Hello everyone. I am working on a proper introduction for myself, but in the meantime I would just like to say hello and express how excited I am to have found this site. I am hoping this will be a useful tool for me in my recovery and growth. I have a long and traumatic history of abuse and mental health issues as well as severe drug addiction. I have been clean and pursuing recovery for 5 years now.

As a young single mother of 4 children, I’ve had a bit of a rough life so far. I’ve been able to turn things around and no matter what life throws my way, I always manage to come out on top in the end. This past year has been especially life changing for me. I enrolled in college and I’m currently earning my bachelors degree in business and entrepreneurship. I am in the process of building my own home-based business and I’m on a quest for success.

I have maintained a 4.0 GPA my entire time in school so far. Every assignment has been completed on time and I have never finished a lesson until it was completed with 100% mastery by my school’s standards. I am on the President’s List Honor Roll for my school and just becoming a student has been a life-shifting experience for me.

Becoming a student gave me something I desperately needed; it gave me a chance to build a real life for me and my kids. It gave me the confidence and the skills to believe in myself and it opened the door to a whole world of opportunities and growth and blessings.

Because of my situation, my options for employment and career are very slim.

I have no license, a bad record, and we live in a small town with virtually no real jobs anyway. I don’t have a babysitter and I’m banned from driving for another 7 years yet. I’m a young single mother with limited options and even more limited resources.

Earning my business degree online is the best decision I have ever made. For the last six months I have been completely consumed by self development and my plan for success. I’ve created my dream office in my home. I have learned about time and money management and I have been consistently implementing better habits and strategies for managing my money, my time and my life. I’ve seen a drastic transformation in myself over the last 6 months, and I have never felt happier or more alive. I am FINALLY taking control and creating the life I want to live. I am molding myself into the woman I envision myself to be.

I have been improving and growing and learning and developing and I have been using discipline and brutal honesty with myself. I have discovered the power I have to make change and I am addicted to it. I’ve changed my daily routines and completely evolved into a better, healthier, wiser, more confident and more successful version of myself.

I wake up at 5:00 am every morning.

I meditate, practice yoga and exercise.

I eat a little bit healthier and drink more water.

I am in the process of quitting cigarettes.

I have been happier, more positive, more creative, more optimistic and motivated and energetic than ever before.

I am astounded and impressed with all the changes I’ve made and every second of every day is dedicated to expanding on that – to becoming better, stronger, wiser, healthier, more successful, etc.

I have never felt this way before in my life.

I am months away from turning 27. I have 4 kids. I had the first 3 kids in high school and I spent the first 20 years of my life coping with abuse, addiction, mental health issues, severe depression and suicidal tendencies, betrayal and abandonment, as well as becoming a teen mom, and multiple other traumatic experiences. I lived a rough life and I had every reason to give up on myself on many occasions.

The thing about addicts, is that we really have a superpower. That which is perceived as our downfall, that which makes us weak, is actually our greatest gift in the end, if we choose it to be. I took my pain and all that destructive energy and all those horrible feelings of fear and guilt and uncertainty and self-doubt and self-hatred, and I took all those voices in my head, screaming negative, bullshit lies at me, and I turned them around.

If you can be HONEST with yourself and accept the reality of where you are right now, and accept FULL, UNCONDITIONAL blame and responsibility for where you are, then you’ve just taken the first major step, and there’s really no going back after that step. Once you take responsibility and you understand that YOU are the ONLY one to blame; you are the creator of your successes as well as your failures- once you wrap your head around that you’ve just launched yourself into freedom and you’ve shifted from “victim” mentality and “spectator” mindset – to “creator” and “Navigator” mindset.

From there you can do ANYTHING, provided you are willing to work hard, experiment and make yourself uncomfortable, and discipline yourself to implement change. There is nothing easy about it but every step you take will energize you and reinforce you and it will make you hungrier and more driven to succeed.

I’m coming to claim EVERYTHING that’s mine. I’m on a mission to make the world a better place and I’m on a mission to help as many people as I can and I’m going to build an empire, from the ground up. There is NOTHING you can’t do, once you decide so. I’m so determined to reach my goals, and I am willing to suffer for them and endure endless amounts of pain; just like I did for decades to create failure and loss. This time I’m suffering for a purpose. I’m suffering so that I can keep thriving and growing and I am ready to demolish any obstacle that stands in my way until I finally reach the top of the mountain.

I truly believe that EVERYBODY can change. I know, wholeheartedly and for a fact, that every one of us is capable of choosing and becoming whoever we decide to be. Action is the hardest part, and it’s what stops most of us from the life we WANT to have. We always have excuses, and often they’re damn good ones and they make sense. But the fact is, ultimately if we want it bad enough, we will kick, scratch, claw, and fight hard for it every step of the way. That’s how I fed my addiction for a decade and that’s how I feed my success and recovery now.

I am a mother, a survivor, an entrepreneur, a writer, a student, an addict, and a creator. I have a long way to go with my journey and my recovery, and I’ve come close to radical change a few times, but I have finally started to figure out the things that work for me and I have developed the ability to critically evaluate myself; my standards, my choices, my values and beliefs, my actions, my habits and thinking patterns. Once I identify the things I don’t like, I find efficient and productive ways to fix them. It’s a work in progress and I don’t think I will ever be done improving.

I don’t have all the answers and I’m just trying to figure out life and happiness like everyone else. But I do know, each of us is ultimately responsible for our own happiness and our own healing. There is no drug, no treatment, and no one-hit solution. There are tools and strategies and lots of support but in the end, your success depends on you and the choices you make. If you put the work in, good things will happen. And you have to be CONSISTENT, because once you decide to take control, it is a life-long mission. There is no endpoint or finish line – you grow and learn and create forever. It becomes a part of your reality; it just is.

I look forward to learning and growing with this community and I wish all of you the same success and happiness and power I’ve discovered through self-recovery and self-discovery. I hope you all find the strength to pursue your dreams and your potential because when we get to the end, the only thing that will matter is whether we’re proud of what we’ve created, or not.