Through Acceptance Comes Healing

The sun has set on the first days of 2018. Gone is 2017 with its challenges and lessons. Gone is the pain and hurt and confusion. 2017 was full of difficult personal challenges, but I made it through by putting one foot in front of the other. As Dory says, by keeping on swimming. Because the alternative was not an option. I'm glad to see 2018 because there were moments that I pictured myself just walking off into the darkness leaving all that mattered behind me. The only reason I'm still standing here is because I knew that wasn't an option and I fought through it all.

I enter 2018 with a renewed awareness of the world and myself. 2018 brings not a new me, because the old me is just fine, but an acceptance of who I am. I have learned and accepted that depression is probably not getting off this ride with me. When I turn 80, I'm sure depression will still be right there. An eternal (unwanted) life partner. A constant companion. Sometimes whispering its lies so they worm their way into my heart slowly and sometimes shouting them right in my face. Always reminding me that I'm not enough, that I'm inadequate, that I'm unloved. Always there. Always wrong, but always there. 

I like to go into a new year with a word or phrase. Sometimes, the word fits the year, sometimes it doesn't. Last year, that word was acceptance. I realized and accepted a lot over the course of the last 12 months. I actively worked on accepting everything from the season of life we are in to how pregnancy and postpartum have affected my body. It was empowering. This year, I have sat and thought and the word that keeps coming to me is 'healing." Over the course of accepting myself and my life, I've realized that there is still a lot of healing that needs to be done in order for me to live my authentic life. Not only in my body in regards to my diastasis, but spiritually and emotionally too. I need to find that little girl somewhere deep inside me and hold her. Tell her she's loved. Tell her she's more than enough. Tell her that no matter how dark the days ahead may be, she's not alone. She'll make it through. Perhaps by doing that I can forgive myself and let go.

This is the year of active healing.

This is the year that I move forward.

This is the year that I let go.

This is the year that I forgive myself.

This is the year that I start living my authentic life.