Onto 2019

What I have learned in 2018:
👉🏼I can’t read minds nor can others.
👉🏼If I expect someone to know how I feel I must use my voice even if it’s whisper it is MINE
👉🏼it’s ok to let people leave out of your life without explanation. Sometimes there isn’t one.
👉🏼love doesn’t actually always win but it always matters
👉🏼boundaries isn’t a dirty word it’s a SAFE word
👉🏼find some type of exercise that makes you feel strong not for weight issues but for mind ones.
👉🏼it’s not only important to say no, or to stop apologizing for everything – it’s imperative for self worth
👉🏼don’t make yourself little for others when the king of kings made you to be mighty
👉🏼it’s ok to realize things that once brought you joy can come to end. You have served your time. Keep moving and seeking for what makes your heart dance in the fire 🔥
👉🏼first the pain then the rising. Personal growth doesn’t happen over night or in a linear way. It is messy and necessary.
👉🏼I can never have enough amazing friends —- there is room in my heart for the world
👉🏼 I lead into 2019 with honoring the pain and forgiving those that caused it by being grateful for the lesson they have provided me.
And for those I caused pain to… forgive me. I am human. I hope in some way it will serve you too.

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The Joy Of Missing Out

I’m scrolling, looking at these beautiful girls, with amazing outfits, in the sun in middle of January. I post a”wish I was there” comment and revel in the fact Maggie and Jen has flat ripped abs at 42 in their bikinis. I roll over in my sweat pants that are two sizes bigger than I wish to be, my hair in a messy bun, stuck inside from the two feet of snow dropped on my front door, and I imagine what it is like to be Maggie in sun wearing that bikini with pride. I now feel less then I did moments before. Questioning the rest of my scroll through my feed, why does Lindsey always post her perfect smiling family or why didn’t Megan invite me to that night out with the girls – what have I done to upset her? Maybe I need to be a better friend.

There are fragrant bonuses to having social media at my finger tips. I am easily ble to connect with people, and see the lives they portray without picking up a phone or making plans. This is amazing for an introvert like me!  However sometimes – this ability to be digitally connected 24/7 is the opposite of making someone feel not alone. If you aren’t careful it is the loneliest place to be.

Your brain feeds you the lies that you aren’t doing this thjng called life right. Why are you missing out on that all girls carribean vacation they never asked you on? Do you lack being fun anymore? Is it because you aren’t a size 2? Maybe you don’t drink alcohol like the rest or you fail at the ability to move through life with small talk? The real me shouldn’t care about the answer. These ladies in the smiling picture haven’t been my actual friends for twenty years! Yet here I am wishing I was another version of me.

The marketing tool of Fear Of Missing Out (FMO) is a real thing. Companies are depending on your to scroll and feel incompetent. There aim is to make you feel small, so that you buy the Weightloss product, you buy the bikini, you book the airline, and you go to the same exact hotel that picture held because you MUST have that same exact experience or you loose.

But… do we ever fear of missing out on the pain and the suffering of real life? The real raw life events that most do not portray in my feed on Facebook? Do you ever think about the eating disorder that got her so skinny? Or the fact fun Suzy gets invited to go out drinking with everyone is because she is hiding a horrendous addiction to alcohol?

The answer is in the perspective. How are you engaging in life and on who/what’s terms? As someone who has clinically dealt with anxiety and depression this is a slippery slope for me. I so badly want to be on a beach in the dead of winter, being at my ideal size, drinking a fruity beverage, giggling with fun girls. But the picture doesn’t feature the before and after. What it took to get there ? are they still friends a decade later? And in realty do I even want to spend five minutes with them nevermind a week away from those I truly love?

Fear of missing out is a escape route to living real life in the moment. Living your glourous life full even if it means planted in your bed being snowed in. Our lives our not meant to be linear good feels all the time-it is messy.

Messy for an important reason, that social media can’t sell you: personal growth. We all want personal growth so badly- just read ALL the amazing quotes we all post!!! Yet we don’t want to talk about the messy parts to get there. What exactly will it take for you to “own your truth” or be the best “version of you”, I can promise you, it includes a mess that won’t be posted on social media. What the general population will see is the view from the top, not the climb. And some poor soul already feeling incompetent will see your beautiful view and expect to get that over night or feel like a failure.

The real worry that should make your knees knock in tremble should be: are you missing out of the JOY of missing out. The fact you intentionally make time for people that fill your soul in real life and pass on the things that seem fun for face value. The joy of saying NO without excuses. The joy of not apologizing for the times you let others down in exchange for you to be true to yourself. The joy of knowing, that’s great for —— but for me it’s not who I am. The joy of knowing there is always more to the story and you should experience life by asking the hard questions instead of assuming you got the answers from Facebook. The joy of the mess turned to accomplishment because it is equally important.

I will gladly miss out if it doesn’t fit who I am or how I’m meant to grow. I will seek complete JOY in knowing I have honored myself. I will feel the raw pain meet the greatest of euphoria because I am busy living my true life. And when I feel the ping of “I wish” on social media, I will remind myself of JMO over FMO. I choose joy over fear.

 

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Brown Eyed Girl

It’s been nearly twenty years that I have taught the world how to better honor themselves. I’m pretty great at it. Beyond all the collegiate years in social work, I just naturally have a knack for teaching others how to unapologetically love themselves.

There has been this one client of mine that has been the most multifaceted and hard to make sense of. This lovely girl that grew up with the widest, deepest brown eyes that were filled to the brim with hope. All she dared to dream of was making a difference. She was full of promise. Pieces of her had been broken off early on in her life. She stayed in silence hoping nobody would notice because the worlds happiness mattered more than her own. Instead she carried the holes praying someone would fill them with heaps of love so she no longer missed the stolen pieces she was born with.

She was my very first client. The first soul I was responsible to teach about self-care, the first to tell her she had a voice, the first to tell her she mattered and was enough. I however, perfected the art of silencing her. Her bravery would not be tolerated in the world she had created. She needed to know she was last on the list. Everyone mattered before her. Your place was their happiness before your peace.

I lived like this for 41 years on this planet. I worked towards self-help but never committed to doing the hard work. Until one day I sat in a retreat this fall and allowed myself to start telling my truth. The moment I howled it out, it started to trickle out, then the flood gates had opened and waterfalls of truth began to dispel.

In three months I have done more soul aching, blood drenching, heart yearning work on myself then I have done in my life. I peeled back layers I hushed. I exposed parts of me that hadn’t seen the light of day since I had pigtails and doll babies. I accepted my way was no longer working for me, and in order to be whole, I needed to seek out healthier discoveries for living life.

There is nothing I love more than love. I like to get lost in people – emeshment that I can’t tell where I begin and they end. This was me often in all types of relationships with people. I wanted to hold them so close to me, that I would fit them into my missing holes of my soul and call them mine. Often this was gloriously euphoric, often lending itself to be drastically heartbreaking. I was always too much for some, and not enough for others. They would always leave. I was left with more holes.

For two decades I have taught the importance of boundaries. When in my reality, boundaries was a dirty four letter word that made me shudder. It’s a new day because I am dusting them off and making them holy.

Since I have recognized unhealthy, I can no longer see it with the same eyes. This is so damn hard because my unhealthy ways of living is what I know. It’s like a warm blanket I always had wrapped around me, stripped away making me bare in the dead of winter. My soul yelling “FIND SOMETHING ELSE AIMEE- this blanket wasn’t meant for you. Make a new one”.

But I loved the blanket. I LOVED it. Ragged, broken, and pulled, it did what it could to keep me safe and warm.

While I’m exposed on the path of discovery, I slowly knit the truth with healthy ways. It’s softer fabric then my last blanket, but much stronger. There is no room to penetrate holes in it. I will be wrapped in the most glorious blanket of all. But first the pain.

I know. I know. Sweet girl with the promising brown eyes, the pain sucks. Nobody wants the pain. Nobody wants to be exposed in the dead of winter. But there you are brave one. Holding your own. Your back bone strong, your chin up, and your hope still alive. What’s around the corner from pain is the blanket of your life.

I may know how to love the world. But world, I really suck at loving me. I am learning this. Learning that, I am the most important person on this planet I need to care for. That I, through my pain and healing, am the only one who can fill the holes I have carried and covered.

So here I am. Tomorrow 42. The most beautiful parts of me buried decades beneath my service aching to come out. And world …. I’m about to summon them. I haven’t forgotten the girl with the promise in her deep brown eyes, I just forgot how to love her.

And I do. I love her so damn much I’m marching into the fire for her release. She and I are one and fireproof. This is for you brown eyed girl, I’m no longer hushing you.

 

 

 

 

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The Power I Hold

It’s taking me a long time …
Blood, sweat, and tears … crawling with skinned knees in exhaustion – to get to this place.
A place where I have the RIGHT to decide who receives my light.
My glorious, magnificent light- that was God given – and often times – stolen from the dark hearted.
I do not need to BE there just because it is the seemingly right thing to do.
I no longer have to pretend with a fake smile when someone has hurt me and continues on as if they hadn’t.
I do not have to put myself in emotional self injurious situations because it makes other feel better.

I no longer care what they think.
I am the owner of ME.

The world will move on in my absence.
While those who deserve, hold dear, and love my presence wholly, will grow beside me in light.

Dear friends that still struggle with your power within for others …
You no longer need to be the bigger person.
You no longer need to take it.
You no longer need to worry what others think.
You no longer need to force who you are to survive.

You hold the power of NO.
Use it.
💪🏻❤️

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