I thought I had dealt with that!

What blew me away when writing Soft Underbelly was how I reacted when writing some of the chapters.

There were plenty of times I felt angry.  Anger at what a crappy hand I had been dealt in life.  Anger at how I had been hoodwinked into believing I was worthless. And angry at how my early childhood had perverted the course of my life.

My untruths saw me walk like a lamb to the slaughter house into a series of violent and abusive relationships.

I realised through my writing of Soft Underbelly how damaging my self talk had been throughout my younger life.  I did not seem to possess a shred of self esteem.  This had long been eroded from my dysfunctional childhood.

I honestly did not expect the flood of emotion that swept through me when writing about my childhood pregnancy.

Decades have passed, babies have been born and grown into adults and yet that particular chapter had me sobbing in a foetal position.

I knew I had to persist; I needed to purge myself of all that had gone before me.  What I thought had been dealt with and safely filed away in a locked filing cabinet within my mind was in fact open and flapping in the wind.

The pain was real as were the tears.  I couldn’t put it in a pretty box and tie it up with a bright shiny ribbon to be opened some time in the future.

If I was going to tell my story, I had to let it come through.  I had to allow myself to feel the pain, embrace it and with love let it go.

Bury it the way I had to bury my first baby.

Soft Underbelly helped me to say a final goodbye to my past.