I came across a quote the other day on Pinterest that really stuck with me. ” Trust Yourself, Create the kind of self you will be happy to live with all your life” I will be turning 40 this Friday and I have finally begun to really trust myself. I have made positive changes in my life that will hopefully not only help myself but also my own children and their future children. Because they will know early on what real love is within a family.
Often in the past I was to trusting to people who did not deserve my trust. I believed like so many of us do that if I was honest and kind that would come back to me in the way others treated me. I placed misguided trust in people that should have protected me and nurtured me as a child when I was vulnerable and innocent. I now know that sometimes when you are hurt badly as a small child you cling to your abuser.
I continued to trust unstable or dishonest people as an adult because I wanted to believe the story “all mothers love their children” or “I can MAKE my life and the people in it normal” . Also I didn’t trust my own gut instincts even when they were screaming at me DANGER.
I have blamed myself for not seeing signs that my life was chaotic, I was doing my damn best to blocking out painful experiences so that my life would be “normal” and trying to create a safe place that I wouldn’t hurt again. By doing that I ignored important signs that might have brought me to a place of understanding earlier in my life. Somedays I still have shame that my family of origin was/is so dysfunctional. I read stories of kids who escape their abusive homes by coming forward with the truth and oh how I applaud those children. I also wonder why didn’t I have the insight to do that same thing.
But the one thing I take out of all of this is Now I Do. I know better, so I am doing better. It is one of the sweetest bits of knowledge I have that can drag me up by the heels when I start to beat up on that confused girl I used to be.
I escaped all that. I am the one who got away.
I am trying my very best to be the kind of person my kids will be proud of and that I can be happy to live all my life as.
Trust in my own self. I like the sound of that.