Defining You

As my blog has eluded, I have made mistakes in my past. I have been challenged, tested and have been treated awfully by people whom I thought cared for me. This is a deep look into how I am challenged with the labels that have been brought up in my life, how people and situations have altered the way I view myself. I'm being honest and truthful with all my readers in hope that someone out there feels the same way, because that's why I write the things I do.

On my way up to New Hampshire, I spoke with one of my best friends, whom I hadn't spoken to in months. She knows me. She knows me well--well enough to see that I am lying to myself about something and that I have built up walls around certain aspects of my life, and that I have chosen to live my life a certain way based on those walls. What a wise woman she is. Not only was I blown away that she was able to grasp that from our two hour long conversation, but being able to grasp that after not speaking to each other in months. A wise, wise woman you are Mrs. Kraft. She told me that I had to be honest with myself, so I am.

She told me I must look at how I define myself because she feels I'm still including my past in my definitions of who I am as a person. I am more of a woman than the shell I used to be. I am more than just a woman who has been used and abused by a man. I learned what a nasty man does to get his way and how he can make even the strongest of women feel degraded and worthless. I learned what fear for your life felt like and the uncertainty of feeling safe even when surrounded by people who genuinely care about you and your well being.

So is this the key element from my past that now shapes who I am as a woman? Unfortunately, yes. It has been almost two years and I still can't move past the label of a victim. It's not even that label--it's the thought that I am no longer good enough for anyone. No longer good enough to love. No longer good enough to be loved. No longer pure enough to be pure. Until I met someone, but like everything else--that didn't last. He gave me hope that I can be enough to someone (even though my heart aches everyday for him).

So I go through stages where I am not enough and my heart yearns for someone amazing. It's a lonely world when you think of yourself that way, however, I'm working hard on not letting it define me. What I've been through in life has taught me very valuable things and I am able to learn and grow because of it. In the meantime, though, I keep myself busy.

I put my stresses and uncertainties into training and I train hard to erase them. I train hard because I am an athlete. I am also a daughter, a sister and a woman in Christ.

How do you then define yourself aside from the things in your past? Let it go (yes, Frozen). But how do you let it go when it's such a big part of what makes you, you? You grow and use those learning experiences to shape you as a better person. You use those experiences to redefine yourself as someone better. Yes, things may have happened to me, but I am becoming a stronger woman with firm beliefs because of it.