Allow Me to Introduce Myself

(Originally written: July 2020)

Taking the time to discover who I am at the core and looking at what I value was the start of reshaping and transforming my life. I learned how to fill and heal the gaps in my life by entering a discovery process to complete the path toward reshaping my life.

Through my discovery process and after grappling with and navigating the upsets, detours, and dead-ends in life, I realized that professional therapy was best for me. It was in therapy where I received the appropriate tools that equipped me with the capability to lead a healthy mental and emotional thought life. 

My therapist prepared the most valuable questions and points to consider which consequently ushered me into a trusting and invigorating safe space. Today I am revived and empowered. I have been given a fresh start in life. I have the emotional and mental capacity that enables me to overcome any obstacle!

Unfortunately, it was not always this way for me.

I used to think my childhood was nothing outside of the ordinary. My theory was, no one had a childhood filled with 100 percent positive experiences. I viewed my unstable life experiences as just another challenge I conquered. I thought maintaining academic honors under adverse childhood events for the majority of my primary educational years would classify me as a thriving success. Not necessarily so...

Life was chaotic for me as a child. Like many who experience adverse childhood trauma, I

repressed most of it. My mother battled with mental illness. She was in and out of mental facilities, constantly dealing with psychological and emotional disruptions. Needless to say, it made growing up quite challenging for me and my younger sister. Living with a mentally challenged parent, we were shuffled back and forth between my mother’s house and our grandmother’s house, and eventually, as preteens moved in with our dad. As a child, I couldn’t understand until I was around nine or ten that something was different about my mom. It was at this moment that I learned of her mental illness diagnosis.

Growing up, I became skilled at maintaining a safe emotional distance from others and was forced to grow up well before reaching the age of eighteen. I was religiously mild-tempered with an unbothered demeanor. My focus was on being a pillar of strength for my little sister who was often overtaken by emotions because of our consistent environmental unrest. 

As tumultuous as my young life was at times, I believe it shaped me into who I became. I was a reserved, yet considerate, poised but emotionless woman.

As an adult, my life went on fast forward from one challenge after another. More recently, in

2016, my father had a stroke. A few months later I learned I was going to be a grandmother. I

knew my daughter would need my support emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially (as

if I didn't already have enough responsibilities and obligations on my plate).

Exactly 12 months after my dad had his stroke, my mom had a stroke. I couldn’t believe this was the hand life was dealing me. For the next six months, I watched my mother transition

from being a stroke patient to a nursing home patient (having no ability to talk, feed or clothe

herself, make decisions for herself, nor advocate for herself), to a cancer patient, to a hospice

patient, into her final state of transition - her death, in July 2017.

Again, I managed it as usual, well-poised and encouraging those who came to

encourage me. I was a pro. Even though I loved my mom, I didn’t feel the need to fall apart nor become distressed. I had children, a grandchild, and a dad who needed me more. Thank God, I had an understanding employer who allowed me whatever flexibility I needed

to manage the volcanoes that erupted in my life.

Going through the motions the duration of the year, I will simply say, I made it; and it

did not break me…  

Entering 2018, I was managing work and life the best I could when I was made aware that yet

another grandbaby was on the way. This was too much for me. I had shouldered the world long

enough. I simply didn’t have room for this turn of events. But needless to say, I have two

beautiful and amazingly smart granddaughters. They are my light and my world. Yet, at that

moment in time, the person life bred me to be (poised, unbothered, emotionless, and unscathed), I didn’t know how to be her anymore. At this point in life, I had to concede and understand SHE no longer served me. 

I no longer had enough strength to manage my life alone. I struggled with figuring out how to let my guards down enough to allow someone else to help me. I motioned through as much of the year as I could until my mental and emotional state forced me (and with much hesitation) to seek therapy. At the time, I had no idea taking this step would lead to my journey of transformation.

I am enjoying this journey. I am learning and growing in the process. I coupled my research (Google, Ted Talks, and YouTube) with my weekly sessions and now feel invincible. I concentrated on eight (8) primary focuses to help in reshaping and transforming my life.

(1) Time with Myself

To initiate an effective and long-term transformation, the most important place for me to start was taking unlimited time with myself. During this time, I used multiple strategies to dig into my internal self. I spent time journaling, making lists, reading articles, praying, and listening to multiple digital media outlets, all while taking notes about what resonated most with me. I listed takeaways and points to work on during my transformation. Spending this intimate time with myself contributed to me gaining a deeper level of self-identity and uncovered more of who I truly am at the core.

(2) Discovering What I Value

During the time I spent with myself, one of the deep dives I took was taking a comprehensive

look at what I value. I stumbled across a poster a couple of years back that described the eight

dimensions of wellness. It stuck with me. The poster talked about eight (8) key areas that are

essential to our wellbeing: financial, emotional, social, spiritual, professional, environmental,

physical, and intellectual.

I took each category and listed in detail what I valued. This fundamentally defined more concretely the things I discovered during the self-identity phase of my transformation.

(3) Determining my Needs

When I identified the specifics that spoke to who I am and what I believe, I inevitably thought

about my “why”. Understanding my core needs defined my “why.”

Your core needs supply the reasoning for your values and your self-identity. The reasons that

explain or support your values and identity might be either the need for security, attention,

autonomy and control, emotional connection, feeling a part of, friendship/intimacy, privacy,

sense of status, sense of achievement, having meaning and purpose.

I find myself constantly becoming more aware of my core needs as I continue my journey of

transformation. As I identify my key self characteristics and look deeply at my emotional self

and what inspires (or triggers) me, I find myself checking in with myself determining the root cause of what I need. All of these basic human needs come up for us all. One way to demonstrate a healthy mental and emotional state is by how well we address these basic human needs.

(4) Increasing My Level of Emotional Intelligence

During one of my self-imposed online research adventures, I discovered a deeper layer of what it means to be emotionally intelligent. I always knew that my innate ability to be level-headed and even-tempered played a significant role. I was also great at managing the variations of the

emotions I experienced.

Additionally, I knew that to have a sufficient level of emotional intelligence one must also have a

keen ability to assess the emotions of others. I was sure that I had no issues with any of these, but the final point pierced me to the core. One must be intensely aware of and willing to express

their feelings and emotions AND be comfortable talking about them... *BLANK STARE*... Yup, I

was in trouble. I had not even begun to dig below the surface level of this task, until now.

Lately, I have been practicing being more intentional about assessing what I feel and taking the

time to talk about it. I still have a ways to go, but what I have accomplished so far has been pivotal.

(5) Updating my Resume and Creating My Bio

You may think this is an odd point and wonder what updating my resume and creating my bio

could have to do with transformation. For me, taking the time to review the most recent

content included on my resume pinpointed what I have accomplished professionally so far. It

gave me cause to reflect and determine what most fulfills me in my professional life, and the

direction I need to take moving forward.

Having taken the deep dive into self-identity and determining what I value, helped me take more

of a fine-tuned approach to updating my resume and crafting a bio. Being strategic about articulating your wins and capturing your assets as a professional can be a mood booster when it comes to recognizing and coming into the comfort of being your best self.

(6) Working on My Brand

While digging, diving into, and stripping through layers of discovery, I was encouraged by what

I was unraveling. Looking at my specs revealed I was building my brand.

All vision-minded individuals can benefit from building a brand. Your brand is simply your

image or who you are known as. Focusing professionally and personally on what you value and

how you prefer to be known to others is instrumental in creating a progressive blueprint in life.

Having a brand especially creates a means by which to keep you centered and on task toward

your purpose and assignment in life.

(7) Practicing Healthy Self-Esteem

Spending time working intentionally on all of this internal and emotional reprogramming can

give somewhat of a reboot or reset to one’s self-esteem. For some reason, I used to think that

when the subject of self-esteem came up, I assumed it was all negative and spoke completely to one’s weakness, but that’s not accurate. Self-esteem is simply what you think about yourself and what you say to yourself. That’s it! Nothing complex at all.

Being more informed about myself, I am now empowered to be more intentional about speaking

kindness and compassion toward myself. I think about what I can accomplish. I no longer become overly consumed or fearful about making poor choices or of what I cannot accomplish. I do not rehearse painful memories and stories from the past. I do the appropriate work to (1)

acknowledge an emotion, (2) discover any deeper meaning if it exists, (3) neutralize any negative emotions and (4) develop the next steps to support whatever action needs to happen to activate change.

Practicing having healthy and positive thought patterns is essential to having healthy and positive self-esteem.

(8) Establishing Healthy Boundaries

Essentially, this process points to the space of managing healthy boundaries. After I became

more aware of my true self, my preferences, my priorities, and my values, I began to make sure

every relationship and every interaction aligned or realigned more appropriately with my newly

transformed self. I gained a sense of direction and purpose. I became more conscious of interactions that could potentially throw me off track.

Being in tune with all of my qualities prepared me to better navigate my mental and emotional

thought world and external relationships. I began to exhibit a more efficient version of myself!

I’m grateful to have entered the transformation stage. It is a place of solace, a place of healing

and a place where I recognized all of the imperative gaps that existed for me.

In the transformation phase, you can learn how to fill or heal those gaps to complete

the work. Transformation activates and contributes to an ongoing practice of self-care and

optimal mental and emotional health and wellbeing.

My name is Wanda Burke and I am transformed!