In this episode, I get really personal about the trauma in my past, the issues that I had to overcome, and how they ultimately brought me to where I am today. I also share the story of how I met my husband and what happened before we moved to Colorado, ultimately leading us to our move to Puerto Rico. This is a very personal and emotional episode in which I share my journey through different relationships, learning to own my worth, and getting better at releasing judgment in every part of my life. Tune in for another dose of Grace for Breakfast! Find me on Instagram @ivianabynum and say hi! Click here to listen >>
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Episode Transcription
You know, it’s very different to go from being deep in your thoughts to then getting into my closet and starting to record these episodes, especially when it comes to the things that I want to share that are really vulnerable. There’s a difference between when I’m sitting down to script an episode versus when I really just want to share my heart on a deeper level and it’s always what’s in my head.
So in this episode, I’m really taking a stab at just going as it flows and just trusting that God is going to speak through me because one of the things that I’ve realized that I value so much in friendships- the ones that I really really feel connected to- they’re the ones that we’re just vulnerable.
I really value people who are vulnerable and own their junk. They break down, they have their moments and then they own it. They make it right versus the ones who possibly own their stuff but stay in pride and are open to being vulnerable but are also pompous. I’m still unpacking that so I won’t go too much into depth with that because I don’t believe that I have the right way to really explain how I feel in that. But the point is that I really do value vulnerability and then every time that I get into these episodes and get ready to hit record or just plan it out- Sometimes I get caught up in, okay, how do I best put this into a certain subject or give it the best title? Or what’s the best companion thing to go with this and I don’t want to get so caught up in the marketing of it and rather than just being vulnerable and I’ve been thinking a lot about what my purpose is lately and, who do I really want to serve? Who do I really care about? What is it that I care about so much over anything, over my skills. I know that I’m talented at systems. I know that I’m really good at that but really what’s the deeper level? Why do I have such a great relationship with my clients?
Why is it that I connect with people so much and I believe it’s the fact that I really truly care about the depth of that person. I really do care about the freedom that that person can have and the reason why I care about that so much is because that’s what I care about for myself and for my kids and I think that it’s so important especially as parents or as individuals who may sometimes be caught or someday become a parent.
I think it’s so much more important for us to be free mentally to be free from judgment from having to keep up with the Joneses and live up to a certain status quo. And that’s what I feel like my husband and I have been working towards from the very beginning just breaking out of what we thought we should become and really embracing more and more every year.
Who we were born to be what we were meant to become what’s calling out from within us and it changes every season changes at every age. It changes every year and also every year and every step that we take to get closer. We’re getting freer and it always boils down to the same things.
In our case one thing that we end up circling back to is that our purpose and for us for my husband and I- for Bhreon and Iviana- we have a purpose to work together there is stuff within us that we want to create together as a couple we are better together. We are better at creating together and I don’t know if that’s what God wants for every single couple.
I don’t know to be honest, but at least for us that’s what we believe for us. We believe that we were meant to do things together and that our purpose and the fact that we were brought together was for a reason because of the things that share and the values that we share and the passions that we share.
And in our case, it’s been very much having to do with our family and raising. People that are wonderful people and that are free from what society puts on them, the pressure that society puts on them and to some that may seem entitled because we’ve worked through that we’ve worked through.
Are we entitled or are we lazy? But no, it’s none of that. It’s not any of that. It’s really more of, Are we free? And freedom isn’t just you know, the literal sense. A lot of times we look at Freedom up as like let’s say someone being in jail and then they’re free like they’re free out in the world.
We’re all free and I don’t think that’s what that means. It goes a little bit deeper than that. It’s being free from judgment and being free from proving something and from having to be something and that every day every interaction that we have with other people were like, ah, man we messed up again like we did it again.
We tried to prove something we mentioned something from our past to make up for the things that were insecure about right now and I see it everywhere. I constantly am noticing that and then I notice even more the parts about me in which I’m doing it like I’m trying to prove something and I’ve got nothing to prove and I don’t want to have anything to prove anymore.
I want to just be I want to just be me so. I want to share my story today. I’m and really work through the process with you as I speak of, you know, just how I’ve gotten to where I’m at now and what I’m working on now the projects that I’m working on the things that I’m joining forces with my husband on but it’s taken a lot of risk and it’s taken a lot Dealing with judgment from others, but also judgment for ourselves. I think that’s something that’s been the hardest part of like releasing. You know, I have nothing to prove to myself. He has nothing to prove to himself we have nothing to prove to anybody else. It’s just it’s about us and ultimately we have discovered that through being parents because.
When we look at the things that we’re struggling struggling with and suffering through and striving through we think about our kids were like, we don’t want them to go through that. We don’t want them to waste so many years of their life being so worried about what other people think and making decisions out of scarcity and fear.
And those are always the decisions that put us in situations that we honestly just hate that we honestly like. We dread so. I want to share a little bit about my background and I’ve shared it in the pan in the background the podcast before. But I believe that it it makes sense as to why I am the way that I am today and why this is so important for me and hopefully me sharing my story can help you find something within you that.
You’re like man, like I need to just let go of trying to prove something to anybody else and it doesn’t have to be as radical as my husband and I have been at all. It could be just the smallest of things. But the point is to always be moving towards internal Freedom, you know, and and the full surrender that.
There is a Creator like there’s no denying it and I don’t want to keep tiptoeing around it. I often deal with just being afraid that people will be like, oh if you wanna super religious and that’s been a story that I’ve had to release of like, oh like in high school, you know, my friends used to joke and be like if Ian has the Little Angel and even though I hung out with, you know, the crowd that was doing all sorts of stuff.
You know that that. Risky and you just not right something that I want to want my kids to do not saying that I was like super crazy and off the wall, but I wasn’t a saint and but I was I was the one who went to church every Sunday and believed in God and at the same time the fact that I got made fun of so much made me embarrassed almost to share that I believe in God that I’m a believer that.
You know I Define myself as a Christian and I’ve had to get past a lot of religious hurt because I was hurt honestly mostly by other Christians. I experienced the most judgment from other Christians and that sucks and it’s I mean, it’s another thing in itself to unpack this is who I am and this is what’s gotten me through and this is.
Brought me to where I am today. It hasn’t been me. It’s been God and what I’ve learned the most is to always continuously surrender more to God surrender more to my creator that obviously his plan is way better than mine and I keep getting in the way because of the fact that I’m afraid that people will judge me or that people will.
Think that I’m an idiot or that I’m selfish or that I am foolish or weak or sensitive whatever it may be. There’s been so many things that I’ve had to release and the point of this all is that that’s what I want for you like that’s what I’m really passionate about is because the freedom that I’ve encountered. Through the years has been within myself. I have nothing to prove to you. I have nothing to prove to anybody and I always fail when I fall back into that trap of trying to prove of being around a certain person and falling into. Oh, you know, what brand is that or where did you get that or just like falling into that?
I’m so sick of it. It’s so draining. I just want to be me. I just want to say. Hey, I like this bag and I’m wearing it because I like it who cares where it’s from. I could have gotten it to the thrift store or the dollar store. I don’t care. I just like it and seeing friends of mine suffering through that and experiencing more and more freedom has been it’s just helped so much.
But the point is that I’m still working through always there’s always something else that I’m like, oh man there I go again falling into it and I really started to see that in college and it started with you know, I had a really good friend that I love so much to this day that I got to the point that I realized how much I was always trying to.
Prove something when I was around her. Like I was I had to prove that I was clean enough or or fly enough as we said in those days like I you know, I had the nice clothes or I was smart enough or I was ambitious enough and I got to a point one day that I was like I constantly feel so judged around you.
I feel like I’m not good enough and I’ve been friends with her for so many years and. The way that it came out was totally wrong. Like it was really unhealthy and we had a blow-up within that same day she moved out and it, you know broke my heart and even years after that we tried so much to repair that friendship and.
There’s just too much like there’s just too much baggage and it’s one of those things that I still don’t know. I still don’t know how to fix it. I still love her and I would love to just be cool again, but we both have stuff that we have to deal with before we can repair the friendship and that has happened over and over in my life because of how I grew up because of all the experiences that I had leading up to those points.
You know, I grew up. It was just me and my mom which I’ve shared before. My dad is an alcoholic and she was just raising me by herself having grown up as someone who came from Puerto. Rico didn’t speak English had to learn English had an accent got made fun of dealt with all those things of being different of being the the other person.
Being a person of color being a person who was young and and just finding her way in the world to then raising someone the best that she could and to be strong and to not let anybody stomp on me, you know, so I believe that we all go through the cycle of just proving our worth. And proving that we should be respected and that we’re making good decisions and really like we have nothing to prove it always goes back to that.
We’ve nothing to prove and the worth that we have was one that we were born with it was it we don’t have nothing to prove about who we are what we wear. What status we have what education we have? Yeah, we can’t constantly keep going back to it. And it’s always what brings us back to bondage and in college, that’s where I started to realize like my worth didn’t come from a certain friend that I had.
It didn’t come from having a certain boyfriend and it didn’t come with a certain degree and. My second year of college. I had gotten out of and this really wonderful friend that I still love even though we don’t speak anymore. She helped me get out of a really tough time. I was I had gone from one abusive relationship to the next and the guy that I was dating in college.
He was really really abusive. He would he was physically abusive. He was mentally abusive. He was controlling. And I was afraid of him and he stalked me and she was like you need to move on campus and my mom didn’t want me to move on campus. My mom was very protective of me. I was only child and at the time I was working full-time in the town where I grew up and I was commuting to school and.
Also dating this very abusive guy for two years. So I dated him from my senior year of high school all the way up until my sophomore year of college and in my sophomore year of college her and I were starting to like rekindle our friendship mind you we had already had like kind of like we just drifted away in high school because I started dating this boy.
I started dating very young like 8th 9th grade and. You know, I can go into all that stuff of like the daddy issues and you know looking for love in the wrong places and that’s why I started dating and blah blah blah, but that doesn’t matter what matters is now and what I’m doing now, and I used to I used to talk a lot about my past, you know to Define who I am now, but honestly, like I don’t I want to share those things with you, but I don’t want to go too far into it because.
I’m past it and it’s you know, what am I doing now to get past those patterns? So the point is that I was with this guy. I was working full-time. I was trying to do the school thing. I was in a degree that I really didn’t care much about. You know, when I went into college. I was like, I want to be an English major which was right there.
I was living my truth. I love to write. I absolutely love literature. I absolutely obsessed with it. I’m obsessed with books. If you see the library on my house, you’d be like, whoa. She’s got a lot of books and that was my truth. However, my mom was a teacher. So I was like, um, you know, there’s a story in my mind that said, okay, maybe.
Shouldn’t study literature. Like what am I going to do with an English major? What am I gonna do with an English degree, which I’m realizing now, like if I would have just lived my truth. Anyways, I was doing I changed my major to Elementary education because that seemed like the right thing to do.
My mom’s a teacher. I should become a teacher and sophomore year hits and I was on academic probation. I get a letter that summer. And my GPA was like a 1.9. And they said, you know get your act together. You’re getting the boot and that was like whoa, that was a defining moment. Like I need to change my life and I had started to be friends with this girl again a little by little we ended up by happenstance, which is no coincidence, like how God works thing.
That’s why I believe you know, even though we had a rocky relationship. It doesn’t matter like she was meant to be in my life. Even if it was for That season because she helped me so much and that same summer a friend of mine that I absolutely loved she got into a really horrible car accident and she was in a coma and I.
I was in the hospital and she was flatlining and I told God I said God if you’re real because at that time, you know all through high school. I was like, even though I grew up in the church, even though I grew up, you know being taught about God. Thank you so much for my mom and that I life sucked.
Like I don’t know how else to say. It life was so difficult and I was like if God really loves me, why did I get taken advantage of. By my boyfriend, why did I get hurt by my friends? Why did I why did this thing stuff happened to me? Like I had very much that mentality and I was like forget you and then when this happened my friend. I said God if you’re real bring her back and I kid you not within seconds. The doctors came out and they’re like she’s back. She’s breathing. She’s good. And I was like, whoa, you know, I know now made this promise God. I will give my life back to you and I kept my word and all in that summer. Not only did I get that letter my friend, you know, she was in a coma, but she was alive.
I was really seeing like okay. I need to turn my life around so I went back to school and I. Change my major and I was like, well, I know that I want to advocate for women women who have been victims of domestic violence. Obviously. This was something that was close to my heart. So I was like, I want to be an attorney and I changed my major to pre-law.
And I believe my friend changed her major to I don’t know. I don’t remember. but I went into this pre-law major political science and I went like headfirst and. I started getting straight A’s like I got straight A’s through Junior and Senior year of college. I joined these different groups like I joint programs Council.
I ran for vice president. I got it. I joined organization of Latin American students. I ran for president. I got it. I joined the senior class board and obviously I was so involved. I remember I was just like, oh, I just want to be I think I was like the treasurer but I wanted to be on the senior class board.
I got it and I just you know, I went after what I wanted and I got it and I did good. I got like straight A’s I made Dean’s List. I turned my life around. And then I got my bachelor’s and immediately after when I got my bachelor’s because I stayed in that same school, even though I got straight A’s those last two years.
It’s one of those things like you can go by could have gone back and said, I wish I would have just changed my college because if I were to change my college I would have started. Just started from the beginning and my GP. I would have been higher but it averaged out from my first two years. So when I graduated my GPA was not very good.
So it was like, I think it was like a three like a I don’t know like a 3.1 like not very high and I need to go back and look but it wasn’t very high even with Straight A’s and so I started my quest to try to get into law school and when I. Tried to get into law school. There was a process of passing this test called the LSAT and the LSAT.
You have to score very high getting into law school is very competitive. So even though I did my internship in New Haven I was I did my internship with them Public Defender’s Office. Like I did very well. I had all these great letters of recommendation. It was very difficult for me to get into law school.
And I would do really well on my practice L SATs, but then I went and took the test. So two different times and I did horrible absolutely horrible. So I go back to my counselor my counselors like you should just go get your Master’s so I went and I got my masters in business. And I did that pretty quickly within a couple years.
I did it all online and during the time that I was. Getting my master’s that’s when I started dating my husband and so my husband and I we met in high school. So my junior year of high school. I was dating this guy the sophomore year, it’s funny how like there’s defining moments of my sophomore years of high school.
Summers and my my sophomore year summer of college, that’s interesting. I just made that realization, but the summer of sophomore year of high school. I had broken up with my very first love and it was like my biggest heartbreak and I started dating this boy who was absolute knucklehead horrible guy, and he was physically abusive and he.
I was very jealous and controlling and that summer a friend of mine and I we were like, oh we’re going to call it the do you summer and that summer I was dating this guy and he would like steal my money and I had my had a job. Like I was I was like 16 or 15 and he when school started. His jealousy like was really bad because he didn’t really go to school.
He was like absolute knucklehead and he started to hit me like he started to really get physically abusive with me would force me to do things that I don’t want to do and one day he followed my friend and I from school and he started accusing me of cheating on him. And I was like one like I’ve never been an Unfaithful person and relationships and so like a week.
I was like I’m done with you like sounds so silly to say but I broke up with him and then the following week the Monday. My mom had a professional development Dyke. She’s a teacher so I had I didn’t have school. So I was home alone and he showed up at my house and he was like we need to talk. And he basically like pulled me out of my house.
Any we walked it was what it was like November and he like forced me to go to his house and we went all the way to his house and it was Winter was really cold in, Connecticut. And he has cousin was there like guarding the door and he brought me upstairs and I want to keep this very rated G coz I know I’m noticing that a lot of my listeners listen with their kids.
So I’m just going to let you figure this out, but he brought me up to his room and he questioned me like are you cheating on me? I said, no. I didn’t cheat on you we’re done and he basically beat me up and took advantage of me. And I had to run out of there. Barefoot leave my cell phone leave my coat.
I literally ran out of there in the winter all the way home. I left everything. It was the most horrible experience and since my mom and I’m not saying this to blame my mom. This is just what I knew to do every time my mom had a horrible experience my dad she. Put on our makeup the next day she got dressed up and she went to work and you know, since it was my mom and I she didn’t want me to lose.
She don’t want to lose me or be taken away. She would say baby, you know, don’t tell anybody about this about what happened and that’s why I say God was so powerful in my life because if it wasn’t for God. I don’t know how I would have turned out now, like really God has always taken care of me and has given me outlets and for me, my writing was my outlet to get my feelings out.
I went to counseling as a child but it didn’t work. Like honestly for me talk therapy didn’t work. I remember a counselor falling asleep on me as a child going to counseling and I dealt with hair loss. I got hernias, like all sorts of stress that I was holding in because I. Have those Outlets very much.
But God was my outlet church was my outlet. So anyways back to my story. So I went to school the next day. So Tuesday, I went to school and the guy he was like if you tell anybody what I did I am going to have there’s like these there’s a gang in my town that I grew up in the Bloods. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Bloods, but.
He was Affiliated. His family was affiliated with that gang. And he said I will have my cousin’s jump you and you will be done pretty much so I kept my mouth shut I went to school and I pretended nothing happen and that day he had already spread a rumor about me saying that I was. Trying to say it in a PG way, but that I was interested in the opposite gender, which was something that was not true about me. And so he had spread this rumor about me and that that’s why we weren’t together and blah blah blah. So I go back to school. My face is completely bruised. And I had really long hair. I put my makeup on and I just covered my face and Thursday. So there’s Tuesday Wednesday Thursday a friend of mine her boyfriend went and got my cellphone back got my sneakers back got my coat back for me from his house.
I got my stuff back. Thank God and because he had hidden my stuff. He had completely hidden all of my things for me so I couldn’t get away and but I still think God I got I found my window and. Got out of there so fast, but anyways, I went to school. I pretended I was good. I you know, I was strong with all people laughing at me making fun of me all of that and then by Thursday, I believe Thursday night.
My mom comes up to my room. My room was in the attic and she was like. Why have you been so weird like what are you hiding? Like she just knew she always knew when something was up and I was so rebellious at that time because I was trying to figure stuff out on my own and I was in my mom was so so protective that I just like I like just was like get away from me.
Like you are just ruining my my life. I was just very angry at with with her because she kept getting back with my dad at that time. Like she was kept getting back with him and I was like choose me like don’t choose him. So I didn’t we had a very rocky relationship so she came up and she asked me like what’s wrong and what’s wrong with you and she like pulled my hair back and I had like these purple hand marks on my face or finger marks and she’s like, oh, My goodness what happened to you?
So I told her the whole story and she wanted me to press charges like she wanted to press charges and I still go back and wonder like how would I have handled things differently and I definitely would have pressed charges because I know for a fact that guy is still out there. He still abusive. He’s still a knucklehead.
He’s still the same like he should be in jail, but I didn’t because I was so afraid of judgment. And so she called his mom and she like went off on his mom and his mom, of course defended him and stood up for him and enabled. I’m sure. and basically like threatened my mom and I was like Mom, please like they’re affiliated with the Bloods like just please like and so.
We just made the best decision that we could together and I feel like that was what my mom and I did and that’s what. parents do like that’s what we’re doing and.
- That the next morning my mom so she had pull because she was a very she’s a really good teacher. She’s always gotten Awards. So she went to the superintendent and she changed me to the next to the opposing high school and within the next so that Friday I was going in the morning to my locker got my book.
Return my books and I started at the different High School. and. that was it like that was how we dealt with it. So imagine. What happens to a lot of us that we deal with these really traumatic events and we don’t deal with them. and then we become adults and parents and we’re still. Making decisions when we haven’t dealt with what we went through.
and. it is so important that you deal with your past. It’s ugly and it sucks and it hurts, but you have got to deal with it or you’re going to keep the cycle going with your kids. So. I started at the new High School. And I bet you can imagine what I did within a couple of weeks. I had a new boyfriend and this boyfriend.
Had a sister and my husband dated his sister.
So my husband was always unavailable in high school because he was with this girl for like ever and.
So anyways, we did go on one day in high school when we’re both temporarily available. And and that was it and we went off to college he went off to college. and then Senior Year you guys know already that I started dating that other guy, which was like no use evil. So evil and that’s the one that I dated all the way until sophomore year of college.
So full circle, right? So here I am in I finish my bachelor’s degree fast forward again, and I’m doing my Master’s I moved out of my house and I got my own place. And I was still close to home. I was like 20 minutes away from home. Like I always wanted to stay close to my mom because she you know, it was just her and like even though we had such a rocky relationship like it’s I don’t know if any of you listening like grew up with a single mom and you were the only daughter like you almost have a sister relationship like you’re almost like sisters to.
But sisters with like sibling rivalry, at least my mom and I were and I’m just so thankful to God that so much has been repaired through the years and we still like but we still want to keep working at it and like a year ago. I felt completely different about my mom than I do today. And the point is though that we keep working at it and that I keep working at myself and.
I keep letting go of all the junk layers and layers and layers and layers of junk that are built around my heart that allow me to be more open and show more grace and show more grace to myself and also to my mom because I know that through the years one of the issues that I’ve had with her is that I felt like I was letting her down and I felt like I just.
Yeah, I let her down. Like I should have been a teacher. I should have had this traditional career and I didn’t do it and I know that the way that my husband and I have lived Our Lives it’s kind of risky and it’s it’s not the traditional lifestyle and I know that for a mom with just one daughter like you she wants the best for me.
She wants me to be good and she wants her grandkids to be. Okay, so. I have carried that baggage of like trying to prove my worth to her when really, you know, I had a conversation with her a few months ago and she was like I’m proud of you you you you achieved what is more important than anything and its family and it’s love and your kids love you and your husband loves you and you guys love each other and you have such a special bond and I think you know.
When she said that to me, I was like, ah, like it was just this huge weight lifted and I think that that is that’s been my quest because from a child all I wanted was family because I didn’t have it and that’s what I want for people. Like, I think we get caught up in having the certain degree in a certain job and making a certain income.
Like it takes away from you have a husband at home who loves you and you have a kid or two kids that love you and you’re so worried about having the certain title and a certain. Income bracket and a certain Persona and image to keep and you forget about what matters and your family is shattered and falling apart in your kids are depressed and they don’t know what to do with themselves and it just continues down the line and it’s and I think that what we need to find is.
What we love and what God intended us to do in this world and sometimes it seems very mediocre. Sometimes it doesn’t seem very important and it’s against what we’ve been taught but it is what gives us peace. It’s what gives us hope and love and it’s what really makes us feel alive and not walk through life feeling dead and apathetic and hating what we’re doing and hating the career that we’re in.
So. I was at a Crossroads in my life. I had gotten to the point that I was tired of having my heart broken. I was tired of looking for love in the wrong places and I was finally loving myself and I believe that my husband had gotten to that point to because I’m sorry. I’m still so sniffly from crying earlier, but.
I was Finding is what brought us together again is remember that friend that I told you about my sophomore year summer who had gotten into that accident. Well through my Junior and Senior year I continue to be friends with her. She had to learn how to walk again. She had to learn how to talk again.
She had to learn everything all over again in her life was pretty much flipped upside down and it changed her. And I continue to be friends with her. I continue to go and visit her and she has a brother and so when I finished College, I started to have more time to go visit her and my husband hung out with her brother.
So we would keep running into each other, but I remember the first day that. Because her brother was always like closed up in his room playing video games and I would go to her house and we’d like close ourselves up in her room. So you never knew like who is in the same house and one day Bree came out my husband and he came in and said hi and I was like, hi, like again like that first day and in the hallway and.
We and it was close. I remember like okay time went by again. And then I went and I bought myself my first car like my my very first car my very first two cars my mom got them for me. And and so but what I had to do was like I had to pay for all my other stuff. So she my mom would always help me with like the very.
The things that I truly needed and then all the other stuff she is like if you want to have a cell phone if you want to have your nice fancy clothes like you need to pay for it and I thought that was so good. You know, I would get so mad at her then and I was like, ah, like all my friends like their parents give them money to do this and that and I have to work for everything.
But now I’m like wow like the work ethic that I have like I wouldn’t have gotten it otherwise. So anyways. This was my third car now, but this was the car that I bought and it was the car that I wanted. So I was super proud and it was close to my birthday and I went to my friends house to show it off and there is my husband.
He’s like hey again, and I remember him saying oh, can I can I take it for a spin one day and I was like, no nobody’s driving my car and a few days later was my birthday and he called me. And he must have gotten my number from my friend. He was like, hey happy birthday and needless to say that the rest is history because we started hanging out and we were both very much heartbroken.
We’re both like done with like just playing games and I remember just saying to each other like I remember saying to him the next person I date like. It’s the person that I’m going to marry. So if you’re not in this for the long game, I don’t want this. I don’t want to waste my time anymore. I’ve had my heart broken too much.
I’ve had I’ve been physically beaten mentally be in like I’ve had enough and it was the same for him. He was like, I’m done playing games. I’m done getting my heart broken and we were both in that same place. But we were too pretty shattered individuals like we both had our stories and we had a lot to get past but we had love for each other and.
I think that will be you know in another podcast episode because this one is already gone really long, but that started us on our journey that we’ve been on now today and it’s just been one of. Releasing the past releasing our junk and it’s just not it’s not as simple as just releasing. It’s been very ugly big arguments Big realizations And Then followed by humility followed by letting go of our pride apologizing owning our junk and then.
Acknowledging it and continuing to say okay. That’s that’s my junk. That’s my past speaking or that’s you know, a bad habit that I learned from my mom or my dad or this person who broke my heart and it’s not like we work we spend the day it’s not like I have a day and I’m like, ah that came from my mom.
No, it’s more like, okay. I’m doing that again, and I need to change this Behavior. So that’s been very much what our marriage has been and from the beginning though. It was a decision that we made that we were done playing games and that is something that I think hurts so many marriages and so many relationships is.
Continuing to play these manipulation games and mind you we’ve done it to each other. We still do it to each other like he calls me out and he’s like, you know, babe, you’re like that’s very manipulative what you just said and I’m not standing for that and I do the same thing to him and people see us on the outside and they’re like, oh, you know, I mean our kids are pretty awesome.
And we do have a really awesome marriage, but people don’t see the ugly and they don’t see like that the point the reason why our family is so awesome and why we love each other so much and why our kids are such great communicators and why we like get along with so many great people is because we Face the ugly often.
We are often facing the ugly, but we don’t stay there. We when things get too bad. We’re like, whoa, like one of us is like we need to pray like we need to turn this to God because we’re trying way too hard to figure this out on our own and it’s not working. So my life as I said in the beginning has been a whole lot of things not going as planned and.
I think it’s been so much better that way because every time I had a plan I often fell on my face and it didn’t go the way I wanted it to be to go and the outcome has been so much better because for years so going back to not getting into law school and getting my masters. You know, there’s little moments of truth that I had in college because when I wanted to be a lawyer I was like, well, I want to go to this college in New York because it has a small business part of I wanted to go to CUNY law and they have a I don’t know like a special major.
I don’t even remember like how it is, but it taught you how to start your own practice and I knew like I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to be. I didn’t want to work for a firm. I knew that I always wanted to beat to My Own Drum. I didn’t want to you know have bosses and that’s something that I’ve continued to repeat the pattern of like realizing like oh, I don’t want to be in this business because I feel bad and again, I’m doing it again.
And it’s because I end up getting into these different Ventures out of fear out of scarcity out of fear that my actual dreams won’t bring me the money that my family needs and same with my husband like he hasn’t fully gone all-in, too. What God has really intended for his life out of fear because people say oh you’re an artist.
Oh, you’re going to be a starving artist, you know, like oh for me like, oh writers don’t really make that much money, you know, or do that, you know, there’s always this fear that comes around. These risky vocations. Yeah, and and it really like everything is risky. Everything is but the ones who succeed are the ones who just go all in and they do their best and if it’s not according to God’s plan if it’s not according to what should work out, then it won’t work out but if it keeps burning inside of you and it’s something that.
Every time you do it you do feel challenged and you also feel like you’re living in your purpose. Then why give up on it? Why continue to fall into things out of fear because you’re going to make quick money and give up on the real dream that you have. So, I mean that’s what we’re working through.
I don’t want to put that on you, but that’s what we’ve worked through for now. I mean, we’ve been married for nine years we’ve been together. Since 2008 so for like 11 years at the recording of This podcast and that’s what it’s been. It’s been falling on our face whether it be in our marriage whether it be in parenting whether it be in our career and then getting back up again and facing our fears facing judgment mostly judgment for ourselves and then.
Facing JJ the Judgment of others and just releasing and moving on and like owning are worth. It’s something that we are working through. So when I talk about these things, you know, I’ve been one. I’ve been teetering with like how do I approach all of this and I believe that. It’s through vulnerability that I can be the realist with you and I can invite you.
Join me on this journey of just giving yourself Grace and owning. I want to say the other word. I want to say the s word because it feels like it would be so much better but owning your junk. And moving on and getting better every single day. That’s Grace to me right now. It’s full surrender. Its full just being like God you are in control.
I’m sick of trying to prove something. I’m sick of being something that I’m not because. Such and such says that that’s the cool thing to do. And oh this person on Instagram said that that’s the best strategy to take like, I’m just done so I will share more of the story now. I really want to share with you.
Just how we ended up moving from Connecticut to Colorado then to Puerto Rico. I mean that’s a whole story in itself a whole nother episode and I will share it. But I guess this is just what this one ended up being and. yeah more to come.
