The Takeback, Finding your way to Adult Sovereignty

Hi! Welcome! Thanks for visiting. This blog is dedicated to those that have fought a lifetime battle for weight loss while managing the challenges of mental health issues and overcoming family trauma.

Once we reach 18 and become adults we may live with our parents and be subject to their house rules; however, on the technicality of being an adult we are free to make our own decisions about the life choices we want to make. Even if they DON’T like them! I do realize failing to execute the path our parents believe we should be on can make for some uncomfortable or even very uncomfortable moments when living under the same roof. Moreover, could result in you finding a new living space which brings its own challenges.

Alternatively, if we fail to self-advocate, we will awake many years later filled with feelings of inner misalignment with our soul. This misalignment can result in unresolved feelings of anger or sadness whether we realize it or not. If we look closer at our actions towards ourselves and others we can often times pick out moments when we lashed out at someone or something over a very trivial issue. Left unchecked the misalignment present itself in any number of ways though.

Stepping back for a moment, I am sure that not everyone of us is clear on our destiny at the end of high school or even that they should question the road our caregivers have mapped out for us. Or if you know your destiny you many find that those closest to you may offer little or no support. From the voice of age and life experience, this is the time to explore those choices and options. A great entrepreneur and public speaker Gary Vaynerchuk has many videos on how to not miss this Goldielocks time in your young life to maximize your future success. The link below is one of my favorites:

WORK HARD AND BE PATIENT – Best Motivational Video for Success | Gary Vaynerchuk Motivation

Now consider if you are 40. While Gary’s video is great and motiving to help change the direction of your life if you’re not happy with it, but it does little to change the fact that you now may have some or all of these responsibilities like being married, having children, a mortgage, financial obligations, a full time plus 40 hour a week job and or sick and elderly parents that need care. Needless to say, all this restrain can make even the idea of changing our lives because we dislike the direction we are going in more than some people can bear. For example, adults in their mid-thirties and beyond will often reference the trajectory of their life path as, it’s just what you do. Attaching the idea that growing up finding a partner and career, maybe marriage, perhaps children, buying a home and having a few vacations is the only option and way to live life. This is not the only way! To be clear, I am not saying or suggesting that is not a wonderful path for your life. Where the rub is that its only wonderful if it is the path YOU want.

Approximately, six years ago I found myself so poorly misaligned with my soul I decided that I needed to make a change for my own mental and physical well-being if I was going to go on living. At that time, I was living in New Jersey and working more hours than anyone should have to work for someone with months without days off, facing my sister’s move out west (my tribe, who I love with all my heart) and being left with my parents and extended family that would never ever be my tribe. Can you guess I am the black sheep? The idea of this becoming my life was something that made me suicidal from lack of work life balance, abandonment and loneliness.

The cure for this misalignment was to move from NJ.  Back in 1999 I lived in GA with my fiancé’s sister, this was my first attempt to break free and carve my own path. Georgia provided space for me to feel free for the first time in my life and that my life was starting to become my own. Sadly, my time in GA lasted only one year before I was brought back to NJ because my fiancé was not able to make it to GA. So once again I was thrown back into the toxic soup that is my family.

Ultimately, after seven years, my fiancé and I parted ways (more on that in the future). Living the single life at 24 I was able to start to moving towards a life that was my vision filled with my tribe of people. Part of that vision was to earn a bachelor’s degree, so within 6 months of our break up I was attending classes at a community college. After a few courses I would decide and transfer to a 4-year school. Early in my studies I would meet my now amazing husband. While he was born and raised in NJ he had always had the bug to get out and I slept with my Asics on because as a NY’er NJ would never be my home. And so it was only natural that we would discuss where we might move after I was done school and we got married. Fundamentally, we knew NY was too expensive and not my husband’s cup of coffee, so GA still having a warm place in my heart we decided that GA would be our destination.

After we were married we brought this idea to my family…it did not go well and we did not have their support. What is worse is the combination of my husband trying to keep his new wife happy and my inability to stand behind the courage of my convictions to live my own life with the fear in my heart that if I left I would be exiled forever, we stayed. The choice to stay in NJ would be one which would leave a steady stream of heartache and pain and a host of new and terrible methods of maladaptation to function in my own skin over the next nearly 10 years. Not to mention the strain it placed on my relationship with my husband and I each and every time he worked to glue me back together.

Let’s return to 2016, when I made the choice to be an expat to my family and NJ and plan and work towards moving to GA finally. The next year on May 9^th I headed south towards GA. My husband had a job waiting for him and I was on the hunt for something new to get me out of retail management. A calculated risk, but one I was willing to take for my freedom. With years of leadership experience and a B.S. BA on my way to completing an MBA I was sure that finding a new job would be accomplished rather swiftly. The universe had a different plan, it would take me three months with a few terrible jobs in between that I knew would never work before I found the right work fit for me. Hine sight being 20/20, I would still take the same risk even though it was stressful without my second income and that would be the easy part.

On my drive down through the country towards MY new life at 40 years old I made a crystal clear decision in my mind, my family got the first 40 years of my life they will not get the second 40! With that decision the take back was on to live my life and not someone else’s idea of what my life should look like. But as anyone with life experience will tell you the decision component while at times extremely challenging is often child’s play compared to the backbone required to follow through with movement and actions towards our decisions. For far too many of us settle for a life filled without change, but what we are really yearning for a life that moves us toward the people, places and things that stir our soul and bring us peace.