Picture This: Saturday Night-past midnight, you’re tired as hell yet your mind is racing at a pace where your feeling like you’re having an out of body moment. 

One where, your life just got real right in front of your eyes, and your left feeling like you have one of two choices… either move on with your life and create endless possibilities after genuinely letting go of the past or continue to live an inauthentic meaningless life where you portray a happy, strong, independent woman who is, in fact, sad, weak, and very dependent of the people around you! Shit just got real! Everything you thought you were doing right in the past is being questioned right now, and people you blamed for your mistakes are being forgiven. You’re taking complete ownership of your life and not letting anyone or any situation that occurred in your past tell your story anymore.

CONFUSED YET? Well, guess what? So am I!! What I do know is that if I want to live a real and meaningful life, I need to be authentic in the stories I share, instead of having my guard up and only sharing those stories that sound happy and go with the image I want to portray. Confessing that I am incomplete and inauthentic by not revealing the worst part of my marriage is not easy for me, and it definitely won’t be easy for Bini. Am I afraid of looking bad... HECK YEA. Aren’t you? The craziest part of all this is that until Saturday of last week I honestly didn’t think I had any problems, to begin with.

By now, you are probably wondering where all this is coming from? I spent the whole weekend at The Landmark Forum where I faced skeletons I had hid in my closet years ago and thought that section of my life was a done deal. Apparently, it isn’t and how can it be when I never really faced the issues at all. I placed them aside because I was too scared to face them.

You see, Bini and I were married so young that at some point in our early married life we both hurt each other badly. We both betrayed each other, and it was just ugly. Simple yet so complicated. A thirteen-word sentence that held complete power over me without even realizing it. We forgave each other, and I thought it was all over and done with until about 2 pm last Saturday. The hurt I felt was snuggled deep in my bones, and it came up whenever he did the slightest thing wrong. I compared every single mistake to the past mistakes when they were two different incidents. That’s not how forgiveness works! I can see now that I did that because even though I forgave him, I was still holding on to the pain I felt, and I let it run my life. That’s where my inauthenticity lies. That’s where I’ve been incomplete in my marriage, which then moved to my parenting, my friendships, and my career. I say it moved to those areas of my life because I do not feel present even though I am physically there with them. My mind is always somewhere else and busy. I realize now that I was doing that to run away from my past instead of facing it head-on.

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Think of a basketball court, you are either watching the game on the stands or in the game playing, right? Well, by never being present and in the moment with my loved ones and career, I was watching my life pass by from the stands instead of living it for myself on the court. It’s no wonder I never felt fulfilled and complete in anything I accomplished because I wasn't myself.

So, before writing you guys, I wrote Bini a letter profoundly apologizing for being incomplete with him and not trusting him because of his past. Admitting I was wrong and telling him how I felt was the hardest thing I’ve done in a very long time, but it felt like a thousand bricks were lifted off my shoulders. I feel free from my past for the first time in years. It no longer matters to me, and the fact that I am writing this post and facing my fears of my marriage not portraying the perfect image is okay with me now. My goal in life isn’t to look perfect yet die inside, heck what’s the use of that. No, my goal is to live a life where I’m free from the past and have endless possibilities in the future. By apologizing to Bini and sharing my truth with him and you all, I get free from my demons and the power to fully let go of my past. This way it can no longer control me. That’s freedom at it’s best! The freedom to love honestly and compassionately, the freedom to just be who you want to be.

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The beauty of letting go is also that I can honestly and purely help other women in their struggles because I know I’m not the first one or the only one to have hurt or been hurt by my spouse.

I highly encourage everyone take The Landmark Forum if possible. It’s offered in different states and countries as well. It’s a unique personal & professional training that causes breakthroughs in areas of your life that matter to you like relationships, communication, performance & overall quality of life. They gave me my life back, and now I can openly help other women from making the same mistakes I did.

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I hope this post helps you as much as it has freed me.

Always,