Today is a day of celebration for me! One year ago today I bought a house. This is a big deal. I bought it in the middle of my second divorce. I had never owned a home up to this point, and it had always seemed like such a far off dream. How could I, a twice divorced single mom of 3, who never finished her college degree, have enough money to buy a house? I’ll tell you how, some hard work, saving money, and a HUGE MINDSET SHIFT.
If my first divorce taught me anything it was that I can’t rely on others for money. For the first few years post divorce, my ex was always thousands of dollars behind in child support. I was left to carry the entire financial burden of raising the kids. He was living with his parents and perpetually un or under-employed. Instead of him seeing child support as a way he could SUPPORT our children, he saw it as ME taking away his “fun money.” Because if he didn’t have to pay child support he’d have money for fun things. (Insert huge eye roll.) And although for the last 3-4 years he’s been caught up, the amount he pays is a very small portion, not even close to half, of what it takes to raise 3 kids.
My second marriage was more financially stable as far as income went, but it was not free from emotional torment around money. Asking permission, having to explain things or justify purchases, it never felt like “our family” money, it felt like “his” money. I will say one of the smarter things I did when I married him was I didn’t close my individual bank account or add him to my account. So the money I got from a car accident settlement went in there. When I got a part time job it went in there, and as I was getting ready to leave and had started my own home business, all that money went in there as well. Now, I used lots of that money for family things and caring for the kids while we were married. All groceries were bought out of my account, and plenty of other things I didn’t want to ask permission to buy. But the best part of having my own account was that when we divorced he had no idea how much I had saved there, and as it turns out, it was enough to put a down payment on a house!!!
Working, and saving money were two big pieces to making this possible, but the biggest piece was my mindset shift! I made a very conscious choice to no longer live in a victim mentality. In fact, if Victim Mentality was the name of a city, I would have been living in a very nice condo there for a few years. The condo was pretty comfy and I felt totally justified. I was the victim first to an immature, porn addict, underemployed man, and secondly to a covert narcissist. On paper I was a victim. It was almost like my story got me the deed to a condo in the booming metropolis of Victim Mentality. But here’s the problem: even though the condo was nice, someone else, who was not very nice to me, was my landlord. I had given over my power to him. The day I made the active, conscious choice to take full accountability for my own happiness is the day everything changed for me.
Deciding to leave this condo I was so uncomfortable, at first it led me to a hotel in Heart Broken, a town not far from Victim Mentality. Good news is I didn’t stay there long. I felt a lot of anger and fear while in that hotel and learned a powerful lesson from these emotions. I had a conversation with my fear and learned that I needed to take action and leave my marriage. Leaving a marriage with a covert narcissist is not easy. So I made a careful plan and put that plan into action. While working on this plan I mentally moved to a small, adequate apartment in Determination. It’s a lovely town, just not anywhere I wanted to stay long term. I found I was very busy, constantly looking around me for the dangers that lurked around every corner, and was constantly dealing with exhaustion.
The apartment in Determination was definitely my jumping off point. While I was there I started to really take responsibility for my own life, present and future, and made peace with the past. As part of my plan to leave and divorce I started looking for real houses in Happiness, USA. Real houses in a real town full of real people. I was able to move out, divorce my narcissist husband, and start to create a good life for me and my 3 kids. Today is the anniversary of getting the keys to my real house, the one I paid for, the one that was just a dream for so long. Today marks 12 mortgage payments I’ve made on my own, without the help of a man, and symbolizes freedom!
The best part of this freedom is the freedom I feel in my mind. In this process I learned that there are circumstances in my life that I can not control, like someone else’s behavior. I then have a thought about that circumstance and from that THOUGHT I get a feeling. When living in Victim Mentality I was sure that the circumstance, or my husband’s behavior towards me, was what was causing my feelings. That’s how I stayed living there so long. Once I learned that it was my own thoughts that were creating my feelings, at first I was so frustrated with myself for getting me there and not knowing better. I quickly forgave the younger me and decided that moving forward, I would take full responsibility for my own feelings; my own happiness and joy AND my own sadness and anger. And with this responsibility comes so much freedom. I’m not waiting for someone else to make me happy with their choices. Because it’s my thoughts about what they do that determine how I feel anyways.
Now that I own this beautiful 4 bedroom house in Happiness, I have all kinds of feelings and emotions, and I welcome them all!! I need to feel frustration and disappointment to fully enjoy peace and joy. I need it all and I know that no matter what it is I’m currently feeling, I can always pick new thoughts and create my own, full life!
If there are dreams you have, let me tell you, you are the only thing that can stand in your way! You have the power to create your best life. I do not discount the fact that some people do awful things that are out of our control. I do, however, fully believe that no matter what you are facing, YOU have what it takes to create the life you want for yourself. It is what I have learned through being coached and it is what I now teach as a life coach!
If you want help learning how to set and ACHIEVE goals for yourself, I’m your girl. Whether you too want to buy a home, or leave a marriage, get a better job or finish school, or move past trauma that has been holding you down, I can teach you how to manage your mind to get the results you want. You can start today, with a FREE mini session. I promise that your life can change for the better starting at the first session. Click HERE to schedule your free session now.
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