Happy 7-Year New Life Birthday To Me

Some people won’t understand why I share about such personal things. That’s ok.

But hopefully the ones who do, will benefit or share this with another loved one who may benefit.

You see my Dad, “Fast Eddie” used to tell me that “we should never talk about personal problems outside the family”.

But what if your family is part of the problem?

So I grew up believing that I had to solve problems all by myself or that I would be “less than” or “weak” if I asked for help.

Turns out, 7 years ago that belief nearly killed me.

You know the song by the Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

You may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?"

You may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"

And you may ask yourself, "Am I right, am I wrong?"

And you may say to yourself, "My God, what have I done?"

I had a proper nuclear mid-life meltdown. WTF.

Me. A badass. I snapped.

Turns out all of God’s creations have a breaking point.

Humans. Nature. Creatures. All of us.

I realized over the years that I operated as a people-pleaser, “dutiful is beautiful” my ex used to say.

A survival instinct coded into us humans is to belong to a tribe, a family, a unit, society.

When one moves around a lot as a child, one develops chameleon-like skills in order to survive, fit in, “to belong”.

And guess what..it works… until it doesn’t.

That’s what I humbly discovered at the tender age of 46.

I am working on a book called “SNAP! Goes the Mommy” and will share all of the details, lessons, and recipes for recovering from and hopefully preventing what I went through….total life implosion (which was avoidable had I known what I know now).

God gave me another chance 7 years ago this morning and I promised I would do my best until I die to share this experience and serve LOVE so others may not feel alone when struggling with the shame of not having it all together.

It happens.

One of the biggest lessons I learned was that if you get knocked down again and again and don’t have time and love to recover between blows, it’s immensely harder to get up.

Just like Rocky.

If Apollo Creed keeps punching him when he’s down and doesn’t have time to get up and regroup his energy between knock downs, even the almighty Rocky doesn’t stand a chance.

So my dear soul, you are not alone if you are down.

The truth is neither was I, but I felt like it because of my old childhood programming and I felt too ashamed to say these 3 words…

“I need help”

Do yourself and all of us who need your badassery on this planet a huge favor, learn and deploy those 3 words on a regular basis.

Build some muscle memory so when you realllllllly need help, it won’t feel so fucking scary to ask for it.

I promise, it’s worth it.

Ask your loved ones, friends, co-workers, professionals, and spiritual community for help.

Offer it too.

One random act of kindness can save a life.

So my beloved LOVE Tribe, we are on this long strange trip called life TOGETHER, remember that.

When I was in the rehab, I told my counselor that I didn’t want to “bother anyone with my troubles”.

She said, “Valerie, you like to be helpful right? It feels good. So why would you rob someone else of that good feeling and not ask for help”?

Whoa.

Even though she was right, it wasn’t easy to digest and reprogram that old belief, that “code”.

I still struggle sometimes, however I know it yields better results when I do ask for help.

So here’s a big ol’ cheers to the great Creator, the Mystery, the One, the Universe, God, Goddess, whatever you choose to call it, MAHALO for my life and for not taking my children’s Mother from them too soon. Thank you for this sublime blessing called life, filled with ups, downs, and inside outs.

Thank you for showing me the truth.

Thank you for not giving up on me.

I love you God.

You rock.

Seriously. You rock HARD.

Alrighty then, let’s get to it my friends. We have a big ol’ glorious world that needs US rocking our missions using our superpowers as LOVE Warriors.

If you’d like to stay connected and get updates on the book, get on the LOVE Notes email list. (I promise I won’t spam you with BS)

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts,

please call #988 or visit https://988lifeline.org/the suicide hotline for help.

We need you here.