Photograph by Cheryle St. Onge
A painful divorce bring forth a journey to reclaiming self worth
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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>Learn more about the author at www.nancylevin.com
