Life Is Hard, Period.

The weight of the world often feels a little too heavy to carry.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been practising self care and love for over five years now. The more you practise, the stronger it becomes. My moments of defeat and weakness are coupled with a deep knowing that they are merely feelings that will pass.

The thing is, life is as hard as you make it out to be. My strategy is constant reassurance to myself that I am on the right path. If something feels wrong, it most likely is and I have learned to sway away from making choices that feel wrong.

Being conscious of impulsive behaviors can help reduce them. Personally, I've made it a habit to ask myself important questions before diving in impulsively.

“How will this affect my life? My family’s life?”

“Why do you want to do this?”

“Is this a selfish choice or a choice that is for a greater good?”

“Do you need this or do you want it?”

Answering questions only opens the door for more questions, and when I’ve asked enough questions, I usually have the push to move forward or move on.

If I am unsure about a choice I’ve made, I allow the choice to unfold. I strive for fulfillment and love. My choices do not always lead to success. In fact, they can take me into a deep pit of failure.

I do not aim to fail, but failure is inevitable if you’re making big choices that most people are afraid to make.

My most recent choice was to begin a psychology course that would lead me down the road to a psychology degree. I am on course one of thirty. I need ninety credits to obtain a degree and each course is worth three credits.

I am terrified.

This is one of those choices that was not so easy to navigate. I had to take into consideration that I have a family, a full time job, an active lifestyle, a creative side that needs to be fed and books that like to be read (I just felt like rhyming that last part).

I have taken a break from reading books because I don’t have time for them anymore. I also don’t have time to paint or take the piano lessons I began in February. I barely have time to fit the gym in. I switched my shift at work from an 11am start time to a 4am start time just so I can open up my day more to studying.

I am struggling with this choice.

I’d be ignorant to say that I am not stressed.

When it comes to handling stress, I see myself as a warrior. I imagine an ancient artwork depicting a woman chained to a huge boulder by her neck, exerting all her strength.

A little much? Maybe. But I have struggled so deeply in my life that struggling to get a degree feels like the best kind of struggle I’ve ever had.

My past struggles include the haunting of my past. Deep wounds and secrets that I carry with me and have worked with professionals to soothe. The struggles in my twenties were fought behind closed doors.

While onlookers saw a hard working boxer and mother, I looked in the mirror and saw a broken, insecure, little girl trying to find her way. I was a fraud. People sought me out to become a better person and I was fucking up my life in every which way with the choices I was making.

It didn’t take people long to figure out that I was a disaster. If you were around me long enough, you’d see that I was late for everything, I couldn’t get through a week without forgetting a client or calling in sick to one of my many jobs because I just couldn’t deal with my own pain.

I’d seclude myself for a day just to recharge and then I’d go back to pretending I was this strong, powerful woman.

I am here to say that I have not always had it together. Fake it til you make it they say. I am also here to say that I have felt guilty for how I tip toed around people to get what I needed to survive.

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I am almost 36 years old, and I am the happiest I have ever been — even while stressed.

I have become accustomed to my current level of stress. The sacrifices I am making are for a higher purpose, and I take pride in my deliberate decision-making process.

Stress that comes from a place of poor decision making can weigh you down. It can fill your chest with a lack of oxygen and make you feel as though you can’t catch your breath.

Life, as indicated in the title, can be challenging. There's no denying it. You have the option to confront life and navigate through the unexpected obstacles, or you can try to avoid difficulties by making decisions that ignore the tough aspects. The latter choice will only lead to inner turmoil that will gradually affect every aspect of your life.

For me, I chose to ignore becoming a responsible adult. I hid behind a persona that validated me as a strong, young mother.

Let me tell you that being a strong mother is far more rewarding than pretending to be a strong mother.

It may have taken me longer than I would like to admit to become the mother I am today, but changing how I made choices is ultimately what helped me blossom into the mother I always knew I could be.

Here’s the thing about choices…

It’s easy to tell yourself you’re making the right choice when it suits the picture you are trying to paint.

When I went from painting a picture of a professional boxer to painting a picture of a dedicated mother, that’s when my world shifted. The more time I dedicated to putting my family first, the more my world shifted.

I once believed (or told myself) that becoming a professional athlete would show my son that you can be anything you want!

I now believe that becoming a professional athlete was a way for me to run from my past struggles. It alleviated the emptiness I felt from unhealed trauma.

Being a boxer gave me a title to hide behind. It allowed me to pour my pain into training and feel strong. Having my arm raised in the ring would give me a wave of accomplishment that would quickly be washed away when the moment was gone… Then it was back to emptiness.

I do not regret the choices I made. They drove me down a path of healing. Those years brought me closer to the answers I needed to blossom into the woman I have become.

I recognize now that life has many struggles and the only way you’ll ever feel fulfilled is if you accept the struggles, work through them, and set your intentions on being the best version of yourself.

Even as a boxer, my goal was always to be the best version of myself. The problem was, my ideas of what I wanted out of life were warped. It would take me thirteen years (from the moment my oldest son was born) to realize that my priorities were all wrong.

There’s no dwelling though…

I am only human, and I have my eyes set on the future and what I want for my sons, our family and myself too.

I leave you with these questions.

If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, would you be happy with the choices you made up until now? What would you do differently? What’s stopping you from doing it now?