Deep Dark Confession

This blog is about to embark on a new journey.  Before we go, I have a confession to make that I'm not very proud of.  I'm a reality TV junky!!  I love the real housewives series'!  It's so fun to watch these crazy bitches who have so much money to throw around, maids, nannies, huge homes and a wealth of drama!  This addiction is all my daughters fault, she gave me my first syringe full and I have never been the same. 

Why am I telling you this?  What is the new journey?  I'm reading Bethenny Frankel's book "A Place Of Yes"  This book is already so great and I'm only 30% in.  It's chalked full of fodder for this blog mostly because it validates the healing path I'm already on.

Of all the housewives, Bethenny is the one I admire.  She has grown an amazing business, found a great husband and has a beautiful daughter.  She displays and embodies balance in her life.  Please don't hear me comparing myself to her but I do think there are similarities.  The book is kind of a self help book about her story.  She admits to the world that she got there the hard way.  As did I. 

Over the coming weeks I want to explore some of the themes in her book.  In the book are 10 rules to help you come from a place of yes.  Here they are: 

1. Break the chain
2. Find your truth
3. Act on it
4. Everything is your business
5. All roads lead to Rome
6. Go for yours
7. Separate from the pack
8. Own it
9. Come together
10. Celebrate!

The first rule is the one I would like to explore today.  Break the chain...  It's pretty simple, break any chains from your childhood or past that you don't care for ("take or leave it")  One part really spoke to me.  Discussing pain from her childhood:  "I've decided it has to stop with me because it's no longer only about me.  I won't pass on the dysfunction.  I refuse to do it.  Instead, I'll take all that is good in me and leave the rest behind." 

If I had read this book at 20, it might have changed the shape of my parenting path.  Is it too late for me?  I don't know, but it's too late for my parenting.  When I read this chapter I was forced to admit that I didn't break the chain in time for our kids.  I can feel guilty in spades but what benefit would that bring?  Thankfully, my 21 year old daughter is reading this book along with me so that eases my guilt some.  I did learn through meditation in the last 10 years to break the chain.  I will never say too little too late, I don't believe it. 

What it means to break the chain is really about purging beliefs, patterns, habits and pain that you took on from your childhood that doesn't really belong to you.  Let go of anything that isn't yours, love the things that are good in you and leave the rest by the side of the road.  Sounds good to me!!