Category: Podcast

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Played Volleyball in My Bathing Suit – Number 7

   Holy crap, people! I played volleyball in my bathing suit and it was my idea! My daughter and I were sitting on a porch at a campground where I had a view of the volleyball courts. I told her that I used to play in middle school. I then suggested she go to the office and see how much it costs to rent the ball. We could go play on our way to the pool later. Why is this significant? First of all, I’m not an athlete and don’t do sports. Second of all, I’d be in my bathing suit already. Third of all, it’s out in the middle of the campground and everyone can see me. Fourth of all, I don’t like to be seen…ever. 

   I have spent my life trying to be invisible. I have had body issues most of my life including eating disorders and body dysmorphia and, as an adult, have struggled with my weight. Did I mention the bathing suit? Did I mention being on display? Did I mention that I’m not an athlete and haven’t actually played volleyball in at least thirty years? Prior to doing this list, the thought of playing volleyball wouldn’t have entered my mind. Or if it did, I would have listed all the reasons above as to why I shouldn’t do it and talked myself out of it. I have missed out on so much of my life because I would shame myself out of it. 

   Once my husband and daughter picked their jaws up off the ground, and desperately tried not to make eye contact with me so as not to cause me to rethink this insane idea, we headed to the court. We started playing and not long after these two girls asked to join our game. They were around my daughter’s age…maybe between 10-13 years
old. We all started playing and my husband took pictures and I let him. What is this insanity? Maybe I was onto something. Maybe if you try to push the envelope and go outside your comfort zone and do a few brave things, your brain creates new pathways that cause you to forget all the things that you used to be scared to do. Maybe I was capable of change and could actually start living my life. Sometimes bravery is going back to something you used to enjoy.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to dig deeper into each story, my husband Rob and I do an exclusive companion podcast on my Patreon page.  We give further background into the story and include the spouse’s perspective.  Each one of these episodes averages 45 minutes to an hour. Find the link below.

Patreon @brokentobrave

I also share different content across my social media channels and at my blog on the website.  

Podcast Broken to Brave on Libsyn

WebsiteBrokenToBrave.com

Facebook @BrokentoBravePodcast

Twitter @broken2brave

Please rate and review Broken to Brave wherever you listen to this podcast. It truly helps others find the show and hopefully can help others, like myself, to become braver in their own lives and to heal.

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When It Rains… Let It – Number 6

   I’ve spent most of my life trying not to feel my feelings. It hasn’t really worked out for me, or for the people around me, because feelings come out whether we want to feel them or not. They come out in ways we don’t intend them to when we repress them. I would act aggressively, or be angry about things I wasn’t actually angry about, or sadder than appropriate for the situation. The more I repressed the feelings the more inappropriate my behavior became. While doing the WE book, I came across the line “When it rains, let it.” This became my focus and my mantra. My whole life I felt like I was staring up at the sky and shouting, “Don’t you dare rain on me. Not one freaking drop so help me God.” I would do just about anything to avoid the feelings because I was so afraid that if I felt one drop that it would turn into a deluge and I wouldn’t be able to control it. I thought I would never stop crying if I allowed myself to start. I thought that the feelings would overwhelm me and I’d die so this was one of the hardest steps I’d ever taken in my life. I tried starting out slowly. Ok, one small feeling. Survived that. It was ok and I didn’t act out in other ways for days avoiding it. So far so good. I may just survive this. Sometimes bravery is relinquishing control.

   I would do just about anything to avoid the feelings because I was so afraid that if I felt one drop that it would turn into a deluge and I wouldn’t be able to control it. I thought I would never stop crying if I allowed myself to start. I thought that the feelings would overwhelm me and I’d die so this was one of the hardest steps I’d ever taken in my life. I tried starting out slowly. Ok, one small feeling. Survived that. It was ok and I didn’t act out in other ways for days avoiding it. So far so good. I may just survive this. Sometimes bravery is relinquishing control.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to dig deeper into each story, my husband Rob and I do an exclusive companion podcast on my Patreon page.  We give further background into the story and include the spouse’s perspective.  Each one of these episodes averages 45 minutes to an hour. Find the link below.

Patreon @brokentobrave

I also share different content across my social media channels and at my blog on the website.  

Podcast Broken to Brave on Libsyn

WebsiteBrokenToBrave.com

Facebook @BrokentoBravePodcast

Twitter @broken2brave

Please rate and review Broken to Brave wherever you listen to this podcast. It truly helps others find the show and hopefully can help others, like myself, to become braver in their own lives and to heal.

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Let Go – Number 5

   I remember the first time I consciously let go. I was behaving badly: acting out, tantruming, wanting to cry and kick stuff. Basically, acting like a three-year-old. I realized, in that moment, that those behaviors came out whenever I was trying not to feel something painful or if I was avoiding something that I didn’t want to face. I separated myself from the situation and went and sat alone on my bed and just let it wash over me. It was terrifying, at first. I was avoiding it for a reason, right? Feelings can be so big and scary. I kept coming back to the fear that the feelings would sweep me away. I sat in the fear. I didn’t hide from it and let it come. 

  At first it felt like panic and fear so I breathed and reminded myself that I was safe and supported. Once I was open to the feelings, I was able to tap into what was bothering me. In this case, I was afraid that I had gone backwards in my healing process and would have to start over. I felt like all the work I had done over the years was a sham. I felt like I had simply covered over the feelings and pushed myself through it without actually healing. It was scary and frustrating to think that I had to start over. I then picked up the We book and was reminded that healing is not a straight line. 

   It’s a revisiting, not a regression, and sometimes you have to experience it many times before healing comes. I wrote that down. I took it in and I reminded myself of that daily…sometimes many times a day…for a while until I got good enough at it. Sometimes bravery is revisiting something over and over again.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to dig deeper into each story, my husband Rob and I do an exclusive companion podcast on my Patreon page.  We give further background into the story and include the spouse’s perspective.  Each one of these episodes averages 45 minutes to an hour. Find the link below.

Patreon @brokentobrave

I also share different content across my social media channels and at my blog on the website.  

Podcast Broken to Brave on Libsyn

WebsiteBrokenToBrave.com

Facebook @BrokentoBravePodcast

Twitter @broken2brave

Please rate and review Broken to Brave wherever you listen to this podcast. It truly helps others find the show and hopefully can help others, like myself, to become braver in their own lives and to heal.

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Felt the Pain – Number 4

It didn’t take me long to realize that those first three steps were the easy part. Identifying the problems clearly wasn’t going to be enough. I had to figure out how to heal lifelong trauma. I started reading the book We by Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel and attempted to begin the real work. It was time to feel the pain. I journaled. I walked. I cried. A lot. I kept going back to bed, but not as often and not for as long. The pain was excruciating. This step sucked. It sucked bad. I carried so many toxic people around with me and they were heavy and destroying me even though they had physically left years ago. I was angry at myself for letting them have access, for not leaving sooner, for not protecting my husband and daughter from them, for wasting my adult years letting their behavior keep me from living my life. I was stuck. No, I was paralyzed. I hated myself and fully believed that everyone would be better off if I died. I begged God to just let me die in my sleep. Hadn’t I suffered enough? I have to feel it again? Why do I continually have to suffer because people were cruel? I highly doubted any of my abusers were losing sleep over what they did to me. 

I had spent my life holding the pain at bay and now the only path to freedom and healing was to allow the feelings to come. The only problem with that path was the terror that consumed me. What if I let the pain wash over me and it destroys me? What if I can’t recover? I took thousands of deep breaths during this phase and grounded myself and felt the pain a little bit at a time until I learned to let go. Sometimes bravery is pushing through the pain.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to dig deeper into the story, my my husband Rob and I do an exclusive companion podcast on my Patreon page. We give further background into the story and include the spouse’s perspective. Each one of these episodes averages 45 minutes to an hour.

Find the link below.

Patreon: @brokentobrave

I also share different content across my social media channels and at my blog on the website.

Podcast: Broken to Brave on Libsyn 

Website: BrokenToBrave.com

Facebook: @BrokentoBravePodcast

Twitter: @broken2brave

YouTube: Southgate Media Group/Broken To Brave

Please rate and review Broken to Brave wherever you listen to this podcast. It truly helps others find the show and hopefully can help others, like myself, to become braver in their own lives and to heal.

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Got Out of Bed, Took a Walk, and Told the Truth – Numbers 1, 2, & 3

I’m a late bloomer. A really late bloomer. In fact, I haven’t actually bloomed yet so I guess I’m a not-yet bloomer. I know it’s going to happen. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen. I hope it’s going to happen. I’m a typical gifted underachiever and I’ve waited all my life for the moment when my drive to achieve would override my debilitating desire to hide. I was so busy waiting that I stopped paying attention to how much time had gone by until my husband mentioned that I was about to turn 50. I fell apart. I truly fell apart. How was it possible?! Fifty?! Wasn’t I 38 just last year? Where did the time go?! I lost all those years doing what? Nothing. I hadn’t achieved any of my personal goals and now my time is almost over. 50?! It couldn’t be possible. 

I was totally devastated. I took to my bed. I cried a lot. I listened to Adele on repeat so she could keep reminding me that I too was so mad of getting old it made me reckless. I felt reckless and angry and sad and desperate and so very lost. I had let myself down. I had carried all of my baggage with me and I had given my abusers free reign and let them steal my life. I felt like I just lost my whole adulthood in a blink and I had nothing to show for it. I stayed in bed leaving it only when I absolutely had to tend to my family. I continued on this way for six months. 

My husband, Rob, and I have a daughter, Molly, who at this time was 11. I noticed that Molly’s behavior was starting to change. She went from an agreeable, happy, child to someone who cried and was sad and frustrated. One night when she was leaving to go to a sleepover, Molly and I had an argument because of her new-found behavior. After she left, I went for a walk instead of going back to my bed. This was a big deal. I used to walk every day before my breakdown and hadn’t walked since. Taking this walk was a pivotal moment in my life and was going to mark a before and after.  Partway through my walk, as I was trying to process what was happening, I heard these words spoken in my head, “You’ve been saying goodbye.” I was so stunned by the words. Was I? Was I really saying goodbye? Is that what all this was coming to? I realized that I had been slowly leaving parts of my routine for others to take care of. I left groups and friends and stopped living. I was done. I had been absolving myself of more and more so that no one would notice when I was gone. At least that’s what I told myself. I was teaching my husband and daughter how to do what I do so that they could get along without me. I just didn’t realize that that’s what I was doing. I was waiting in bed to die. 

I walked home and called Rob up to talk to me. I looked at him and said the most difficult words that I had ever had to say to him, “I’ve been saying goodbye.” He was angry. No that’s not big enough. He was livid. He felt betrayed. He was hurt and frustrated and terrified. I told him that I was sorry. Molly’s behavior was because of me. How dare I say goodbye? He said to me. How dare I believe that they could survive? How dare I be so selfish and weak and insensitive? I just felt numb. Paralyzed. Please don’t ask me to stay. Please don’t ask me to carry this for one more day. He thought I was going to kill myself. I was dumbfounded. I’m not suicidal, I just want to die. There’s a difference, I swear there’s a difference. Isn’t there? I don’t think he cared much for the distinction since the outcome would be the same. I was saying goodbye. Getting out of bed was the first brave thing that I did. Taking the walk was the second brave thing and telling the truth was the third brave thing. I faced the truth and owned it. Now what? 

Sometimes bravery is just taking that first step.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to dig deeper into the story, my my husband Rob and I do an exclusive companion podcast on my Patreon page. We give further background into the story and include the spouse’s perspective. Each one of these episodes averages 45 minutes to an hour.

Find the link below.

Patreon: @brokentobrave

I also share different content across my social media channels and at my blog on the website.

Podcast: Broken to Brave on Libsyn 

Website: BrokenToBrave.com

Facebook: @BrokentoBravePodcast

Twitter: @broken2brave

YouTube: Southgate Media Group/Broken To Brave

Please rate and review Broken to Brave wherever you listen to this podcast. It truly helps others find the show and hopefully can help others, like myself, to become braver in their own lives and to heal.