I think most of us have dreams.

Growing up there were times I dreamed of having a family of my own and dreaming about traveling to tropical locations that I only read about in books.

Then, life got really hard and messy. My parents separated when I was only 7. My mom had never worked since she started having kids, and then she went to work part-time. That was hard.

I’m the oldest kid of the family. My brothers were 5 and 3 at the time. In my family we didn’t talk about our feelings, like ever. I remember how painful that was holding all of those emotions in; sadness, confusion, anger, frustration…

I recall feeling like every day I was just trying to survive all the emotions I was feeling. So much had changed. The divorce was finalized after two years.

One day as we sat in the car in front of a Circle K, my little 9 year old self was told by my Dad that he was getting remarried. He did this with his fiance and two of her kids sitting in the car. I sat there trying to pretend that I was happy about it because my dad was so happy. I had to be happy for him, right? It was modeled to me that we were only allowed to have happy emotions – even if we are just pretending. Inside I was screaming noooooo and I remember just wanting to run away from the situation. I learned to just stuff those painful emotions down, even though that felt totally unnatural to me even at that age. It was modeled to me that you just don’t talk about your feelings ever.

I remember even at the tender age of 9 thinking that life is really hard and I kind of lost hope and found that I stopped dreaming. Day to day it felt like I was trying to survive all the emotional turmoil. It felt so heavy to me.

It took me until I ran away from home at 17 years old to finally allow myself to start hoping things could get better. It took that long to allow myself to even believe that my dreams could come true…

Why am I even talking about this? Because I think that transparency, vulnerability and authenticity is so important. I have tried for so long to try to make the challenges in my life look pretty. I tied them up in a pretty bow and I wouldn’t really let myself go there to address all of those emotions tucked far, far away within me.

It has been a cathartic experience to write through some of my emotions. To allow the emotions to come to the surface. To cry for my younger self and what she had to go through. To talk to therapists and life coaches about it. I survived it well and came out of it a strong and tenacious woman.  I can see that everything I went through has helped develop many of the characteristics I have today. My challenges don’t define who I am, however, they have taught me so much about who I am and that I have the ability to overcome anything.

I will continue to share more of my journey. This is only a snippet. I share because I want to give a slice of hope to those that have gone through so much in their life. For those that define themselves by the hard things they’ve been through or the mistakes they have made. You are not your past or current challenges and your are not your past or current mistakes.

No matter what, there is always hope.

You can dream – you need to dream. Write those dreams down. God wants you to dream and you can ask Him to help you make those dreams come true by first believing in yourself. It starts with a thought. Believe in yourself. What is the dream that you want to see come to fruition?

Our thoughts are like planting the seed. Our emotions and actions are the fertilizer. Our thoughts, emotions and actions give us the results we get in life.

I help women through life coaching. I want to help women gain or improve their self confidence, find their purpose, improve their relationship with self first and then that will naturally change other relationships in their life, and I also love to help women reach their goals.

I would love to coach you and help you make your dreams come true. Know that you are already more than enough and that you are worth investing in.

Big hugs. Let’s make those dreams come true.

Tammy