Tag: confidence

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Picking up the Pieces

3-4 min read

Recently, I moved to a little place in the woods. I’m surrounded by trees and fresh air. It’s been quite a grounding experience. In the short amount of time that I’ve been here, I feel like I have more mental clarity and am finally able to stabilize in ways that I wasn’t even expecting. I lost a piece of myself after my car accident. Some days it feels like I lose a little piece of myself with every pain, with every added hardship, with every doubt. Hope can be hard to find, that was especially true at the beginning. I’ve come out of that experience with more gratitude and humility… probably trust too. On the days where hope didn’t exist, there was a darkness that felt impossible and heavy. Over the last two months, I got to walk alongside that darkness. It was hard to do but ultimately, I feel so much stronger now. I feel like I’ve been gifted this opportunity to heal and in order for me to be successful in my healing, I needed to embrace the pain. That is what strengthens my recovery… every single time. My ability to sit in the ugly, dark, painful truth and still find hope.

“The degree to which you are willing to embrace the pain of recovery,
is the degree to which you will recover.”

– Unknown

I took a leap of faith moving out into the woods, and it only took 3 short weeks to get me to this place that I feel ready. Ready for what, I don’t know. But I know that this time has been necessary to help me prepare myself for how the rest of this journey shows up. I know that the trees can take away my worries and fears. I know that the fresh mountain water can cleanse away the burdens that are not mine to carry. I know that the songs the birds are singing are sung just for me. These blessings are a gift of life and hope. When I think about where I am in this moment, I get overwhelmed with fear and excitement. The fear probably comes from a place of not feeling good enough or like I’ll fail, which I’m just going to hand right on over to my Higher Power and not let that drive my behaviors. Instead, I’ll sit in the excitement and have gratitude that I get to go on this journey. If you had ever told me that I would be right where I am, I wouldn’t have believed you. And yet here I am living it. I can’t attribute any of it to me being lucky or the stars aligning in my favor. I can attribute it to blind faith. Because when I had no other options, faith was what brought me through. It was all the years of practice that made it possible for me to even consider faith in my darkest times. Now it is a part of my testimony. I know from lived experience that you can turn around any negative, into a positive, and any darkness into light. In the past, fear is what carried me through most things… now, it’s faith. So, I will continue to show up in my faith, with both confidence and conviction.

Amber

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Beautiful gift…

5-6 min read

It feels like a lifetime ago that I wrote a blog post (it’s been just over 8 weeks). I imagine it feels that way because of how different life is now. So many things have happened, and my journey isn’t close to over. I don’t want to get into all the nitty gritty details, but let’s just say that my recovery has been put to the test in so many ways and now I’m tired… really, really tired. I have had to step back and take real good care of myself and my family. It was the only option I’ve had for survival. I’ve been mostly stabilized for a few weeks now but reality is, I have a long ways to go before I recover from everything that happened after my car accident. There is much to learn from everything I have gone through. Pain has a way of breaking you down. I’m pretty sure I experienced every emotion possible over the last couple of months (7 months really). There have been many tears shed. Lots of conversations and pleas with my Higher Power. My life has fallen apart completely, and now I can pick up the pieces and rebuild. Honestly, I gave up trying to understand how I have made it through all this and why it all has happened the way it has. All I know, is that my recovery is how I survived. The tools I learned, the support I have, my relationship with God. I didn’t have any of those for a really long time. Everything I have ever been through, prepared me for these times. And it’s amazing to me because I feel stronger than ever. How that’s possible, I have no idea. I know deep in my core that I will come out of this with more strength, courage, wisdom, serenity, confidence, understanding, humility, resilience, fearlessness, perspective, hope, forgiveness, faith, acceptance, gratitude, trust, and so much more. Phew, that was a mouth full. These times have given me great opportunity to put my tools to test. Each time I overcome one of these hardships (and there are lots of hardships), I come out feeling stronger. I come out feeling proud of myself for everything I have learned and being able to put my tools to work. I come out having more trust in myself to do the next right thing. It would be so easy for me to focus on the negatives, but instead my recovery has given me an opportunity to do better. I am a work in progress, yet also a masterpiece.

The greatest gift to give the people you love is your recovery.

-Anonymous

Recovery has given me a beautiful gift. A gift of faith, hope and trust. A gift of peace and joy. When I think about life before recovery, I think of an empty shell. I remember feeling lots of anger, hate, humiliation, insecurities, rejection, anxiousness, submission, inadequacy, worthlessness, jealousy, powerlessness, shame, abandonment, and fear… lots and lots of fear. It was awful. I don’t even know if I knew what anything else felt like. I think I tried. I remember feeling love. But then again, I was so broken, I’m not sure I was capable of accepting love if it hit me square in the face. And because of that, I ended up hurting people I care about. I’ve had to work hard at forgiving myself for that. Thank goodness for a living amends; it’s a gift I can give to myself and others, by never going back to where I was. What more can one do when words are never enough? Now I can proudly say that I have worked hard to overcome my past traumas, so that I don’t repeat the same patterns and poor behaviors I did in the past. Of course, I am still only human, so I make mistakes from time to time, but my past no longer drives my behaviors. I pick myself up and keep working hard to do the next right thing. When I think back to my childhood sexual abuse, being strangled, and even the family disease of alcoholism, I don’t remember the horrible things that happened. Instead, I see hope for change. I see hope for recovery. I see my Higher Power hard at work in every moment and every hardship. This is the priceless gift of recovery. Every… single… day… I fight for my recovery. I protect it as if it is the most precious thing to ever exist. Because without my recovery, I wouldn’t be here today, and I wouldn’t be the person I have come to know and love. I still have a long way to go, but at least I wake up everyday and put in the hard work.

These difficult times I’m going through now are far from over. But I can say with confidence, that I am supported, loved and I will make it through stronger than when it all started. My recovery has given me strength beyond measure. As I mentioned, over the last few months I have experienced many emotions that I did not have the tools to manage before. Now I embrace each feeling and work through it with grace. At times I find it quite challenging. It really just depends on what comes up for me. But this part of my journey was meant to happen just as it has; as if I was meant to get thrown into the trenches, so I could fast track my growth and be the leader of change, I know that I am meant to be. Stay tuned followers, the best has yet to come.

Amber T

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Another step closer!

Happy Sunday Fun Day Tender Flame followers!

Some exciting things are on the horizon. I may have received my first wholesale customer, and I now have two investors! I am so thankful for the faith and confidence that people have in me and my candles. I also have someone who will be working on my website so that when I’m ready to go live, everything will be done! I’m truly blessed to have so many people help me through this process. Next I’ll be working on borrowing a nice camera so I can take more product photos with props! That should be a lot of fun.

As for today, I’m sending off all of the content I have for the website over to the gal who will be handling it. I may head over to the paint department somewhere so I can pick out the color schemes I want. Just gotta find a ride because both of my vehicles are down for the count… again. In the past, I would have been a mess about it… upset and would find a reason to cope poorly about it, but not anymore. In all truth, the last week has been really rough emotionally dealing with no vehicles on top of everything else but instead of taking it poorly, I am embracing the fact that I don’t have to spend money on gas, and am enjoying that I don’t have to drive since I’m having these medical issues and it hurts to drive anyways. Honestly it’s a win-win. Some people keep telling me to sell more candles to get the money to get my vehicles running but here’s the deal, if I take that money and put it into my cars, then it won’t be going into the business. Every penny I make for my candles, has to go back into my candle business in order for this to be successful. That’s how business works. Until I get my start-up costs back, I won’t be keeping any money for myself, not even for my labor time. It’s an investment I’m willing to make.

This is going to be a fun interesting journey and I’m excited to see where it takes me. I just have to remember that the hardships and hurdles are only temporary. The Serenity Prayer helps every time. Also balancing my work, home, family, business and my personal me time, is all key to my success. It’s a work in progress. Feel free to share things that work for you as I could use all the help I can get. Until next time Tender Flame followers.