From Fed Up to Fabulous: Real stories to inspire and unite women worldwide (5 page)

I’ve faced many challenges, hardships, heartbreaks and fears during my journey. What kept me going was the hope and stubbornness to find my purpose in life. I wouldn’t let an incident keep me down too long before I got up again, because at the end of the day, no one has that power over me. If I believe someone has that power, I believe an illusion and that would be the reason why I suffer. The reality is what it is, I can either feel good about it or feel bad about it, but it doesn’t have to do with anyone else, bar my thoughts and what I choose to believe. It can be that simple.

Looking back on these stories it is easy to say that I was very naïve, I put myself at risk many times while searching for my purpose. I’ve always been a seeker, a  thinker, a dreamer and very curious. I think the most important thing here is to highlight the fact that I sought to learn. So every time I experienced something I always reflected upon it with an open mind. I always asked myself; "What did I learn now? How did that make me feel about myself and in general? What feels right for me?" And after making bad decisions, I always sat down and reflected upon why I did it. My focus has always been, to learn, to increase my awareness, increase my perspective so I can grow as a person.

For example, when I got raped as 16 years old. It was easy to put the blame on myself at first and feel shame. At the same time feel the hatred for the man. After questioning the pain I felt inside, I could see that I can’t change the reality of it, but I had the choice to take responsibility for my perception of it. Because how many times have I played this incident over and over again in my head? And reminded myself how stupid and naïve I was? And how cruel the world could be? I came to see that I’ve been hurting myself more than anyone else has ever done. While questioning this incident I never went into the man’s intentions or reasons. I didn’t make any excuses on behalf of the other. I only took responsibility for me and my life, so I could become free and grow even more

We mature through awareness, and therefore I’ve always grown fast as a person. It is important to ask questions, a lot of questions, with the intention to come home to yourself and be the one you’re meant to be. To be you and to be free.

The two most important lessons I want to give to you:

Share and communicate whatever is going on inside of you, because we all are going through similar processes and can relate somehow. In that way you don’t need to go through it alone and feel different from everyone else. You are not alone.

Whatever you believe - it will become true for you. If you don’t like what you see, feel or experience you always have the choice to change it. Everything is about your mindset and to take the leadership in your own life. There’s nothing you have experienced in your past that you can’t set yourself free from. It’s your time to shine and it’s 100% possible! Get a Coach, surround yourself with people that want to see you succeed in life, be open and explore life. Stay true to yourself, go out of your comfort-zones and grow.

Fear of failure, lack of self-confidence, fear of what other people think about us, and the fact that we think we have to do everything ourselves, seems to be the repeated story of why we didn’t make it. Fear is unquestioned thoughts. Fear is ego. To overcome fear, you will need to work with your mindset. 85% -95 % of business is mindset and it’s the only way out of it. Find your passion and your purpose, get a Coach, surround yourself with people that want to see you succeed. Stay true to yourself, make your vision BIG and much bigger than yourself. Get out of your comfort-zones and be UNSTOPPABLE. You can do this!!

About Kristine Overby

Coaching female leaders throughout the world to reach their goals through the right mindset, bravery and dedication.

Today she coaches on many different topics such as:

Love yourself and your relationships

How to build a sustainable self-confidence

How to break through the illusion of fear

How to become the best of you and accomplish what you want with the right mindset

For more information about Kristine Overby visit:
 
www.kristineoverby.com
or
https://www.facebook.com/kristineoverbycoaching/?fref=ts

MICKEY ROOTHMAN
is a Business and Personal Development Coach, Speaker, Author, Strategist, Entrepreneur and Mentor to Young Adults

My name is Mickey Roothman (Born Maraine – a combination of my mother and father’s names ironically). I had a pretty normal up bringing I guess. My parents got divorced when I was still an infant, so to me having two homes was "normal". I didn’t have the best of everything but I never lacked anything either. Living mainly with my father who worked two jobs to provide for us, I had to be independent from a very young age, making my own food, being solely responsible for doing my homework and getting to and from school without any parental push to do so. As a young girl, I always felt awkward and out of place, like I didn’t belong anywhere, which was strange because I always had a lot of "friends" and “boyfriends” and hung out with the "cool kids" from my early teens. Looking back, I remember feeling a sense of "fighting to survive", something I never understood, but it was always present. I felt like it was me alone against the world, and that if I didn’t do something for myself, nobody would be there to help me do it or to do it for me.

In my mid 20’s, a violent incident transpired at an event hosted by the company I worked for at the time . Having a responsibility towards its employees, the compan
y
sent everyone affected by the incident for mandatory counseling.

The counselor assigned to me decided to perform Regression Hypnosis on me. After bringing me out of the hypnotic state, she told me everything that I had said while I was under. But one thing she said she couldn’t help me with, which she suggested I needed to discuss with my parents. By my description to her of my surrounding in the hypnotic state, she had taken me back to my mother’s womb. She told me that I started crying inconsolably and when she asked me what was wrong, I kept saying: "I don’t belong here. They don’t want me." This didn’t make any sense as I had two loving parents who had always cherished me for as long as I could remember. I went home very confused, but I plucked up the courage to contact my father. I told him what had happened, and all he said was: "You should talk to your mother". My mom lived in Canada at the time, so I called her and I told her what the counselor and my father had said – there was a deafening silence on the other end of the phone. After a long pause my mom let out a deep sigh, and said: "My child, have we never told you?" Told me what? A million questions and emotions raced through me.

Then with a gentle tone and a tremble in her voice, my mother told me what felt like the end of my world, but it was in fact the beginning of my journey to healing and to understanding many things that never made a lot of sense to me up to that point.

My parents were both in their 20’s (My mom was early 20’s). They already had my older twin brother and sister who were just over a year old at that stage. My dad had been battling alcoholism and their marriage was rocky at the time. My mom hadn’t been feeling well so she went to the doctor, never considering pregnancy to be the cause, as the twins were conceived with the help of fertility treatment since she wasn’t able to have children on her own. A few tests later the doctor returned announcing that she was pregnant - with me! She was unhappy in her marriage, my father was battling alcoholism, financially they couldn’t afford another child and in thinking she couldn’t have more children, she merely did her wifely duty when sleeping with my father, so she never considered or worried that they would conceive again. This resulted in her immediate reaction to this news being: "Oh no!"

All things considered my parents then discussed the "situation" and came to a mutual decision that they needed to consider aborting the baby. "They wanted to KILL ME?" is what I remember thinking in that moment as silent tears streamed down my face, not wanting my Mom who was miles away to hear my gentle heart and my world breaking into a million pieces.

In those days, you couldn’t just abort a child, you had to face a panel of psychiatrists to convince them that you were not fit to bring another child into the world, and my parents were considering doing just that. 

A month or two into the pregnancy (still debating about aborting me), my mom went for a sonar. Several nurses tried relentlessly to find my heart beat, but one after the other, they could find nothing. In those days, only a doctor could make the call that a foetus had died, so they eventually called the doctor to try to find my heartbeat, but after trying for a long time, he too could find nothing. Eventually he turned to my mom and started to say to her: "I am so sorry, but the baby is...." and suddenly out of nowhere - A HEART BEAT appeared on the monitor! My mom told me that this was the moment she decided that NOBODY is going to convince her to abort this child, she was keeping me!

Later my parents both decided they would keep me and try to make it work. They eventually divorced when I was just 7 months old, and although we lived with my father most of my school life, my mother was always very present and involved in my life, and always included in every decision and every life event daily. My mother had always been my best friend – and to this day, she still is! My father overcame alcoholism and to this day doesn’t even drink medicine with alcohol in it. He had always been my hero growing up.

I acted very tough during that phone call with my mom, because I didn’t want her to worry being miles away from me. But can you imagine the shock and the hurt, when I had to hear that the two people that had been closest to me for about 20 years of my life, didn’t even want me and considered KILLING me? A surge of emotions rushed through my heart and my mind. Hate, anger, hurt, rejection. It felt like my entire life had been one big fat lie and that I couldn’t trust anyone.

I continued pretending I was okay with this news, but I gradually withdrew from everyone and everything for many months, reading many books and watching many talks on life, love, religion, self growth and so on. A lot of self reflection happened in that time, and somewhere in trying to process this thing that I felt had shattered my entire life and my entire identity, I finally realized that this was not the end, but the beginning. A lot of things throughout my childhood started making sense. A lot of lingering questions I had about life and about love were being answered. 

I finally faced that from a very young age I had always hidden to myself and others that I felt like I didn’t belong. Like I was one of a kind that didn’t fit in anywhere. Like I had to do something and be someone else to get affection and to feel like I fit in and belong. For as long as I could remember, I was always part of the "in crowd", the "popular kids". I always had a lot of people in my life but not a lot of true friends. I always felt awkward in my own skin. Always surrounded by many but feeling alone. I was finally able to understand some of the self destructive behavior from my late teens to my mid 20’s with regards to experimentation with alcohol and drugs as well as relationships and sex, a lot more clearly. I had read that a foetus can feel the emotions of the mother from the womb, and I had to face that a lot of my self-destructive behavior had been due to rejection I had unknowingly faced in the womb. I had always ended up in relationships where my value as a person didn’t matter or where I would experience rejection if I didn’t comply with what they expected from me to "earn" their love. I lived in fear of, if I don’t do this or that, I would be rejected. But I also had a profound moment where I realized that I FOUGHT TO LIVE! As a foetus who was rejected from the start, not even a missing heartbeat was going to stop me from living. I realized that God had a purpose for my life, because He didn’t let them kill me and He didn’t let me die!

I think I found God there in my solitude, or perhaps it was He who found me. It took a long time, but finally I was able to forgive my parents and heal because I realized that my parents were also just 20 something kids at that stage. They were also just people. People with a story that defined who they were and which drove the choices that they made in life. People who didn’t realize that a near decision they considered, would have a lasting effect on the life of the unborn foetus that was busy growing inside my mother’s body, for the first 20 odd years of that child’s life. 

So I CHOSE to keep LIVING, just like I chose to live even as a foetus in the womb with the odds stacked against me. I had to CHOOSE to forgive. CHOOSE to let it go. CHOOSE to not let it define me and my worth. I CHOSE to not let my start in life and my story be an excuse to be a product of rejection and low self esteem. I decided and chose that this was not going to define me or my worth! Yes, it was a CHOICE! And it is a choice I’ve needed to keep making every day of my life since then.