Transforming Trauma Into Purpose
Dr. Mariette Wade, h.c. is the CEO of Mariette Lynn Wade Consulting, LLC, a certified life coach, educator, advocate and pageant queen with a passion for seeing women living and walking in freedom so they can unlock the abundant life they so desire. As the Editor-In-Chief of SITI Girl Cincinnati, my goal is to empower women of all ages by sharing the stories of women just like them.
Life is multifaceted and has its mountain top and valley low experiences. Part of the journey is recognizing where you are and where you want to go and then charting the path to get there. You can stay the same if you so choose but my guess is that you would not want to stay the same year after year. As I am embarking on chapter 42, (yes I am an October 19th baby!), I have had to ask myself some really hard questions and be brutally honest with myself over the past few months. This is a journey that I will share with you throughout the upcoming issues of SITI Girl Cincinnati. I hope that through my transparency that someone will be encouraged to shut the door on things in their lives that are no longer serving them.
It can be hard dig through the muck and mire of our lives but in order to be able to get to the root of what is wreaking havoc in your life, you have to be willing to do the work. The main question I have had to ask myself, is do I want to be healed, or do I want to made whole? Many people use healing and wholeness interchangeably but they are not one and the same. You see, “healing will make you well; disease (or problem) will stop, but only wholeness will allow you to move forward, fully repair, and rebuild” (https://agutsygirl.com/2018/05/16/healing-vs-wholeness/).
As a certified life coach, I mentor and coach women to their healing so they can unlock the abundant life they so desire and part of that process is asking the hard questions. I cannot be effective in helping others if I cannot help myself. My goal in this season of my life is to not just be healed but to be made whole. I was in the middle of training to be a volunteer peer counselor with the Eve Center and every training session was eating away at my core. I sat and wept through many classes and even tried to leave the training program because I felt like an imposter being there. How was I going to help other women face and solve their problems when my own life was in shambles? Picture perfect outside presence but literally falling apart at the seams behind clothes doors. My public persona in no way matched with private reality. I was living a lie. How did I get here? How do I even begin to pick up the pieces of my broken life and shattered dreams?
We all carry many different titles and here are some of the titles I have carried: wife, daughter, friend, caretaker, mentor, career woman, businesswoman, pageant queen, international best-selling author, motivational speaker, life coach, and pastor. WHEW! That was a mouthful, but is this who I really am? If I strip away all of those titles, expectations and ect., who am I?
These are all the questions I have asked myself over these past few months as I have sat still in my brokenness. The truth is, those of things I do but they are not who I am. So with this realization, the rediscovery of Mariette has been birthed.
Those who truly know me, know I am runner by nature. When things get to hard to face, I find another activity, another mask to hide behind. This time in my life has made me come face to face with me and I realized I did not like or really even know the person in mirror staring back at me. It is time to come out of hiding, address the trauma and dysfunction that has shaped my life and continue to put one foot in front of the other on this journey to being made whole. It’s time to take off the mask and come out of hiding. Will you join me?
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