I think what I am grieving is not just the idealized self that I created but also this “picture perfect” family life. Somewhere along the lines of my life I had made it up in my mind that I wanted to have children, have a partner (when I was younger I didn’t want to get married, go figure), have the nice house and be a doting mother and romantic partner.

Though I was raised in a free and loving home I focused on the voices that wanted to box me into respectability. Being seen as good was the most important thing to me when I was a kid. And as I got older that desire to be “good” manifested into deep people pleasing and perfectionism. It wasn’t until recently that I began to ask myself the questions, What IS good? How do I determine what good is? Where did this concept come from?

Perfectionism and people pleasing are the two skills that I learned early on. I pretty much lived my life off of theses two pillars. And duality works well under these skills because if I only see life as “this or that” then I will work hard at sticking to one side of the spectrum and making sure I get that aspect “right”. Meanwhile the other side of the spectrum is also valid but I ignore it and as a result my life is imbalanced.

Well, this was the relationship that revealed to me that not only was I deserving and worthy of receiving love but I was also worthy and deserving of giving it too. When he died I internalized his death as confirmation that I was not worthy. God was punishing me for being bad.

Have you ever experienced something that you can’t quite put your finger on but you know feels off? I spent the better part of those years in that space. My shadow work has been diving into the deep end of shame lately. I’ve been looking at shame and guilt and how those two have been the stage and backdrop to my life for many years.

I’ve made a decision that in this next phase of my life I will not make any decisions without the guidance and reassurance from Spirit.

My trauma had become my identity so shedding that part of me to get at the truth of who I REALLY was/am felt like an actual death. I even remember saying to a former partner of mine “Who am I without my trauma?”

Getting to those core beliefs is rough. I’ve heard that the Drake Passage, which is a body of water between South America and Antartica, is rough seas to navigate. That voyage could be ten times less scary than the excavation of those beliefs.