DAY 1 OF FINDING MYSELF.......

For Christmas a couple years back my Aunt got me a book called Life lessons for women. Its basically chapters on reconnecting with yourself and who you are... So instead of pouring out my usual sappy, romantic, kind of pathetic hold on a love life that doesn't exist I thought I would share these steps with you. I will Journal my entries each day and hopefully improve with each blog... but if you know me I can sometimes hold myself back but new year, new thoughts, new me!!!

Chapter 1 Re-Collect yourself

K their are quotes like these the beginning of each lesson...

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in the world. by Lucille Ball

Pre lesson- the first little sections talks about learning to love yourself, that you sometimes have to not depend on other people to tell your beautiful or notice you for all your give. The activity was to right yourself a love letter... this one was really hard for me in fact when I first got this book, this part made me put the book down, cause I couldn't pass this section. So I am gonna give it a try again... here it goes!!

Dear Lisa,
I know that life seems tough, but what I can promise you is that their is no one on this earth that loves you more then me, I will always stand beside you, encourage you, and never abandon you! Your an amazing mother, you love your children with all that you have inside you, proof is in the way I see them look at you every night when you tuck them into bed. No one can love you the way those three angels do, and they always will love you Lisa, embrace that everyday. I look in your eyes and see the beauty that you cannot see when your sad and alone but your in there just waiting to burst out and make your appearance just believe and you will see it too. I am inspired by your courage, love and hope for passion and the happily ever afters, hold on to that even when it hurts, they are good traits. I love the girl who makes up her own words, dances in the living room when no one is home, sings in the car like she's a rock star, clumsy as hell and dangerous in the kitchen and cares more about everyone else then she does herself... when you think about it, its inspiring really. I know your soul has been broken but with each breath we take together, we will heal, we will grow and we will live life for us. Your an amazing, caring women with so much to give from your heart. Love will find us again, until then you have all you need right here inside your heart.

Love,
Your Soul

So Lesson #1

Take stalk in your life... It says to love oneself is like building a life long romance that cannot be broken... To build you and a life you love, it says the first step is to take a look at how you got to where you are and the connecting thread that holds all the pieces together. The book says to look back at your accomplishments, passions and priorities. Review what truly matters and what has made you who you are....

Activity: Answer the following questions...

What do you love?
I love my kids, photography, my family, my friends.

What are your core beliefs and values?
My beliefs are the fairytale... in love and relationships,
My values are strong family connections, honesty, trust, communication
being a good person and teaching my children to be good people

How do I create a life that fits who I am now, not who I have been?
I am not sure on this one because for I have been trying to fit my life into a page of my past believing that giving your heart and soul to someone and not giving up on them or love is what life was about. Now I am not sure who I am now or what my life i suppose to be, but ready for the journey of self discovery and learning to love myself and the life I deserve.

Lesson #2 Recognize your strengths

This one says that you can not put your focus on your flaws or shortcomings (totally me) you have to recognize our strengths and talents and positive qualities and realize the everyone you loved, every mistake you made, everything you have done, every obstacle you have overcome is part of the women you are today. Its says that I have to love myself in a whole and appreciate and love all of me and stop robbing myself of my best days dwelling on my worst.

Activity:

What are three things I have accomplished in my life that I'm proud of?

My Childhood
Graduating from High School
My Children


What are five of my strengths, talents and positive qualities? (it says I have them but It took me a long time just to come up with these...)

Being a good mom
photography
giver
strength
survivor


How do I use my gifts and strengths in everyday life?

I take care of my children, with all that I have good or bad... I give them all I have.

Starting school for photography, doing shoots on the side to practice

Continue to give what I can to friends and family to help strengthen those relationships.

I use the strength i have in me everyday to get up every morning and continue on with life, even when I can't see the light.

Through all rough patches I have survived, I thing that is a strength for me


Are there ways in which I could make better use of my resources?

I tend to forget that I have these qualities and focus on the negative parts of my life, I could try to remember every morning that I do have these qualities and that they make up who i am and use them to better my daily attitude.

So that is the first two lessons wow that was hard especially the pre lesson, I wrote, cried, rewrote and finally just kept what i had.... I really had to take a look into myself, really dig, for me I don't see myself and to find things I see are strengths was really hard but this is all about learning, finding and loving yourself so I guess I am on the right road, hope you keep with me on my journey.... Tomorrow lesson 3

Looking in the Mirrior......

Life's choices can become pretty hard at some points in life you can look right in front of you and believe you aren't the person you use to be or this person you have become, you can look yourself straight in the mirror and not even recognize the person looking back at you. I looked in the mirror staring at my own reflection I realized that somehow down the road I became someone I don't even know anymore and more then anything I want to know her!! I have more then once looked in this mirror each time seeing someone different through out the years, more then once I have asked who is this women, who do I want to be, why are you broken, why do you let these tears fall down your face and create this pain reflecting here and now tonight I look in this mirror and this time not with tears falling but with this feeling of loss, of soul that has been wrecked and broken and found a deep and emotional need to find my soul again. I have told myself to pull it together more then once over the years, the walls seem weak within you but find the will to build the wall stronger, sturdier and funny thing is I always have but I have not ever built them strong enough to not follow the same mistakes twice... It amazes me the people you find standing next to you through your tough times but what amazes me even more is the ones you thought would stay and now are the ones gone like the wind and sometimes the only person to help you stand is you and you alone. I wrote this tonight as I looked into the mirror trying to find what I see....

I looked into your eyes,
I saw your soul
felt your feelings,
was willing to hold your hand
walk into the future with you,
with no expectations or judgment.
Just hand in hand
In to our future.

I thought of this tonight when I looked at myself , wondering where the women inside me is and I thought how badly i have felt those words, and how I had applied them even to the point of losing myself in more then one relationship... And I realized that now I need to mean them with myself. I can mean these words within myself, because I do see into my own soul and feel every feeling and what better way to give me power to rebuild myself but to walk hand in hand with my heart and soul rebuilding my foundation that made me an amazing person I am and the more amazing one I want to become. I know I am someone to love, a friend to value, an opinion to respect, I know that I deserve to respect myself and know that I am someone that can effect life, help people, create and cherish relationships and I have so much love to give, to friends, family, my children and one day a life partner. As I look in this mirror, I stand here and realize that I should not be ashamed or embarrassed about my past roads traveled but to wear my mistakes and accomplishments like badges of honor, each one one surviving hand in hand through my life to bring me to the woman I want to be. We are sometimes blind in love, we don't see the whole picture or realize what is right in front of us or what we are losing. How is it that our hearts can be so blind and our minds shut down so easily? We all push through life to get to our next moment not realizing each one we are in are ones to be savored, cherished and to learn from, each moment creates a piece of who we are and who we are becoming another when they are all gone we look back and think I wish I could have done this or I wish I would have tried harder to do that. Starting today, I am really going to try to savor every moment, learn from every minute of the day, soak it all up, take it all in, give life my all and form the women I want to be instead of living in the fairytale of what I want in my future or drowning in my past, wishing for what i had and hoping for what has not yet occurred. I will live here in the present working on me, for now I am alone or am I cause really the "thing to remember is if we're all alone, then we're all together in that too" "So now, alone or not, I have got to walk ahead." proudly, with courage and strength and become someone I am proud of looking at everyday and someone who one day will be rememberd for the love she gave on this earth.

2008 to 2009....Stand Still to One foot in Front of the other!!!

2009 is here, already counting its days till the next new year! Each minute ticks by and each moment flashes by with a blink of your eye. We start our new year with a kiss of someone you love (hopefully) and of course resolutions, our promises to ourselves and our loved ones, a run down of items on a to do list of things you want to work on or accomplish. You look at where you have been and where you want to go and your flooded with all these expectations that your mind and heart holds for your future. Some of us are satisfied with how our life is we just want to add some exercise days or spend more time playing games with our children, some of us have a list of what to do's and where to go's, some of us hold pain and hope to release and some of us are all the above.... I am a all of above kind of girl. It took me a couple days to write after the New Year rang in, maybe because god keeps testing my strength and my heart and he has tested again just days before our new year hit, he keeps sending this women back into my life, and I keep thinking that I am the one to save or love her, I keep looking over my shoulder every time she leaves again waiting to see some sign that I am suppose to stand still, that I am suppose to understand a little more or encourage her life, say or do more to show that I love her and am a support group for her and I did that alot in 2008, and of course with my ability to text and plunge myself into the depths of silence with each word I text her hoping and holding on to a vision that if I had my feet planted right there where I was I thought she would one day catch up to me that she would catch up and love me in return. I thought if I put my life on hold long enough that I would be a sign for her to come, because how deep is love that stands still even when she's moving on, living good or bad she kept living and I did not, I lied to my friends and family, stayed home countless weekends by myself in the dark with ice cream and love movies, I stopped living, What kind of love holds on like that? A crazy one, one that leaves you looking for signs of what to do and looking for a life that will never come...
We all look for signs, big flashing neon signs saying things like "This is the right road", "go here", "Let this one go" or "Hey Stupid What are you doing". But unfortunately these signs rarely exist... of course if you know me, i have this crazy, somewhat insane belief in signs, faith, serendipity, life's meant to be's Hmmm.... The signs didn't show me the roads I thought in 2008, and as i look back there are things I would wish on every star in the sky to go back and change but I guess my life has a bigger plan then what I saw, I have many things to be thankful for. As I sat there on New Years day waiting for the minutes to countdown, my aunt asked me if this was it for me & my Az, and I looked at her and even as I said it, that "it had been off and on and that I can't make her love me and I am sure it is over for her because even in the last couple days where I had let her back in and she still says the same words but continues the same actions, I hoped in that moment that I would be wrong but as we counted down to Az New Year and then Cali New Year the phone was silent, no text, no call and I knew in My heart, my soul that I had to give up this stand still, make a move forward. So I grabbed my kids, hugged and kissed them embrace the people who loved me there in that room... I have to take a step forward, stop writing about how I know what I need to do but actually do it, she will not come, she will not commit, she will not rise above the life she has created to start a new one, not with me anyway and my self inflicted pain of believing this stand still plan will that I have been doing will some how work out has now fully blown up like a firecracker on the stroke of midnight. In these last few days, I will admit I have text her, and I guess to only prove to myself no matter how much I say, how much I give or cry the continuing silence from her of course will be all I will ever get and I realized every time I pressed sent how horrible I felt, how much pain I caused myself, waiting for someone that will never respond, I created more pain then not texting at all. I know her memory will haunt me because somehow I cannot shake her from my soul and I will miss her because she is so much more then a memory to me but lord this pain has got to find a way to heal...

So for 2009, I hope to let go of my pain leaving it in 2008, Learn to love myself, knowing that the greatest gift I could give myself is to know that I am worth so much more then what I was giving myself by stand still, living in the dream I had created. I want to embrace my inner and outer beauty, knowing within myself that I am worth loving, cherishing and fighting for. I will search within myself for my inner peace with this and take one foot in front of the other and say only this... and maybe she will read it.

Az, No one will ever understand our love nor do I need them too, or why I held on as long as I have but I see the most beautiful,smart, amazing, loving parts of the person within your soul and even now as I have to set myself free from being the one to share that with you my soul smiles and aches at the same time because you are so much more then you give yourself credit for. I know that you are worth every moment I stood still waiting for you. I know in my heart every moment was worth it, that every time I smiled looking at you sing, that every time my heart sank every time I had to leave and every night I thank god when I fell asleep in your arms... I knew that every hard time was worth those moments when we were close. I believe in my heart that you will find your way, that you will work it out and every moment in my life I will be sending you my love, my support and hope that you have all that you deserve. I forgive you for the pain, and thank you for all the joy. Love is all about living and I lived more with you then I had for some time and I will never be able to thank you for that, I hope someday I will feel that again. I will be letting go from here but know that I will be with you every step of the way and that I hold no regret or anger towards us or you. I do hope that with every step you take in life that you look upon our memories and it fills your heart with some type of joy and some kind of love, enough to keep you moving forward to strengthen your soul to love again.

Goodbye 2008