Who am I? What's this about?

I'm Cheryl. Just Cheryl.

 

I am not a therapist. I am not an educator or an author. I am not a guru of anything.

 

I am a 59-year-old woman who recently left a long, successful career in advertising.

 

I am married to a kind, funny, loving man named Jimmy, who has coronary artery disease, and who has had two quintuple bypasses.

 

I have panic disorder.

 

I recently sold my house and 90 percent of our belongings and moved back to my hometown to help care for my elderly mother.

 

Six years ago, someone very close to me went to prison as the result of his heroin addiction.

 

Five years ago I stopped drinking.

 

Three years ago I showed up on the steps of an Episcopal church, stopped thinking I was spiritually damaged goods and came to understand that I am a child of God.

 

One year ago, on an ordinary weekend morning drive with my husband, I shared my realization that I had been self-medicating with alcohol for 30+ years. As I said the words, I felt something heavy break loose, become lighter and leave my soul for good. It was an unburdening that stirred something profound within me—the beginning of a radical life change and the beginning of this blog.

 

This is not a blog full of back links designed to sell a course or a book (If your blog is, rock on and be successful. Do your thing.). Maybe someday this will be that type of blog. I don’t know. This is not a blog that will not even remotely try to tell you how to live your life or fix your problems. It is not online therapy, but it will encourage you to seek help from a therapist if you need it.

 

This is not a political blog. If you want to talk politics, there are plenty of places to do that. Go there. Not here.

 

This is a personal blog in which I will share how things changed for me once I began to tell myself the unvarnished truth about my life and to release my grip on things I’d held very tightly. I hope it helps you to know that you are not alone and that you have support in your journey to understand yourself. I hope that over time we can build a community of people who bring good into the world— in word and deed.

 

I have spent decades of my life struggling with, reacting to and running from some sort of anxiety. Once I allowed myself to acknowledge my fear, I discovered I could live through it. And things changed for me.

 

I hope this is a good read and gives you some insight.

 

Namaste,

 

Cheryl