not a failure after all!

I'm going to get one of my fab counselling friends to help me, as it's so much easier with support, but I've started to look at just what is so upsetting for me about the label 'divorced'. It's because in my mind, the word leads me to believe I have failed. That I have moved from hopeful enthusiastic promises to a state of failure that has a finality about it.
One of the harder aspects of my marriage ending was trying to deal with my feelings of having let down others who also have invested in it, and yet none of them have actually felt let down. Turns out that was my stuff.
And when I stop and think of the divorced women I know, I don't for a moment see them as failures. I see remarkable women, living inspirational lives, in good relationship with various people.
Convincing ourselves that we have failed does nothing for anyone, it just eats us up from the inside and robs us of our rightful sense of worth. I've had wonderful people remind me of my worth when i have temporarily lost sight of it. Friends who have sung my song back to me when it was getting lost midst the clamour of the doubts. Counsellors who have repeatedly reminded me just how well I was doing when the temptation was to focus on all I wasn't. it has been helpful to me to take time to grieve when life didn't go as expected. But whatever labels get ascribed to me, I am not defined by them, nor by the experiences that I have had. I will continue to work on my fears so that I can choose how I react to all that happens. I think it takes courage to stand firm in the face of a piece of paper that declares you didn't manage to achieve what you set out to do. But we are so much more than our test results/redundancy letter etc etc.

Friday is another day of virtually no internet time hence me posting now. Hopefully this afternoon I'll meet with someone unable to attend the radical compassion day, to tell her all about it. I can't now remember what the acronyms stood for but I remember the warmth of all the connections made and the power of loving ourselves so we can better love others.
And I'm looking forward to spending nights under the stars.

Sunset n friends; wonderful to meet new friend earlier and talk radical compassion - yay!