became a very strong tomboy. I dressed like a boy, played sports like a boy, and wished my parents had given me a name that could have passed for either a girl or a boy. The only time I looked like a girl was at church because I knew I had to wear a dress there but within ten seconds of being home I was in pants again. My hair was often up in a hat so I could look more like a boy. I believed that if I was a boy then no one would hurt me, I would be safe.

As I got older, it became harder to hide the fact that I really was a girl. As I went through puberty I realized that I was going to have to come to grips with my gender because my bust size made it impossible to keep hiding what I was!

When I was fifteen, I had bad knee pain so I went to a woman that did a type of bodywork called Structural Integration, or Rolfing. During my sessions we talked a lot about life, how I felt about my body, and many, many more things. I don’t remember most of the words she said, but I still remember the concepts she taught. One day she asked me a question that took me by surprise. She asked, “Who are you?” I just stared at her but didn’t say anything. She stopped working and waited for me to answer. There was an uncomfortable silence before I finally replied with, “I am a child of God.”

She agreed with my statement but asked the question again, asking for more detail. I could tell that she wasn’t going to continue with my bodywork session until I gave her a satisfactory answer. My mind was racing as she waited for what seemed a very long time before I eventually blurted out, “I’m somebody who has to be doing something all the time.” She kind of chuckled at that and went back to working on me but continued the conversation while working. I don’t remember much else of that session, but her questioning stayed with me for a very long time.

I went home and asked myself over and over again, “Who are you?” Not only was I a child of God, but I was a daughter of God. I felt that if I was born female, then that’s what God intended for me to be. So I started on a quest to try to become okay with the fact I was a girl. It took years of searching and even professional help before I finally felt that I was okay being female.

By the time I got married I felt that I had embraced being female and looked forward to my role as wife and mother. Being a woman took on a whole new meaning when I thought about being married. I was excited for the chance to explore femininity when I didn’t have to play the role of the man as well.

At first it seemed to be a good challenge to be doing all the womanly things a wife should do. I had been working for five years so it was different to be home, trying to be a housewife. Within a couple weeks of being married I was pregnant. It didn’t take very long of severe morning sickness to make me question again what was good about being a girl. It quickly became a difficult task to clean the house, do the dishes, laundry, and cooking, and fulfill all of my husband’s desires.

Tension rose between us as our family grew and my ability to be there for my husband decreased. He commented to me one time that he just didn’t understand my lack of desire to be with him. He said that women in TV shows and movies always complained about their husbands not desiring them and he was showing me lots of affection that I was rejecting. His comments made me question greatly what was wrong with me. Media told me that I was supposed to feel and behave a certain way but it just wasn’t accurate with who I was. As our relationship steadily declined, my self-worth went down the drain, especially with my feelings about being a woman. I was told many times that I wasn’t behaving like a good woman, or a good wife, should. There was something wrong with me. Why couldn’t I just be like other women?

What little self-respect and self-esteem I had learned before marriage suddenly disintegrated from the constant comparison of me to women in the media. I just wasn’t like them and because I wasn’t like them I was a failure at being a woman.

So what does it mean to be a woman and to be feminine? I am still trying to figure that out. As I have asked others for an answer, the most common response is to be sexy and attractive. I don’t like wearing makeup and fancy clothes so does that mean I’m not feminine? I don’t believe so. I think it is more of an internal thing.

As I have searched for what it means to be a woman, I was reminded of a talk that Margaret D. Nadauld made in October of the year 2000. She said, “Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity.”

I don’t want to pattern my life after what media portrays women as; I want to be a woman of God. I think that is where true beauty and femininity is found.

Over the last couple of years as I have worked at healing from my marriage, I have been striving to understand how God views women. I believe He has great respect for women. I have felt His great love and compassion. I sense his awe of women with all they go through in this mortal existence. I believe that He weeps when He sees his daughters mistreated. I believe that He desires to take us in His arms and protect us from the pains and sorrows of this world. I also believe that His love for us is so great that He allows us to fully experience all the trials of life because He knows that is how we will learn and grow. Like a parent watching a child learn to walk, He knows that there are times that we must fall so we can learn to get back up and develop the strength to walk on our own. Because He knows we will fall, He always has a way prepared for us to heal, no matter what, as long as we ask Him for help.

Like that stumbling, learning child, I often sit there and cry, wondering why no one caught me before I fell, why no one moved that coffee table that I just ran into and bumped my head on, why I am not immediately picked up and saved from the pains and trials. But like the loving parent, God oversees all of my life, giving gentle direction, wishing I wasn’t so stubborn in wanting to do things my way, and always, always being there to pick me up, give me a hug, and tell me to try again.

One of my fears as I move forward in life is that by becoming more in tune with my womanhood and femininity I will make myself vulnerable to being hurt like I was in the past. As I have contemplated this fear, a calm assurance has filled my soul as if God himself is telling me, “It’s going to be okay! I have never left you in the past and I will never leave you in the future. You are beautiful! You are safe! You are mine!”

What does it mean to be a woman? Being a woman means being true to yourself, embracing all of who you are, being filled with the Holy Spirit, accepting your body for what it is, being filled with compassion and love, and worrying more about what God thinks than what the world thinks. Being a woman is more about just allowing your true self to shine forth than about looking a certain way or getting attention from certain people. I still have a long ways to go before I feel truly comfortable with being a woman, but I feel that I have made great progress in the last year. Now I can honestly say that I am grateful that I was born a girl. There is so much more to learn and I am grateful that I have this time on earth to be learning, growing, and becoming.

Have you ever struggled with how the world portrays your gender?

Sadness

I wish there was a manual that came with life called, “The Many Faces and Stages of Your Emotions.” Right now I would be pouring over the section for emotions you will feel after divorcing an abusive spouse, giving particular attention to the subsection for what you will feel when your ex gets remarried. I am pretty sure the main emotion it would talk about would be sadness, as that is what I am experiencing right now.

Emotions can be so confusing. Since filing for divorce, I never once reconsidered going back to the marriage, but the six months of separation before filing were filled with times when I tried to figure out how we could work things out and remain a family. All I wanted was for him to be nice to me and the children and for us to be a happy family. Emotions were like a rollercoaster at that time. As his disrespect of me increased, even with knowing that it was a trial time to see if we could work things out, it became clear to me that God would not want me to continue to be treated so poorly, so the final decision was made.

And yet for the last week since he got remarried the overwhelming feeling I have experienced is sadness. After having spent the week trying to understand why I have felt this way I felt writing would help me to process these emotions.

Yesterday my children went to spend the weekend with their dad. We had a talk before their visit about how things would be different with having a stepmom. I explained to them that things in our home would stay the same; that I would still pick them up on Sunday evening, I would still love them and always be here for them. I also told them that having a stepmom meant that they would have one more person in their lives to love them and care for them. Then I surprised myself by telling them that oftentimes children who have divorced parents secretly hope that their parents will get back together but having one parent get remarried means that they can’t get back together and that can cause a lot of emotions for the child.

Even though I have never considered getting back together with their dad since the divorce, I believe that some of my sadness is coming from the fact that we never will be a family again. The sadness is more from the loss of what could have been rather than from the loss of what we had. There were moments of happiness as a family, and I will always treasure those, but the overall daily experience was not something to be sad about losing. This is where emotions get so confusing. Why would I be sad about not being a family with him? Because I had given myself to him, I had promised my life to him, I bore his children. I had believed that if I prayed hard enough and did the best I could each day that things would changed and we could be happy together. But that didn’t happen. The sadness is from losing the possibility of having the ideal. Ideally, children should grow up in a two parent home with parents who love each other and them. So some of the sadness is for my children not being able to have the ideal.

Never have I had the desire to be a single parent. Having been a single parent for three years now, I would never wish the experience on anyone. And yet the challenging experience of being a single parent has been so much better than having to deal with the abuse on a daily basis. That is where some of the sadness comes from, as well. I feel sad that my life is better without the father of my children in my life. That is not how I envisioned my life to be. When I got married, I knew there would be challenges along the way, but I always felt that with God we would be able to get through anything. We loved each other, we shared the same religion, we seemed to have the same goals in life. I truly thought we would always be together. I feel sad that it is better (safer) for me and the children to not be with him.

Wikipedia describes sadness as “emotional pain associated with, or characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw themselves from others. Crying is often an indication of sadness.”

I definitely have been feeling emotional pain, but it has not been all consuming. I feel a great loss. I definitely feel disappointment and sorrow. And yes, I have felt like crying a lot. But I don’t feel the despair or helplessness anymore. I did at first. They were so overwhelming when I left the marriage that I wasn’t sure if I could continue living. But the despair has now given way to hope. The helplessness has given way to personal power. As I continually discover who I am, there is hope that each day can be better than the last.

Emotions are funny things. Yes, I feel a deep sadness right now. But I also feel an excitement, an anticipation for the future. I am not trapped in my life anymore. I do not have to be held back because of the man I am with. I have freedom to become whoever I choose to be. And that is nothing to be sad about!

What emotions have you struggled with in your life this week?

Compromise vs Collaboration

Whenever disagreements arose in my marriage, I was told that I needed to compromise. The very mention of the word compromise would immediately cause me to shut down emotionally. I never really understood my reaction until I heard a story that demonstrated perfectly my feelings about compromise.

Winter was coming and a man needed a winter coat. He decided to go hunting for a bear to make a coat out of. At the same time a bear was hungry. He decided to go hunting for something to eat. The two met in the woods and felt that the other was the answer to his problem. They sat down together to discuss their individual problems: the man needed a coat and the bear needed food. They felt that compromise would solve their issue, so they came up with a plan that appeared to fit both of their needs. In the end, the bear was no longer hungry and the man no longer had a need for a coat.

This story shows how in a compromise, though both parties needs appear to be met, someone always loses. Throughout my marriage I was told over and over again how I needed to compromise and every time I felt that I was like the man in the story; I was eaten by the bear. I believe there is a better way.

When I think about being in a relationship, I see myself and my children in a world of our creation and a man in his world. In a relationship of compromise, either I have to leave my world to enter the man's world, or the man has to leave his world to enter my world. I believe, or hope, that it is possible to instead use collaboration. I would like to believe we can bring the best of both our worlds and create something new together. (insert Disney song, "A Whole New World") Through good communication, mutual respect, and unselfish love two people should be able to come together and create a relationship that is fulfilling and beneficial to all involved. That is my hope and desire, to find someone who is willing to work hand in hand to create a whole new world.

How collaboration looks in a relationship:

Winter was coming and a man needed a winter coat. He decided to go hunting for a bear to make a coat out of. At the same time a bear was hungry. He decided to go hunting for something to eat. The two met in the woods and felt that the other was the answer to his problem. They sat down together to discuss their individual problems: the man was cold and the bear was hungry. They felt that each party had skills that could aid in fulfilling the other party's needs so they came up with a plan that appeared to fit both their needs. The man had skills in fishing and gathering berries so he could help feed the bear whenever he was hungry. The bear had nice, warm fur so he could shelter the man in times of cold. In the end, a friendship was formed that allowed each party to live a happy, productive life.

Are there any words in your life that cause you to shut down and not hear others?

Stigma

All my childhood I dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Nothing seemed to be as wonderful as being married. Society, religion, and family taught me that all other accomplishments in life would be nothing compared to the importance of me fulfilling the roles of wife and mother. I believed it, I desired it, I strived to obtain it. Movies portrayed that I would meet "the one," and would know we were meant to be. Then we would spend the rest of our time together in bliss and, according to Disney, would live happily ever after.

As I got older and watched all my siblings and many friends get married, I began to wonder about those childhood thoughts. I have always been an observer, willing to learn from other's mistakes instead of having to learn from personal experience. So after noticing that so many people were unhappy in their marriages. I began making mental notes of things I didn't want to do in my marriage and things I would like to include. The number one item on my list was that divorce would never be an option. The "D" word would never be spoken in my relationship. We would work out any problems we had and there would never be a threat of divorce or the ability to use divorce as an ultimatum.

I was never a big dater, I was one of "those girls" that were for marrying, not for having fun with. I only had a couple of boyfriends and by the time I was twenty-four (I know! That is so young! I was just a baby!) had decided that I should just give up completely on the idea of marriage. There would never be anybody compatible with me. That's when I met my future husband. Things progressed quickly and before long we were married and expecting our first child. All my dreams seemed to be coming true!

The problems started immediately. I had always felt I was fairly easy to get along with. I had lived with multiple roommates as well as coming from a large family. I had learned to get along with lots of different personalities but marriage seemed to bring challenges that couldn't compare with anything I had yet experienced. I tried to convince myself that we were just struggling with normal marriage problems. I was being too sensitive and needed to be less judgmental. If I just did things his way then he wouldn't have to yell at me so much. If I just fulfilled his desires and thought less about myself then he would be happy and things would be better. I must be too selfish. If I only thought of him then he wouldn't have so many things to complain about.

Before long, my sense of self was completely lost. It didn't matter what I wanted to do with my time, if he wanted me to do something else I did it. Even if I was throwing up from morning sickness, my body belonged to him. If he was home I couldn't talk on the phone without him listening in and controlling my conversations. Every moment of my day was consumed with how to make him happy and how to keep him from becoming angry. I didn't tell anybody, though, because I felt that I was failing at the one thing I had dreamed about all my life.

My mom would come to visit and she would see the way he treated me. When he would be gone at work she would try to tell me that I shouldn't let him treat me the way he did. I always defended him, excused his behavior, and justified the way he treated me. I didn't want my mom to know how much I was suffering inside. I didn't want her to know I was a failure.

I did everything I could for the first five years to not talk about my struggles in the marriage. Then we moved to another state and spent a couple of months living with my sister and her family. We had three children at the time and we all stayed in one room together while we were waiting to buy our own house. Walls inside a home are thin. I could no longer hide the truth about my marriage. I felt he was on his best behavior when we were around my sister's family, but apparently his best behavior was pretty bad because they were completely appalled at the way he treated me and our children. And his treatment of me behind closed doors could still be heard by others in the house. The secret was out. I had a failing marriage and I couldn't hide it any more.

It's interesting how stigmas can keep us from making decisions that will be for our highest and best good. I have known many people in my life who were divorced and I never thought any worse about them, but when I thought about me being divorced, I couldn't bear the thought of admitting I was a failure. I really honestly thought that it was a sign of weakness, a sign of selfishness, a sign I wasn't good enough to make it work. If I truly loved my children I would stay with their dad so they could grow up in a two parent home.

For three years after our move I tried to do what I could to "save" our marriage. I sought counsel from our religious leaders, I talked to my husband and tried to make changes to myself based on his suggestions, I prayed constantly, fervently, begging for help to know how I could make this marriage work. I didn't want my children to have the stigma of divorced parents. I didn't want to live with the stigma of being a divorcee. We shared the same religion, we claimed to have the same life goals, surely we could find a way to make this marriage work. But no matter how much I put into making it work, he still treated me with no respect. He still caused me to feel like I was less than the dirt he walked on. He still caused our home to feel unsafe.

I finally woke up to the fact that staying for the children to have a two parent home was far more damaging than getting a divorce when one of my daughters told someone at school that she wasn't sure that she wanted her dad to be her dad anymore. She also said at school that she was afraid that one of her younger siblings was getting bruised from her dad spanking her. At the time we had four children. Three out of the four had been bruised many times during "discipline." The fourth was still an infant. Something had to change. If I didn't get out of the marriage soon, a teacher was going to hear my child's reports and child services was going to be called.

When our youngest was eleven months old, my fear of watching him go through the abuse the other children went through became so great that I could hardly even function. I couldn't watch another child be broken by their father. Many things led up to that day when the pain of staying finally became greater than the pain of leaving. It doesn't sound logical, but in my mind I thought that I would literally die by following through with leaving my husband. I had asked him twice if we could temporarily separate to try to work things out from a distance. He plopped himself down on the couch and said, "This is my house and no one can make me leave!" I couldn't go to my sister's house because he would be able to find me. I had no where to go, no one to ask for help. That is when I was given the number of a homeless shelter for women escaping domestic violence. I put off calling as long as I could, but when I saw what was happening to my children, I finally called.

If the stigma of getting a divorce was difficult for me to swallow, the stigma of living in a homeless shelter was even more challenging. Add to it the domestic violence and it was almost unbearable. Domestic violence was a label for someone who was being beaten, not for me. But I quickly learned that there was just as much domestic violence in my situation as there was in the other women I met through the shelter. At first I felt guilty being there, feeling that I didn't fit the requirements, but as we shared stories I learned that my pain was real. My experience was valid. My marriage was filled with domestic violence, disrespect, and lots of pain. But during my time in the shelter and since, I also learned that there was hope. Life could get better. I could heal. I wasn't really weak, I was brave and strong. And the only reason there was hope was because I was willing to stand up and leave a situation that was bad for both me and my children. I was giving my children a better life.

Sometimes it is still hard to admit that I am divorced. I can easily say that I am a single mom of four children but it still hurts to say the word "divorced." I was never going to be "one of those" people, whatever that means. When I look back on my childhood dreams I feel slightly betrayed. Once you get married everything is supposed to just work out. Disney, you lied to me! ;-) There is no "happily ever after." Regardless of how things turned out, I am grateful for what I have learned. I am so grateful for my four amazing children. I am grateful to have learned that I am strong enough, I am good enough. And though there is still much pain, I can honestly say that I am grateful to my ex-husband for all he has taught me. I would never ask to repeat any of what I have experienced, but I would never ask to change what has happened because it has revealed so much of who I am. And that is a gift.

Are you holding back anything in your life because of a stigma or outdated belief?

The question that changed me

When I moved into the domestic violence shelter it seemed to me as if the rest of the world outside of me surviving ceased to exist. It literally seemed as if there was nothing outside of my fear, nothing outside of survival. I did go to work and did my best to pretend that life was normal, but inside I was shaking, hypervigilant, and wondering how I would live to the next day. Everytime I went outside I spent every second scanning my surroudings looking for danger. Everytime my phone rang I feared who it was and worried about how I would answer the questions I knew would be asked.

Explaining to my children what was going on was difficult because I didn't feel I should say anything negative to them about their dad. At the time they were 8, 6, 4, and 11 months. We did talk about the scary things they had personally experienced but I didn't share what happened between their dad and me. They transitioned fairly well, but every second of the day and night I worried about them and how to best help and support them.

During my stay at the shelter I met with the counselor several times a week. During one of our visits she asked me a question that completely changed who I was and how I looked at myself. Others might wonder how her question could have caused such a stir in me, it was so simple in nature, but it was very significant in my progression. She asked me, "Amy, what are you doing to take care of you?" I stared at her blankly for longer than I probably should have. After the shock of the question wore off, many thoughts quickly shot through my mind. "What am I doing for me?! I'm worried about whether I'm going to live through the day and I'm supposed to be doing something for me?! I have to keep my children alive! I have to find a way to support my family without help! I'm so scared that I have to consciously will myself to breathe so I don't pass out! What am I doing to take care of myself?!"

I finally answered with something along the lines of I was there in the shelter and that is what I was doing to take care of myself. She encouraged me to find something  to do each day that would nourish myself. I said I would and took that goal very seriously.

It seems to be the nature of a woman to look after others needs first before her own. It doesn't take domestic violence for a person to lose themself in the caring of others and keeping a household functioning. In the case of domestic violence, it is a common experience to have a total loss of identity and self worth. Such was the case with me. By the time I ended up at the shelter, I felt utterly and completely worthless in all areas of my life except my work. Professionally I was a massage therapist. I felt that while working I had a purpose. I helped other people with their pain and problems. I made their lives better and I was good at it. But I only worked a couple of hours a day and that feeling of purpose did not carry through to my home life. At that time of moving into the shelter I only lived for my children. I wanted them to have a better life and they would only get that if I lived long enough to provide it for them.

So I began asking myself the same question the counselor asked me. "Amy, what are you doing for you today?" At first I thought this was a selfish question. I should be thinking of others before myself. But then I remembered being told at some point in my life that if I gave all I had then I would have nothing left to give. I needed to find a way to fill myself back up.

Throughout my life and in dealing with the normal trials that come with living, I had become a very spiritual person, spending much time in scripture study and prayer. I made sure during our stay at the shelter to include these things in my family's daily life. I also played hymns all night long in our room to help calm all of us. When we moved into our own place, we continued these practices. It helped a lot but there was more I needed in order to take care of myself. I prayed a lot about what to do and how to heal and nourish myself.

After establishing my family in our own apartment, I continued to see the counselor at the shelter. On one of our visits she told me that the shelter wanted to expand the classes they offered to their clients and wanted to know if I would be willing to help out. She explained that as they thought about who could teach my name immediately came to her mind. She said she didn't even know what I could teach but with my background in massage she hoped I could do some sort of class on self care. I love to teach so I agreed to come up with some ideas for classes.

While contemplating what I could possibly have to offer, I was reminded of a program called Capacitar that offered free information of what they call "emergency kits" for dealing with stress and trauma. The emergency kit is a free download that shows some tai chi, fingerholds for balancing emotions, a little acupressure, and some other amazing self healing techniques that are easy to use. They offered a training course in how to teach the Capacitar techniques not far from where I lived. I told the shelter about the program and they asked me if I would take the training and go back and teach the women there. I took the training and finally found something that worked for me that I could do anytime to nourish and heal myself. For the past two and a half years I have returned to the shelter at least once a month to teach the women there these wonderful techniques as well as other things I have learned to help deal with stress.

The more I teach self healing techniques, the more I learn how to care for myself. I'm not perfect at it, but it has completely changed my life and who I am. I have learned that I am worth taking care of. As I fill myself up, I have more to offer to my children and those around me. I find that the more I teach, the more I use the techniques for myself. Such a simple concept, to nourish oneself, yet such a difficult habit to establish. I am eternally grateful to that counselor who asked such a simple yet profound question of me that day.

What are you doing today to nourish yourself?

http://capacitar.org/emergency_kits.html