5 Things I Learned From My First Blog Baby

I launched my first blog, Forgiving Bizarre, back in 2011.

This was my first header photo.
Okay, not completely mine because it was composed of several bad ass photos that I stole from Google images, but mostly mine.

And because the name alone wasn’t enough to let my readers (*cough, no one) know that I meant business when I said I had been through hell, I decided to go the ‘tell all’ route when creating this gem.

This art represented my life experiences and how I was feeling. When I look at this now I can see all of the pieces of my past and how they correlate. Each photo that I carefully chose represented a specific piece of my still-wounded, mushy, heart.

Yes I had been sober for 5 years, but that didn’t mean that I knew how to move on from having a parent addicted to crack, or a childhood filled with the repercussions of her seemingly insane choices, I had no idea how to move forward without my family, without any acknowledgement of my personal victories and without their support. I felt lost. And for some reason, I couldn’t’ see past this pain.

So I wrote for a couple of years.

Everything that I wrote, I wrote with equal parts passion, rage and sadness. I screamed and cried and I wondered and over-analyzed and cringed.

And I healed.

I shared it all and I voluntarily turned it loose into this realm that I was still getting acquainted with.

And it rocked.
It changed things.
It helped my heart to mend and my mind to see more clearly.

And then one day I woke up and decided that I was done.
It was time to for me to move forward.

So I did.

I didn’t transfer files.
I didn’t copy or save any of my blog posts.
It was all just gone.

I bought my new domain and felt confident that it was more fitting and applicable to my new outlook on life.

I went from Forgiving Bizarre to Discovering Beautiful and I truly haven’t looked back in regret one time.

I learned some things through this process and I want to share them with you.

1) What we want and what we need aren’t always matchy matchy.
I wanted a blog. I wanted to write things that could help other people.
But what I needed was to continue to heal and I needed to give myself some time to grow before I could do what I wanted.

2) Finding a healthy way to release bottled up emotion can be your unrivaled new bestie.
I did not anticipate the healing that would take place in my life as a result of writing openly and honestly, holding nothing back and not giving two fucks about what people might think about my feelings or my experiences. I have learned that true, real, raw, healing-power is proportionate to our willingness to be crazy honest with ourselves, and loyal to our need to validate our feelings.

3) Don’t steal photos.
It’s not classy.

4) You can’t rush your journey.
It is going to unfold as it may and you have to work with what it is. I am not saying that you don’t have the power or choice to bust your hiney and work work work to move things along, but keep in mind that balance is the key that unlocks peace and a plethora of other life things. Learning to enjoy the season that you are in can mean the difference between happiness and contentment and gratitude, and feeling tired and cranky and misunderstood.

5) It’ s okay to start where you are and work with what you have.
I had a domain name and a desperate need to purge 24 years worth of drama, pain, and other nasty, negative, toxic stuff. We all begin somewhere and you cannot ever move from where you are or work toward your dreams or your goals if you are fixated on not looking ridiculous. I always tell myself that I have definitely looked ridiculous in my day, (many times) and none of them were when I was crushing my goals. Also, sometimes when you feel like you are flailing or floundering or not doing it like everyone else is, you are actually doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing.