I cannot explain to you how hard it is to reclaim your life
after everything you’ve planned has fallen apart. The past two and a half years
of my life have been a complete unending string of family catastrophes and
chaos. In all those struggles I have lost myself and who I am many times. I am
such a planner by nature and when things go haywire from every last plan I
have; I give up and give in. The past two and half years have held an unplanned
pregnancy, shotgun marriage, an unfollowed birth plan, learning to be a mom,
marriage struggles, the loss of a niece, and the loss of my dreams. You see I
wanted the perfect marriage, perfect birth story, to be the perfect mom, to
have both my nieces, and for my dreams to be here with me alive right now. But
guess what that isn’t how life works. Life is hard and messy and somehow we
have to find a way to hold onto ourselves, our hopes, and our dreams.
I have always felt most myself when working out and eating
healthy. My fit pregnancy was a failure due to bed rest and preeclampsia. My
magical natural birth story was ruined by a 48 hour horrible induction and my
dreams of immediately nursing my son never happened. That for me was when I
lost myself. When I say lost myself I mean it. I was completely overcome with depression.
I hated looking in the mirror. I never had the strength to follow through with
any goals. I could barely make myself clean the house. I gave up. I let failure
take control of my life. It took me forever to get up out of the hospital bed
and walk around or do more than hold David. Once we got home I was able to
start nursing with help from a lactation specialist. But I still felt like such
a failure for having a natural birth and not being able to nurse him
immediately. No one should ever feel like a failure for their birth story but
so many of us do. But I have to realize none of those things I could have
changed. I did the best I could have.
But how do you bounce back from that? How do you come back
from feeling like a completely failure and having all those crazy postpartum
hormones surging your body and mind. Even when I was able to self-motivate
those depression hormones would kick in and I lost it. I was able to find
myself again as soon as I was cleared to workout. I showed up every day to my
program for the first time since I had become a coach. I was such a bad ass and
finished Insanity Max 30 which was to me was one of the hardest workouts ever.
I conquered it and claimed my results and felt like myself again. I finally
felt strong and in control.
That’s when things blew out of control once again. Daniels
grandma died and that spiraled into a whole mess of chaos. Between marriage
struggles, losing a niece and facing the reality of needing to provide for my
family; there was no room for me. I worked every day of the week and had three
jobs. I was a stay at home mom in the day and I worked every night and weekend
when I had free childcare. There was NO time for being healthy or working out.
All I could do was survive. Then true redemption came into play and I can only
give God credit for this because God brought back to me not only a husband but
someone who was to become a Godly husband and provider. I was able to lessen my
work load and start being the mom and woman I was made to be. I started this new
amazing workout called Lift 4 that was only 4 days a week. That was something
my plate could handle. Between being a mom, a wife, an assistant manager, and
everything else all I could do was 4 days a week. I have since crushed this
program. I swear to you I was made to lift weights; it literally lights my soul
on fire and helps me connect with my inner bad ass.
So here we are today, I look back and still feel the
undeniable hurt from these past years. But I can also look back and see the healing.
I can see the strength that was formed in me. I can see all the hard work I
have put into my life. I am here to tell you I am not done with the hard work.
Because what I have learned from the past two years is I don’t just want to
survive because survival is hard. I want to thrive and to thrive I will have to
go through pain and hard work. But guess what I will go through the same pain
and same hard work either way. I will just come out on top this time because I
will no longer settle for survival. I challenge you today to start healing from
whatever has hurt you or held you back. The longer you live depressed or
overcome by doubt and fears; the farther you push away who you were designed
and created to be. Step forward today out of that big dark hole fighting your way
towards your dreams.
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