We all have a story
Here’s mine

For the first 18 years of my life, I wore a painted-on smile while I hid the truth of my life behind closed doors. I was a victim of child abuse and barely survived.
I never remembered my father ever uttering a kind word about me. All I remember is living in constant fear and having a mother who was a “saint” paired with a father who was the “devil.” I obeyed the adage, “What goes on in this house stays in this house.”
So I know the burden of bearing the weight of shame, pain, and trauma. I know how it is to feel hopeless, fearful, and trapped, to the point where the only form of escape seems to be suicide. I contemplated it almost daily for the first 17 years of my life until my abuser died.
Then what?
I never “lived” and all I knew was “to do what I was told” and “what was expected of me.” Therefore, I spent the next 15 plus years of my life doing just that. I obtained my degrees, worked “good government jobs”, and always wore my superhero cape, attempting to fix the world and everyone who needed “help” in it.
The result? I ended up broke, stressed, depressed, and feeling lost. My body was showing the result of my extreme work and superhero mission. And then, one day…
I walked away from it all. I walked away from:
- The mandate to “stay quiet” and not “tell my story.”
- The need to be the “fixer.”
- The need to live according to the “expectations of others” above my own.
- The need to follow the status quo versus exploring and pursuing my passions.
Telling my story as a published author actually led to me walking away from my job and being 100% self-employed. I am truly an “accidental entrepreneur.” It wasn’t always an easy journey, but even in the uncertainty and fear, I discovered an amazing truth:
The greatest deception of life is that we have to live it according to someone else’s design, expectations, desires, and requirements. We were all given wings. What good is having wings if you never fly?
But you can’t fly or learn to fly, alone. The best news of all is you don’t have to!
“It is never TOO LATE to edit your life and I can help!”
– Alesha Brown, The Joy Guru