You know that baggage we are all carrying around with us? The baggage that we know - secretly - we're going to have to deal with at some point or other? Let's bring that suitcase out into the living room for a little while, ok? I'll show you some of what was in mine!
For many people, the baggage I'm speaking of is inside a gorgeous piece of Gucci Luggage. It's where your most heartfelt desires are buried. It can also hold your most hidden moments of fear and regret. For me, it was in my pink Rimowa carry on.
I want to share with you a bit of my baggage story. I grew up in a very religious family. We were allowed to sing and dance, thank goodness, but there were things we could not do. For instance, we couldn't participate in any school activities. We kept a Saturday Sabbath, which meant that we had to be home and settled in by sunset every Friday night until sunset Saturday night. We also were not allowed to wear makeup for the first ten years or so of finding our religion. Then they started changing the rules. But before they changed the makeup rule, we were told that God made us beautiful enough exactly the way we were. No enhancement necessary. Not true, by the way. I love God, but I think this was an oversight while he was trying to manage Adam's libido.
Anyway, back to my Rimowa. In this bag, was a marriage and a divorce at age 21. No one other than my family and closest friends knows about this and I hope you don't mind that I share it with you.
I buried that situation so deeply that I almost convinced myself that it didn't happen. Almost. Denial was my friend for many years, but once I allowed myself to give the situation more thought, I realized that I needed to deeply examine a few things:
1. What was it that drove me to need a husband at that young age?
2. Why was I so sure I knew that I was doing the right thing by marrying him after only 6 months?
3. When exactly did I give up on the marriage?
4. Why, oh why did I think that I could get divorced with no push back from my family?
What I realized - approximately twenty years later - was that I was brought up to believe I needed a husband. Not that it would be a joyful experience, but that I NEEDED one to survive. I thought I'd never be able to take care of myself, so I had better hurry up and find one! Mission accomplished!
Sort of.
Since we were both very young, and pretty stupid about the whole subject, it all fell apart very quickly. He didn't know that I was so insecure and I didn't know that he enjoyed constant social drug usage with his odd ball group of friends who remained friends since kindergarten. I was definitely the outsider in this marriage.
I know that his parents were happy when the marriage ended. I never felt like I was good enough for them. Of course now, I know that was all in my head. But...
Then the push back came. From my mother. I was very upset that the marriage was ending, so I called my mother to talk to her about it. Immediately, she reminded me that no one in our family had ever been divorced. She told me she didn't want anything to do with me and to never call her again. Ahhh, motherly love! She then hung up on me. Of course, I was pretty hysterical and called her back. This time she told me I was no longer a part of this family, and hung up again.
Let me remind you that I was a very young 21. I was an overly sheltered girl who believed she needed a man so that she could survive. I would never be able to support myself. God would never approve of me. And now I had no family. Nice, right?
But as always happens, time passed and I became more comfortable being alone. I had friends from work with whom I celebrated Holidays. I had girlfriends to go to lunch with. I had a pretty demanding job - which paid me $11,000 per year. Yes, year. I was comfortable living on Ramen noodles, Campbell's Soup and pretzels. Yum! I also found out, after some time had passed, that my father never knew that my mother had done that. He traveled a lot for work and just thought that the reason he hadn't seem me was that I was as busy as he was.
So now that I've shared this sob story with you, you might understand a little more about my life and how I've chosen to live it. Let me just add one more thing about Donna at age 21. Back then, you would never have known that there was any sort of problem in my life. I had buried it all very deeply as quickly as I could. I told myself it was a do-over. And it was. Sort of.
What I actually needed to do, and eventually did, was spend an entire weekend alone just remembering and reviewing what had happened back then. It wasn't until I did this that I realized that the whole event was the first step toward STRENGTH for me. Of course, I was seriously pissed off when I put two and two together and recognized that I was set up to fail by my upbringing. But my parents did the best they could with the tools and knowledge that they had at that time.
By opening up my Rimowa carry on, I was able to examine all of the facts - from an adult, less emotional place. I went over exactly what had happened and why it happened. I reviewed how I felt as the situation was unfolding and recognized how easily I allowed my mother to effect my emotional state. I was able to look at what I could have done differently, which enabled me to see that I had some control over the situation. Although I didn't recognize it at the time.
Knowing that I had control over any of this, created a sense of empowerment over this and other situations that may confront me in the future. And I felt ready. I felt I could defend myself and my actions if necessary. I felt I could trust my own future choices. But I must admit to you that my insecurities didn't end right here. On the contrary. It has been a long journey of decisions, mistakes, regrets, more decisions to regret - I'll fill you in on the rest at some point.
For now, I had uncovered the Beauty, Brains and Brilliance of the situation. The Golden Nugget so to speak. From a soul-crushing shunning from my mother, to a feeling of empowerment over my next confrontation, whatever that might be, I learned to feel more confident.
The moral of this story is this: Dig through your past. Every second of it. Sit with it, cry over it, and hunt for the positive lesson that you can take away from it. When you begin to focus on the positive lesson rather than the negative experience, you will have successfully added a level to your self-esteem.
Each time you add another level to your self-esteem, your are moving yourself forward toward becoming your most brilliant self. Those levels are going to be baby steps, one after another, after another, after another. And you will LOVE the new you!
Thank you for reading my step one. Leave me a comment below and let me know what your step one is or was or is going to be!
With Love,
Donna
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