It All Started … Shadow Work

I keep going back to the years 2015 to 2018, as if that is when the wolf inside my head started screaming at me, telling me that I am too sensitive and too emotional, but the reality is, this was a feeling held within me to begin with.

Now, I am not here to condone actions by others at all. The things done to my family during that season were not acceptable. That said, the season (as most do) awakened something within me that created a spark (later on) to want to help other single moms overcome these shadows that we have shoved down over the years.

It all begins with our parents; we are born into this world with two parents. This looks different for each of us. I was born to teen parents, and I am sure that played a significant role in how I felt as a baby in this world. I am sure it played a toll on my parents, becoming a parent when they were just children, so to speak, to begin with, and so on.

As a mom of 3 kids who are now 17, 19, and 22, I can honestly say I\’ve learned to have a bit more compassion for those who walked the parenting life before me, and tried to raise me the best they could, given their current state of mind and experiences (or lack thereof).

Again, this is not to condone how people treated me, rather it is to say that I can see the human inside all of us. I can see that I am also capable of the same pain someone inflicted on me, and the only way we can work through these painful moments to show up better today is to RECONGIZE THEM.

It is hard. I won\’t pretend it is easy to look in the mirror and realize that this wolf inside my head has been living there rent-free for far too long, but now that I know this wolf exists, I get to give it the love and affection it didn\’t have when it was just a little girl.

And in doing so, I pray that it helps others watch the light return in my heart and my eyes, so that other single moms can find the hope and love in their hearts to begin again, and to know they didn\’t fail, they did and are doing the best they can do right here, right now.

I hope to help many single moms with this journey, but for now, here is more of my story I felt compelled to share today …

You see, the relationships I\’ve had in my adult years and the habits that I\’ve gotten myself into started to make a mess of my life. I wanted to be such a good mom, yet here I was getting lost in the shadows of my mind, without realizing that was what I was doing.

I knew something was wrong; I am aware, but after that season of 2015 to 2018-ish, something broke inside of me, and I always thought it had come from another person. The reality is that it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with what was already inside me. Now, again, I remind you, this person made horrible mistakes, and they will have to pay for them in their own karmic relationships and so forth, but that isn\’t my concern.

My concern is referencing that time of life as a time that helped me start to spiral and then awaken to the deeper parts of myself that I needed to awaken to, in order to be where I am at with my life journey today.

The spiral I had after the relationship is what started to make me realize exactly what I was doing. I first ignored everything and was completely numb. I went from being a hugging type of mom to some shell of a person I was before this relationship.

The kids had to live with their Dads that summer, and I stayed at my dad\’s and Bonus Mama\’s house during that summer season. I started to work in business as the ghostwriter I was, and rebuilt my credit and was able to eventually get a loan to get into a new apartment to be returned to living with my Trio again (Trio = my 3 kids).

The thing is that I spent that summer distracting myself. When I wasn\’t working to ghostwrite for bloggers and brands, I was drinking alcohol and hanging out with friendly but not so goal-oriented people who perhaps had their own issues that they were drowning out with substances like alcohol.

It wasn\’t a good vibe, but it felt good! I was pretty drunk, smiley, and happy, but I was avoiding the core part of me that had crumbled in the relationship. That said, I was really good at shoving down how I felt, and doing whatever I needed to do to cope (alcohol) and focus on being a workaholic with my business to get the mission accomplished of being back with my Trio.

I was able to rebuild my credit, get approved for a personal loan, and get an apartment that didn\’t feel exactly right, but was something I thought I would feel safer in, as it was attached to the landlord\’s home. I thought this would make me feel safer, as I was still a bit nervous from the stalking and illegal recording from the previous relationship I mentioned above.

The thing is, this living arrangement made me realize even more about the work I had been avoiding on my inner being. I felt stalked and such at this apartment because of the various things that occurred, due to no fault of anyone except myself for rushing into this environment and having a paranoia develop from the previous relationship that I hadn\’t worked deeply enough on healing from.

Here I was with another person moving into our space, and drinking a lot of alcohol. I typically drank when the kids were gone to their Dads every other weekend, and gee, it was like a deja vu moment thinking back.

Until finally I had enough stress that God said, \”Here ya go, Bran. I am going to get your attention\”.

And so, it began. The journey back to myself started with the reality that I am not invincible, shocking, I know! I was in the ER with 180/110 blood pressure, I believe it was. The people had no clue how I wasn\’t having a stroke, but I now praise my spirit guides and protectors in a realm that I cannot see just yet for their loving care during this time.

\”They\” sent me this ER person who was so good at giving me advice both in life and business. He asked the right questions and helped me see (even if at the time only surface level) the issues that I had and had been avoiding. The patterns of relationships I had developed, and the habits I had developed to cope with that, were not healthy, and all of this was due to my blood pressure being that high from STRESS.

Yup. Thank God all tests were fine. Nothing wrong with me, just a bit of extreme stress. I still have the discharge paperwork on my desk … where he wrote in the follow-up notes: \”Find old Brandy. Do NOT lose her again.\”

And that, the simple sentence above, is part of what fuels me today and reminds me whenever I start to crave alcohol to cope with stress, or I find myself falling off into old habits. DO not lose her, DO NOT lose that Brandy that loves fully, hugs often, and enjoys sharing with others a light spark. The key is to know that my love and light can have boundaries, and that is where the shadow work begins.

… until we meet again … The story is far from finished, but I will share more on another day, for now I leave you with this message …

Remember that you are worthy, you are loved, and no one person came into your life and \”ruined\” anything. It was to awaken you to a deeper part of yourself that you simply couldn\’t awaken to, had you not been introduced to the various people that came into your world at \”just the right time\”.