The Magic That Happened in the Mountains

It’s no secret that I’ve struggled with codependency my entire life. I’ve shared this struggle often with my audience. It’s been a process of exploring each layer and discovering how deep my codependency actually ran. It’s taken almost two years to unveil the depth of it and how it’s negatively affected my quality of life, relationships, and development.

Once we get over our denial of identifying our toxicity, we can find ourselves in denial again regarding how complex the issues are. Slowly but surely, I’ve exposed each layer through a long and drawn-out process, first, by becoming sober from my twenty-year struggle with alcoholism. Gaining clarity instead of seeking escape beneath a cloud of poison every week brought a lot to the surface for me. Next, the three-year relationship I had been in after I got a divorce ended unexpectedly. I later realized it partially ended significantly due to my response to life circumstances and lack of boundaries, understanding, and self-love.

Through the following year, I learned to provide for my daughter and myself financially, emotionally, and physically. It was the hardest year of my life. Not having the ability to cope with heartbreak, financial stress, and loneliness with my previous habits of drinking alcohol made some days feel unbearable.

While I was going through it, it also felt unfair. What did I do to deserve this? I went permanently sober, and somehow, I continued to feel punished. Two of my pets passed away, my four-year-old daughter got molested by another child, and I slowly felt like I was losing everything, including my sanity.

It was within the continuous loss that I was forced to surrender. Surrender my fears, doubts, pain, and self-pity to God. I’ve always tried controlling outcomes and/or solutions, and it’s never benefitted me. I finally surrendered, which didn’t mean quitting. Instead, keep pushing forward without knowing what rested ahead. I trusted God to lead me down the path I needed to get where I was meant to be.

Guess what? Everything changed for the better, regarding my ability to cope and self-reflect with life’s blows. The thing is, the blows didn’t cease, but my perspective and attitude did. The final layer, masking the root of all my problems, was revealed within that shift alone. Codependency derives from a lack of self-love and self-esteem in one’s self. It disallows you to form healthy boundaries or process other people’s struggles because it continuously circulates back to what YOU are lacking emotionally/physically.

There’s a constant need for validation, even when you don’t realize you’re always seeking it, whether from your partner, family members, friends, coworkers, etc. It’s a silent killer of self-development because those suffering from it are usually kind, loving, generous individuals. The outside world and sometimes even yourself don’t realize the toxic war inside you. The root I discussed earlier remains concealed under an emotional blanket that others constantly fluff up for you. It took me a very long time to finally realize this about myself.

While I’m fully awakened to my issues now, I still catch myself in moments where I fall back into an old mindset stemming from my codependency. However, now that I’m aware, I can catch myself and replace my thoughts/behaviors with healthier ones. It’s a work in progress, and it is refreshing to embrace it while I keep moving forward.

Last weekend, I did something I had never done in the past. I took my five-year-old daughter on an 8-hour road trip to the Black Hills. Planning, navigating, driving, and organizing the trip wasn’t the most challenging part. Still, doing it without a family member or a romantic partner giving me their support and/or guidance felt intimidating.

We slept in a glamping tent with no lock or security on a property in the middle of a valley with several other campers around us. {It was a beautiful property we booked on Vrbo, but it still made me a tad nervous being a single mom with a little girl traveling alone and staying in a tent.} We got through two nights of severe thunderstorms in our tent with 50mph winds that sounded like they would blow us away. {I laughed and made light of the situation, making my daughter feel zero fear. Deep down, I was pretty nervous} We hiked bear country in the mountains with nothing but a camel pack, a hatchet in my waist belt, and a bear bell attached to my bag. {We saw some pretty magnificent landscapes!} My daughter and I explored various towns and hiked vertically up a canyon cliff only to discover a hidden waterfall and massive cave system! {I couldn’t believe my little girl’s determination and energy to climb as high as we did on rough and tricky terrain.} And we did it ALL, just her and I! I drove us home through the night and arrived back in town at 3 am. {Also a colossal win for me bc I have always relied on someone else to drive far distances, especially at night.}

I had done it!!! It was just the testament I needed to prove to myself how far I’ve come as a woman, a mother, and an individual. It was almost like this was the road trip I had been working towards going on all my life. All the pain, setbacks, and fear led me to this chapter.

Something happened in those mountains to me. Something divine. The woman I had been for 34 years was finally reborn. Now I understand why everything had to happen the way it did. I am eternally grateful for everything I’ve been through, satisfying and wretched. I hope this vacation forever sticks within my daughter’s mind and that she realizes she has everything she needs when she believes in herself and allows God handle the rest.