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Meet the Critic

At my darkest and loneliest times, she is there. In the silence of the night, she is there. When I’m at my weakest, she is there. She is with me when I walk into an uncomfortable situation. After a heartbreak and in my grief, she never leaves me. When I’m on cloud nine, and hopeful she shows up. When I’m anxious and unsure, she is talking to me. When I’m hurt and angry, she supports my feelings. She validates my actions. She gives me the option to run away. She remembers everything I’ve ever said. She knows my past. She knows my weaknesses. She takes pictures, so I remember what we’ve done together and all of our experiences. She is the one who hasn’t ever abandoned me, and the one never stops showing up.

I’m sure you’re wondering who this is. Maybe a mother, a daughter, a sister, a lover, or a friend. She is none of these and all of these. She isn’t anything and she is everything. She is the voice inside my head that I fight to silence every day.

You may think that you know her, but let me explain. She isn’t there supporting me or empowering me to keep going. She wants me to stay this way so she can thrive while I struggle to merely survive.

Who Are You?

You won’t meet her, but im sure you know someone just like her. You can’t see her, but her voice is always there. You probably aren’t a fan if by chance you know her as intimately as I do. Consider this your proper introduction. However, I don’t know if you will understand.

She steals the spotlight, demands to be heard, and aims to hurt anyone who dares to silence her. She is the one who tells me that I’m never going to be enough. She shows me the worst parts of the people around me. She drives them away, then tells me “see they don’t love you. Otherwise, they would stay.” She manipulates my feelings and twists my words. She tells me the worst-case scenarios and keeps me fearful of my every move.

Where Did She Come From?

Sometimes, she sounds like my mother, telling me I will never be pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough, or just enough. Other times, she sounds like my abusers who made me believe I was always to blame. In my head, she can make anyone sound like a hurt from my past. She has pictures and videos she can play to remind me of every hurt I’ve ever endured. She holds the buttons to my triggers. She is persistent and doesn’t care about the consequences.

I know she is made up of the broken pieces of my past. She is the child who felt unwanted. She is the teenager dying to fit in. She is the young mother looking for a way out. She is the abuse survivor. She is a traumatized woman. She is bleeding in the shower. High in the bathroom. A thief. A covert narcissist. An abandoned young adult. A lonely wife. The mother who was too scared to fight back and save her children. She is the addict. She is the worst part of me. That’s who she is. She is the version of myself I’m scared to become and equally terrified she is the real version I keep hiding from the world.

Change Her, Break Her, Abolish Her

I have tried to allow her visitation and then quickly see her out. However, she is relentless. At times, she is the only one who validates the unfairness of this life. She allows me to be not okay. It’s oddly comforting to be able to wallow and grieve a life I didn’t live. However, she aggravates those wounds I am trying so hard to heal. She breaks them back open and makes them bleed.

The past suddenly becomes present, and she revels in the power to overtake me. She feeds on my pain. It is as if my own mind is going to destroy me slowly. She holds me hostage. I struggle to break free. No matter how hard I try, I haven’t found a way to rid myself of her.

Fighting to be Free

You may think I’m just negative or that I’m weak. I’m the exact opposite. I am strong because I fight this voice that prays on my downfall each day. I’m successful in defeating her, but she knows when to strike. She pulls me to the darkness and holds me captive to her cruel onslaught of verbal blows.

I’m unsure if others fight off this toxic voice made up of their past. However, I know it’s lonely when it’s her and I. Maybe another person wont feel alone with no one who understands that the voice inside your head is sometimes hardest to silence. Even now, years into healing I still struggle to find my healthy escape from her torture.

Now you’ve had an introduction. If sometimes you see me cloaked in fear, paranoia, resentment, anger, or anxiety, please know I did not choose this for myself. I don’t need your attention, but meet me with compassion instead of judgment. I’m broken, and this is what repeated trauma has left behind for me.

It’s not easy. Sometimes, it’s the hardest battle I fight in a day. It is a battle of dismissing my past negative and limiting beliefs. I try now to remind myself of the 3 years of work I’ve put into my healing. However, I fight every day for the future I want, not to stay prisoner to the past, I escaped. I hope you, too, can find healing, and one day, I hope there is comfort in silence instead of her voice telling me how I will never fully overcome the trauma of my past. You and me, we’ve got this! ☮️ ❤️😊~M

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Beat the Odds!

The Goal Getter Guide for People Who Get Sh!t Done.

Some part of all of us who at one time or another we feel life shouldn’t be this hard or that we should have had it all together by now. We aren’t going to find the solutions to all of life problems today but we can fix a lot of our problems and start placing our bets where we are guaranteed to win. We can fix our fixation on the future, lower anxiety and still have a goal getter mindset and accomplish everything we want. This is why my way is better than what you’ve been doing and how using this method changed my life!

First things first-let it all go. That’s a stupid saying right? {I’ve always hated the straight to the point sayings.} Is it untrue though? No. that’s one of my biggest tips I can offer you. Stop fixating on the goal that there is some worry free life where everything magically works out and we get everything we want with minimal effort. Our focus may be in the future, but we want that quick fix solution NOW. Why else would millions of people pay money to play a game they are going to lose except for 99.8% of the time? Who plays that game? People will pay for a game that is nearly guaranteed to disappoint them to have the little hope they have in the moments before, the dream? What game is this? If you hadn’t already guessed what game, it’s the lottery.

People pay millions of dollars every week across the world for the smallest chance to have their numbers appear on a screen and have that hope for the moment that they could have a life that will NEVER happen for them. Harsh? No! That’s the truth! If your hope in life is that you will win the lottery you are playing a losing game. You have a better chance of marrying a millionaire, getting a record deal, inventing a multi-million dollar product, writing a successful book, or inheriting money from a long lost aunt you never knew of then it is to win the lottery. It’s a fixation on a future that is all about chance. A chance that will only be a reality for one in those millions. Sure, there’s a shot {and you can’t win if you don’t play.} but your chances are next to none.

So how do you fix that? What can you do to change your odds? Quit playing the losing hand and focus your fixation on the winning one. So what is the winning hand you have to play? Where do you place your bets? Place the bet on YOU. You took out any work other than buying a ticket when your hopes and dreams involve you winning a game that you are nearly guaranteed to lose. That’s why it’s easy to hope for a big life because you didn’t work for any of it. You went to a store and you hoped for the beat. That’s it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you are not going to win. The top of the known statistics about most lottery winners is they end up filing bankruptcy. My best hypothesis is that they lose it all and end up right back where they were before because they have no personal investment in the money. If you worked hard for something and earned it, then you are invested in the result. These people who put work into their achievements have priorities and want to make sure they never have to struggle like before. That’s my theory. {tell me it doesn’t make sense though.}

So we’ve learned the odds are stacked against you {and me} of winning the lottery any time soon and they are still pretty low that there is some long lost aunt somewhere that you don’t know about that has you marked as their only beneficiary, sorry I dashed your dream of being an instant millionaire with a single sentence. Let’s be the adults we are and stop hoping and wishing on the idea that we will have be the 1 in nearly 14 million that win the big jackpot in the pick 6. Also realize that the state lottery {mega millions} you have a mere 1 in nearly 276 million odds {but if this where you want to place your bets, do you boo.} So how do you become a Goal Getter? How do you get what you always wanted out of this life? How do you find success, realize your dreams, and make the type of money you want? I’m going to tell you!

Real talk. You ready? You are fixing to find out the answer of how to make this life whatever you want it to be…and it’s going to sound too easy. YOU make it! YOU create it! YOU stop telling yourself all the reasons you can’t {the ultimate C-word} and replace it with all the reasons YOU CAN. Sounds too easy and simple, but it’s true. Will it be instant? Nope. Will it be easy. Nope. But in case YOUR momma didn’t tell you, I’ll be the momma who will- “Nothing worth having in life is going to ever be easy.” I wish I had listened sooner and figured this out before 37. I would be a hell of a lot further than I am now if I had remembered this little saying and started being a Goal Getter and got it done!

How do you do it? Why try? Why work for the dreams when you’ve failed to reach over and over? Why work for something that there is no guarantee you will ever get? Why? Why? Why? Well I’m going to tell you why! You do it because YOU decide you’re worth it. I’d rather try and fail and fall but get up then sit here scared to fall and afraid of the failure that I never even try to fight for my own dreams and work for my own goals. I will always fail if I never do anything. It’s impossible if I do nothing but if I change the impossible to having the mindset of I’m possible then I have already taken the first step in reaching my success.

Before I tell you how I am going to tell you why. Why the hell should you listen to me? What do I have that makes me so ‘woke’? {that should make adults and kids alike cringe but you’ll definitely start asking why!} What makes me the expert? Why haven’t you heard of little ole me? Why should you listen to a single mom, who works a 9-6 job, who makes very little money writing, who is divorced, has children who have struggles with mental illnesses, and who is seemingly no better or who has no credentials, and who has zero experience or who is seemingly unqualified to give any pertinent life advice? Why listen to me at all? Well before I tell you how to do more than you did today I will tell you what has happened to me since I started living my Goal Getter life a year ago.

Over the past year I’ve changed my life one goal at a time. A year ago I was on the left and my present is on the right {because I am headed in the right direction!}

  • Miserable Marriage
  • Pessimistic Outlook
  • Isolated
  • Substance Abuse
  • Dying Dreams
  • 220lbs
  • Unmedicated Mental Illness
  • Unhealthy Parent
  • Anxiety Daily at 8/10
  • No energy
  • Lying to everyone
  • Negative self talk daily
  • No routine
  • Mediocre Work Ethic
  • Hopeless and Depressed
  • Trapped
  • Negative influences
  • Triggered often
  • Impatient
  • High expectations of others
  • Divorced and engaged to a good man
  • Optimistic Attitude
  • Rarely isolated
  • Drinks rarely and no recreational drug use for over 10 months
  • Rekindled passions and chasing dreams
  • 150lbs and muscle tone, down 10 pant sizes.
  • Therapy and medication management
  • Positive role model for mythreefold
  • Anxiety 3/10 regularly
  • Incredible increase in energy and drive
  • Brutal honesty in most everything
  • Positive affirmations and more confidence
  • Routine for self care, goal review, time etc.
  • 2 raises and promotion in a year with drive and passion even in my 9-6 job
  • Determined and Happy
  • Free from past, guilt, and my self-made prison
  • Cut off my negative influences and replaced them with positive ones
  • Triggered rarely
  • Patient, compassionate, and understanding
  • Heightened expectations of self and lower of others

The point isn’t that I never fail or that I don’t want to quit when it all gets too hard. The point is that regardless of how big I fail or how much I hurt from the fall my reset time to start over is nearly instantaneous and I start each day fresh. I put my all into each day and do my best. Even when I’m not 100%, I’m always going to be at my best even when I’m sick, feel myself falling, if I’m on the edge, or when I jack it all up. If all I have is 40% that day I’m ok giving my full 40%. The days I’m on my game, I am unstoppable. The question shouldn’t be why should you listen to me. It should be why not? Honestly what do you have to lose?

You may be thinking, ‘mmhmm lady, big freaking deal.’ Yep, it sure is a big freaking deal. It’s a huge deal because I changed from that person on the left who questioned everything and everyone {including myself} and made lists and empty promises to everyone {especially myself} of how I wanted to change my life, but I didn’t know how and was too scared to even start. To the person I am today. The person on the right. The person I wanted to be everyday but never knew how much I was allowing the world and the people around me convince me that the bad always would win. That’s bullshit! I haven’t accomplished all of my goals, and the truth is I won’t ever accomplish all of them. I’m going to be a work in progress for the rest of my life because I’m always going to look for ways I can be better. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else and I don’t think I’ve cracked the code of some new way of life. I just made a plan and found a way and did it. I do think the true testament is that I’ve managed to change this much despite of the many obstacles that I was facing during a year that should’ve been my worst year ever and somehow I’ve managed to have the best year despite the bad. Guess what? I did that. All of it. Me. A 37 single mom of my threefold, that walked away from a 15 year miserable marriage filled with toxicity, with only three boxes of belongings and my threefold. Five psychiatric hospitalizations in one year for my #2, a lot of therapy, tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt and a lot of missed work. I could’ve easily gone back to the mess I was before but instead I made it my motivation and my mission to break that cycle. This doesn’t mean I’m perfect. I’ll be the first to admit I f’ed it up and still do have my fair share of bad days. The difference is where I would’ve said one bad day meant I should quit and allow that one day to become my reason and excuse for going back into my hole. I fail better now. Failure doesn’t stop me. I can have a bad day or a bad week and instead of throwing my hands up in defeat I dust myself off and remember my why and keep moving forward into my future .

I can’t guarantee anything will happen or give you a timeline on your goals, but I can guarantee that you will be happier, more motivated, find your faith, and you WILL be better on every level if you decide to fix your fixation on your failures and become future focused. I’m excited about my future! Are you? You should be! Place the bets where they belong and take a chance! What could you get out of trying it my way if you just put in the work? If you want something bad enough, nothing can stand in your way except for you. Now the question you want the answer to how to become the Goal Getter who goes out and gets shit done? I’m going to give you a sneak peak at the how so we can have the best year again next year. I’m going to give you the way I’ve found that worked for me and can work for you too. I’m going to give you the tools to get there regardless of where you are now or how big the dream is. If you’re just willing to put in a little work. What do you have to lose? Nothing. What’s the worst that could happen? You stay the same? If you don’t try that’s exactly what will happen. More of the same. Imagine this for just a second {just imagine} what if you don’t fail? What if it works? What if you find your way forward? What if you start finding a way to that better future you’ve always been waiting for and decide to be a goal getter and go get sh!t done? Your chances increase exponentially with my way. That I guarantee!

For the rest of my life 2021 will be the year I broke myself apart and everything and everyone seemed to shatter with me. It was a chaotic catastrophe filled year that took a lot of caffeine and cuss words and more crazy than anyone planned for to get through. No one will truly understand how broken we were before or how we broke ourselves completely to get to where we are today. On the flip side, 2021 however, will forever be the year that we took all those broken pieces and rearranged them into the beautiful brave bad asses that we’re born through the bullish!t. 2021 was our path to beginning to discover the life we always dreamed of was a possibility.

Our bets are placed on a big and bright future that we decided to create ourselves, the one we deserve. Be on the lookout for my 2022 Goal Getter series that will give you the tools you need to have to become the best you in 2022. Plan now and get excited about the possibilities that are waiting for you in 2022!

Be positive! Be a bad ass! Find the message in the mess! You’ve got this, goal getter! You are capable of amazing things! ☮️❤️😊~M