What Gave me Courage

One of the most common questions I get asked about the story I share here, is how I found the courage to take on Steve and singlehandedly turn our life around. Far from having his support, at that time I had him working actively against me. It was worse than on my own. I had no money, three kids under 10 to take care of and was on the run, so to speak (from toxic family relations we had chosen to escape from) in a new city with hardly any family or friends for support.

Sitting in my daughters classroom last week I was reminded of where I found that courage.

I don’t write about my daughter very often – probably because she is so emotionally intelligent that she doesn’t provide much ‘grist for the mill’. She does have plenty to teach however and that is what I want to share with you today.

The first term of school she had been given a major assignment that was all about identity. My daughter is 15 and like most 15 year old girls at the beginning of this year she had more relationship management skills than she had developed self knowledge.

This was partly the result of her spending too much time last year helping her friends with their problems and not enough time to herself to get to know herself better. Kids having mobile phones these days makes it even worse when their friends can contact them at all hours.

So when I learned that identity was her major project to open the school year I was elated.

The project wound up with her giving a presentation to her teacher, her best friend and Steve and myself. After watching the presentation she had put together which included a family history, her goals for the future and a visual presentations of her interests, her teacher asked each of us if we had any questions.

So I asked her this;

“Besides all of the things you have shown us – I wonder if you have spent any time thinking about the part of you that is eternal?”, I then continued and said, “If you spend some time with your eyes closed and really centring in on that part of yourself I would love to know what you discover.”

The teacher looked somewhat surprised by my question, but then my daughter surprised us all further. I had expected she might remember to think about my question one day but instead, right in front of us, she closed her eyes to think about it.  Then in less than a minute she said, “My creativity.”

Well I was just so proud of her I cannot tell you.

Her answer was the same as my answer to that question. The difference is that I didn’t even start searching for it until I was into my thirties.

That is the answer to the question people ask me the most. Because really my courage came from looking deep within myself and remembering who I was and later finding the wisdom to call on that in one of my darkest hours. With no money and the kids at home to take care of and Steve out who knows where, yet again, I had got to the point where one day I couldn’t even remember the name of an old friend I was reminiscing about. It was at that point I realised I had forgotten who I was. Then as I called on that eternal part of me again, I realised that my children knew nothing about me either. That day I determined it was time that all changed.

So that is my story for today and I hope you find some inspiration from it 🙂

I really do hope that I have finally got the comments fixed here – because it is lonely without you all talking! If comments are still closed can you please do me a favour and email me straight away at kimcooper66@gmail.com and we will be on deck to get this nutted out and hopefully get the conversation going!

Hang in There!

Kim Cooper 🙂