Finding Myself

I just opened an old journal to look back at who I was before my transformation.

7/26/2015

This is all my own doing or undoing as it may be. I choose this life everyday. I choose my attitude and my own path. I am the one who is lost in the woods.

I know so much better in my deepest soul. I know who I am and what potential I have for my life, and how I am letting it spoil like old fruit. I am letting myself die, as I wish death upon myself.

So then Rachel Anne- who are you and what do you want with yourself and your life? Aside from your husband and children, who are you? What do you want and how are you going to get there?

This job is not it. When are you going to stop drinking? The pink invitation is sitting on your bedside table?

Get healthy Rachel Anne. Stop drinking, get fit. Find your healthy self. Find your spiritual practice. When will you find time to meditate every day? Just 5 to 10 minutes. To read, to pray.

Find yourself- pull yourself out of the depths of sadness and this loss of self.

Pick yourself up Rachel Anne. Find your strength. Find your spirit and heart.

This entry is among many others that are full of blaming and anger about the life I was living. Full of wishing that others would change, that it would be different to make me finally feel happy and free. I can see now that my mind was more often in that place of feeling like I was a victim of my life and the deep sadness that I felt from that state of mind. I can certainly see how that state of mind from my other journal entries fueled my need to not feel and check out from the view I had of my life and how that contributed to my over drinking. An art piece that I had made was a self portrait with the words- “I am losing myself” has been on the wall of my art space slowly fading over the years. This was a stark visual of my heart and soul at this time.

What I love about this entry is it seems like a moment of clarity- a reminder that the answer to finding peace and happiness comes from turning inward and choosing to make changes with myself instead of wanting the outside to change.

This path of recovery- one of self reflection and taking responsibility for my own feelings, reactions, and thoughts has allowed me to find that which I was searching for….. Me. I have changed how much time I spend worrying about the future, or regretting the past. I am spending much more time in a state of mindfulness and awareness of being in the present moment. I am grateful that my focus is on connecting to the Universal Spirit and from this I have begun to feel profound love for others, and finally even for me.

At times I wonder why it took me so long to see what was there the whole time, the answer to my problems. But then I realize that I am exactly where I am supposed to be NOW, and that this process has been essential to my learning and the opening of my heart. I will continue to work on accepting all that is in my life as part of my Spiritual Journey- both the joys and the hardships. I realize that it is only now that I really WANTED to make change in my heart, I am finally ready.