On negativity from the past, and how it prepared me for a positive future

Before I put myself into therapy in my 20's in an attempt to heal from my traumatic childhood, I could see nothing good about a lot of what I grew up with. After a few years of working through things in my mind, I slowly came around to the conclusion that I could use all the ugliness of my past as a guidepost for my future. For instance, after growing up being beaten black and blue by my mother and being told how I was stupid, fat, ugly, ruined her life and never should have been born, I knew that those were things I would *never* do to my child. Maybe I didn't learn how to be a great mom by my mother's example, but I did learn some very specific very bad things that I absolutely did NOT want to do. So I can still use those negative experiences to guide me, as a template of what not to do.

This spin put a refreshing twist on what I had been through and made the pain just a little bit more manageable.

As hubby and I are going through our childbirth preparation classes, we're learning various techniques that are supposed to help me deal with the pain of labor and birth. A huge part of this involves conscious relaxation through contractions. Which sounds damn near impossible to me. We're supposed to practice fake contractions outside of class to make the technique more accessible when we need it. This sounds utterly ridiculous to me, and I'll be honest: we don't do that.

However, I have done something else. Anytime someone pisses me off, stresses me out, makes my blood boil or upsets me in some way I have worked on consciously going to my 'happy place' and deliberately making myself come down from what I am feeling at the moment to a place of peace. This is REALLY hard for a high strung person like me to do! But I think God knew that practice contractions would never teach me what I need to know in order to be prepared for Jack's birth day. He knew that I needed something real in my everyday life so I could learn how to 'let go'.

I don't believe that I'm making lemonade out of lemons. I truly believe that every experience of my lifetime thus far has been building me, molding me, preparing me for this. When I couldn't see His hand working in my life, when I didn't understand why I was living through the pain I felt, I truly do believe that everything was carefully being orchestrated in order to get me ready for my future.

It was as recently as last week that my stupid mother in law got on my last nerve again. And while I didn't recognize it at the time, it was yet another opportunity for me to practice finding peace. That clerk at Target that made me want to stab her in the jaw on Sunday when she wouldn't honor their advertised sale? It was a chance for me to practice. The stupid receptionist at the hospital who was a lazy idiot? Another chance.

So now that I've been able to look back on these occurrences with perfect 20/20 hindsight, I'm going to have to get better at recognizing these moments when they happen as the gift they really are.

And now that I've learned that lesson, and can practice this technique every day (because even though I have a strict Zero Tolerance Policy for Stupid People, I still end up finding at least one each day), I can also advance my technique to better prepare me for motherhood. Because I'm sure there will be plenty of times that instead of a knee jerk reaction, my children will need a thoughtful, patient response.

I'll be the first one to admit that I am a work in progress. And even though the catalyst for my progress has really sucked at times, I am thankful for the struggles of my yesterdays that serve to prepare me for my tomorrows.