Writing Your Own Life

By Kelly Myles

Most people at one point or another have had a moment—or in some cases a lifetime—of feeling helpless, hopeless, and unable to achieve the things they really want. But this can be conquered; happiness is a choice we make every day.

In Writing Your Own Life, author Kelly Myles explores ways for you to teach yourself to make that choice. You can learn how to create the relationships you want in every aspect of your life. Learn how to let go of the obstacle from the past. Become self-aware, selfmotivated, and self-fulfilled. With the guidance provided here, you can pull yourself up from your low point, start writing your own life, and discover your own everyday happiness.

This guide offers straightforward and practical advice to help you take charge of your life and create genuine happiness in a way that works for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jun 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483452531

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Myles

Copyright © 2016 Kelly Rae Myles.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5254-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5255-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5253-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016908176

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 05/25/2016

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 What Are You Waiting For?

Chapter 2 Stop Telling Yourself Fairy Tales

Chapter 3 Stop Playing the Victim

Chapter 4 Tell Yourself the Truth

Chapter 5 Take Accountability

Chapter 6 Deciding What You Really Want

Chapter 7 Start Writing Your Life

Chapter 8 Creating Discipline

Chapter 9 Writing Relationships

Chapter 10 Writing a Healthy Mind, Body and Soul

Chapter 11 Writing Your Career

Chapter 12 Keeping Your Story Alive

PREFACE

When I was a girl my mother was sent to a hospital in a quaint town in western New Hampshire. I was told that she was tired and was getting some rest. I was far too young to understand what was going on at the time, but by my forty-second birthday, I not only understood, I was living it.

I know what it’s like to feel hopeless and alone. I know what it’s like to not want to get out of bed. I know what it’s like to feel there’s no reason for living. I know because I was there. I spent my life trying to find happiness, or at least what I thought happiness should be. My entire career had been built on coaching and developing others to reach their goals, to find their happiness, yet I couldn’t find my own.

One day I woke up and realized that I have the ability to write my own life. I have the ability to write my own happiness. I took a good long look at myself and made the choice to create happiness every day.

I wrote this book for all the souls out there like me and my mom: people looking for that light at the end of the tunnel. For those who may have lost faith in themselves and the world around them. I was inspired to share my journey so that someone out there who may have given up will know. There is hope, and that hope comes from inside us. If we’re willing, if we’re honest with ourselves and if we’re brave enough, we can write our futures. Futures filled with happiness and the things we really want in our lives.

For Ryan, Lowell and Cassady

My best works of art

CHAPTER 1

What Are You Waiting For?

Falling down is a part of life; getting up is living.

Unknown

I woke up one morning and decided that I didn’t want to wake up anymore. It seemed as if most days I didn’t want to get out of bed anyway. I was lost, really lost. I used to cry myself to sleep every night and when I was done crying? I’d cry some more. I felt numb most of the time and when I allowed myself to think, I mostly thought about not waking up. I wished for it. I dreamed about it. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it? I was so tired and I wanted to stop being tired. I’d given up: at the ripe old age of forty-two. I’d fallen down and picked myself up and fallen down so many times that I’d lost all faith in myself and the world around me. I’d dug a hole, thrown all hope in it and buried it deep.

American society in 1984 had its ideas about what the right thing was. Go to school, get married and then get pregnant. I went to school, got pregnant, got married, got divorced, went to school again, got pregnant again, got married again, got pregnant again, stayed married for nineteen years and got divorced.

When I was young I had dreams of being an actress. I decided that I was going to go to New York City after high school to start a modeling career. I figured that was a stepping stone to my big break.

With each of what society would call a misstep my dreams began to fade away. With each passing year I felt my dreams of fame and fortune dropping off one by one.

As heartbroken as I was over this loss, I had these three beautiful children that I brought into the world and they were my responsibility. I loved them more than any dream I would ever have.

I think if you ask them, you will find that many mothers fantasize about two lives: the one that allows them the amazing experience of raising their children and the one that allows them to do all those other things. My kids won every time. They may not have seen it that way. That’s the tightrope working parents walk, isn’t it?

I know what you’re thinking: something truly heinous must have happened in my life to be at a place where I didn’t even want to get out of bed, right? Wrong. I just didn’t know what else to do. I had no idea how to pick up the pieces of my life and put my happiness back together.

I had an ordinary life, actually. I was the youngest of eight children, the product of divorce, blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard the story. That was the normal upbringing for over half my generation.

I wasn’t planning on offing myself or anything, although I’d certainly thought about it once or twice. I just couldn’t bring myself to devise a plan. What was I supposed to do? Plot out some dramatic exit with a note that read, Goodbye cruel world? I think not.

Deep down I knew that wasn’t me. How could I have purposely planned to leave my children when I loved them more than anything? An industrial accident or head on collision? A quick moving illness, perhaps? Now that I could work with. I could live with that, or die with it. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care anymore.

I