Reclaiming Self Worth

A painful divorce bring forth a journey to reclaiming self worth

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All I ever wanted was to feel worthy. Deserving of having any wants or needs, let alone having my desires be met. Mine is not a solo story.

The majority of my coaching clients come to me with no idea of what they really want. They’re in some sort of transition, aware they need to make a change, yet they know that facing the prospect of living life on their own terms aligned with their own desires for the first time is daunting.

Simply naming desires — feeling worthy and deserving of them without worrying about the logistics and implementation — is the portal into the process of healing, truth-telling, and transformation.

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For most of my life, I needed validation. I looked outward for permission. Permission to offer myself love and acceptance. I put everyone else’s dreams, needs, and desires before mine. I spent my days managing the perceptions of others, projecting an image of perfection. In the process, I forgot something.

I forgot to live my own life. Marriage was a long time to be away from myself.

I didn’t feel loved for who I was—especially not in my marriage—so I believed I never would be. I checked out. Went to sleep. And was awakened only by an explosion of epic proportions.

After the dust settled, I had a choice. I could either stay numb and go back to sleep. Or, I could face my fears. I could embrace change. I could stop living my life in reaction to others. Own up to desire.

And so the journey began.

The journey to knowing, deep in my essence, that I am loved. No matter what I do or don’t do. Even if I don’t do anything I will be loved.

But how? I needed courage. I found it in my body.

My body — flesh and bone — a treasure chest. Its cellular secrets under lock and key until the moment they were ready to be freed. The thaw came that way: an instant, a window, an opening. If I’d left sooner, I would not have been able to stay away. If I’d stayed a moment longer, it would have been radical self-betrayal.

I remember leaving for the last time. I bought a clean new mattress just days before, knowing it was a last offering to a lost time. I quietly told the truth to someone safe. There was the night I thought I heard him coming for me—first hope, then fear, then resignation. I remember finally asking for help. I remember when I didn’t think all the help was going to help. I remember when it finally did. I remember all the hours around the hours. Those hours building the skeleton of a leaving. Those hours of bone. 

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I thought it was just about a marriage ending. But it was about so much more. Mourning the marriage, but also mourning the self I had been.

Making room for the one I was becoming. That one—the new me—who could not go back.

Who could not survive in such a dry climate.

Or could she? She who so much wanted to go back. How to hold on to that part of me? Simply hold on to it and not act?

Uncertainty. The tension of opposites. How, just when we think we have landed, we are actually further unearthed. Ground must be restored, but not through stillness. Stillness will not satisfy. I discovered life as breath: fluidity is the only ground we can seek.

I remember the instant my marriage was over. Feeling like a failure for not fixing him. For not making the marriage work. For staying too long or not long enough. Waiting for him to sign the divorce papers. And also secretly wishing he would break down the door. Come back for me. How the jingling of any dog tags on any dog collar took my breath away. No idea that the last time I saw them would be the last time I saw them. Fun and happiness and pleasure were on hold indefinitely.

But then, a break. An unexpected encounter, a moment of awe. Sensation returning to my body. And there, my breath still held, I felt hunger for the first time.

And I cut my hair.

Florence, Italy. In Michaelangelo’s gallery, bodies birthing themselves from rough and ragged chunks of marble. Unfinished Slaves, frozen in a state of self-excavation. I, too, was carving myself back into life.

Shame and guilt stripped away, revealing my raw flesh. I reclaimed time lost: my unlived life. Forgiveness arrived, tentatively at first. Then—now—in bursts of disbelief. Inhabiting my life completely– no hiding, truly living – is unparalleled.

Once there was a marriage and now there is me.

What do I know now? I know that happiness, fun, pleasure are necessities. I know that loss is loss and grief is grief. I know that forgiveness is the gateway; freedom and love lie beyond. I know that nothing is better than living my life as it is happening. Meeting the miraculous moments as me—just me.

Just being me is the only thing I ever have to do to be loved.

I know that living on the other side of my greatest fear, I can do anything.

Endings and beginnings are kickstarts and catalysts. An invitation to a life I never knew was possible: this extraordinary life I am living now.

And above all else I know that no matter what I do or don’t do, I am worthy.

I offer my heart to you with the hope that it serves as a compass to lead you back to yourself, with an invitation to find and trust your own voice as you dive deeply into your desire.

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 being held and belonging (a poem)

 

it all changed

the mood

the pulse

the pace

the swelling

the room itself

was swollen

grounded in trust

as if my body was a napkin

being pulled through a ring from the pelvis

deep into the earth

 

or like a candle melting down from the inside

dripping and pooling at the base of my spine

if i was someone who would say

it’s my kundalini coiling and rising

then i would say that

 

now allowing my body

to feel the sensation of wanting

don’t have to try so hard

don’t have to try or think at all

to conjure anything to get myself anywhere

other than where i am

 

the point of contact

the point of entry

as friction gives way

purely physical response

riding the edge of the wave

unharnessed pleasure

blossoming and going over

the richness and

the yumminess of it

the heightened sense

of being held and belonging

upon return to this body and breath

 

let go of the ground that has held you

recognize that your only hope

is to be comfortable with uncertainty

so much strength and stamina

found in the ungrounding

sailing past safety

 

i can’t go back into the darkness

after finally emerging into the light

 

worthy

and deserving

of desire

 

finally

i am allowing

love

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