Episode 35: Of course I'm Okay! But Actually I'm Not

I'm your host, Roxanne Kennedy, Grenada. And I was listening to a song this week that I have heard for a little while now. But it hit me really hard. The song is called truth be told by Matthew West, it's on a Christian radio station is where I found it. And as I kept listening to the words, about how we don't tell people the truth about how we're feeling what's going on with us. It just hit me and I've had this song on repeat all week long.

And so I I pondered about it and decided that this is a subject that we really need to talk about. And we need to figure out why we don't value ourselves enough to tell people the truth, what's really going on. And even with that, it shows our value and what we value in ourselves or where our fears lie, in regards to why we don't or why we can't or what we're afraid of, if we do. So I'm going to redo some of the words of this song because they're, they're like, really deep and profound and true.

So it says, "lie number one, you're supposed to have it all together. And when they ask you how you're doing, just smile and tell them Never better. Lie Number two, everybody's life is perfect, except yours. So keep your messes and your wounds and your secret's safe with you behind closed doors. Truth be told, the truth is rarely told.'' It goes on to the chorus and it says "now, I say I'm fine. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. Hey, I'm fine. But I'm not. I'm broken. And when it's out of control, I say it's under control. But it's not.

And you know it. I don't know why it's so hard to admit it, when being honest, is the only way to fix it. There's no failure, no fault. There's no sin, you don't already know." In regards to God, right? He knows everything. "So let the truth be told." So what is it that happens to us? When somebody says to us, oh, how are you? Oh, are fine. And inside, we're dying. We're in turmoil, we're in chaos. Why do we do that? So what I do for my job, aside from the podcast, aside from the free content that I put out into the world to help and guide and show people that they are not alone.

What I actually do for the work part of it is I work with women who are spouses or ex spouses of an addict, who are struggling with the triggers and the trauma, from the betrayal of infidelity, because of their partner's sex addiction. These women want to find healing and freedom from the chaos that's all inside of them that has come from this type of trauma. So what separates my services from their actual therapist, because I work alongside a therapist is that I have actually walked the road, I have learned all of the tools it takes to heal, and I have done it, I show them how to be happy again.

And that it's possible. Because of this, the clients that I work with, go from I don't know what to do, to taking action and getting their life back. The only way it's possible for my clients to overcome go through, get on the other side and not just survive their life but thrive and find happiness and find peace and find joy and find commitment and and see their worth in their own selves of what their value is, is if they do the work. If they tell the truth is they actually accept and admit that there is a huge problem. Now before I go into more of all of that, I don't just work with women who are spouses of addicts.

I work with anybody who wants to overcome their challenges and who wants to see clear and see truth who want to tell the truth. Who want when I say to them, what's been going on, what are you struggling with? Or I see that something's going on. They answer me with it has been a really weird week or it has been crazy or I am not functioning or I need to book a session because I have something that I just am not seeing in the right way and I can't get through it. I want help. Now, can they get through it on their own? Maybe? Right? We all can.

But how much time do you want to take? How much time? Is your life worth? to just keep going, just keep doing it all on your own. So if we listen to this song, and we tell ourselves the truth, what is going on? Am I okay? Or am I feeling broken? Is my situation stabilized? Is my partner getting the help they need? Am I getting the help I need? are we finding value in doing the work? Do we even believe in it? Do we believe in ourselves? Do I believe that I deserve healing and happiness? That's a question you can ask yourself, take a deep breath, take it in, let it out.

And in your mind, or out loud, ask yourself, Am I worth healing and happiness, this might bring tears to your eyes because your heart might swell. You might feel sad, or in pain, or stressed, because there's pieces of you that might not feel worth it, it's important to get to the point that you do. If you look at somebody else outside of yourself, you could say that that person's worth it. That person, I wouldn't want to see them struggling and they shouldn't have to.

So if for a minute, you need to look outside, at the people around you friends and family and whoever else to see if you believe that they should be okay that they should not be in unhealthy relationships that they should learn communication, that they should feel their own self worth, that they should know how awesome they are. We want you to be able to feel that about yourself. The truth about you is you are worth it. Whether you know it yet or not whether you believe it yet or not. That is what's true. About eight years ago, I had somebody tell me that I was about 40. At the time, I had somebody tell me that I would look so much better if I got Botox.

If I just got Botox here, and I got filler right here and this, I did this here. And I said I don't like that stuff. Now, I'm not opposed to anybody doing it. So let me get that clear. First, I don't, it doesn't matter to me what somebody else does. But at that time, that's not something I wanted to do. I wasn't, it wasn't important to me, I didn't mind that I was getting wrinkles, it's now been eight years, I still haven't done it, I still, my wrinkles are getting worse and worse. And I think back on that to the value that that person was placing on me, just because of what they felt matter to them.

So they probably looked at me and thought, Oh my gosh, she would be so much happier and feel better if she looked better. So some of those things, those beliefs that someone might think about you or tell you sometimes can influence the way you think about yourself, whether you are worth it or not. So for me, I'm not going to say never that I'm never going to do anything like that to enhance my appearance or to fix it. In fact, right now, my eyelashes on one side, a lot of them are falling out. And so I've never had eyelashes done, but maybe I will try.

I did order a pair that just stick on just to try it and see. Right. So I'm not opposed to any of it. But I want it to be on my terms. When I feel like it's something that I want to do not because somebody is telling me that my value changes if I don't do it. Now, that's just a physical thing, right? We're really talking about emotional things. But you can use some of that concept. Because you might be like, What, are you serious, somebody told you that that's crazy. So I want you to take that same concept and apply it to yourself emotionally. What somebody is telling you that you're not valuable enough, or you yourself are telling you that you're not worth getting the healing you need so that you can be happy again, if you look at it, and turn it and switch it in your mind to where everybody's deserving of healing and happiness.

Now remember, this is not perfection. This is just finding that peace within, within our relationships within ourselves within what we're doing with our life. My life is not easy. So I don't want you to think that just because I made it through that now everything is bliss, not true. It's a hard life is hard all the time. However, being in a healed state of being my heart and soul, my mind where I only have to have energy appointments or counseling appointments. On it's still a regular basis but farther apart because I want to maintain my healthy lifestyle.

So doing the work to heal and maintaining that healing helps me to notice the truth be aware of what's going on with me and do the work I need to to fix it. Recently, some triggers had come up for me, I had a lot of trauma resurface. I thought that was really crazy. It hadn't happened in such a long time. But I was just overwhelmed with their I was feeling so much love for my husband. And it came up all this past trauma of, oh, gosh, that feeling that deep wound feeling of I just wanted to be loved for so many years, I just wanted that fulfilling, feeling that was really deep, the one that is your heart and soul and mind and body and everything feel safe and secure.

And it just came up and I had to do some work on it, I had to do some journaling about it. And new resentments came up, and I was so mad again. And I could feel this bitterness coming of what I had endured already. And I was grateful for the triggers one because sometimes I minimize what I went through, the farther it is removed, the more work I do, the happier I become the the work I do with you guys. It's like sometimes I think, well, maybe my situation wasn't that bad. And then I'm reminded, it's like, it's God's way of saying, Hey, don't minimize anything.

You've been through hell. And even though he seemed like such the nicest, greatest person, and at times he was, he was deliberately lying, and manipulating so many circumstances, the gaslighting I endured was really quite severe. But it was camouflaged in this soft niceness. That's kind of the covert narcissism stuff. But the reason we're talking about this is because it is so important in your healing in your future, to be able to see yourself with truth and to be able to tell the truth. When we're going through hard things. I didn't tell my story for such a long time, you know that. My family was around me terrible things happened and I didn't tell them. So when I did finally say this is what's going on.

And then when I did say I'm choosing divorce, it was shocking for everybody. I had people say to me, oh, but are you sure? Do you know? Do you want to try harder? What if he changes later? That was a question. I mulled over in my mind all the time. And I got it from people. What if he changes later? Then you've missed out? I actually wrote that in my book cutting ties about feeling like I'm doing all this work, and we're going to get divorced, and then he's going to do the work.

And then I don't get the benefit. And I've missed out. I had to come to terms with dealing with what the present situation was. What is the actual truth today? What is going on today? It doesn't matter about the future. It doesn't matter of the what ifs? What are the possibilities that are going to happen? What is he showing me today in his effort in healing, recovery, and in loving me. And then there's the truth. So I had to make decisions based on what was happening right now. You can always change your future, you can always get back together if you choose to if it all works out.

But making decisions for right now will keep you in the truth and having value for yourself. So as I went through different things, even in my marriage that only had lasted one year, there were things that I didn't really share with anybody. One is out of protection. He's a really nice person. So why would I want to share things that are hurtful. But that's all coming from a place of hiding. Because things can be truthful, and the person can be a nice person. There can be hard things that happened or experiences that I endured. And there could also be some good things.

So I want to share something with you that happened in that really short marriage that showed me my value and my worth that what I wanted, I needed to provide for myself. So before I had gotten married, I had had this inspiration that there was this, another child in the picture. And I thought it was so strange. I was done having kids and I wasn't planning on having any more kids. And I when I was dating this person, I let him know about this inspiration I had about this child and I said to him, I don't want another child. I really don't want another child.

But if God was to say, yes, you're supposed to have another child, would you follow that? Would you listen? And he said, Oh my gosh, if God wanted me to do something, I would totally do it. So in getting married, and he had a couple of dreams about this child. And we talked about it. And I said, this is God's way of showing you. I don't know why. But the inspiration that I got was that he wanted this person to be able to experience this kind of love in this way, in a healthy marriage. It was something that he didn't want to choose into.

Even though at the beginning, he said, If God wanted him to do this, he would. So he didn't want to what happened shortly before we chose divorce was I ended up pregnant. And this is something that nobody really knows about. I did tell my family about it. And my few close friends, as well as my new husband, but other than that nobody else knows. And so now here it is out to the world. But I ended up pregnant, and I didn't know I ended up having an early miscarriage. I realized that that was what was going on. And I came to him. And I said, Hey, just so you know, I had a miscarriage. And he says, I know. I said what he said, Yeah, I know, I knew about two weeks ago.

And I said, How did you know? He said, I had a dream. And in that dream, I was holding this baby girl. And I was looking down at her and she was a new baby. And she was a girl. And I knew she was mine. And she was dying. And I was holding her. And I was looking at her. And I was thinking, this baby girl is mine. And she's dying. I was stunned. And I said, you didn't think to tell me about this. And he just sat there blank. And I said, why wouldn't you want to tell me that? He goes, Well, I didn't want you to think that we were supposed to have a child.

And I said, God thinks we're supposed to have a child, God thinks you're supposed to have a child I said you didn't even in those moments. Think Oh, no, my wife is having a miscarriage, I should check on her and see how she's doing. I should let her know that I'm here for her. And he just sat there blank. And that was the last straw. That was the end of July, and I left in August. The reason why is because that showed me his willingness to choose into what God wanted, what I would need as a person and what kind of support I would want, and the willingness to do the work.

Now, this happened after so many other things, and the counseling stuff, I think I mentioned some of that in a episode before he just was struggling with living present and what the future would look like he was struggling with choosing into letting God lead his life versus leading his own. So I don't tell you that to be mean to him. I tell you that because that was the truth for me. I tell you that because that was a really hard experience. But it is what it is it is where he was at. And it was where I was at. Right. So that's the truth.

Now had I been more open, maybe I could have shared that with other people. At the same time, I had already learned not to hold things into myself. And so I did share it with my family, and a few of my close friends. So I didn't do that one alone. So I had learned and it felt so much better to have the love and validation that I needed. Am I deserving of someone caring about me? Was I deserving in that situation for someone to be present with me and know that I might be going through something hard? Of course I was. I absolutely was. Are you worthy of having somebody know how hard your life is? Or what the situation is that you're in?

Of course you are. Are you valuable enough to get the transformation you need? So that you can thrive and be happy and and be all the things you want to be in this life? What is the truth that you tell yourself? What's the dialogue going on in your head about you? If it's negative, and you don't want it to be anymore, you're tired of it. You're sick of it, you're sick of the chaos that's in your insides, you're sick of the games that are being played in your mind? Are you ready to reach out and get the help that you need? Are you worth investing your time and your effort and the work and the tears and the emotions to feel better?

Do you want to stay where you're at and keep telling people? I'm fine? No, I'm fine. No, I'm fine. No, I'm fine. But I'm not. I'm broken. Do you want to keep saying that to people as they ask you and then you leave and you die inside? Because they really don't know. They can't know if you don't tell them. Now, is it true that some people are not going to respond? Well, of course, you know, that concept where people will say that, oh, you shouldn't complain about that because somebody has it worse.

Can you imagine yourself in a box and you open up the front of it and you put pick your head out and you're like hey, somebody, I need a little bit of help here and somebody says to you, oh suck it up. Your problem is Not as bad as so and so. And then you quietly go back inside your box and close it. And you're like, I'm never doing that, again, I didn't get the validation I needed, they thought I was a baby, they don't think I should be sad about this, but I am, there's always going to be people that have that belief system that you shouldn't be upset or sad about your circumstance.

In those moments, the different dialogue you can shift in your head is, okay, those people just showed me where they're at how they were raised their belief system, that is no longer going to be mine. Because what I choose to believe, is that I'm worth feeling what it is I'm feeling that what I'm feeling is not compared to somebody else. I'm sorry, that person is going through that over there. And I'm sorry that that person's sick over there. But what's happening over here to me, is a lot of sadness and pain and chaos and neglect inside my soul.

And to me that's worth it. So it's about finding the people who are safe, who can hear you. And a lot of times it isn't family members, if you've been raised in the same home with the same beliefs that feelings don't matter. It would be hard to use those people as your support system, you're going to have to invest in yourself. You're going to have to get into therapy, hire a mentor, do some counseling, do some programs, and you're going to have to choose that you are worth it to find the healing that you need. Because I know you are I absolutely know you are.

I don't want to be where I was years ago, stuck in that song, telling people I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. When just that morning, I found out the entire double life of my my husband, I'm a wreck, I'm in a fog. I don't even know what I'm doing how to do it. I think I'm going to die. yet. Somebody says, oh, how are things? I'm like, oh, they're so good. What? What is that? We have got to change that dialogue. We have got to say, Well, you know what, since you're asking, actually, I'm not doing great. I don't want to discuss what happened. But there's some huge traumatic things that I'm experiencing right now. That would shift everything.

It would help you feel and know that you're not doing it alone. I wish I would have learned that sooner. I wish I had started counseling sooner. I wish I would have known years ago to invest in myself and my stability, and my well being and my worth and value. I wish I would have known that the truth really is that I'm worth it, that I'm worth a healthy marriage, that I'm worth a healthy relationship, that I'm worth spending an investment of time and money and effort into who I am.

My emotional well being my emotional resilience will pay off far greater. If I'm healthy than if I continue to say, everything's fine. I need nothing. I don't need anyone or any help. I can do this on my own. Because if I tell myself the truth, I can't do any of it on my own. Doing things on your own, feels lonely. I like having a support person. I like to share things and tell things and and have people see my heart and soul. And when I don't I feel empty and alone.

Do you feel that same way? Is it hard for you to navigate things on your own when your spouse or your family don't get it and they don't get you and they think that you're just complaining or being a baby? When you're ready, you're going to have to choose to do something different and to think a different way, you're going to have to demand a healthier situation, standing tall, standing up taking that big deep breath and saying, even if you don't think I'm worth it, even if you think I'm making this up, I'm not okay, and I'm going to do something about it with me or not, I'm doing it, whether you support me or not, I'm gonna figure it out.

God will help you, he'll show you he'll give you the people that you need. And he will show you which programs to do. And he will give you the tools you need to progress and thrive and be happy and be so grateful for the peace. I work with new clients every single week. And it is so oh gosh, it's just the most rewarding feeling. As the changes start being made as as their brain starts clicking to wait a second, I don't have to do that. Or I can do this. Or I didn't see it that way. I thought it was my job to save them and not myself. Those aha moments that people have are profound. I've had them myself, I continue to have them.

My clients don't just all of a sudden, magically, everything's okay and everything's happy. But the shift is that life is hard. And I'm going to now see more clearly so I can do the work I need so I can manage life. And so that I can feel better about my life and so that I have direction and purpose. And I finally have this thing where I'm not just stuck in this box, where everything's out in the open, where I'm actually telling the truth and saying what the real stuff is, there's so much happiness and healing in those pieces in those places.

Our heart thrives on having our needs met, our heart thrives on being seen and heard, when we're seen and heard, we have that validation and assurance that we're on the right track. And then people can actually give us some direction, or some insight and wisdom. Oh, yeah, I understand. I've been through that. This is something that worked for me. I don't know if it'll work for you. But maybe it will. And those key points are those moments are like, Aha. And it's like God's way of saying, look, this person did it before you, I want you to try that now. And you always know, you always know when the one thing hits you, and it's meant for you, changes your life.

And as you go through those things you'll think my life will never be the same now, now that I know this, or this or this. I'm different. And it feels good. We have to remember that God already knows our situation. He already knows what's wrong. He already knows what we're not being honest about. He already knows where we're failing, and where our sins are. There's no hiding it from him. And so when we try to carry everything ourselves and tell everybody around us that we're fine, we are forgetting the fact that God already knows.

And he's not even blaming us. He's not even saying, Well, now you did that. So now I'm not going to be here for you. Right? We go to church, we pray, because we know we can trust that we can come as we are. We can go to God and Jesus Christ the way we are. And they'll be there. So if we start by telling the truth to God, I'm hurting, I'm struggling, tell the truth to ourselves that we deserve the help that we need, that we deserve to take the time and the effort for our own well being. And then when we start telling the truth to the people around us, actually, you know what, I'm actually not doing great. You really are not? Oh, my gosh, what happened?

Well, I don't know if I want to discuss it right now. But there's some really hard things happening in our family and for me personally. So if you could just offer prayers for me, that would be amazing. People love that they would be I'm on it, I'll totally do it. And then all of a sudden, maybe they're bringing you over a drink or a treat or just thinking about you and you feel like you're not alone. The truth heals us. It really does. The truth hurts and heals, without telling the truth, without owning what we have to do without actually going through the process of making it through what the truthful situation is, we don't get to heal, we stay stuck in our box, day after day in the same chaos over and over.

We don't have to do that anymore. If you're ready to get out of the box, if you're ready to do something for you. If you feel it inside your soul saying I'm ready, I am so tired of feeling this chaos, then do it. It's time. Figure it out. Go to God ask him ask him what he wants you to do specifically and he'll show you and then act on it and do it. He will back you and things will fall into place. I know they will just keep choosing you know your worth your worth is so valuable and you are worth healing. If you feel inspired to work with me, head over to my website, Roxanne Kennedy granata.com. Go to the mentorship page and schedule a session with me choose into you. You're worth it. I'll see you next time.

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