I have tried to live my life this way and that was part of my resiliance until I did lose more than I had the ability to handle. I am experiencing that now and it's been such a challenge for me to focus despite the shadows around me that take the light away.

I hear you and I have been TRYING and I keep failing. It's a challenge in that sometimes what others say about the light (the way they capture it) are not helping me in that these others cast dark shadows on me where they take the little bit of light I have managed to find and have been trying to rebuild on.

This is actually what I have been trying so hard to do HEAR MYSELF. Yet also identify how that effort has been invaded by others who insist that I hear THEM more than myself. The therapist that helped me the most with this LISTENED and was pointing out how much toxic individuals in my life had me on the run to the point where I could not even sit with my own feelings. That what I was constantly encouraged to do without realizing it is believe it was more important that THEIR feelings take precedent.

Actually, that is exactly what the entire experience I had faced when it came to that letter reflected. First that letter was covered with my sister's writing, and in it was a check from my father that I have had been instructed NEVER to actually accept or cash and how ANY money my parents gave me was wrong and I deserve to be ashamed of because now my older sister is ALL OVER THEM with her control in a very dysfunctional unhealthy way. I wanted to ignore that but instead what I faced is my HUSBANDS feelings about it and his display of his own drama about what I have to do about it despite my own effort to find my own WAY of capturing some kind of positive light when it comes to find my own way to deal with this Christmas. This has all made me exhausted and I have no idea or energy to look for or feel the light.

(I have had to edit this several times now because I am struggling with words again, it's my mind slurring them again).