5 years ago I left my marriage…
Yes, you will rise from the ashes, but the burning comes first.
For this part, darling, you must be brave.
– Kalen Dion
September 2023 marked 5 years since I ended my marriage. Since I said those words ‘it’s over’ and meant them with every fibre of my being. Since I said those words and didn’t back down. Since I said those words and didn’t say, one more chance. Since I became a single woman…a divorcee.
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Twenty years ago I got married. A life-time ago.
Just a girl in her early 20s, thinking she was doing everything “right”, and wishing for a fairytale that was never to be. Hopes, and dreams and possibilities that all just crumbled and became a big, ugly mess of betrayal, abuse, contempt and despair.
I clung on for so long, frozen in the trauma.
Clinging to what I knew, to the familiarity of pain and chaos. Grasping to the minute happy moments. To any breadcrumb of hope. Hope that he would change, treat me better, realise what he had. Doing more, earning more, being more.
Chance, after chance, after chance, after chance.
Yet I stayed stuck year, after year, after year, after year.
Frozen.
I was living a life that was the very definition of insanity. Suspended in a seemingly endless pattern.
Finally, I cracked, my heart and soul had nothing to more to give, and finally at the point I could take no more, finally I saw the absolute insanity.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
And even though I had every reason to leave many, many years before, even though I deep down I knew it was the right decision, in those months that followed the ending of it, do you know how many times I googled ‘am I doing the right thing?’, how many tears I cried with the weight of the choice I made, how much of a failure I felt, how my heart broke for my son…
But now… 5 years on. I’m okay.
I healed, I forgave, I grew… that I’m healing, I’m forgiving and I’m growing.
The pain was transformed, and by the grace of God, I stepped into a life beyond my wildest imaginings, so far from the person I used to be.
A truly beautiful life, that even amidst suffering and tough times, it is a life where I can find gratitude and meaning for it all, because it brought me here. To this life, to this moment. (Read my other blog and Facebook posts).
And, in the healing, forgiving and growing I saw that I could serve, that my greatest pain was to be my greatest service. And, at just the right moment I was offered a place on the Influential Coach program under the leadership of master coaches Nash Mackey and Joel Brown. My purpose burning on my heart with such clarity.
So here I am, 5 years on from that ending, another new beginning as a certified life coach.
Here to serve.
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If your marriage is ending or has ended (recently or long ago) and you need support, work with me one on one to find clarity amongst the chaos. I walked this path from insanity to peace and I can help you too. Help you to find yourself again. To heal and grow. Reach out to me via the Contact page for a discovery call.
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