when life sucks, it’s because you deserve it.

I have a draft saved on this blog for something that I was working on, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. I have to acknowledge what is at the forefront of my mind, because it is intricately tied to what’s going on in my soul (and the soul is where all the magic happens). My soul is exhausted. It has been a very difficult summer for me. This is the first summer where I’ve let myself do nothing. No working, no volunteering, no planning. I think I subconsciously set myself up to break down and rebuild. No distractions are there to hide what is going on internally. Oh, boy. I am so big on vulnerability but I have to admit this is so hard to bring forward. This summer has been one of the hardest and coldest I’ve experienced. In a way, I feel like every hard thing I have experienced was boiling in a pot and for some reason, this summer is when it all boiled over. It has been so necessary, but so miserable. I am reading Glennon Doyle’s book “Untamed”. I have known about this book for a couple years, but one day when I was in Target looking for another book, I saw it on the shelf and just instinctually grabbed it. I didn’t know why all of a sudden I wanted to read this book so much, but when your intuition is so strong that it controls you physically and draws you closer to something, you just go with it. Thank you, intuition. This book has been my Bible. When I feel alone or misunderstood or hurt, I open up this book and like magic the next chapter is about exactly what I am feeling. Glennon writes eloquently about things I have always felt, but then she takes it a step farther and explains why I have felt the things and how it can help me. I just had to put the book down because one chapter in particular just shook me to my core. Glennon said, “Love is a river, and there are times when impediments stop the flow of love. Mental illness, addiction, shame, narcissism, fear passed down by religious and cultural institutions—these are boulders that interrupt love’s flow…Your parent—your sister, your friend, the one who couldn’t love you—her love was impeded. That love was there—swirling, festering, vicious in its desperation for release. It was there, it is there, all for you. That love exists. It just couldn’t get past the boulder”. I have been in my bed sitting in shock from that excerpt. I took a minute to think about the boulders I have, and the boulders that other people may have that are blocking love from flowing through my life. I have been gutted by the level of isolation I have been feeling this summer. Why don’t people feel my love? Why can’t I feel the love of others? I have a strong belief that the Universe knew this was going to be the Summer of Healing, because this book came at a perfect time. The Universe was like, “We’re about to take everything from her, isolate her, and watch her tear apart every limiting belief she has had thus far. And, we’re also going to bring up situations that bring her worst fears out in front of her eyes. We’re also going to make it so that she has no distraction from her feelings, so that she misses nothing. We should give her a handbook of some sort or she might just think we hate her, ummm let’s give her Glennon’s book. She’ll be okay”.

I had a dream earlier this summer, and it took me through different stages of my life. It highlighted some of my worst insecurities, my hardest moments, and my greatest fears about the future. I woke up in shambles. What am I supposed to have gained from that? When you wake up from a dream with energy flowing through your body but don’t feel rested, I believe that sleep wasn’t just used to rejuvenate your body, but to fuel your soul. This dream exposed the hell out of me. I learned that the universe was going to keep putting me in situations that triggered trauma responses until I let myself process the trauma. Every relationship, every struggle, every victory, every opportunity, every loss. It is all repetition. I have grown tired of seeing the same things play out over and over again, and it has stopped me from hoping for better. Do you ever think to yourself, “Why me? Why does this keep happening to me?”. The Universe heard my questions, and responded with, “Because you will not let it go. And you won’t, not until you look it in the eye and tell it to go away yourself”. I have spent years trying to explain to myself why I could have possibly deserved the bad things that happened in my life. I have spent so much time trying to be “good”, trying to avoid being intertwined with the things that made me feel bad. I have learned, in this Summer of Healing, that everything is circumstantial. I understand why I do the things that I do and why I have the core beliefs that I have. I have had to adapt to survive, and I’m going to keep adapting to the pain I’ve witnessed until I am free of the pain I have experienced. But I reached a breaking point. I no longer want to just survive, I want to enjoy the life I am living.

The thing about pain and trauma is that it will show up in everything and everyone you know. Even the things and people you love. I learned that you have to be okay with letting the pain come up, and you have to forgive yourself for the way you deal with it when it does. Everyone is doing this. This summer has taught me that people are trying their best. I know this, because I am trying my best and still have been told that my best just isn’t good enough. I have written before about unconditional love (check my last post). I thought I understood it, but now I know it. Because I have finally extended it to myself. I love myself unconditionally. I do not have to be perfect to receive love and to be accepted. I am allowed to honor my pain and to hold myself when that pain isolates me from the world. If no one has me, I have to have me. My fears all have one remedy, and that is unconditional love. Yes, awful and unfair things have happened in my life. Unconditional love says, “Yes, and I am a testament to why you didn’t deserve it”. Yes, I am afraid of being imperfect and people not sticking around because of it. Unconditional love says, “Yes, and I will stand by you when those people leave, because my love is not limited to them”. Yes, I am afraid to be anything other than “good”, and when I am not I feel unworthy of love and understanding. Unconditional love says, “There is no good or bad, you are responding to the cards you have been dealt, and I honor your willingness to navigate it. I have compassion for you, so have compassion for others”. Whenever I find myself bound to bed, when my vision is blurred from the overflow of emotions coming through my eyes, when my phone is dry and I feel disconnected from the outside world. I ask myself, “What is to come of this?”. Sometimes, you have to go through it alone to show yourself that you are never alone as long as you have yourself. You are somebody. Your relationship with yourself and your life is what sets up your relationships with others. You have to know, you have to know, that you are worth the struggle. You are worth the mess. You are worth the pain. You are worth the loneliness. You are worth the conflict. You are worth the anger. You are worth the work and you are completely, without a doubt, worthy of the gifts that come from it.

I am so excited and overjoyed to see what I am aligned with now. I no longer feel like a prisoner to my circumstances. I no longer feel like I must beg to be understood. I no longer feel that the things done to me by people deeply hurt and insecure due their own circumstances are my fault. And on the flip side, I know that when I am hurting, the things I do to others is a reflection of my own journey to healing. Nothing is personal, we are all trying. I have spent so many summers avoiding the pain of the past. I have had so many conversations trying to explain away and minimize my hurt. I have excused so much mistreatment, believing that I deserved it. And if it weren’t for this Summer of Healing, this Summer of Crying, this Summer of Isolation, this Summer of Anger, this Summer of Reckoning. Who knows how many more lessons I would have to repeat, how many people I would have to lose, how many opportunities I would have sabotaged thinking that my pain must define the beauty of my life. The most beautiful thing I have learned this summer is that I am magnificent. And so are you. Look at us, rolling with the punches and walking in our worth. Look at us, being hurt but still choosing to be kind to others. Look at us, giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt and letting no one else define our journeys for us. Look at us, choosing to keep going when we feel caught in a circle of despair. Look at us, alive and beautiful. I am proud of myself, and I am proud of you. Love yourself for your mess, and keep your head up high.

Self love sometimes looks like failure. Other people may not love you unconditionally, and you must know that it is because they do not love themselves unconditionally, either. You are strong and doing what you need to do in order to align yourself with your highest good. Let everything else stay behind. You are running towards yourself, running towards love. Keep going, and don’t worry about how it looks to anyone else. You’ve got this. Unconditional love will wreck every part of your life. It will take away things you thought you wanted. It will cause people to hate you. It will bring you to your knees. Go with it. When you wrestle with the parts of your life that do not feel good, you are fighting for yourself. Keep fighting, keep loving. It will all make sense.

When life sucks, it’s because you deserve it. You deserve to look the pain in the eye and fight it. You deserve to kick pain’s ass. That struggle you feel? You deserve it. You deserve to rise above, and you absolutely will.

I love you so much, I really do.