I have started and then stopped writing more books than I can count. Years ago, I was a member of the National Speakers Association and some of my speaker friends used to tease me and say “Why don’t you write a book called
All the Books I’ve Never Written?” At one particular NSA meeting, the topic was on book writing. After raising my hand and sharing the fact that my problem was that I just had too many ideas and titles in my head, the woman sitting next to me, passed me a note that said “No, your problem is that you’re afraid of letting people see the real you.”
“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.” ~ Muriel Rukeyser
I’m sorry in advance if I split the world wide open, but here goes nothin’…
Seeing the Real Me
I’m either having a breakdown or a breakthrough. Either way, kind of like giving birth, it is both painful and tremendously liberating at the same time. I’m coming undone – and that’s a good thing. All my life I’ve cared way too much what others thought of me and was desperately afraid of letting anyone see the real me.
Ever since I was a little girl, I felt like I was destined to do something really BIG with my life.
But how do you do something really BIG when you don’t trust life and don’t believe you’re worthy of anything, let alone living your dreams?
My mother drummed the message, “who the hell do you think you are?” into my head so many times that I actually believed that I was a nobody and that there was something wrong with me.
She died when I was sixteen, and by then, having already lost my dad when I was ten, never asking for help and pretending that I had it all figured out was the way I showed up in the world. My purpose in life became proving my mother wrong and showing the world that I was SOMEBODY!
I desperately wanted to be seen and heard, but needed everyone’s approval even more. I work a mask to the world, pretending that I was “fine” and that everything was great.
I’ve since learned that “fine” actually stands for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. YUP! I was fine alright.
There was a battle raging inside of me and the only way to function was to numb out with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, shopping – anything to keep the outside looking good and to keep from feeling. And it worked – until it didn’t.
I discovered the hard way…
You can’t selectively numb emotions. As long as I was trying to numb out fear, I was also simultaneously numbing out any sense of real joy.
Twenty years ago, the mask started to crack and I was suffocating. I was crying at dinner parties as the alcohol started doing the exact opposite of its desired effect. When I wasn’t running away, I was running around like a crazy person in search of the answer to the question:
Is there more to life than pain?
The answers came in the form of two well meaning friends. One girlfriend, after listening to me sob at a girls-night-out gathering, came over to my house the next day and gave me a book by John Bradshaw called
Healing the Shame that Binds You. She made a special trip to drop it off and when she handed it to me, I felt like she sucker punched me in the gut.
I felt raw and exposed.
Shame? Do you know who the hell I think I am? I don’t have any shame. I was so pissed off and vowed never to open that book – ever. Yet, ironically, I didn’t throw it away and it sat on my bookshelf for several years, taunting me and daring me to open it.
The second friend was actually a student from one of my aerobics classes. I was working in the Health & Fitness field but I sure as hell wasn’t healthy. Exercise had become just another addiction and a way to keep everything looking good on the outside. One day after class and completely out of the blue, a girl gave me a set of Jack Canfield’s
Peak Performance & Self-Esteem tapes and said “I think you might really get a lot out of these.” I was mortified and gave her a look that could kill.
Self-esteem? I’ve got plenty of self-esteem. Do you know who the hell I think I am? I’m the best goddam aerobics teacher at this gym!
I wasn’t fooling anybody. These girls had seen right through my facade to the core of my pain and I hated them for it. The seeds, however, had been planted and I embarked, kicking and screaming, on a healing journey. I read the book and listened to the tapes over and over and over again. And then I read more books, and bought more tapes and went to workshops and seminars galore – trying desperately to figure out how to be a better version of me – because who I was still wasn’t good enough.
Then ten years ago, I really crashed and burned. It was like the perfect storm: I got sober and went into menopause at the exact same time. I was a mess and in the midst of that maelstrom, I finally became willing to let go of who I thought I was supposed to be in order to become who I really am. At about 4 months sober (I know, I know), I got the bright idea to write a book. In theory it was brilliant and I certainly had enough material to fill a library. I just had no idea how difficult it would be to let go of a lifetime of programming.
So here I am, all these years later, still facing that inner struggle – one day at a time – learning how to let people see the real me. Some days are easier than others, but I have learned that the more I love and accept myself – flaws and all – the less concerned I am with what others think about me.
We Teach What We Need to Learn Most
I know how it feels to go through life believing you’re not good enough, and in spite of myself, this is the very thing that fuels my passion to help young women believe in their own inherent worth and value, and to help them believe that they are good enough – just the way they are. My own turbulent relationship with my mother became the impetus for the work I do with mothers and daughters; helping them develop a sacred relationship based on unconditional love, trust and mutual respect.
So who the hell do I think I am?
I’m me – perfectly imperfect! By dropping the mask of feigned perfection and allowing myself to be really seen, I’ve found the courage to stop pretending I know it all and to dare to ask for help. Ironically, by fully embracing my vulnerability rather than running from it, I was finally free to tell my story!
All the Books I’ve Never Written
Well, guess what? I finally wrote that book! I’m heading into the home stretch and the manuscript will be finished by June 11, 2013 – the 10th anniversary of my sobriety.
The book is called
The 9 Lives of Kat, a real-life novel, based on my own life. The story is about a girl named Kat, who is scared and lost and who believes she is all alone. She goes through nine major life challenges in search of her purpose and the meaning of life. All along the way, through every trauma and obstacle that life throws at her, she discovers that she is being guided, that she is loved and lovable, and that she is never alone.
I cannot wait to share her and my story with the world. I’m imagining a girl, lying in bed with this book in her hands, feeling like someone truly gets her and understands her pain. And just maybe, someone saw through her facade and gave her that book. I can only pray that she will begin to trust life and to believe that she too can find her way through her own life’s challenges and dare to say “I’m me – and I am good enough!”
Is the world still in one piece? PHEW! Stay tuned!
P.S. Please leave a comment below and let me know the ways you’ve dared to embrace the real you. And… please share, not so much that I want others to “like” this, but so that more people will know about this soon to be released book. I want girls all over the world to read this book and to really embrace who they are. Thank you so much!
