Finding Myself....

Feeding Insecurities Spinoff.....

In light of my recent revelation I shared over at Sharing a Dream
http://sharing-a-dream.blogspot.com/ I have been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching about my life, and my views and perceptions. As I said before I was going to take time to "find myself again" as I feel I've lost some of me along the way and I understand for those of you who don't want to follow along; afterall many of you I met through surrogacy and this blog site is not about infertility or surrogacy and may not be of interest to you. But I need to get it out and if you happen to follow along, great!

Anyway, over the last 24 hours I have been doing a lot of thinking and analyzing who I am and why I am the way I am. I happened to log in and checked out another bloggers site
http://myjourneytomylesandbeyond.blogspot.com/ where she had a couple of quotes that really affected me. Thank you Niki for sharing these quotes.

The main quote I have been thinking about was
"We see things not as they are but as we are".

How does that relate to me? Sure I have many titles; mom, sister, wife, blah blah, but who am I? Beyond the titles? I realize I am a product of my upbringing, of my experiences, these things shape me and affect my perspectives on life. They affect the way I think, feel and react. They go deep, right down to the core.

With that being said, what has been my upbringing and experiences and HOW have they shaped me? How have they affected my current relationships? I have spent the last 24 hours looking back and trying to figure this out.

Some it of goes back to the relationship with my mother. I know she loves me, but we are like oil and water and she can hurt me so much. With most other family members you can go about your merry way not worrying what they think, but when it's your mother, for some reason I have placed so much worth into her opinions. I spent my life trying to please her, and feeling like I never suceeded. Often times her opinions of me are negative and I feel like I'm not good enough. The things she says cuts deep, and I believe that affected my own self esteem because I did put so much into what she thought.

Some of it goes back to a previous relationship (my first marraige), I had many years ago. A unhealthy nasty relationship that left me scarred with a low self image.

Another person in my life that claims to be my friend when he's mad will say the cruelest things. I can't get away from this person right now, but I plan to make that break. He is the nicest of people and has helped my family tremendously but if you make him mad, or he drinks to much he can really hurt you with his words. I remember a time he said to me out of the blue "you know your not your daughters hero".....I left the room crying not sure why he said that or what he meant by that.

We all have had people in our lives that have been unkind even when their intentions were good, or just cruel to make themselves feel good. We all have had people in our lives who have affected us, but it really can change you if you let it.

I realized that I have let these people change me, I have let their words affect me.
I put walls up with the people who are most close to me, not wanting to let them too far in. I expect to be hurt from those I love so I go about actually looking for it. I am a jealous person when it comes to sharing people in my life. I hold resentments over family members who have not had to live the life I have. To those around me who are not very close I present as a strong individual, independant, with a good self esteem....yet deep inside I question myself all the time. If I havent' talked to a friend of mine I've known for 22 years now, I wonder what I did wrong. It can't be just because life is busy, but rather I sit and wonder if everything is okay. If someone says something that sounds "off" to me, I wonder if I said something wrong...it can't be because of other circumstances, instead I feel like I've messed up somehow.

I realized that I am not seeing things as they are but rather as who I am?

So what do I do with it all now? Well, now that I got a bit more of a understanding on who I am, now I have to think, "who do I want to be?". Do I want to see things this way because of my own personal history? Do I want my perspective to be distorted based on those who have hurt me?

I can change this. I have realized that I have control over how I percieve things. I can think positively and trust in myself and who I am and my worth. I don't have to allow those negative self thoughts and doubts overcome me and I most certainly don't have to allow others negative thoughts affect me. It won't happen overnight, it's about retraining my own thinking, but I can do it.

This is my first step to learning about myself and finding myself again...if you made it this far, thanks for following along with my inner ramblings.

Honestly, it just feels so good to get it out of my head.