The Long Journey Home

I’ve been on what feels like a long, winding and weary path to get me to this point in time. The ability to become comfortable in my own skin. To like who I am. It started with a simple desire that ended nowhere near what I had thought I needed or wanted. It was not what I had intentionally sort but became a way to awaken myself to my potential. It’s funny how life often works like this. It guiles us luring us down a path we would never have glanced at, offering you all that glitters and shines, bedazzling you. Then the path becomes hard to follow, you find many forks and decisions must be made. You walk in circles until you find the right guides, ask the right questions and most importantly act on decisions you make, deciding instead of being frozen in time you will take one step at a time on the path home.

This long journey home began with a lie, or I would never have taken the first step. I had lied to myself to get me started. I would never have thought I was even worth the effort. I would never have seen value in me. I was wife, I was mother, I was daughter, I was sister, I was friend, and I was anything but true to me. I am the chameleon. I will be who you need me to be to have approval. I was the master of outsourcing my value, relying on others to tell me who I was, so “won’t you please tell me who I am?’”

I was damsel awaiting rescue finding value in herself only through the approval bestowed by others. I was sleeping waiting to be woken to life. This did not mean I did not love those in my life or my life so far but part of me knew I was not giving them the best of me. How could I when I did not know what my true potential was.

Back Story

I did not know what I was in for when I started my meandering.

It all began with becoming a future empty nester facing life of what next… and this cannot be happening!!!. All I have ever wanted in life was to be a wife and mother and without my approval it was changing.

Sometimes, I look at that deep desire to be mother and I wonder if I wanted to be better than mine? Guess what I still messed up. I do not regret one moment as wife and mother I adore my family. The love of children can be easy, but no one can prepare you for the heart ache that comes with being a mother; it truly is unexpected and in equal parts devastating and rewarding full of love. I was going to be the best Mother! My children probably have a different view on that. All I can say I was the mother their souls chose. I was what they needed to get the ball of life rolling for them. I did the best I could, and I love them all fiercely. This Momma bear has had to learn to back off and allow them to live their lives. I could not live vicariously through them or for them, I could not take their pain and hurt or prevent it in any manner nor could I claim their successes. I had to learn that I was not them and they were not me!

This journey has nurtured compassion and kindness allowing me to view my own mother in a different light. I have found deeper and a greater appreciation for her. I have opened my eyes allowing me to see she is human with her own flaws not an omniscient presence who knows all and should have got it right! She is human and has made mistakes, but I now see she did love us all and I could not read her love language which was so different to mine. I made peace with myself and my mum. This acceptance would come further down this road I was to travel and this peace with mum was because of my journey home.

Journey Begins

My path began with the looming empty nest and seeing my husband work himself into the ground and I knew I would need to help. I already kept the books for our business, but it was time for me to venture further and generate an income to help our family.

This need to generate income was a whole can of worms! I did not want to go back to what I knew. I ached and I needed something that was going to fill my soul more. I wanted to be relevant! I wanted work that would bring me joy not just fill my time. So, my journey began, and it began with a lie it was not about work at all, but it was about radical self-acceptance and transformation.

This journey was more than the need to generate income; it was the baited hook that helped me down a path I would never have walked if it was left to me. This was the path and journey that developed into a quest to find who I am and what I stand for. What a quest! The question was asked and first steps taken … Who was I and what was my purpose in life?

Purpose is a deep dark hole, a vortex that sucks you in and swallows you whole. This was the journey I needed to find how to come home to myself, to come home to my soul. It was the quest to stand on my own. It was me rescuing my damsel in distress no knight could ever be up to the task. It was never about work. I had not discovered this truth yet, but I have discovered everything I have done over the last nine years was to find who I am. To find my values. Find what I believe in and learn to walk my TRUTH and truth be told I am still learning this lesson. This was the start of The Lovable Self learning to love and accept everything about herself. It was the acceptance of the light and shadow parts of me. Once I found some level of acceptance of the path I walked and who I was I would become Dear Soul Wisdom sharing what I have learned along the way. Life has a plan you just need to learn how to read it.

Keep reading my stories to find what I have found along the way. This path has been long and winding with many missteps, but you do not awaken or learn in life without stepping up and accepting the challenges that life lays before you.