For Me, the Timing has to be Right
I have come along way from being essentially nonexistent in this thing called life, to today, where I am finally on a steady, healthy, and continually healing path. It took time, perseverance, will, and patience; patience has always been the hard thing to realize. I have always wanted to be better: I knew I could do better and be better, but I always felt limited and I did not know how to get to where I wanted to be. The anxiety engulfed me to only deal with my problems, rather than leading with my heart, reaching out, and really offering support to others, which I think is always what I really wanted to do.
This will to be more and to do more drove me to eventually find a healing path. Not to say it didn't take a long time to get here, but I am finally starting to realize I have to actually be ready and in a place I feel confident moving forward. The progress has felt like baby steps until the last few years, but before that I do not believe I was ready or in a healthy place to move forward. I have gone through the cycle a few times: a big life change, I realize I need help, I seek help/therapy, I get to the blaming stage where the next steps get hard and take action on my part, and then I decide I have made progress, feel fine about where I am and stall out. Each time through this process I have learned a lot, and those baby steps helped me get to where I felt confident in taking action today.
This time I finally recognized the pattern and knew I needed to keep working beyond the blame to do the hard work to move forward. After the fact, I always seem to realize that I was not in a confident and health place before to make the huge leaps and bounds of progress I wanted. There was nothing wrong with me at the time; I just wasn't ready. That is where self-compassion comes in. I have to not be so hard on myself for not succeeding before. Having a heart that is so guarded and afraid takes time and determination to develop into a happy and giving heart; especially when it only knows the world as a very scary and hurtful environment. I have to give credit to myself that I have continued on the journey of a healing path and realize the path only continues from here. I have now done the work and preparation to finally be in a place comfortable enough let my heart lead and it will take time, perseverance, will, and patience to continue on a healthy and heartfelt path, but I realize from the place I am in today that the tough journey has been well worth it.