The words “Every step of the journey is the journey” hit me like a ton of bricks while I was at the White Sands Buddhist Center. I was about a year out from removing booze after hiding two decades of near death trauma. My body was still like an old rollercoaster that needed lubricants to move again. I was determined to get my life back even if I was unclear how to do it at that time.
Healing has been hard and worth it. It has taken many steps and patience with myself to reach here along with a lot of amazing people to show me love and support. My children and close circle of friends helped carry me across the finish line when my body could no longer go.
Surrounded yourself with love and maybe that’s not your birth family. Protect yourself and your peace because no one else will. It’s totally up to you so make the decision to live and free yourself because abusers abuse because they keep getting away with it so staying won’t change them. If you stay then know that death is lurking at your door. Let’s change the future and narrative by speaking up louder for all to hear our voices across the globe. Domestic violence is a global epidemic and it does not discriminate.
I had to dig deep inside myself and figure out how I wanted to spend the second half of my life after all the hard shit I had endured. No one could have prepared me for the level of victim shaming I went through by my Appalachian family and abuser. I survived that too but it was totally unethical, illegal and dehumanizing. I was treated like a subpar person and that hurt my children deeply too. I have never understand why Appalachian women were treated like second-class citizens in some circles like my birth family other than the indoctrination of the Bible Belt. Now I understand it cycles of abuse and it’s up to us to change it. Break the silence, break the cycle.
The adventure of self love started out more like a lonely road and I kept looking back to see who else was going to travel with me. No one. I had to travel self-love alone. It’s not even like standing somewhere with a lot of different directions to go or places to choose from. I didn’t even know what self love was therefore it was just me standing in the middle of nowhere. I had no boundaries and my ethics were in the toilet. I had spent a lifetime of pretending to be someone I wasn’t or making up who I thought other people wanted me to be or maybe who I liked sounding like I was however, getting to the core of authentic me has been a pleasure once I began to love myself.
Loving myself is an inside job and we all have to do it. Self talk really does matter and it’s one of the most important things that we can work on because once you shift that vibration inside of you, it is hard to say critical things about other people and eventually you see it start to change. It’s the process of slowly rewiring your nervous system and behaviors. It’s done and little shifts every day. Awareness is clutch and a big reason for sharing. The more that we can use mental health words appropriately the healthier hours society will be. 
I’ll keep adding more content along the way, so please check back. Use your voice and you are not alone. You matter. 💜🙏🏼 Jenn
