Fish In The Mirror

Hi all. I wrote this about 7 years ago when my fish in the mirror moment happened. I hope that it will help you find yours.
I want to keep sharing my life with you in the hopes that in getting to know me, you will feel comfortable sharing your life with me. I hope we will walk this journey together, as that is one of the things that helps keep me moving forward. It just helps to feel that someone understands; that someone has walked a similar path. That this person does not judge my path but walks with me until I learn to walk around the holes I have been choosing for my life.

When the split first happened, I felt less than nothing. A lot of that was from being treated with disrespect so long, for being made to feel that everything I thought was either stupid or wrong. It took a very long time for me to learn to love and care for myself. I had to learn self compassion. I had plenty of compassion to go around for others. I had spent my whole life "fixing" others when the person I really needed to fix was me. I did not realize how much my broken childhood influenced my now and in order to put that to rest, I had to recognize it, face it, and heal it.

This is the beginning of how I started the journey to loving myself. You can follow along with me and together we will be able to look in the mirror and smile, instead of making remarks about how inadequate we are.

The Fish In The Mirror
So many people have asked me how I got to feel the way I do about myself. I have shared this with a few people and I am going to share it today in hopes that everyone will realize that we deserve to feel good about ourselves, as much anyone does.
When I was involved in the beginning of the divorce, I had no self esteem. I felt less than worthless in life, ugly, stupid, no future, no dreams but something changed all that one day, when I went over to visit my daughter.
She had just installed a 55 gallon fish tank in her home. I sat down in the chair to gaze at the fish and several of them were preening to and fro in front of the mirror on the back of the tank. They acted like the "hawtest" fish they had ever seen was on the other side, not realizing that it was them, that they were looking at.
In that moment I said, I want to be the "fish in the mirror". I devised a plan that I would look in the mirror everyday and say something good about myself.
It was sooooo hard because I felt so useless and so ugly but I made myself look the first day. I had to say something about my face but I could find nothing, so silent tears rolled down my face. I looked again the next day and the next. On the third day I said " well, I guess my hair is alright".
I kept looking each morning determined to find something good to say about myself, and finally on the tenth day, I saw these incredible Native American deep set beautiful brown eyes. For the first time in my life I knew that my eyes were beautiful.
By the time two weeks had passed, I knew that I was beautiful and that my ex was so cruel to make me think otherwise. When I got sick in 2004, I had to take medicine to live. I gained a lot of weight from the medicine and because of my illness was unable to work. As I was sole support, this made my ex angry. I was so lost and hurt that he would not get a job to help support us when I could not. It finally made me realize that he would never be there for me, ever. I could hold on to something that was so bad for me or I could let him go. Getting sick and understanding finally that I was alone even though I was married, was the best thing that ever happened to me and when he came to me for the 5th time and said "I need to feel the wind in my hair" I replied, "then , go do so". It has taken me years to see that I am beautiful inside and out, and if others can not, they are not allowed in my life.
What was this thing that made me change my way of thinking? It was called compassion. I had such compassion and love for everyone else. How could I now love me and be as kind to myself as I am to others? This thinking literally changed my life and it will for you too.
You are all so beautiful. Let us become the fish in the mirror together, so that no one can make us feel less than we are, ever again.
"Never make someone a priority that keeps you an option" Unknown author
"Your history is not your destiny" Alan Cohen
And my favorite from a dear friend.
"Turn your scars into stars"
I was talking to her one day about scars and she told me to turn those scars into stars. It impacted me like a thunderbolt and I set about turning my scars into stars. I have succeeded with a lot of them, and I have her to thank for the idea to start. With love, Kimmee