Begin to Embrace Life

In my quest to "find myself" I am wondering how many women after having children find themselves a little lost once their children are independent... I figure that it must be quite a high percentage as most women dedicate their lives to raising their children and being a wife etc.

So how does one go about finding themselves?

This is the first stage in my journey...

I am going to stop living unconsciously, as if I had all the time in the world. The love and good and the wild and the peace and creation that I am will begin to be revealled. Well this is what I hope will happen!

So this is the plan... I am going to begin to consciously break the rules I seem to cling to. I am going to begin to slow down the pace of my life and to take time to smell the roses, so to speak. I want to open my eyes up again and to see things as a child, to marvel at the amazing sunsets, take in the smell of the salt spray at the ocean, see the small miracles that surround us all on a daily basis and breathe... I am going to allow myself to cry and to let emotions out (this may be a very gradual process though).

My life has been a blur of events due the fact that I have been rushing through it. I have had some many amazing adventures and endured some hard times, but I have not allowed myself to process these events. Perhaps that was due to the fact that I am sometimes too scared to feel raw emotions, due to the worry that they will unleash old emotions that have never been dealt with. 

I have a tendency to sweep things under the carpet when I find the emotions too hard to deal with. I would rather look like I am coping perfectly fine with life, than let people see the broken person I perceive that I am. 

Over the years I have noticed that I have stopped allowing myself to be happy. I have thought about this a little and have come up with the conclusion that I have been telling myself that I do not deserve to be happy. I have been punishing myself for any wrong I have done, for wrongs that have been done to me, and because I have MS.

One thing I have been trying to come to terms with is having multiple sclerosis. I actually thought I had dealt with my MS pretty well, until recently when a friend of mine said casually that it had taken me years to come to grips with having MS. Had it? Gosh I thought I had done a great job of ignoring it, sweeping it under the carpet, and carrying on so people did not see my fears.

Truth be told I don't think I still have dealt with the diagnosis. How do you know that you have accepted MS? Should you ever really accept it? 

I have had MS for 13 years. I was diagnosed at the age of 22, 6 months after the birth of my first child. I won't bore you with my symptoms or medications etc. Lets just say it has been a rocky road where I have been on EVERY medication available to people with MS. At  last ditch attempt to stall the MS I had 2 years of chemotherapy. Praise be to God as I have not had a relapse in the past 3 years.

Anyway back to how do you deal with having MS...  Being told you have MS is quite a shock, even more so when you are young and have so much life left to live. I don't think I went through the typical denial phase as it was evident that something was not right. But I think I buried the feelings of fear, and that is what holds me back in life. 

The problem with MS is that you do not know what is around the corner, which makes it even more important to embrace life. I think fear has been the main problem for me. I find it so hard to make plans for the future because I am scared of what is in my future. I am not sure if that makes sense to anyone else. 

The fear and worry is always buried deep down, and reappears with stronger emotions every time I have a relapse. Dealing with fear over and over again has made a knot in my stomach that I worry that I will not be able to undo. I am hoping that by embracing life fully that this will help either crush the fear or to help me unravel it. I guess time will tell if this strategy will work for me. I am hoping it will.

I thought that as I am quite spiritual that I would not feel like such a scared child at times... but I do. I spend time in quiet reflection and prayer when I get scared and fearful, and I know I am not as strong as I thought I was... People say I am strong, but they do not see under the surface (well not many do). 

For now I am going to focus on the good things in life and try to live each day enjoying all that happens, new experiences, and planning for the future. I will also try and make an effort to not sweep any more emotions under the carpet as I think I am running out of room to bury anything else.

x