My Birthday Wish

For You

49 years on this earth. I honestly can’t wrap my head around it. How is it possible that I am more than halfway done with my life. How is it that I have two grown children? How is it possible that I have made it this far and still see beauty in this world and in people? How is that possible? I honestly don’t know but I do know I struggled because life is damn hard! I will never deny that. I know because I know what it is like to be faced with a truck load of trauma and still wake up every day. I lived with childhood and adult trauma, then losing my health and my body betraying me, and then just to top it off ….a brain aneurysm for my husband was added to the load…. I pretty much gave up for a window of time and hated my body and my life! But I choose to wake up from that place….. That choice I made was to fight, fight for my life and not give up because I deserved peace. I always felt a pull inside myself. It was my light, my light speaking to my darkness. Reminding me there is beauty that we must experience in this world. This pull reminding me that all the outside wasn’t what defined me. What mattered was love. I knew the answers in my heart but my anxiety, worry, my need to manage/control things, and my lack of feeling safe in this world dimmed that light and quietly told that voice….. that voice of hope that it wasn’t true. That life will always be unsafe. People will only be happy if I stay quiet and small and never express myself or be MORE. I needed to show up for them and be what they needed….Never be more or need more than them or be too much to handle with my existence. These are the lies we tell ourselves. But still my light would begin to shine brighter and tap me on my shoulder reminding me to return to love. Return to love Stacey. Let go and allow yourself to be loved and to exist. Look around and feel it and see it. You deserve peace and you know Stacey. That knowing inside you is TRUTH! There is beauty and your pull in the direction of that is why we are here on this earth. To experience it all!! Look around you and breathe. I still have days that I tend to forget and react to life through my traumatized eyes because I am human. As a human I failed as a parent on somedays, I failed by being reactive, I failed at life….. but I now know I was doing my best, but the greatest gift I gave myself is my grace. I am sure therapy had sooooo much to do with that. I didn’t go to therapy so someone could validate my thoughts, I went so I could become more self-aware of how I ticked and take responsibility. Validation was there and it helped YES. But mostly I learned why I did the things I did and why I felt the way I did. I also was able to see lots of truths and by being able to say, “That happened, and it was real and not ok,” That saved me!!!!! And so did learning that I am lovable and enough, that I always was. I learned I didn’t need to make excuses for people’s behaviors that caused trauma and/or pain in my life. It was simple…. It isn’t and wasn’t ok and I don’t have to think otherwise. And strangely I can forgive but my forgiveness is for me. I deserved peace and to move forward. I can still have love for those people, but I let go of expectation and leaned into acceptance. Acceptance that people have their own path and aren’t always willing to take the journey of self-exploration and responsibility and that is not mine to judge or fix. I learned to trust myself! I no longer talk myself out of everything. I WANT to do better, and I WANT to heal. And I am doing it and I am so proud of myself. That is not to say I don’t have bad days or forget my truth here and there but that is the beauty of being human. Feeling all the emotions that come along with it and allow them to exist. I just don’t unpack and stay there. I allow those days and then I remember. I remember I am more than a bad day or these thoughts that try to make me think I am not enough or that the bottom is going to drop out again in life and I will lose my health, my happiness, my home, my stability, my beautiful world I created and AM SO PROUD OF, my husband to another aneurysm because he most certainly can’t survive something that wasn’t survivable again….. I will lose because somehow what I want, need, deserve, and feel doesn’t matter. Those are the days I struggle and feel lost in my darkness. But then I remember, and I give that darkness love and remind myself of the beauty in life and the light inside me that is so much more than I ever allowed it to be. And then I breathe and let my light shine bright. Even on my birthday this year I thought I don’t want to “inconvenience” others by my mere existence and needs. These are those days that I can’t help dimming my light so I don’t shine too bright but now I can see it and acknowledge it as a non-truth and lean into love…… Still, it is uncomfortable, but I learned it is those uncomfortable moments that are our greatest teachers. So, I allow discomfort, and I explore it and my thoughts to decipher what is truth or what is my trauma talking. My little girl coming out to warn me it isn’t safe. I see her and I hold her and remind her I got us now and it is ok. And I again breathe……..

So, what is my birthday wish? My birthday wish is that y’all find beauty more than chaos and despair. My wish for you is that you lead with love and let go of judgement or conditions we place on the love we give. I wish for you to choose healing over DIS-ease. That you see that life is meant to be filled with moments not stuff. That if it calls to you that you seek therapy because it is truly healing if you utilize it properly. Use it as a tool for growth not to stay stuck in your old ways of thinking. That you recognize that anything in excess isn’t serving you. Examples can be the obvious like drugs and alcohol or gambling YES but it is the not so obvious things that we use to disassociate and disconnect that are not talked about enough! Things like exercise, spirituality, scrolling, the internet and information, our need to control, our need to shift blame onto everyone else and so on…. These things can keep us stuck and disconnected and it is all to avoid ourselves and our healing. Healing is scary and DAMN HARD!!! But it is worth it.  My wish is that you are willing to go down the path of self-awareness and self-responsibility. And while on that path you give yourself compassion and grace. That you learn to give others the same. My wish is that you stop self-sabotage and lean into to self-care. That self-love becomes a priority and so does your ability to differentiate between that love and selfishness.  That you don’t use your unhealed traumas to stop you from experiencing life and joy. YES, my biggest wish for you is to learn to experience JOY!!!! Joy while watching others smile and laugh, Joy from experiencing the beauty in nature, joy from the quietness, joy in the memories being made in the moment you are in right now, and joy from the reality that you GET to be here!! That you stop the constant looking for problems and catastrophic thinking. You stop the constant judging, blaming, shaming, and finger pointing. What is the point of being here if not to love! Not one of us is getting out of here alive yet we live like tomorrow is promised and it is not. So, all I ask is that you consider my words. That is my wish!

I am sending so much LOVE and LIGHT into this world and into your world. I love you and am thankful you are or have been a part of my life’s journey! -SW