I went over to my mom’s house the other day. She has a new computer and didn’t care for the default settings in her Word documents. I took about five minutes and set everything in a manner that worked better for her…and then realized I have never done this basic and simple thing for myself. For years and years, when I opened a Word document (which happens numerous times a day), I have automatically gone through the motions to change the font and spacing.

Why? Why did I do something so easily for my mom that I have failed to do for myself.

Because for such a long time I lived in a marriage which gave me nothing. And I taught myself that it is okay to accept the unacceptable. It is okay to give, and give, and give and show up with my A-game year after year to only receive leftover scraps of nothing in return. To endlessly cater to another’s demanded needs when that person had no care for mine whatsoever. Without knowing it, I deeply embraced the message that I wasn’t worth being happy. That if a situation wasn’t okay, I had to simply endure it. That I had no choice but to hang on in a relationship that was sucking my soul dry. That message has been so ingrained in my mind through years of emotional abuse, that I have been incapable of feeling worthy of something as basic as changing my Word settings such that they work better for me. I could do this action so happily for someone else, but not for myself.

When I moved into my new place, I felt frozen every time I thought about hanging artwork and making my house into a home. As I examined why this was going on, I realized a part of it was overwhelm, but a great majority of my hesitation was because I had a deep-seated belief that I don’t have the power to change things I don’t like. I believed somehow that if there is anything in my life I am unhappy with, I am stuck with it…kind of like I was in my marriage for so long.

No more! So I picked up a hammer and some nails and I started pounding holes into my walls. If the pictures don’t work and the wall is dinged up, that can be fixed. Because I have the power to rectify that which does not work for me. I have the power to do whatever I need to do to make my life comfortable and happy. I’m worth it…every human is worth it.

I don’t always love the journey of recovery I am on, but sometimes it yields these incredible gems of truth. It helps me to embrace mental blocks which have held me back for far too long. I never will allow myself to wallow in that mental headspace again where I believe I am incapable of changing the things that are not acceptable in my life. Hello, sweet freedom!

Oh, and yeah, my Word setting are all fixed now too…