I am going to share a very personal detail with you all today. I share it with you because it is the start of my journey and where my story begins. I was adopted at the age of 8 months old. Almost a year old. We all know how important the first year of our life is. I am going to say mostly for security and love. What happens to someone when there is none of that in the beginning years.
Everyone is different we know this, so I can only speak for myself here. For me, I felt that piece of abandonment early on. I felt that my parents were going to leave me every time they left the house. Although I know my siblings did not mean for me to feel this way, every time I was told that I was adopted and not really a part of this family, those feelings of fear, security, having no family, and safety always were triggered.
I spent the first part of my life in constant fear, in constant “flight or fight” mode. I always had to make sure I had security/safety and love. For me, I did anything to make sure this happened, which made me a “people pleaser”. Also, I had feelings of not being enough, feeling unworthy. I mean come on! If my own flesh and blood gave me away how good could I be?
For me, this all equated to silence. I was given up, unloved, didn’t belong, wasn’t wanted. All of these stories defined my life early on. As a young girl, I sat in class quietly praying that the teacher wouldn’t call on me, that I would not have to stand up in class and have people notice me. I was often bullied and picked on so I befriended a girl that was strong, bold, and very tough. I still kept quiet because I felt unsafe in almost every situation in my life.
The funny thing being is that from Grade 4, even though I tried so hard to be invisible and unheard, the experiences and lessons that surrounded me were all about being seen, being heard, and being very visible. I was very developed early on so had the adoration, curiosity of boys at an early age. People became drawn to me, whether I wanted that or not. I had to quickly learn to adapt.
These feelings and stories would follow me as a young adult but there were times where I had many A-ha moments and realizations about myself, life in general and I began to learn and grow. The first part, was that I was different, and this may have been part of my story, but I began to feel things around me, know things before they happened. Truth is, I didn’t really consider myself a psychic medium until mid-life. Part of the seeing and hearing things that just were not there, fuelled by fear and security issues. I would later come to accept this and learn how to live with it.
The other part was, that I had a voice, nobody was coming to make me feel happy, safe, loved, that all of this was something I had to do for myself. I was shown many examples of all of these things, I was given many, many opportunities to practice learning how to be on my own and good enough and worthy enough. I became a counselor and listened to many stories over a period of over 20 years, of struggle, hardship, fear, abuse, and trauma. I saw strength in all the women I spoke to, therefore, I began to see the strength in me. I also had two beautiful children that I raised on my own and each of them has mirrored to me love, strength and taught me some pretty important life lessons. The ex-husband that became abusive to me as well taught me the most important lesson of my ability to keep myself and my children safe, that I was a strong individual that could keep herself and her children safe. It is in all of these darker moments in life that we begin to transform how we view ourselves, how we view the world around us and how we will decide to lead in our life.
There are many times within my life that I struggled and overcome the many challenges that life presented over and over again. I got to write some of my story in the book “Ignite Your Life for Conscious Leaders” which can be purchased right here on my website! There are many stories of people like you and me that had the tenacity through life to keep going through tough and challenging times. My story begins on page 237. I hope you find some inspiration from the stories in the book and the ignite steps that are at the end of every individual story.
With all that I AM!
Joanne Hughes
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