It was exciting when I found my apartment. It ended up being in a building I had admired for years but was under the impression it was high priced condos. Not the case! Having fully appreciated each moment that brought me to sit in this buildings office, I quickly and confidently let the manager know that I WOULD be approved and her and I would become best friends! (Both became reality!) When the time came to move I packed with ease, not interested in all the “stuff” that had become so unimportant. Freedom to live a life I didn’t want to escape from was my mission, and as we got down to the last few items I just walked away. As I looked into the rearview mirror I saw a house that held nightmares, heartache, manipulation, anger, and endings. I made a vow to never see it again.

I settled quickly into my new apartment with my sweet 8 lb Maltese, Buddy, and we began to find our new normal. My son was 17 at the time and opted to stay with his dad because quite honestly, regardless of the abuse he showed me, his heart was broken. A narcissist won’t see what they did to cause someone to finally go. They will only feel the pain of the leaving and then make themselves the victim in the situation. My ex did just that and my son had the false impression I was to blame for ALL the problems. This created a forced need for space between us that lasted a year. He needed to see his dad without rose colored glasses on and I needed to heal and process the last 20 yrs. It was hard but as I have learned, the tough times are where the biggest lessons are learned. Buddy became my emotional support animal & I began the process of truly diving in to myself Mind, Body, and Soul. The cocoon was officially sealed, it was game time!

As I stated in Part 1, I had been on multiple pain meds for many years. I had already been taking fewer since the day in the bathroom and was ready to be done with them completely. I had discovered Yoga and was practicing it as often as I could with YouTube videos prior to moving into my new place. I now had the ability to move on a mat as often as I wanted, and it was helping! An appointment with my pain management Dr ended with him begging me to NOT stop & ideas for payment plans to keep coming. He wouldn’t even talk about weaning me off slowly. Determined, I fired him and decided I was on my own. Spring Break arrived which gave me the chance to detox off those pills all on my own, with no medical plan of attack, & a little cannabis to help with discomfort. In ONE WEEK I came off years of narcotics! To this day I have a major distaste for Drs who cover up issues with drugs patients get addicted to. I may need pain medication at times but I will never get said meds from a Dr who makes a living dishing them out. This was one of the hardest things I did on my own in my entire life and I carried that feeling of accomplishment into everything I did next.

The following months were full of getting REAL girl time with REAL compassionate friends. All understanding that this was new to me as I wrote in my blog post titled “Friends who are Family”. I learned that TRUE friends will gently call you out on your shit AND help you work through it! They won’t talk to other friends behind your back, they talk to YOU! If they caught me being shitty or slipping into old habits, they put me in check and I did the same with them. We hiked, did yoga, had movie nights & adult beverages. I reconnected with my childhood bestie/adopted sister and we had the most amazing Christmas with just me, her, and her mom complete with matching PJ’s just like when we were kids. I gained confidence, I stood up to my ex who began stalking me, and I became empowered past my wildest dreams.

In April I was asked on a date by my now husband. We attempted to make it purely plutonic but love came in quick. That is when it became evident that I HAD TO now deal with the trauma from my previous marriage. I also had a ton of childhood conditioning that had me believing I could “fix” another person, and that it was normal for a spouse to treat you less than them and control you. See, I kept waiting for Chris to change into someone else just like my ex had. I kept interjecting my trauma into each and everything he said and did, while thinking even the smallest requests of me was him controlling me or setting the stage to do so. He also had trauma due to infidelity with his ex. I had been accused of cheating & was forced to report my every move to my ex. (See how these 2 traumas have the potential to slam against each other!) After Chris walking beside me & forcing communication from me, we BOTH got to work on healing! I never saw a healthy relationship communication growing up and had NO IDEA what that looked like. I was with a Virgo now, the king of all communicators! Luckily he was patient and kind as I learned, and keep learning, this very important skill. Together we could help each other unpack our past and heal from it in ways that felt right for each of us.

I did my work by going straight to the tools I had been using. Meditation, Journaling, and yes even yoga. I had joined an online Yoga studio called the Body Mind Soul Studio. I was learning that yoga is much more than a workout for your body and can actually be very therapeutic in healing from trauma. I chose various programs that were chakra based, printed out awesome reflective worksheets, and dove in with all I had. I cried tears while holding poses to release anger, I celebrated after accomplishing balancing poses that helped confidence, I got SUPER REAL with myself in the private FB group and on paper with my journal and printed worksheets. I sat in meditation and faced hard truths about how I contributed to the mess I had so easily blamed my ex entirely for. I owned my toxic traits, admitted I allowed small things at the beginning of our relationship that I weren’t ok with me, to grow into bigger things that led me to eventually leave. (Honestly, please don’t excuse behavior you’re not ok with! Just because the person who is doing it is someone you love doesn’t make it right. They then have the false impression that their actions are cool with you and those actions will snowball into bigger worse issues. If your not ok with something, SPEAK UP!) Through months of hard work, alone in my living room I was able to have multiple breakthroughs that helped Chris and I get even closer while he too did his inner work. As we moved forward, still healing and always working on ourselves, we came to a place of trust that I have never had with another human being.

It was early 2018 that I found myself having serious abdominal pain. I was once again having to be on narcotics while Drs tried to find the problem which honestly, seemed to take forever. When an ER Dr broke to me that I had a mass in my lower sigmoid colon that was possible cancer, my world stopped spinning. How in the fuck was this fair? I finally get to experience a life I love only for it to be taken away?! Nah, fuck that! I set off on a mission to find out what emotion festers in the gut area when not dealt with…ANGER! Well shit! I had more work to do & was confused because I had forgiven my ex and rarely gave him a thought at this point! Thats when I learned that you can forgive, and subconsciously take it back. You can also set anger down and then pick it back up again as soon as you’re set off by a trigger reminding you of it. That had all recently happened as my son reentered my life and I heard his experiences with his father while we weren’t speaking. I took back all I had healed from and added to the load. So once again, I went to my go-to tools. Mind you, physical movement on the mat was next to impossible. This is when I learned the art of “Yoga off the Mat.” As the doctors prepped to take “Myrtle the Mass” out of my body physically, I prepped my mind and soul for finally letting it all go for good this time. I forgave myself, I forgave my ex again, I had compassion for the girl who I use to be, compassion for the lack of a healthy upbringing my ex and I both had, and gained the understanding that you can’t do better until you know better. On Jan 18th 2018 my mass was removed medically and in the year following I was able to finally heal from the anger and resentment that had caused it.

At this point I had been doing MAJOR ass kicking work and healing for 3 YEARS. I had thought at one time after reading an article that I could do all this inner work from the time I moved into my apartment till summer. Summer seemed like a good time to healed! 5 months to heal from a lifetime of conditioning and trauma is unrealistic in case you didn’t know. I will ALWAYS be working, digging, journaling, moving, communicating, and healing. It’s a forever process and I am at the point where I actually enjoy it when I notice something new come up. My husband often jokes about the conversations I have with myself but it’s helpful to say out loud “Oh wow, well that’s not something that fits with my current narrative! Where did you come from trauma reaction? Hmmm….I guess we get to do more self discovery!!” then I’m off to do more work!! I also now see the value in being consistent with my meditation, journaling, and yoga. The more regular I am with these practices, the easier it is to work through my shit. I no longer begin from square one which makes things much easier.

I spent a long time deep healing and transforming inside that tight cocoon I had wrapped myself in. I had all the tools and resources I needed to do the deep work and could emerge to discover even more tools and tricks to continue on my journey. I had gained multiple certifications to coach others in mindfulness, I had completed a course on Law Of Attraction and was certified to guide others, and had kicked ass to complete a 200 hr Yoga Teacher Training in order to help others discover the healing gift of yoga. It was time for the butterfly to slowly leave her chrysalis, open her wings to dry, and become the woman she was always meant to be…

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