Will you jump?

I’m at the edge of the diving board. All the way up to the top. I’ve been walking up the ladder the past few months and now I’m there. Standing on the edge. Looking out at the pool. Looking down at the water. How I felt at summer camp when I was 12 years old. My toes curled around the edge. Here I am. I glance behind me, there’s the ladder. I can go back down. Or I can jump.

FEAR is the only thing that holds people back from doing anything their heart desires. Fear is what keeps people out of relationships, keeps people running away in relationships, fear is what keeps us stuck. Fear is what keeps me from unleashing everything in my heart, spreading and sharing the abundance of love and joy and playfulness that lies within me. 

Fear of what it looks like when I no longer identify as a victim of my childhood. A childhood filled with abuse, uncertainty, distrust, chaos, fear.  I would be loved one day, next day to be hiding under the bed scared out of my mind because my mom was banging down the door to find me. Beaten. Told to shut up as I laughed and expressed joy. Called a bitch at 6 years old. Compared to other girls in school and I was asked why I couldn’t be more like them. So what happened? What did I choose to hear? I’m not enough exactly as I am. I cannot trust love –and that if I am loved it will be taken away. That there is not enough. That I have to DO something in order to be loved. 

I have been on a healing journey for about 3 years now. Opening my heart, breaking down the walls, learning how to meet my own needs, building self love and therefore building my capacity to love others. I have had remarkable relationships. I have amazing friends. I just dated the most phenomenal man I have ever known. I am constantly learning, growing, changing AND becoming more aware still of the unhealed wounds of the past that continue to show up in relationship. The past two weeks I have felt myself fighting, desperately, to let go of these beliefs. The belief that I can’t trust love.  The belief that I am not enough. The belief that I don’t have a voice. The belief that my dreams and my needs don’t matter. It is no longer anyone else’s job to take care of me. It is my job to take care of me. It is my job to like me.  It is my job to be honest in relationships. It is my job to trust who I am, to know who I am. 

When do the weakest parts of ourselves show up? When faced with uncertainty. YES. Uncertainty. That’s when you see the dark side. Can you sit with it? Can you remember who you are in these moments? Can you remember your faith? Can you remember your certainty in yourself? Can you choose to look at the situation differently? I have been on a roller coaster of uncertainty with my partner the past few weeks. Where will he live in the next few months? Where will I live? What do I want? This uncertainty has led me to not be able to trust him, constantly changing his mind; then unable to trust myself and I became consumed by this ONE thing. This one thing when everything else was so great. It seemed our uncertainty about the future and our inability to comfort each other through it led to the end of our relationship. There is no calm in the storm. 

I had dinner with my friend today. A long lost friend I haven’t spoken to in almost a year. She shared with me that her boyfriend suffered from a heart attack in February. He has continued to have heart issues since then, so much so that every day is “uncertain” in that his heart is failing. They don’t know what will happen. That means that every day they actually do deal with this together – that he could potentially not wake up the next day. Now THAT is uncertainty. I’m sitting there listening to her saying to myself… wow… and I’ve been worried about where my boyfriend is going to live. Really Catherine?! I’ve been so insecure, so worried, so consumed by my childhood – forgetting I have a voice, forgetting that I choose to have certainty of LOVE. That all I want – I imagine we all want, the partner who will say “I love you no matter what. I will love you through the storm. I LOVE YOU, of that I am certain.”

The uncertainty of life doesn’t matter when you are CERTAIN in loving your partner and loving who YOU are. I was in awe and admiration of her devotion, love and dedication to her partner. The way she was moved to tears she talked about that event in February and how it’s been for her now. Continuing to show up and just love this man through every difficulty. I was so moved by this I could feel the impact on my heart of that kind of love and devotion.

You stop focusing on the things you can’t control and focus on the things you CAN. Like the ability to love. Your ability to make a decision, one day at a time, with the things that are in front of you. Your ability to choose. My ability to choose. To choose to love. To share my story with the world. To start my own business. To take risks. To choose to be a SURVIVOR of my past and a CREATOR of the present and future. An agent of change. I am certain I love my partner. I am certain I love me too. I am certain of the uncertain. I am certain that I will continue to love him and I am now certain of the kind of relationship I want. Will I ever be perfect? No. Will I forget sometimes? Yes. And one day I’ll get to have a man by my side to help me remember. The gift is that I get to wake up tomorrow ready to embrace the unknown, combined with my capacity to make a huge splash in my life. I am ready right now, to let go of the past, to let go of old beliefs that are longer serving me, to show up as the phenomenal woman I am in all my life – especially my intimate relationship. 

Are you ready to take control of your life? To be responsible? To get EXCITED about your ability to change your life? Wake up. 

I am creating. I am growing.  I am changing my life. I am responsible. And it feels SO GOOD.

I jumped. Will you?