Its not the obstacles we face that hold us back, but the beliefs we cling to that surround them which decide if we sink or swim.

When I look around at all the people in the world, the challenges each one of us face each day, it becomes apparent to me that the real problem is what we choose to think about these problems. We look to others to solve them for us, but the harsh truth is its up to us to make the change. Wasn’t it our own choices that brought us to this very point?

Three years ago, I met a person that began a challenge in me that still continues to this day. I’ve found that I’ve been so bull headed about my beliefs that I’ve become a hypocrite to my own way of living. A mirror was presented before me, and I could barely stand to look into it but at small doses at a time. Painful inner conflict became so strong on my daily life that I could only merely exist on a daily basis. For a time, I became an empty shell. The realization has come that the very essence of me has been buried for years and I was too afraid to ever look at it. For all of my years I had been surrounding my life on the foundations of what others had told me. My pressure for performance was killing my soul and robbing me of life. Strangely, the conflict my relationship with this person caused in my personal life would have sent anybody running, and many times I wanted to. But on a deeper scale, I knew the pain was necessary because I had hit a point of no return. The life I had lived up until 28 years old was very real but also a lie to who I really am. Deep inside, I knew it was, but consciously, nothing made sense in the process. I was so accustomed to playing the victim, that I played right into this role of transformation. Only the innate skills I was born with were what made me succumb and survive to this very necessary part of my life. My need to be better, do better and become more had finally overcome my need to please others. And so with my mirror in hand and a willingness to go through, I’ve come out the other side a changed woman. Or better defined, a rediscovered woman.

I’ve always been me, faults and all, but now I was set to live my life for me. And though the echoes of everybody else’s judgments still ring in my ears, I now know I have the choice to ignore them and walk the path I was destined to walk, because its what I want.

Most days, I feel lost on what the next best step is for me. I sometimes feel as though this path less traveled is the road to hell, but I press on knowing with a deeper revelation that it would seem this way because I don’t have anybody telling me anymore what is right or wrong, for me. I don’t have anybody, (I’m willing to listen to) telling me I’m making a mistake. The only person I have to listen to is myself. If I tell myself its a mistake, then its a mistake. If I tell myself its right, then its right. If I tell myself its okay and I don’t have to decide right now, then that’s okay too. There isn’t anything I can do now to mess up my future except to not pursue it with my heart and soul. There isn’t anybody out there that can tell me that what I want and what I do with my life are wrong. My experiences boil down to two things now. A learning experience, or an achievement and neither of them are passing judgment on me. They are simply the path I’m on and will ultimately lead me, continuously to my future.

For the past three years, I’ve been on a road of divorcing myself from my thoughts and beliefs. I am reinventing myself into a world where there are many beliefs and lifestyles that are both positive and beautiful. They are beliefs and lifestyles that are unique to each person that beholds them and now I behold my own as well. I now choose thoughts that do not hold me back, but push me forward and challenge myself and my comfort zone. Everyday, every thought, I grow stronger, bolder and more beautiful in my own unique perception of this world. Everyday, thought by thought I let go of the person I was living in with the same routine each day, week, month and year. I let go of fear, sadness, anxiety over who I was and what I wanted and choose faith that I am everything I decide to be now and forever more. I have let go of life controlling me and have taken over the steering wheel. I am the great “I am” of my own life. I control what happens. I am fully accepting and accountable for all of my thoughts, actions, dreams and desires. I am breaking free.

My divorce calls for a celebration.