I Was The Other Woman

This has been one of the most difficult weeks of my like.  I can think of nothing more painful, other than the loss of my sweet friend Steven.  You see, on Monday I learned that my former boyfriend got married.  Big deal, right?  Well..... by former boyfriend I mean we decided to just be friends SEPTEMBER 10th.  "Get rid of girlfriend" must have been on the pre-wedding checklist, along with order flowers, and get a ring.   I am not sure how he thought this was going to play out.  His attempt to keep this from me consisted of deleting me and everyone we knew in common from his facebook page.  He didn't count on old fashioned word of mouth.  

As his lies unraveled this week, I learned that he has been engaged the entire duration of our relationship-more than a year.  Us planning a life together, him telling me he loved me everyday, making love-it was all just a....what?  Game? This isn't high school anymore....ya, he did the same thing to me then.  He was texting me to arrange a meeting a half hour before he said his vows.  I saw him 4 times after he was married and he never mentioned it and of course his wife had no idea he was with me.  He is a broken man, who has now created two broken women and some very confused children.  What is sad is there is a good man under all of his damage.

I keep getting asked "how could you not know" which really doesn't help the pain and humiliation that I am feeling.  I didnt know because I trusted him then.  In retrospect, yes, I should have seen it, there were tiny signs. Not letting me tag him in photos of us on facebook, an excuse every holiday, me not meeting his family when they came to town,  most of our time together being during the day-he was a master at explaining away everything......yes, I should have seen it. But I didn't, I have joined THAT women's club...against my will.  The story is out now, at least all I want to know.  His pastor knows, his wife knows, his family knows and now he has to be accountable.  

So I have spent this whole week trying to JUST BREATHE....minute by minute.  Trying to ground myself when everything is spinning out of control.  JUST BREATHE.....JUST BREATHE.  I realized that I had been carrying this low level anxiety in my gut for a long time.  My intuition trying to tell me things weren't right-that's gone now.  I suppose one of the lessons from this is to LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN to intuition. TRUST it.  ALWAYS. . 

I don't know what the future holds, its too hard to look in that direction right now.  It's also too hard to look back, so I am practicing just being PRESENT.  "Just this, just this" is my mantra right now.  I am practicing self love/self care as much as possible, drinking too much wine, praying, painting, walking,doing yoga, calling on my spirit guides and my tribe sisters for strength.   Somehow under the weight of all of this I am beginning to feel lighter.  For this moment, I will JUST BREATHE..

The Worst Kind of "Domestic" Violence

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Statistically, 1 in 4 women will experience domestic (aka interpersonal) violence in her lifetime.  That means we all know someone or have experienced interpersonal violence ourselves.  This is an important topic and I don't want to be dismissive but I want to talk about a bigger epidemic that needs to be addressed and that is INNER personal violence.  Every woman I know has experienced this because we do it to ourselves. We wage war against ourselves, bully ourselves,  withhold love from ourselves.  We speak to ourselves in way we would never speak to another person....call ourselves fat, ugly, unworthy,stupid, etc.  We abuse our bodies with unhealthy habits.  We commit acts of violence against ourselves everyday and don't even recognize it. Even worse, as they watch us perpetrate against ourselves, we are teaching our daughters to do it too.......opening the door for them to attract men who will reinforce the negative beliefs they have about themselves.  

It is time for us to extend ourselves some compassion, grace, acceptance and love.  To proclaim our "enoughness" just as we are.  To recognize ourselves as the amazingly imperfect goddesses that we are. To be good in our skin no matter what it looks like.

I read this from Chris Zydel this morning:

It doesn't matter if you made some choices that did not turn out the way you expected them too. If you ended up feeling disappointed. Or like you failed.

It doesn't matter if you promised yourself that you would stop doing something or start. And then you didn't. Or you stop and start and stop and start and don't get as far as you thought you would.

It doesn't matter if you're scared. And because you're scared you spend time agonizing and feeling paralyzed.

It doesn't matter if you think you made a mistake. Or others think you made a mistake. Or if you actually DID make a mistake.

It doesn't matter if you keep falling off of your own personal wagon again and again and again. Or that you have patterns that you can't seem to break.

It doesn't matter if you make six figures, or lose that 10 pounds or have a house on the beach or are blissfully happy in your life.

The only thing that matters is that you keep yourself in your own heart. No matter what the external circumstances are. And if you can't do that, find someone else who can love you. And if they're not around , try and remember that Spirit doesn't care what you do or don't accomplish.

The only thing that matters to Spirit is love. Because Spirit is love. And you are Spirit. Which means YOU are love. And ARE loved. Always. No matter what. You are loved.

Thank you Chris. Every once in a while I need to be reminded what I am made of...who I am made of. I am grateful for tribe sisters who do that.

So to acknowledge Domestic Violence Awareness Month and to honor those women who have been lost to interpersonal violence, I am committing to end my INNER personal violence and start exercising grace and loving acts for myself. Please do the same.

PS..I love you