From Challenging Motherhood To A Confident New Life

by Frances
(Stowmarket, Suffolk, UK)

Do You Want To Get More Out Of Life?

My self esteem journey started a couple of years ago when I watched "The Secret" movie. I can't recommend that movie highly enough; it just gives you a hope and excitement to take back your life and make it great.
So back to the beginning..........

At the end of my nurse training at age 23 I went off to the Peruvian mountains to help set up an orphanage for the many children orphaned by the terrorism. At that time I spoke only very basic Spanish and so my first task was to improve my language skills, but I soon found myself caring for two young street kids, on my own, 24/7. I found it very stressful, and didn't get enough support from the people who I'd gone out to work for.

Soon after arriving in Peru I'd met an attractive local, and fallen in love. I was warned by the Peruvian women not to trust the men there, but being young and naive I ignored them. I left the orphanage after the year that I had committed to help them, and returned briefly to the UK.

When I returned to Lima, Peru's capital, I started working with a missionary organisation teaching Sunday School teachers all about preventative medicine. It was fascinating having the opportunity to travel to different parts of Peru, but also heart wrenching seeing the extreme poverty up close. At that time I got engaged to my Peruvian boyfriend, and 18 months later we got married.

The marriage got off to a bad start when my new husband shouted at me in front of our guests for dancing with his cousin. The marriage carried on in that vein, me keeping my head down so as not to set him off, but terribly unhappy. The contraception failed after 6 months of marriage and a few months later I gave birth prematurely to my first son. This was a traumatic experience as I needed an emergency cesarean section because my waters had broken, but I wasn't having contractions, and the baby was breach. Anyway, Josh was born, 3lb 12oz and as skinny a little thing as you've ever seen, but I loved him dearly. It was scary though, as there were regular appointments at the hospital, but no support at home.

Over the next 5 months I was robbed twice, once only yards from my front door carrying Josh, and I'd had enough; I didn't want to bring my baby up in that dirty, dangerous city. I managed to convince my husband to come to the UK to set up home.

Back in the UK, Norfolk and we stayed with my parents for 4 months until I got nursing work to support us, and we moved into social housing; it was a palace compared to how we'd lived in Peru! When Josh was 2 I thought that it would be good for him to have a sibling.

During the pregnancy my husband's treatment of me worsened dramatically and when he started on Josh I decided to leave. It was 4 weeks before I had a house allocated to me , and during that time Sam was born. I suffered a horrible depression, as I had married for life, and was terribly disappointed that my marriage had been so awful. I sat every evening scoffing crisps and chocolate biscuits and put on loads of weight. My self esteem hit rock bottom, I really let myself go, and looked awful.

I gradually worked my way through it with the support of my family and 18 months later I met Barry and we fell for each other on the first date! We met through a dating agency by the way! My kids liked him too and we started to build a new family unit. We moved in together within 4 months, and got married 18 months after that. I got pregnant on my honeymoon and later Ethan was born.

My ex was not happy that I had made such a solid new life with another man; though he never said so, he showed it by his behaviour. I won't go into all the details, but I stopped him seeing Josh and Sam and applied to the family court for his contact to be stopped, or at least supervised. My ex then made a counter application for residency, and got it. I had to hand my children over to my abusive ex husband on August 1st 2005. I was absolutely beside myself with grief. I had a very young baby to care for, who actually saved my life; but for him I would undoubtedly have ended my life.

This time I needed medical help to deal with the depression, but after 18 months I was weaned off the medication. I was left though with a deep anger about the injustice that had been done to my children, and a thoroughly dented self esteem.

That was where I was at when I watched "The Secret", and I just melted. I had felt so powerless to change my situation, and here I was being told I can take control. I got hold of some of the books on which the movie was based and read them, and doing this started to change my outlook, I now had hope and more positive feelings about myself. I set some goals, made a vision board and planned and thought deeply about my life as I want it to be.

In lots of further reading I have learned that to get more out of life, I need to grow and develop as a person. I need to become more conscious of everything in my life, instead of going through my days on autopilot. I really need to become a positive force for good in my family and community. My first step is to get my head in a good space. I believe that's what we are all meant to do, in our own beautiful and individual way: contribute to the world. When we do this, out of love and a giving, sharing attitude, then we receive in return and in great abundance, because we're working with the universe and not against it.

I think the key to re-building my self esteem and good emotional health was really understanding that I'm a spiritual being living inside a physical body for now. Knowing that because of this I have power to control my experience of life through my thoughts and feelings. Then putting this knowledge into action by setting goals and action plans and achieving them; oh, what a buzz that gives!!

I know my life is going to be amazing, if I keep on educating myself, improving myself and working towards my goals.
You can do it too: be amazing!

The point of telling you my story is that I've been through a lot and come out the other side. I would love to share what I've learned and am continuing to learn with other mothers and support them in making of their lives whatever they want.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve
Napoleon Hill