Worthy Today. Right In This Moment. And So Are You.

I was forced into the world of mindfulness, inner growth, and self awareness from being completely shattered by a shocking separation and painful divorce. Pain is the greatest teacher of all because often it forces you into being the student and you have no choice. During the hard seasons you have to sit there, be still, absorb and learn from the pain and sadness. It FORCED me to sit still. OH was it uncomfortable! I couldn’t plan for the future and couldn’t live in the past. It was ALL present moment, which I had honestly never done before.

Many of us are forced to enter into self-growth, but I made a decision to remain there and made a promise to myself to always be in growth mode no matter what season of life I am in. I had been internally stagnant for the past 30 years and I never ever wanted to go back to that.

I remember thinking during that first hard growth season, “what is Melanie 1.0 going to look like?”. I had to slowly gather my broken pieces off the floor and over time piece them back together into some sort of semblance of myself, but once there is trauma and grief our pieces never go back the same. Honestly, I didn’t want them to. That would have felt much too inauthentic. The you that enters the storm is not the same you that comes out on the other side. I wanted to stay curious about this. When you’re curious you learn and are more open minded.

I vowed to love me the most because I never really had. I didn’t know what was lacking in my life because I never thought much about it. I was operating on a surface level, but didn’t have the self awareness yet to even see that. When you know more, you do better. That’s exactly what I have committed to doing for the past 9 years!

Of course there will be stagnant times and seasons of life, but my promise was to be eyes wide open, ears open, heart open to be my own advocate. To live in self betterment even when it felt hard as hell and painful. For myself, for Logan, for my future partner (who I later found and is now my beloved Husband).

Definition of Mindfulness: Paying attention in a particular way on purpose in the present moment and not passing judgement. Our minds think past and future so much we are rarely in the current moment. Being mindful is the only way you can truly connect to yourself through all moments of your life. You accept your thoughts as they come to you which helps you accept yourself just as you are. Worthy now, not if and when.

What I have found through years of therapy, living intentionally, digging inside myself and sifting through the pain, the wounds, the junk, the mess, the ugliness that lives inside that we don’t want anyone to see or even ourselves to know is there, is that when you are living from the inside out — life is extraordinarily better! I have more joy filled moments, more focus, I am a far better mom/wife/friend/daughter, I am way more optimistic and I am operating from a place of genuine worthiness. When life hands me challenges and hard times, I am much better prepared to navigate through the feelings, the emotions, and the entire situation because it has made me resilient. I allow myself to sit with the emotions, call them by name, and then send them on their way and mindfully remind myself of the truths, the perspective, and the gratitudes, I have in my life.

I love this transformed Melanie 9.0 that I have stretched, morphed, and grown into over these 9 years. I have fought fiercely to become her and I am proud of who she is today. I cannot wait to see Melanie 10 and see what she has learned next year!

“The international problem today is not hunger, poverty, drugs or fear of war. It is tension, hypertension, total tension. If you know how to free yourself of tension, you know how to solve your problems in life.” — Swami Satyananda Saraswati