Judgement...Who does it really define?
"STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES, BUT WORDS WILL NEVER HURT ME". Wrong!! I can say that the pain inflicted by the words of others has hurt me far longer than any physical injury I have ever had. So how do you get past the pain and into a place where the words no longer hurt?
First it starts with remembering another great quote from Eleanor Roosevelt "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent". Crazy right? if only it were so simple as to say "nope sorry you can't hurt me". The truth is it's not that easy but it is possible to get to a place where the words still exist but their effect is far less hurtful.
Being a teen mom wasn't easy. You get judged, by EVERYONE. the whole world seems to have an opinion about your life. What you've done with it, what you're going to do with it, how you'll end up. So as if being pregnant isn't hard enough, now envision being still basically a child yourself and the people who should be there to love and support you are the ones who are making you feel terrible. Now I'm not saying that every teen mom has this experience. I'm sure that many have wonderful experiences but mine, mine was hard.
In the eyes of the people I around me I had done everything all wrong. I had thrown away my life. I had disgraced my family and I was going to amount to nothing in my life. I dropped out of high school 6 weeks before graduation, was pregnant and married to a man I would end up never really sharing a life with. This left me to be the target of a lot of gossip. Some behind my back but much of it happened right to my face.....from the people I thought loved me. I could deal with losing friends, other kids making fun of me and even society staring at me with judgement as a walked around with my big pregnant belly at 18 years old. What broke me was my own family turning on me and making me feel like a failure.
"You should be ashamed of yourself" "You are a disgrace to this family" "Don't show your face again until you've made something of yourself" "You're going to amount to nothing and raise your child in a dump". Those words hurt! They have also stayed with me for the past 17 years. For 16 of those years I left those words define me. I have felt the sting of unacceptance by the people who should have (or so I thought) accepted me no questions asked. I spent so many years longing for family connections that I saw others had and it left me hurt, empty, bitter and broken.
The weight of those words stuck with me for so long and shaped so much of my life. I felt like I always had to put up a front that everything was perfect. I didn't want anyone to know there were cracks in my walls so I made sure I only exposed the freshly painted ones. The problem with that is the paint eventually always peels and the truth is exposed. I was so concerned about what others would say about me. "See I told you she's a failure" "Yep she's miserable just like I said she'd be" "I knew she couldn't handle things. It's all falling apart like I said it would". I was so desperate to prove everyone wrong that I lost myself in the process. The cracks happened faster and they got deeper. Soon I couldn't hide them anymore and I knew I needed to do something to fix them.
So what changed? I did! I made the decision to no longer let the opinions of others define me. Slowly I started to break down the walls of fear I had built and started to let real life in, and out I suppose. I stopped being concerned that people would judge me for how I looked, my family dynamic, or any other of the countless parts of what make me Me! The truth is my life is far from perfect and it's taken me a VERY long time to actually admit that. I know now that it was my own fear that stopped me form living my life.
I can tell you that it has taken a lot of work on my mindset to reach the point I'm at now and I still have a long road on my journey. Sharing this part of my story is not something I take lightly because it exposes a part of me that I have shared with very few people. In fact some people very close to me will be reading this at the same time as the rest of the world. Because on top of letting others define me and my own fear of being judged, I was ashamed that I had let myself get so caught up in what others had to say about me.
The woman I am today is one I am proud to be. I realize I am not perfect but I am not a failure. My family is who I have made it to be and the people I consider family love me for who I am today, flaws and all. I have never nor will I ever raise my children in a dump. I live in a house in a great village that I love raising my kids in. It's not perfect but it's mine. I have made something incredible of myself. I am a mom, stepmom, wife, respected in my company, passionate about helping other women take control of their lives and I am damn proud of the woman I am today. I am flawed, funny, compassionate, sweary, loving, passionate....I am Me. It's never to late to make the decision to Define Yourself!
