Start at the beginning.

Where to start? That is always the big question. Well… let’s start at the beginning. Some think it’s best to move backward when looking on one’s past but I don’t like the thought of moving backwards. I like constant progression and growth and that doesn’t happen by moving backwards. So… I’ll start at the beginning and re-trace steps from there.

The purpose of this website, these services, and this blog is to allow you, the reader, to connect with me. To see the challenges I faced and overcame. To see the births and deaths of different aspects within myself. To see how I applied my lessons and experiences to everyday actions and well… to my life in general.

I hope that you can relate and see that everyone has their own struggles, traumas, experiences, perceptions, lessons and even achievements. This is how I progressed through mine.

I find that most therapeutic professionals do everything they can to maintain a spotless image. I don’t know about you but that type of personae can feel not only intimidating but almost feels degrading. Like their noses are looking down at me. I mean come down off your high horse and say something relatable instead of giving me the feeling of inadequacy or invalidism and throwing me in one of your boxes of diagnoses.

Start at the beginning… What does that mean? Do I start telling my story from my birth until the present moment? From which perspective do I look at that story?

I don’t know about you but my perspectives change all the time. The more I learn, the more they adapt and change. I definitely didn’t have the same knowledge base as a child or adolescent as I do now. Two years ago I had a different knowledge base and perspective then I do now.

Someone once asked me: “If you could go back and be a kid again would you?” My answer would involve something along the lines of “Can I do it with my current knowledge base?” Even then, the more I think about it, the more my answer would be no. No I do not want to do it all again or do it differently, even with keeping my current state of consciousness.

I wouldn’t be who I am today if I hadn’t gone through those struggles, experiences, lessons or even the good times. I wouldn’t have been driven to understand how or why the mind works the way it does, well at least the way my mind works. I wouldn’t have struggled to improve my mindset or to even question things that are going on around me as well as within me.

Hind sight is always 20/20

On the other hand, hind sight is always 20/20 right!? I have come to appreciate and be grateful for those experiences but that doesn’t mean that I can’t look back. A friend of mine says “History doesn’t repeat itself, people repeat history!” and that really hit me. So I make it a practice to look back and learn from my old beliefs and mistakes so that I do not repeat them or maybe even heal some old wounds that I didn’t even know I had until now.

I choose not to be one of those people who keep making the same mistakes over and over. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? According to some great thinkers, one of the definitions of insanity is: “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” So… I look back to learn, to grow and to heal so that I do not repeat the same mistakes myself but also so I don’t repeat them as a parent. I look back so I can look further ahead.

I will share with you my story. I will start with a quick biography of my life and as the blog progresses, I will get into more individual or specific details about the challenges I faced in the past and currently face now. I will share every gritty detail of my inner and outer progression. I will also share some of the tools I used and the studies I went through to help me so that it can hopefully help you too.

My life adventure started in Fredericton NB, Canada. I was an “oooopsie baby”.

My mother was in her final year of high school when I was born. I am actually quite impressed and proud of her. Not only did she have a baby as a high school senior but she still graduated, attended a college and held great jobs to not only sustain herself but to be a great provider for me.

My “Grammy” was also a huge influence in my life as she did most of my child care so my Mom could achieve her educational/professional goals.

My birth father was never really in the picture so naturally I started to forget who he was. My Mom started dating my current father and they married when I was a toddler. He says that one time when I was little and he came over, I came running to him with my arms stretched out shouting “Daddy Daddy” and that’s when he know we would be a family. I love that story!!

Anyways… I had a pretty typical middle class childhood.

My parents had another baby not too long after they married and so I became a big sister. I went to public school. I played lots of sports but my favourites are skiing and soccer. My parents were/are Ski Instructors so naturally I was a ‘hill brat’.

We had a dog; a Dalmatian. My mother worked a few different jobs but I think her favourite was Ski Instructing because she is still at it and she is an award winning Ski Instructor at that.

My father is a fire-fighter. He is a Platoon-Captain now and his job is one that I have always respected. Among the many, many other projects or hobbies he has going on, he also helps run his family farm.

When I was in high-school I was fortunate enough to compete at the Canada Games in the Freestyle Skiing events. I find myself feeling incredibly blessed to have parents who not only made sacrifices to allow me to participate in such a sport but they helped me build jumps, travel for training and competitions and showed up to every competition with love, energy and encouragement and sometimes even big bright signs and birthday songs over the speakers. (My birthday is in February)

I graduated high-school and accomplished one year of University before I moved out west to start my greatest adventure of adulthood. I met my current husband in Alberta where we had our daughter and now I am blessed to live in one of the most beautiful areas of the country; Okanagan area in BC.

So that is my life story summed up into few short paragraphs.

I know… you must be thinking what traumas she could possibly have from a childhood like that. What challenges did she even go through?

Well… no I wasn’t abused or mistreated. I had loving parents.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have my own struggles.

Everyone has different events or circumstances that shape them and if I go through them all now this post would turn into a book. That is why I will be breaking them down and going through how I overcame those struggles in the upcoming posts.

This is just the start. Today I start at the beginning. Tomorrow I will go a step further and dive deeper into my story. The day after I will show you how simple events or circumstances can have a ripple effect. Moving forward I will show you how complex a simple life can be.