Thank you.

For everything.

It is all a gift…

recognized or not.

Yesterday was a very stressful day…again!  lol  I know, I can’t help it.  My husband is off on disability so things have gotten a bit tight and every time we have to really focus on finances I become a complete mess…for a while.  I was speaking to one of my very best friends on the phone and I asked her to pull a card for me.  For those of you who do not quite understand what I mean by that, I will explain.  I believe in angels (a lot!) and God and manifestation, etc.  I have decks and decks of angel cards and crystal jewelery which I wear and use to meditate with (when I can, even if only for a moment as I am doing housework) and I ask archangels for help daily.  I also thank them daily for their help and for all the blessings in my life.  So one of the cards that my dear friend pulled for me was “Forgive yourself” and I have decided that that’s not such a bad idea.  I have decided that in order to live the life I want to live, forgiveness is likely going to play a big part in helping me achieve that.   In addition to itemizing some of the things I am going to work towards forgiving myself for, I am going to issue a public apology for some of my past behaviour.  I am not the same person today as I was 5, 10 or 15 years ago and of course, there are people who I have mistreated, who I continue to think of and given the opportunity to see  face to face would gladly seize the chance to apologize to them directly.

I will start with the apologies.

This one is to a girl who I ended up crossing paths with due to a high school boyfriend.  This may seem very silly to everyone who reads this, but this girl was, I believe, a very sweet girl, a good girl, who would never do anyone any harm. I think that’s why I’ve never forgotten her.  It’s crazy because we never met personally. The only contact we ever had was a phone call and catching a glimpse of each other across a room once.  Long story short, my “boyfriend” and I had broken up and were (I thought) working at getting back together.  As it happened, just as I thought things were going well, I left for a holiday for two weeks.  When I came back, everything had changed, he was as cold as ice and it looked like getting back together wasn’t exactly going to happen.  We kept hooking up, but all was not peachy.  A little while later I happened to find out it was because he had a new girlfriend.  Shocker!  Ya, I know.  So 17 year old me was terribly hurt and incredibly pissed.  I took it upon myself one night after way too many cocktails to call this sweet girl and tell her all about her shitty boyfriend.  That’s what I feel bad about.  I didn’t lie to her about anything at all.  I do think though, that it probably wasn’t up to me to tell her he was a shit.  I’m pretty sure she would have found out eventually, like I did. She (I am certain) was/is a complete sweetheart and the truth can be painful.  I am sorry that I made that phone call and told her everything I did.  Going back I would never have done anything to cause her any pain.  To Grace, I apologize.

The other girl I would apologize to, I used to work with.  She was another absolute sweetheart.  We worked together for a while and we were friends.  Again, I acted poorly.  I had worked at this company for quite a while and I had had to fight for every ounce of credit I got there.  It was tough place to work at times, I was very young and I probably had an enormous chip on my shoulder.  This girl came in (through me) and she was good at the job and as sweet as pie and everyone loved her.  Looking back with my (almost) 37 year old eyes I can see and admit that I was jealous.  I was jealous that she didn’t have to struggle to earn respect the way that I had had to.  I felt like I was being replaced and it made me very insecure.  The result of that was that I ended up being unfriendly to someone who had become a friend.  She probably never knew what the hell happened.  What do you think when you’ve never done anything to someone and that person turns into a total B**** for no reason at all?  To Danielle, I apologize.

There are a couple of other apologies I will offer, however, they are to my mother and brother and will be their own posts altogether.  I will leave them for another time.

On to my list of things I promise to forgive myself for.

I forgive myself for being jealous at times.  I absolutely despise that feeling.  I’ve been lucky to not experience it a ton, but don’t like experiencing it at all.

I forgive myself for drinking too much in my twenties and making bad decisions.

I forgive myself for the things that happened in my life because of my bad decisions.

I forgive myself for feeling a truckload of shame for my decisions and poor choices.

I forgive myself for not being kinder and gentler to myself over the years.

I forgive myself for my most recent failures as a breadwinner.

I’m pretty sure there are a million other things I could add to this list, but I don’t want to overwhelm myself.  haha  The only thing I can do is to work towards forgiveness for myself and vow to do better going forward.

Yesterday I was a complete and total wreck!  The cause of this state was financial anxiety regarding my current debt.  The debt isn’t too bad, however because I haven’t worked very much this year it causes me a lot of stress.  I have had a job since I was 11 years old.  I’ve always worked and always paid my own way.  This year has been a bit different and I struggle with it constantly.  I do still have a job – sort of.  I am self-employed in the financial services industry and I work from home while I am raising my 7, 5 and two 2 year olds.  It was fairly easy to work from home with the older kids when they were small.  They went to daycare part time (2 days a week) and they are very independent.  They always knew the rules when mommy was working and they followed them.  Working from home with two year old twins is a completely different ball game.  Because I took it a little easier at the beginning of the year I didn’t do very much which didn’t give them much opportunity to learn how things work when mommy is working.  Unfortunately for me, my husband was hurt before I was able to get much work done ie. make much money for the year and I haven’t worked since he has been home.  The entire situation is strange to me because even the potential for work that has come along hasn’t turned into anything tangible – which almost never happens!  It rocks me to my core to be so dependent and so vulnerable and to not be providing for my family.

I am so blessed in my life, by my children and husband, my health, my sweet little dog, etc.  I could go on and on.  My husband and I look at each other and tell each other all the time how lucky we are.  I am grateful.  I try very hard to stay in the moment and enjoy every second of my time with this family we’ve created.  Yesterday though, because of the stress I was feeling, I felt like a total failure.  Some days it just seems like nothing I am doing is right or good enough.  I feel like I can’t succeed at anything I am trying to do.  I want to work and provide for my family, but I have lost all interest in my work this year.  I don’t know if I want to do it anymore.  When I do work, I love it. I am passionate about it and I care deeply about the people I work with.  When I’m not working, I feel dread at having to find another way to source business.  Truth be told, I hate trying to find business.  Doing it part time from home with no childcare has definitely hindered my networking abilities, not that they’re strong anyway.  lol  I hate networking.  I feel like a total fraud.  For me I would rather get to know someone because I am genuinely interested in getting to know them and seeing what common ground we have than creating a false friendship based solely on what we can do for each other.  I would love for my friends to send referrals to me because they know how capable I am and how hard I work for the people I represent.  I know that is naive, but it’s how I feel.  I guess it tells me and the world quite clearly that I likely am not cut out for self-employment.  Hopefully I am wrong and I get my mojo back soon.  I have to do something!  I can’t go on like this for much longer.