This morning at 7:00, I took our puppy, Kiki, out for her morning walk. We’ve been trying to crate train her, but it’s been a long and slow process. She’s learning other things really well, but she’s not used to sleeping away from us. So last night was a rough one for my partner, so when my alarm went off, I got up and took Kiki outside to pee and poo. She did well on the leash, even though she hates it. I see the morning walk as mama-puppy bonding time.

And as we walked up the parking lot, stopping every so often so she could chew on branches, bite leaves, and smell all the sniffs, it started to drizzle. It was a typical Oregon drizzle; more than mist, but not quite rain. I always feel as though the sky is kissing me when it drizzles here. And Kiki, who has never seen rain before, didn’t mind it at all. In fact, I think she enjoyed it. It seemed to soothe her.

Yesterday, I took my first big step in completing my therapy process. My EMDR is over. Now, it’s about preventative mental health care: recognizing the areas I still need to work on, and then doing that work day by day. Primarily, working on my confidence, my self-esteem, and actually listening to my gut the first time it tells me something it off rather than giving people the benefit of the doubt. Because, as my therapist pointed out, I’m not actually being kind when I do that. I’m just enabling toxic behavior, which is bad for me and the other person.

So now, my journey transitions into learning how to listen to my body, to my gut, to my emotions, and to my instincts.

As I walked my puppy in the glorious Oregon drizzle, I felt a deep sense of something both ending and beginning. What was ending was the me I was carried over from my marriage; the me that put up with so much mistreatment, neglect, and abuse; the me that left my marriage because of its toxicity and unwittingly put myself into yet another toxic living situation; the me that pretended for ten years that my marriage was fine, normal, and even healthy because it was easier than accepting the unspoken truths of my ex-husband’s behaviors; the me that pretended my next living situation wasn’t toxic because I couldn’t accept that I had taken myself into yet another environment where I was shoved aside, minimized, silenced, and mistreated; the me who couldn’t enforce boundaries; the me who couldn’t accept that other people’s choices and behaviors had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with their misery and self-hatred.

That me, the one who was so desperate for love and belonging that I emotionally prostituted myself for the sake of being accepted, is finally embracing the me who knows my worth, the me who knows my value and recognizes that desperation only leads to heartache. I have more internal work to do, but I can see now a lot of the negative core beliefs that have lead me to make these choices, and I have spent months healing those negative core beliefs and replacing them with positive cognitions.

I can get my needs met.

I survived and conquered.

I did the best I could under the circumstances.

The drizzle this morning was more than nourishment for the earth. It was also a symbol of somatic cleansing, a symbol of the washing away of the me who thought so little of myself, I allowed others to mistreat, neglect, abuse, and dehumanize me. Because deep down, that me believed I deserved what I was being given. But that me was washed away over the last several months of therapy. And I can see now, and I’m starting to believe, that the things I endured weren’t about me at all, they were about the people causing my pain. I allowed the pain to continue. I didn’t walk away when I should have. But their choices were evidence of their issues, not of my value, my worth, or who I am.

I wanted to run down the street and see how soaked I could get in the drizzle. I wanted the drizzle to become a downpour so that I could baptize myself in its glorious righteousness. For the first time in my life, I am enough for myself. For the first time in my life, I look at who I am and I feel so much love and appreciation. Part of me is scared of what the future will mean now. Monday morning, I had a meeting with my boss and I advocated for a promotion and a raise, something I couldn’t even consider doing as little as three months ago. And while I was nervous throughout the meeting, at no point did I feel as though I was asking for more than I had earned.

And because of that meeting, I am officially the Project Coordinator for my second project at work.

Therapy WORKS. I highly recommend EMDR. It is HARD. It is PAINFUL. It will make you want to stop and walk away. But it is WORTH IT. It’s a rewiring of the brain, a changing of how the brain operates so that we can heal from trauma and move forward. Trauma is, quite literally, brain damage. EMDR works to heal that damage. I will swear by this form of therapy for the rest of my life because it works. It’s science based. And it moves fast.

Do something to love on yourself, today. You deserve it.