“When you hurt under the surface, like troubled water running cold.  Time can heal but this won’t……. “

“Was there something I could’ve said to make your heart beat better?  If only I had known you had a storm to weather…”

“Was there something I could’ve said to make it all stop hurting?  It kills me how your mind can make you feel so worthless….”

Those lyrics……

My ultimate trigger.

The first time I heard ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi I was driving in the car on my way home.  It felt like the sadness in those lyrics cut straight through me.  I could feel the hurt, the anger, the confusion and the utter hopelessness and longing in those words.  I couldn’t control my emotions as I felt the tears just streaming down my cheeks.  It gets me EVERY SINGLE TIME! 

Why?? How can one song make me drown in my own emotions?? Where does this come from? This got me thinking.

I grew up in a loving, strong family who supported and loved me.  I did well in sports and in school.  Always walked the straight and narrow. I was looked after and I like to think I made my mom and dad proud. I wasn’t the most confident person growing up but if I put my heart and mind to something I achieved it and I was pretty darn good at it…… but somehow I always wanted to improve and be better.  I never felt quite good enough.

Not feeling good enough made me look for approval.  Approval meant love. Love meant happiness.  So in a nutshell that’s how my life went.  Constantly looking to achieve something to get the approval….. to be loved.

Bodybuilding was something I did for ME.  It is a sport that I enjoyed and how successful you are is all on you.  I always felt that I had so much more to offer, that I was not just a Personal Trainer or just a WBFF Pro. Sadly……. Approval was still needed.  I needed to prove myself to get my Pro Status.  My friends and family will approve of my lifestyle because I finally achieved what I set out to achieve.

With my second divorce my psychologist asked me why I think I had eating disorders for such a long time and all I could think of was ‘what does that have to do with a divorce?’.  He then went on to say that by controlling what I ate (or didn’t eat or purged) was the only thing that I could control.  My decisions were always based on approval and that was one thing that I didn’t need approval of. (see the resemblance with my eating disorders and bodybuilding? Something I could control)

WAIT WHAT??  DIVORCED TWICE??

Divorce 1:

I got married when I was 23.  I got married to get out of the house and not be dependent on my parents anymore.  I wanted to be independent.  What was I thinking???  Never the less, he was a lovely guy, a bit controlling, but we were both young and needless to say, 2 years later we got divorced.

Divorce 2:

Divorce is never easy especially when there are kids involved as with my second divorce.  It’s something that I would rather not go into detail with because it’s in the past and we have all come a long way since then.  I still speak to my kids dad and we both have our babies best interest at heart. We still get along very well which is amazing. A lot of healing has been done and I am sure it will be a continuous process for everyone.

The past five years of my life has been a rollercoaster and challenging to say the least. 

2016:   Divorce #2 and moving away from my kids and my family and I not speaking for 2 years.

2017: 15 year old friendship turns out to be the love of my life.

2018: I had a motorbike accident that almost killed me and left me with 10 broken bones and a smashed face. 

I married the keeper of my heart. (in hospital)

2019: Immigrated to Australia.

2020: Pandemic hit the world which meant no visits from our kids and my family.

Would I change any of it?  No.  Would I have done things differently?  Yes.

I still carry a lot of hurt in me which I deal with every single day.  Some days more than others.

I miss my kids terribly and being so far away in a different country doesn’t make it any easier and believe me a video call just isn’t enough. 

In the end all my feelings and emotions build up and I keep them suppressed because my friends who got me, who I confided in, whether it was just silly banter or matters of the heart, those who knew every detail to my story…..  they’re far away.  Those catch up coffees are a thing of the past.

Life gets VERY lonely.

Which brings me back to those lyrics of Lewis Capaldi……

So why do those lyrics cut so deep??

Under a what sometimes seems to be a hard exterior, I am a total softy and things affect me very deeply.  Whether it’s my own feelings or others. There’s a lot of hurt under the surface.  I sometimes wish someone will say something to make my heart beat better and to make it all stop hurting.

Everyone who knows me knows that I deal with stuff and I’m always strong, but there are times where I don’t want to be strong.  Times when I just want to fall apart and I don’t want to pick up the pieces on my own. 

Well, it’s my pieces and I pick them up every time in the hope to one day help someone else pick up their pieces when they don’t want to pick it up alone.

WHAT TO TAKE FROM THIS

You are enough!!!  You are absolutely, totally enough!!  You do not need anyone’s approval and you definitely don’t need approval to be loved.  You deserve to be love. 

Say what’s on your heart and mind.  Don’t let it build up because that will destroy you.  It’s ok not to have it together all the time.  It’s ok to not be ok.  It’s ok to fall apart.  You’re human! 

Things always end up the way they should.  It might not make sense now, it might not make sense a year from now but there is always a reason as to why things happened the way they did.  Never blame yourself for other people’s choices or opinions.

YOU ARE AMAZING!

YOU ARE LOVED!