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I saw a quote that said, “I’m exhausted from trying to be stronger than I feel.” And it really hit me; we live in a world that teaches things like “fake it till you make it” and “love heals all wounds” but the truth is that those lovely little phrases didn’t work for me. Pretending that I was fine and “believing” that LOVE would heal all wounds when the people who had done the wounding were telling me to “get over it” and “stop making such a big deal out of nothing” didn’t assist with the pain that I was in. It wasn’t until I realized what love really is that I was able to understand how love could heal my wounds. It wasn’t until I acknowledged where the exhaustion came from and how the wounds got there in the first place that I found healing.

I was exhausted too. I was exhausted from trying to be happy and from trying to be grateful for a life that seemed to be getting harder and harder. I was exhausted from being who other people wanted and expected me to be. I was exhausted from always trying harder and exhausted because nothing I did ever being enough.

I was exhausted because nobody heard me and because nobody cared that I was exhausted.

And I just couldn’t understand it. I believed that I might be the only person in the world that didn’t know how to make simple “gratitude” work for me; although I was practicing gratitude, it wasn’t working. I felt defeated. I felt stifled. I felt oppressed, I was weary and plain down to the bone tired.

I believed that I had nothing to be unhappy about. And that made me feel guilty and ashamed of myself. I believed that I was living my dream; great husband, three amazing kids, ~ living on a huge farm/ranch with my own horses and the best dog in the world.

But I wasn’t happy. I was exhausted.

I was 44 years old and heading into my 4th major depression since my first child was born. I was doing all the things I was told to do ~ I was getting outside every day, I was doing a little exercise, I was practicing gratitude, reading self help books, I was really trying but I kept falling down and getting back up was getting harder and harder.

I had been trying to be stronger than I felt for most of my life.

Trying to be grateful,

Trying to “let go” and “move on”

Trying to “Live and Let live”

Trying to “be me”

Trying to forgive people that denied they had ever done anything wrong. Trying to accept the blame for things that were never my fault, never my responsibility or my doing.

Trying and trying and trying… I was exhausted from trying.

Today I live in peace and harmony. I haven’t had a depression for over 10 years. I am excited to jump out of bed every morning and see what the day has in store for me. I love my work as a professional coach helping others find the freedom and wholeness that I found, teaching and sharing the ways that I found it. My kids are all grown up and have moved out of the house; they are all at different stages of beginning their adult lives but they come home often and there is a lot of laughter, love and celebration when they are home. We have real relationships based on mutual respect and equal value. My husband and have a partnership that is rarely experienced in a marriage spanning over 25 years.

So what happened? How did I get from exhausted to excited? How did I rebuild that missing bridge? How did I recover my self-esteem? How did I finally move forward in order to let go?

It turned out that I had been trying to put the cart before the horse.

I found a way to look at the roots of where the broken began. I looked at the truth about how I had been falsely defined by the actions and inactions of others. I realized that I had been objectified from a young age and it had been communicated to me though the careless actions and inactions of people that my purpose in life was to serve the needs of others. My actual needs were invalidated. I had been brainwashed to see myself as not enough, not worthy, not loveable because seeing myself that way enabled controlling and manipulative people to get what they wanted from me. I was exhausted because (as I was taught to do) I kept trying harder and it was never enough. I was exhausted from trying to prove that I WAS worthy, and that I WAS a good person, and while I believed that my heart was misunderstood, I was brainwashed to also believe that something was wrong with me.

I found a way to look at what happened to me. How did the depressions start? I realized my depressions were a way for me to shut down. They were like a fuzzy blanket of protection; a coping method just like the way that I dissociated was a coping method. Just like addiction is a coping method. And after years of coping I was running out of the will to cope. I was running out of the energy to keep trying. I was giving up on the road to conquering because I didn’t think there was actually a way to achieve it.

But there is a way. There is hope. And I found success!

Finding a new way to see things enabled me to validate myself in all the areas and events that I had been invalidated. I found a new way to see myself. I found a new way to see my struggles and finally stated; “no wonder I was depressed! No wonder I was sinking! No wonder I felt like I was losing the fight!”

Because as long as I saw myself the way that I had been brainwashed to see myself, I WAS losing the fight! And the only way that I finally saw myself through the grid of truth about me was when I saw how I came to believe that I was not enough, that something was wrong with me, that I was somehow defective, that I was unworthy of love and that I was powerless and had no choice.

The TRUTH is that I HAVE a choice and when I saw myself through the lens of what happened to me, instead of through the lens of what is wrong with me, I was able to take my choice back.

I took my power back. I took my life back and I got ME back!

I have energy to spare today and I am free of the oppression that held me back for so very long.

And You can have this too!!

I started this website over 6 and a half years ago and today there are over 450 full articles about how I took my life back with comments in the discussions totaling almost 42,000! Thousands of people have read my e-book (see the side bar here) and I have received thousands of thank you notes. I have worked one on one (see the coaching and consults info page) with hundreds of people all over the world helping them find what I have found. I am driven by my passion to tell others this amazing discover that I made. If you are able, please help me spread this message of hope and healing by sharing through the social media buttons and please feel free to comment.

Join me on the Journey to Freedom!

Darlene Ouimet

Are you aware my of my e-book “Emerging from Broken The Beginning of Hope for Emotional Healing”? If you find that the subject matter I am writing about resonates with you and you would like to find out “HOW” I broke out of the oppression I lived in, this 197 page, downloadable, printable, live linked e-book will put you on the fast track to busting out of the fog and to healing. I’ve received hundreds of thank you notes from people that have bought my book. Get yours here for 9.97 through the upper right side bar or click this link~ Emerging from Broken The Beginning of Hope for Emotional Healing

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