An Email to Brad...Project "Find Chelsea". - 2/7/14

I'm going through something.  It started probably 4 years ago, but I've suppressed it with excuses and fake smiles and busy work...putting emphasis on the wrong things, distracting myself from the real problems in my life, etc.  Lara showed me this blog and I think I really need it...

http://www.ablogaboutlove.com/2011/09/most-important-things-ive-ever-learned.html

http://www.ablogaboutlove.com/2011/10/most-important-things-ive-ever-learned.html

http://www.ablogaboutlove.com/2011/11/most-important-things-ive-ever-learned.html

I really do put too much pressure on you, and my happiness in life comes from all of the wrong things.  I've just been floating around for 25 years, not ever pinning myself down to figure out who Chelsea is.  There are several points in these posts that hit the nail right on the head...more specifically these: 

• To really show a healthy kind of love to your spouse, children, parents, family, coworkers, or friends, your emotional well-being cannot be dependent on them.  The source of your wholeness & your security as a person needs to be based on something else.  For me, the ups and downs of my well-being used to hinge on the love or affection from my husband, or my husband's  (or my own) approval of my looks, or the status of my baby-making, or on the goal of one day having a successful business.  I know what it's like to not have any of those things and to feelpretty miserable about it.  But now, I know better.  And so, instead of basing my deepest happiness & well-being on my husband or unborn children, I get my strength & healing from tapping into what I know to be the most powerful force of goodness & love & strength for all:  being at one with God.  That's a pretty tall order.  But it's available to me at ALL times, no matter what my circumstances are.  Until I was 30, I had no clue how to really do this.  It turns out that anything religious didn't really mean a whole lot to me before then.  But in a desperate state, I decided to give it a go & see what would happen.  I tried to feel that oneness every single day, and that's when the really, really deep & independent peace started.  And one of the best consequences of this?  Now having the sweetest marriage I could ever imagine.  :)

•   When your real, deep peace is not dependent on your husband or kids, you remove that pressure from them to constantly satisfy you.  Know any moms or dads that hang their own personal happiness & well being around their children's necks and display deep inadequacy/disappointment/depression if their kids do not fulfill all their dreams of perfection?  Or, do you know any wives that are miserable because their husbands don't "fulfill" them in all the ways that they want to be fulfilled?  I see it all the time.  No matter how it's done, if someone is basing their own personal happiness on the behavior of another, no matter how much they think they love that person, they are actually not showing love at all.  Instead, they're loading on an unhealthy amount of  pressure, which can be felt for a lifetime.  I know way too many adults that sadly STILL feel inadequate or unsure of themselves, due to the pressure of their mothers or fathers.

Thank you for always trying to fix me, but I think it's time that I do the fixing and do things for me.  I love being with you, but I need to love being with me too.

Your Chels.