Every journey starts with a single step...

I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking and therapy and working on myself lately. One of the things that I've found out the hard way is that things that we refuse to deal with, process and work out have a way of making you deal with them. One day we just come face to face with what isn't working and we either find a way to cope with them (deny and ignore) or find a way to work through them. I've chosen to work through them and that decision is making all the difference. As time goes on I will share those pieces of that that I can and I will try to share what I learn along the way. In the meantime, I want to share some books that I've been reading that have helped me tremendously and they are books that anyone can find inspiration from. You don't have to be depressed, in a crisis, or having anything "wrong" in your life to benefit from these books. In fact, I wish I'd read these books a long time ago.

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED M. Scott Peck
FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED M. Scott Peck
WELCOME TO YOUR CRISIS Laura Day
REPOSITION YOURSELF T.D. Jakes

There are other books, but I will share those later. I am also seeing a therapist and it's one of the greatest tools I've found. It is important to find a therapist that you can feel comfortable with and that you feel safe to share your deepest unspoken thoughts with. Something happens in the therapist's office that is unexplainable. When we speak our truth we often hear it for the first time ourselves. I'm leaning about tools to heal the hurt parts deep inside of me that I've never verbalized before. It's one of the greatest gifts I've ever given myself. My therapist's name is Chuck and I have come to think of Tuesdays as "Tuesdays with Chuck". I look forward to going and every time I've been amazed by at least three things that I hear coming out of my mouth that I hadn't even realized I had hidden deep inside of me. Here I am fifty years old and I feel like for the first time in my life I'm finding out who I am and how to take care of myself.

Life is a journey. We all take meandering paths down very different roads at different times in our lives on the way to becoming our authentic selves. Some of us take longer than others to start the journey. But what I've learned is that a crisis, or a depression can be the best thing that can happen to us. When we are faced with our inability to cope with something and we feel broken and lost in the middle of the road there is nothing left to do except reach out for help and try to find a map to get us back on the road in our journey. That's where I've been the past several weeks. I will attempt, at times, to share some of what I'm learning here in the hope that my struggles, my journey and the things that I discover along the way can help someone else realize that the journey and the pain are worth it.

I promise not to turn this journal into doom and gloom, I"m most definitely not a doom and gloom kind of gal. There will be happy things to report and hopefully some funny stories to share, but I'm trying to learn to speak my truth (in as much as I can in a public forum), to stand up for myself and to demand better of myself. This will not be easy for me but I know it to be necessary. I know that the journey will never be complete, that it will be an ongoing trek for as long as I breathe, but I also know that every mile that I complete will bring me closer to the person that God intended for me to be and that along the way many gifts await.

In keeping with the new journey....I'm changing the look around here. There may be many changes until I find the look that feels like me. The theme here is all about accepting change...here we go!!!