It is said that there is a time in everyone’s lives when the rose-colored glasses of childhood get ripped off your face and you’re left grappling with reality. It happened to me when I became a mother. Although, I’m not sure my glasses were rose-colored from a great childhood (I lived through the painful experience (trauma) of having an alcoholic mom). Instead, I think my glasses were a rose-tint I made up for myself as a way of surviving a confusing childhood.
My rose-tint was perfectionism. I decided that if I was perfect and everything looked perfect, I could escape judgement from other people.
Well, as we know, you can’t control kids, and life is far from perfect. So, I had to start facing the reality that I could not make things or people perfect. Expecting my kids to behave a certain way because my self-esteem depended on it was NOT fair to my kids. That’s when I realized I had to deal with my issues, my story, my past.
This was NOT easy. I was so ashamed of so many things. I was ashamed of the unstable home I came from, and of how I felt as a mother- so ill equipped, so imperfect. I was ashamed of my own sadness/depression caused by triggers from my past. How was I supposed to even start to dig myself out of such a dark hole?
I had to breakdown to breakthrough. To own my story and start dealing with my stuff was, and is, the most courageous and difficult thing I will ever do. It was not easy to deal with “my stuff”. It was painful and depressing, but I knew I ran the risk of becoming an unhealthy mother raising insecure kids. But more than that, I knew God promises joy and peace for his children (me). I also knew shame was not of God.
I now know that my story is not uncommon (although, for a long time, a voice in my head said I was the only one with these kind of issues, and I was weird. That was and is a lie!), so I’m planning to share more of my story. A lot of that is because of your encouragement, but it’s also because I know how healing it is to read another person’s words that let me know I’m not weird, or the only one who thinks these things. I do it because I know that clothes are fun and great and can help get me out of a hole, but (speaking from personal experience) someone else’s words can be life giving. And that’s what it’s all about, right?!
So in this spirit, I’ve decided there is a place for both on C. Style (clothes and my story) because life is all about living from the inside out and expressing your true self!
P.S.
This is my form of a book club -ha! What I’ve learned from starting to own my story can all be traced back to books that I’ve read. If you’ve read The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, you know so much of the insights from this post are from that book. If anything I said in this post resonated with you, definetly grab that book and start reading. I’ll share more of what I’ve learned from different books as a form of a book club and a way to share my story. That way, if what I say resonates, you can read more about it for yourself. You an see all my favorite books here.
