A Journey To Self-Awareness

Sometimes a journey starts before we notice we are on it.  
Such was the case as I walked my personal journey to self-awareness.
 
Eventually, I couldn’t help but notice.
 
It happened when I was studying to become a Master Empowerment Coach.  
At the time, I was scared, depressed, disabled, unemployed, broke and broken. 
​I have been searching for answers and a way out of the horrible circumstances I found myself in after an unexpected job loss and subsequent car accident in 2008 (but there was more, so much more).

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In the midst of trying to survive and regain physical and mental strength, in July of 2011, a dear friend sent me a link to an incredible coaching program.

As I looked at the curriculum tears streamed down my face; in an instant, I felt so connected. I was inspired, filled with hope, and sure this was the right thing for me.   The course looked amazing, full of great material, personal development, coaching tools, and study topics specifically aimed at becoming uniquely qualified to work with women.

I took out my last credit card and decided to roll perhaps the biggest dice of my life.  I enrolled!
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I had no idea I was about to embark on a journey of a lifetime. 
​A journey to self-discovery and healing I could not have imagined.  I would experience self-discovery of transformational depth which led me to uncover the imposter I was in my own life.

As I discovered, this imposter was my wounded five-year-old self who used to be referred to as half-orphan after my father passed away when I was just, well, five.  Yes, ‘half-orphan’ was a label my Polish culture used to describe someone like me: a child with only one living parent.

Growing up all I heard was “Oh, she’s a poor, fatherless child; what a hard life she’ll have; it’s not easy for a girl with no father, poor little girl, half-orphan.”
The feeling of pity was palpable and somehow, in my young mind, I created this ‘truth’ that I wasn’t whole, a belief that something in me was missing.
In my mind, this meant I was half as smart, half as capable, half as worthy, and half as deserving.
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This was my subconscious story of who I was until my teacher and founder of The S.W.A.T. Institute,
Crystal Andrus Morissette, said one word…

As I was going through the course, during a guided meditation, she listed some words; one of them was “unimportant”. 
Instantly, I began to sob.  In that moment, I became aware that this was the reason for most of my life’s struggles – I believed myself to be UNIMPORTANT.  

It summarized my story.  I was jolted into awareness, pulled out of the way I perceived myself, my life, and everyone and everything in it.  In that moment, I discovered the imposter, the half-orphan who was running my life by holding the beliefs of who I was, who I could be, and who I could not be.

This helped me realize that, since I wasn’t one hundred percent whole, I never allowed myself to receive any more than half of anyone or anything. 
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That realization was TRANSFORMATIONAL!!!

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That transformation helped me find my ‘other half.’  What I needed was guidance and a safe space to gradually, gently, and courageously, peel back the layers and find the rest of me, the Real Me. 
And to remember the truth of who I was which made me whole again.
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 I finally remembered MySelf.

 If you don’t know who you are people will tell you who you should be and you will believe them. 
Please don’t!  Look for the truth you knew before ‘they’ told you a different story and before you
talked yourself into believing it.  
And as you look, I promise you, you will find yourself to be far greater than that story.
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And as for me, today and every day, my Self-Awareness Journey continues…

​Do you have a personal story of becoming self-aware?
If so, please share in the comments below.

Thank you and may you have a blessed journey.