Tag: heart broken

I’ve been VALIDATED!

Published on by Kimberly Novak2 Comments

It is a frustrating feeling when you are unsure about something that you think is truth but you  have not been able to achieve getting concrete proof.  I have had doubts about something that happened in the past.  The reason I doubted myself at all is because it was not something that was tangible.  I couldn’t see it therefore maybe it didn’t really happen. Well, I was not expecting to ever really learn if my truth was actual and I have finally been provided with the confirmation I was hoping for. I am happy to say that I can now let go of every bit of that doubt.

Here is where it get’s tricky.  The information I was hoping for is also something that was very upsetting to me and really hard to take.  Even though deep down I knew it was the truth, getting that confirmation was a scary feeling because of the pain it caused me for so many years as well as in that moment.  I am Excited to report that it was in fact only a “moment”.  As soon as I realized that I was heading towards those horrible feelings of pain and hurt is when I realized that it wasn’t pain I should be feeling, it was VALIDATION.  I had been suffering for so long with my own doubts wondering if what I thought was the truth really was and in this “moment” I was Blessed with the truth.  Therefore, I did not slide down the slope of pain and hurt instead I stood proud in knowing that I had been Validated. If this has taught me anything, it is that I will forever trust my instincts even if I do not have concrete proof.  The worst that can happen is that I may be wrong, it is nothing compared to having feelings of doubt.

Sometimes  it is hard for us to be tuned into seeing the signs of something that is happening directly in front of our faces.  There were a few signs that were thrown into my face for many years but for some reason I didn’t see them coming.  I was obviously looking in another direction, but if I had seen the signs would it really have mattered?  I believe the answer to that question is YES.  Allowing myself to see the signs may not have changed the outcome but instead may have made it easier to handle.  We know that everything happens for a reason and there is a reason that it took me so long to finally be able to know the whole truth.  
Maybe someday I”ll know what that reason is or maybe not.  For me today it does not matter what the reason is or was because along with the validation came acceptance.  Now that I have the truth I have something tangible and I can choose to accept what happened and move forward.

Recently, today actually, I was again Blessed by a HUGE sign about something else going on in my life that I had wondered about.  I know that the only reason I was able to see it is because of what I went through.  I am now able to see the signs whether they are big or small and I will always allow them to be present in my life.  I am grateful that I was able to accept what happened in the past and begin to move forward.

So my friends I’d like to ask you.  Have you ever had the privilege of seeing your signs or had the validation experience?  If so how has it changed you?

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly

4/22/12

Unguarded Heart

Published on by Kimberly Novak2 Comments

Protecting  someone or something is a natural instinct.  We’ve all been in a situation where we needed to protect a friend, child, or family member and we’ve even seen footage of wild animals protecting their young.  So if we have this natural instinct to protect then why is it so hard to know whether or not we should be protecting or guarding our hearts?

What is the heart? If you look it up in Google, it is referred to as the following:

1.  A hollow pump-like organ

2. The center of the total personality

3. The center of emotion

4.  Capacity for feeling.

I’m sure I”m not the only one to notice that the very first definition that comes up on any search engine is “a hollow pump-like organ”.  Most of us believe that this is the place where we store emotion, joy, sadness, any feeling we can possibly feel.  When in reality those feelings technically come from our brains.  If  you stop to think about it though something has to send the signal to our brain in order for us to have those feelings.  I like to think the heart is the culprit.    I had a hard time accepting that the heart started out as a hollow organ.  There had to be some sort of emotion or feeling stored in there at the moment of birth.  Then I looked at the other definitions and they made more sense to me.   I would much rather believe that when we are born our heart is filled with the capacity to feel and as we grow we use that capacity and center to develop our personalities.

If you look into the eyes of a newborn baby you can see the love in their hearts and as they grow their personality develops.  Based on this principle I disagree with the first definition of the hollow organ.  Yes I know medically speaking the organ is described that way because it does not contain anything, it is just a vessel.  Well, non-medically speaking it contains a hell of a lot!

We hold everything in our hearts and what is in our heart determines how we live our lives.  It doesn’t matter what we are suffering from if we hold that  in  it will continue to have a negative effect on our lives.  It’s not easy to let things go and move on but it is so important for our well-being not to hold onto the pain.  I”m not healed 100% just yet but, I have noticed that the days I can say I’m ok with everything are so much more productive in my life.  I’ve had to do a “clean sweep” of my heart on many occasions over the past couple of years but it was always necessary.  By “clean sweep” I mean taking the time to think and focus on how that pain was affecting my daily life.  I found that by keeping the painful feelings so close it was only going to bring me down and I would never move forward.  I still have some days where it tries to creep back in and those are the days I stand up and fight!
Our hearts will also hold happiness and there is a lot of room in there for that!  We start out in life full of happiness and somewhere along the road things happen and  that space can be taken up by grief, sadness and sorrow.  Any type of  loss can destroy the heart no matter what the circumstances are and having the courage to put yourself out there again is terrifying.  No one who has been through those feelings want to go through them again and many of us decide to close off the heart and not take the risk.  I wonder though, are we doing more damage by being so guarded?  Some of you know that I made the choice recently to go in unguarded and no matter how it ends up, I will never regret letting my heart feel again.   Each day that I spend with an unguarded heart I am the happiest.  The days that I choose to be protective of it is was when the fear and uncertainty creep back in.  I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m not a fan of feeling fearful or uncertain.  I spent too many years that way and it’s time now to choose not to let my heart fill up with those feelings.


We all have heard the phrase “it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all”.  I truly believe that;  no matter how much pain or suffering I went through with my divorce.   The beauty behind that phrase is that  it applies to anyone you have loved.  Be it a friendship that didn’t last, a romantic relationship or the passing of a loved one it is all the same.I will continue to be somewhat protective of my “feelings” which are controlled by my brain, rather than being over protective of what I am allowing to pass through my heart.  I know that it has a lot of room, I”m hoping most of that will be for happiness but I also know that there will also be some pain that has to pass through it again as well.  The good thing is I’m ok with that because I have already proven to myself that I can survive the pain that passes through my heart what’s important is that I allow that to happen.  In order to survive it you have to let it pass through, do not choose to hold it in.

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly

4/9/12

Sometimes Broken Can Be Beautiful!

Published on by Kimberly Novak5 Comments

When I awoke this morning I was very happy to see the blue skies and sun shining down on me.  I am away for spring break and today’s plans were to head to Gem Beach for some fun in the sun.  We headed out on our journey equipped with a map, towels for sitting in the sand and a fishing pole.  Now I will admit I’m not much of a map reader but I thought between the three young people walking with me one of us would be able to figure it out.  Needless to say the 10 minute walk to the lake ended up to be an hour do to a slightly wrong turn.  Upon our arrival we were a little bit moody and the beach was not what we had expected to find, yet I was determined to make the best of it and sure enough we did!

When we started heading to the water we noticed what we were standing on were piles of crushed sea shells, stacked one on top the other.  I felt so sad because most of them were broken and smashed but when I looked closer I noticed just how beautiful the broken shells were.  I looked out into the distance and saw how pretty the mounds of shells looked up against the water.  Then I got closer, I laid down my towel and sat down upon a mound and started to spread them around.  I was amazed at what I was finding and before long we were all sitting on a mound of broken shells resurrecting the ones that had survived their battle.

It was very peaceful listening to the water and digging through the shells and I took the opportunity for reflection.  I looked at my own life and how broken it had become during the last couple of years and how I at times I had felt just like the shells, broken and set aside.  I had been feeling this way a lot lately as I had recently become aware of the fact that my ex was moving on with his life with a pretty major event.

I will admit it’s been very difficult to process not because I want that relationship with him again but because it happened so soon after our divorce.  I have been letting my heart take the brunt of these emotions because that’s where the pain was coming from.  I felt like the marriage I shared with him must not have meant that much if he could move on so quickly.  In my mind my life with him was like these broken shells; set aside and left alone.

So today when I sat down to sort through the broken shells admiring their beauty I came across a few gems!   (Now I know why they call it Gem Beach).  We actually found a shell that resembles a butterfly and it wasn’t the only one.  I also found a fully enclosed shell that if opened would be just like the butterfly one.  I began to realize that just because something is broken does not mean that it has to be set aside.  I also found many broken shells that were still very beautiful and had some life left in them which is exactly how I felt when we got the call that my ex had made his “moving on” official, just moments after finding the butterfly shell.

Initially I thought I’d get sick to my stomach, but I didn’t.  Maybe it was because I was in a beautiful setting, maybe it was the sound of the water, or maybe it was knowing deep down that yes I have been broken but I do still have life left in me.  I am making the right choices in not letting what happened to me break me.  I have already seen good coming out of the bad and I know that as long as I stay focused on all of the good things that are now in my life, that would not have been there otherwise, I will be able to face anything head on.  I also know that life will bring me many challenges and something may come along and try to break me again, the key is to not live in fear of that.   I was so afraid of this week because I did not know what day I would be receiving the news and I see now that I didn’t have to spend so much of my time holding onto that fear.

I feel very blessed that maybe, just maybe, today I was finally released from the chrysalis I have been living in.  When you see something that you think was destroyed and set aside, do me a favor and take another look at it; you may find something wonderful just as I did today.

Courageous Butterfly

3/20/12