My moment of understanding. 

If you feel stuck in your head right now, I know exactly how you feel. The heaviness of thinking nothing is ever going to change. The loneliness of thinking no one understands. The sadness of thinking you need to carry the hurt with you for the rest of your life.

The hardest part for me was not being able to understand why. Why I couldn’t just be me. Why my mom couldn’t see me the way everyone else saw me. Why she couldn’t see me for me. Who I was. And how I wanted to live my life.

So it created an emotional duel within me – battling for her approval and fighting for me.

Until I had to leave. Leave the pain of the guilt and the shame. The weight of the anger and the blame.

Because I was being beaten down. From the guilt of not showing appreciation and respect for my mom by raising my voice. From the shame of being a selfish daughter who put my needs ahead of family. From the deep sorrow of no longer thinking I was worthy and deserving of her love.

The following years were hard.

Because I created a new thought pattern that made me think I deserved to be punished. For failing to be the daughter my mom wanted me to be. The daughter she could be proud of. The daughter that was worthy of the words: “I am proud of you.”

I ate my way through the pain. And hid behind the smile. I worked out so no one would know. And worked late so no one could see I was crying on my drive home.

And my mind went into overdrive too.

The obsessive thinking over everything I thought I did wrong. The constant thinking that I was always the one who did something wrong. The dogmatic thinking that made everything about being right and wrong.

Until I had enough.

I had enough of the emotional instability. I had enough of stuffing my face with donuts and sugar. I had enough of thinking I was no longer good enough too.

Because I still had moments where I felt alive and free. I was still able to experience moments of laughter and joy. I could still remember how it felt to be confident and secure. Because I could still feel me. Who I knew I still was.

I just couldn’t understand why I would forget so quickly and fall back into the depression and the despair. I couldn’t understand why I felt I needed to keep pushing her away. And the part that hurt the most was not being able to understand why I would keep doing this – knowing the pain it caused her and the suffering it created for me.

Because it just didn’t make sense.

So I spent the next few years figuring it out. Understanding how I could still feel the same way even though I was hundreds of miles away. Understanding what triggered the feelings and the emotional eating. Understanding why I would wake up energized and full of life and like clockwork, start feeling low and sullen in the late afternoon.

I was my own experiment. Observing. Noticing. Listening.

And then it arrived.

My Moment of Understanding. The moment I realized the only difference between when I was feeling confident and alive and when I was feeling lonely and depressed was a Thought.

Because even though my mom never said she was proud of me, she also never said any of the thoughts I had on autoplay in my own head either.

It was all my own thoughts.

How I learned to see it. How I learned to hear it. How I learned to think about it.

And if I learned to think this way about me, I could also learn a new way of seeing me. That required no thought. Because it was the Thought that took me down the downward spiral. The Thought that made my mind spin out of control. The Thought that started the broken record. Because without the Thought, my mind is no longer thinking. Without the Thought, I am no longer thinking these thoughts about me.

So this is exactly what I learned how to do.

I learned how to heal every single thought I learned to think about me.

To release me from the story I created about me. In my own mind. From my own thoughts.

To take back control of my life. My joy. My daily contentment.

To return to my own love too.

I did it using my own mind.

And you can too.

Because your mind can do more than just think.Your mind can see the Understanding too.

Because you are the master of your own mind. Your thoughts aren’t the master of You.

The only thing standing between you and your joy is a Thought. The only thing blocking you from seeing it too is a Thought. A Thought you learned to think about You. A thought no one else can see. Other than you. Because You are not a Thought. You already are You.

No thought required.