Shaken to Become Unshaken

By Johnna Murrey

I've figured out that the best guidance comes from within. Essentially our life story. Here's my guide on how I achieved mental wealth, full of many life lessons and reflection. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Read how I built up my self-esteem. I've learned I don't have to hide or omit anything in my life. Every struggle I've been through is a success story.

While living your story, go back and reread the important parts. Process—heal. Then move forward with your book in hand.
*Let go of past traumas and struggle.
*No more self-sabotaging or negative talk.

I'm ready to open my book and tell you my story. Read how I broke free from a six year-long abusive relationship.
*Identify red flags and get away from self-limiting people.
*Commit to yourself.

Life is a continuous journey. You live, you learn, and you grow through every experience and encounter, negative or positive.
*Turn losses into lessons.
*Rewrite your habits.
*Create your own narrative.

Ready, set, read!

Domestic Violence, Eviction, Arrested, Psychiatric Crisis, Harassed, Fired, Near Death Experience, Rare Syndrome: Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome, Faith Based

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667826042

Book preview

SECTION I

Past Research

In this book I research myself. You will read the dissection of my life. This book is about how success starts in the mind and my personal account of how I reached my success. I want to be the best me I can be all the time, every single day. That’s why I write and put my life out there. I want everybody to know the wrongs along my journey because I learned and the lessons were beautiful inside those wrongs, so I want to teach. I teach from scars not wounds.

Life is a continuous process of learning myself, forgiving myself and forgiving others on my journey. It’s a hard journey but walk on and focus on the blessings along the way. The destination is death, but I don’t want to achieve success in death. Meaning? What is a life lived if it’s an unhappy one? What was the point in living?

I look back at my life and no matter what happened to me, it made me into who I am today. It would take me twenty-four hours to tell you about the twenty-four hours in my day. What I tell you in this book isn’t my entire life story or journey, this is just a visit—a reflection.

Who I am

I always made sure that I had the necessary knowledge for this world. I have three certificates and two degrees. All of those accomplishments added up to feeling like I needed to have something more in order to be successful. What good are all of my degrees if I don’t have confidence or believe in myself to be successful in this world and live by the standards I create? Otherwise they are just wall decorations and an impressive resume. I realized that I was searching for something I couldn’t find because I wasn’t looking right in front of me—or inside of me. I was working in my talents, but I didn’t activate my purpose. I wanted more.

I later found out during my research that success is a mindset. I lived in that feeling of never being enough. I created this world in which I had to be perfect and if I made a mistake, I was hard on myself. I was the prisoner and the guard. I didn’t feel safe in my own body.

Sometimes I feel like the boss of my life, I’m certain in the things I do. Other times, I feel unqualified, I used to second guess myself a lot. Do you ever feel like you make it up as you go? Or maybe you look to others for guidance... or maybe you hide away from life and keep to yourself. There’s a saying, between a rock and a hard place, well, I used to get under the rock and hide. Some people bite back if you corner them. Some people become bitter toward the world, they treat others not how they want or should be treated because they give the same energy the world threw at them. But me, I took the negative energy, bathed in it, fed it energy, took it out for fresh air, and I brought the negative energy back home. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. Maybe you don’t know what you’re doing but you know what you want. Let's start there. In order to become qualified, you have to do your research. Yes. I’m talking about you being qualified to live your life. People and things can hold you back in this world. That was part of my problem. My main problem was me. I was holding myself back.

I’ve written dozens of research papers, so I know a lot of things. But I came to realize that I didn’t know myself. I was too occupied observing and researching other things. I decided to research myself and put the information that I found in a book. When I start a research paper, I start the paper only knowing little information. I research as I write. Then in the end everything comes together. I learn and I retain. My questions are answered, and it all makes sense. There is a method to the madness.

You can drive yourself insane when you come to a conclusion with a beginning you want to rewrite. The problem with my research paper on myself was that I can’t rewrite my life story. So, I figured that was the reason why I was stumbling blindly on my journey and getting knocked over by many of life's challenges. I came to the conclusion that I needed to see where I came from in order to know where I was and then I would know where I was going. That seemed simple enough. I had the urge to reveal my truth.

In my life, I would ignore red flags thinking it’d get better with time, I would mask the bad, then try and pretend the bad never happened when it was over. Forgive and forget, right? There were many moments in my life when I’d ask myself, how did this happen? The question I’ve asked myself in my many struggles. You can drive yourself insane trying to figure out what you did wrong or if you even did do wrong and how to fix or avoid it. You can drive yourself crazy wondering if others are as unqualified at living life as you are while looking at how others gracefully take on life. So, forgive yourself, forgive others, and remember. Remember to not forget the lesson of the past. And look forward to your life’s journey.

Now I can write and reflect on these things and grow from them. Your journey is never over. Think of your journey as an experience. When you walk outside, sometimes you need an umbrella to shield you from the rain, sometimes it’s cold—that’s why you put on a coat, sometimes it’s hot—you have to bear it all. Sometimes your journey will be uncomfortable. But your journey always continues. The world will continue around you. How you deal with what is around you and what comes your way is what matters. Notice I said how you deal. Because the world is going to do what it’s going to do, people are going to do what they are going to do, you are responsible for yourself.

It’s important not to beat yourself up because the world will already do enough of that. Some of the people I’ve encountered are haters. I can’t hate myself, too. That’s too much hate for one person. I deserve to be celebrated, not hated. Love yourself because no one can love you that hard. The same goes for hate. You’re your own worst critic. You’re harder on yourself than anybody else. How others treat you is a reflection of how you treat yourself. I didn’t realize this before but when others see how great you are and you don’t see how great you are, they take advantage of that. It’s natural to pick the weak from the strong. Not everyone gives chances, uncertainty scares people so you yourself have to be very certain of yourself in this world. You have to be your biggest fan and your own hype man. So, when you move in this world make sure to move with confidence.

In my research I realized I have the ability to create my own narrative. I can show and tell people who I am. Show the world who you are, put yourself and your ideas out there. If you don’t believe in yourself then who will? I live an open and honest life. But it’s okay to keep something to yourself and to process the situation. It’s healthy to feel your feelings. This is your personal journey and you get to invite who you want on your journey and what parts/experiences you want to share.

I thought I knew myself, but I had to learn myself. I let people tell me who I was for years and I didn’t stand up for myself because I didn’t stand for anything. I was unhappy. I was in a constant state of worry. I thought about how others viewed me, I cared about everything. That has been my downfall in the past, paying too much attention to the little things, too much attention to other people's feelings and their situations. I’ve always been great at managing other people’s lives and guiding them toward their goals.

Working in the social work field, I was constantly reviewing files that included bits of peoples’ life stories. I talk with people to get to know them and more about their life. I do my research so that I am capable of knowing exactly how to help them in their lives. I’ve always been so invested in others' lives. In my research I realized that I had always magnified the best parts about a person as motivation toward a goal in their life. But I never saw the greatness in myself, I didn’t treat myself too great either.

I realized that I had not only to see the beauty in my life, but I also had to see the beauty in my life’s struggles. In my research, I realized that because I viewed my struggles as ugly, I tried to keep them out of view or make them pretty. I feared failure. I never pushed myself to explore new things. I learned that I didn’t push the boundaries of my possibilities and therefore, I had nothing new to research about myself. I had stayed in the same stagnant place for years.

So, push yourself. In whatever it may be, find your inspiration. Sometimes evolving and growing means going back and reevaluating your life, assessing the experiences you’ve had, and remembering who you’ve always been and knowing who you are now. Of course, I have wonderful life experiences past and present, but this book is about reflecting on all of my struggles. I want you to know that you are not your struggles, but your struggles have made you into the person you are today. There’s a saying, Don’t judge a book by its cover, well, isn’t it the same as judging yourself or someone else by one bad experience?

This is my success story. I want to tell you how I obtained my success. Mind you, financial wealth has nothing to do with my success. It starts in the mind. Take care of yourself. That’s how you build a foundation of success. I broke my research about myself into categories and under each category are different chapters. I outlined my paper with specific time periods of the traumatic things that have happened to me within those periods. If you sort out your childhood traumas, then your adult traumas will make more sense. I organized my relationship traumas, workplace traumas, and all the other costs of living traumas, including the actual cost of living into chapters, too. In this story, I end it with how I took control of my life.

Childhood

One day my daughter was telling my mom how I was going to paint her hair purple, pink, and gold for her birthday. I planned to get colored natural hair wax that washes out easily. When I was a young girl my mom was strictly against adding anything to your body that you weren’t born with. So, when my daughter told my mom what color she would color her hair, my mom thought she meant permanent hair dye. My mom was in shock, so I quickly informed my mom that it was washable colored hair wax. Then we got into the discussion of our different beliefs from when I was growing up. She told me how I was often rebellious, and I told her how I thought she was controlling at times. This got me thinking about parental views of life versus a child's view of life.

Growing up, I relied on my parents' judgment for validation in my life decisions. I read a lot of books growing up. In fact, I learned most life experiences through books. Lack of life experience means no life growth. I grew up very sheltered. When it was time for me to leave home, I was thrown into the world naive and overwhelmed. I developed social anxiety. I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t even share secrets with my sisters. My mom was very much a momma bear who protected me from negative experiences or people.

In my research, I learned about boundaries and how I didn’t have them. It was harder for me to acknowledge the terms, no, I don’t like that, or this is what I want to do. It was hard for me to trust myself therefore, I did not take control or ownership of my own life. I learned that I needed to have more confidence. I was at a point where I had to learn what it was like in this world by myself attached to no relationships. I relied on my own guidance. Many people know things but at this point I was certain, and I’ve confirmed my life wasn’t one of those things many people know. I’ve questioned and second guessed myself my whole life.

I was taught how to follow the rules, but I didn’t know that I could be the one that makes the rules. You can’t take on the whole world, but you can take on your world. One day at a time. Growing up my mom wanted to make sure her kids had everything they ever needed, if we didn’t then she’d figure out a way. She did that for years, she had to be in control and run her household. Sometimes she may have been over the top but for the most part, I was used to her being in control. You know that saying... mom’s know best. I went to my mom for a lot of life's questions. That’s what moms are for, to be your guide, to help guide you in life.

But when I started my research, I realized that there’s a lot about my life that my mom doesn’t know. I didn’t grow up telling her my secrets, even as an adult. So, I started thinking it was time for me to answer my own life's questions. I was falling, tripping, and stumbling in life because I kept expecting someone to catch me or lead the way. I needed to stop asking others for directions and advice. I realized what I wanted to know was in me. I had been relying on people who were not even on the same journey as me to help me.

I didn’t get out much growing up. Other than school, I never had much of a social life. Even in school, I was the kid the teacher had to call on because I didn’t talk. I had friends, of course, but I kept my circle of friends small. I was a very shy child in school and especially anywhere there were a lot of people. I was never shy with family of course but I’ve always kept a diary.

How many teen movies are there with children living secret lives? It depends on the parenting style and the relationship between parent and child when it comes to how a child will turn out as an adult in society. Have conversations with your children, treat them as adults when it comes to respect, privacy, and boundaries. Talk to them about what is going on in their heart and mind. This doesn’t have to be a heart to heart sentimental conversation. It can just be a day to day conversation about their school project, friends, stress, and their passions, just in conversation passing by in the kitchen before going upstairs to watch your movie. Maybe ask to watch a movie together to initiate conversation. Talking to your children is important.

As a parent you may think you know your child because you birthed them, they were a part of you, and you are raising them so surely, they should have the same belief systems as you. But as a parent you have to think of raising your child as getting to know them. Their brains are developing, and they are coming into their own personality. Talk to them as you would try to get to know someone you don’t know, as they are growing. Talk to them about life skills and the things happening in the world. That’s important because someone else in this world may teach them the hard way. You want them to learn from you, relate an experience in your life to things in their life.

Tell your children your feelings, it’s okay not to be perfect. Don’t go as far as complaining about bills to your children because bills and the grocery receipt should not concern a child. They should know the value of money and why it’s important but it’s a parent’s responsibility to pay the electric bill that month. It takes much skill and love to be a parent. You really have to love yourself. Raising human beings is a delicate process. Many do it but many need guidance.

In my research I write about different points in my life growing up with my mom, I learned a lot about her mindset in raising three girls with my dad. Growing up my parents always made sure to support whatever their children wanted to do. If they didn’t agree with my life decision, then they’d tell me by giving me other ideas. But they always took the time to listen and hear my plan out. They’ve always been my biggest supporters. When I’m excited about a new project I’m working on in life then they get excited, too. When I accomplish something, they make sure to throw a party. That’s how it’s always been.

Once it was time to grow up and be an adult —you know, raise children, work a career job, get into a relationship and socialize with all of their friends and family— I realized I needed to back up and figure out what I was missing in my life or what I needed to find to feel normal. As an adult I felt alone, my shyness and tight-lipped attitude did me no justice in this cruel world. And so, I got walked over, talked over, and overshined. Before my research I thought I just didn’t shine enough, but now I know. I’ve always shined bright. I just didn’t know my own power. For years I let others dim my shine because they were blinded by it or I dimmed my own shine to fit in. For the longest I didn’t want to shine because I didn’t like the way my shine shined or because I simply didn’t attempt to put myself out there. To grow I had to do that. Because when it was time to venture off into the world—I rather stumbled than walked.

When you’re thrown out into the world and you don’t stick the landing it can be overwhelming. This is when depression, anxiety, and other disorders are bound to happen. I’d dealt with depression and anxiety as a child, it grew with me as I became an adult.

Sexuality

I explored sexuality in my research. I didn’t have sex until I was seventeen. I had first thought about it when I was fifteen and started talking to boys. The thought of sex had always disgusted me before then. But then I found out my sister was pregnant and that meant she was having sex. I thought she would never do that. Now I believe that way of thinking was childish. I was a child. I only wish that I had spoken with her about things in her life. She was figuring life out, too. I was the same age when I had my child when she had her first child, nineteen. I wanted to have it all figured out at that age, but I didn’t.

I wish I would have known how powerful my vagina was, how good it can make me feel and how good it could make someone else feel. I wish I knew that those feelings were so powerful that they could run the world. When I say run the world, I mean a woman can run the world. Yes, a woman should have been president a long time ago if you ask me. Women are the backbone of men. Women stand behind the men therefore they are not recognized. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to stand behind your man. You should, as your man should stand behind you. What I’m saying is that the way the world works will humble you very quickly. The man is recognized before the woman. That’s the way it is.

So, to live in this world as a woman, you have to build a world of your own which starts in your household. You pick your man, preferably a successful one to add to your success. Notice how I said add because you never need a man for nothing. Next, you have babies if you choose. You cheer your partner on his journey as he cheers you on your journey. The two of you are not on the same journey you see. You are learning life. You are learning your life experiences as he is learning his own. The two of you are only sharing your life experiences with each other and visiting each other’s journeys. That is how you have to view a relationship. That is how you have to view not just a partnership with a romantic partner but with all relationships. You don’t want to become dependent on a job or in a relationship because then when you separate from it this is when loss of identity comes into play. You have to know who you are independently.

Even with a stranger, you share an experience or an encounter. For example, at a job when you have a conversation with your supervisor. After the conversation they should’ve learned something, and you should always take something away from the encounter—no matter the context of the conversation. Your experiences are your experiences. It’s important to teach children this. As a child, they have to know this, things like, my body is my body and personal space. I always knew that I had a voice, but I didn’t know that my voice had power.

Drugs and Alcohol

I grew up in a household where absolutely no cussing, drinking, smoking, or drugs were acceptable. I think about why I was sober so long. Alcohol was always talked down upon in my parents’ home. Also, growing up as a Christian, I had my spiritual reasons for not drinking. In my research I found that in the generations my parents grew up in the war on drugs was big propaganda in the media. Chemical warfare and scare tactics are a thing. And I think it’s wonderful my parents wanted a drug free family. That’s what they were taught. I smoked weed for the first time when I was seventeen, I never really drank alcohol because I couldn’t stand the taste. Then when I was eighteen, I got pregnant with my daughter. Next I was sober for seven years. Then during the last year of the six-year relationship I was in is when I started smoking weed again. I couldn’t be sober around him. I didn’t want to be.

Love and Relationships

When I first began my research, I focused on love and myself. After my relationship with Belial—I’ll call him B. I realized I could walk away, and all we had were memories. I asked myself why I had held on for so long. He was very controlling. At the time when I was dating him, I didn’t see any problem with this trait. I was used to it. The last year and a half of our six-year relationship was the absolute worst because I finally began to open myself up to other people and friendships. He would try to find me when I told him I was out with a friend. He would argue with me that I was with a man. He would tell me how I was a horrible mom because I wasn’t with my daughter but out with friends. He would tell me a lot. He would put me down and I didn’t realize that wasn’t normal in a relationship but everyone else around me would notice. One day I was at dinner with a friend and my friend asked me what was wrong. I was confused at her question, but I was so into B and I’s text argument that I wouldn’t even look up at her.

During my research I realized things that I thought were normal in a relationship weren't. During B and I’s whole relationship he would tell me how he didn’t care about my friends or care to meet them—this was when I only had one friend, Kalyana, my daughter's godmother. But when I began to meet new friends and go out with them instead of going out with him—he truly was the only person I went out anywhere with for four and a half years, all of my free time went to him—he went as far as to put a tracker on my car.

I didn’t get much free time to go out. I was a single mother. I never went out with friends or partied because I didn’t have any friends. I was sober. I was usually in the house or out with my daughter and my daughter went everywhere with me if I wasn’t on a date with B. I was at home waiting for B to come around—he never came around. When I did get to go out, my mom would agree to watch my daughter. I always had an early curfew to pick my daughter up because my mom had to get her rest, too. Sometimes I would stay out longer than planned when B and I got into an argument. These were nonsensical arguments that usually included him arguing with me about my feelings then getting defensive, putting words in my mouth, and manipulating the conversation toward deflection.

SECTION II

RELATIONSHIPS ARE TRAUMATIC

High School

I had a friend in high school, Aleah. She was great, I had just moved to a new school to finish my last two years of high school. I’d been in public school for all my years of schooling, but this new school was a private catholic school. There were less than ten black people in that school and Aleah was one of them. We were inseparable even though she was a grade behind me. One day we skipped mass, church in the gym, since we weren’t catholic, and we thought mass to be boring.

We got snacks from the vending machine and hid out in the bathroom, but we were too loud, giggling and talking. A teacher came into the bathroom and told us to come out. It was a funny situation. I stayed quiet in the stall and I wouldn’t come out at first, but I was still eating chips that I was loudly crunching on. The teacher wouldn’t leave until I came out of the stall. Aleah was laughing about that on our way to the principal's office where they called our parents and suspended us or wrote us up—I can’t remember which.

My mom was livid. She was upset but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before. I had skipped class to go get food or snacks when I went to my old public high school many days. I just never got caught. Most times the teachers wouldn’t even ask me for a pass if they saw me walking in the hallway during class time. They’d just smile or nod at me. All the teachers spoke kindly of me, and I was respectful to the teachers. I didn’t cause trouble in class, in fact, I kept my head down and did my work. But doing my work wasn’t enough at that catholic school. They were strict when it came to following the rules. It was also a small school, so I think they noticed when two of the ten black kids were missing. I laugh thinking about it now.

Well, that day, I went home with my mom and she asked me why I had done it and she wanted to know the details of my friendship with Aleah. At the time, she blamed Aleah for being a bad influence on me. She told me, You better tell me because we’re meeting with her mother today and trust me that girl is going to blame you. I had to give her Aleah’s number. She wanted to speak with her mother, so they set up a meeting that day. My mom told me my punishment on the way to the meeting, no phone. She said, I pay $10,000 a year for you to go there, and she continued her very valid point. When we met at the restaurant and sat down, Aleah’s mom and my mom were mad. At some point, my mom outed Aleah to her own mother about all the wrong things she was doing —now that I look back at it, it was just things any teenager does or goes through, even things that I’ve done. As if my punishment wasn’t enough, I was sent back to that school. It was so embarrassing.

At school, Aleah and I had some of the same friends but since we were in different grades, we had our own group of friends. So, when we separated, I didn’t sit at her lunch table anymore and she didn’t sit at my lunch table anymore. I talked to only some people she talked to but not her close friends. Her and her close friends thought I was a snitch. This was high school. You can imagine how one small thing is a big thing. I was already new, and I didn't have many friends as it was. Most of those kids grew up together and most of those white kids were racist. I lost my best friend at that school. The only black girl I talked to or could relate to. I hated that school. My confidence at that school was shot. There was the first time I had encountered racism.

My first day at that school, the teacher was taking attendance and the only black boy in class said, Present, to his name when called. The white boy sitting in front of me whispered, Yes master, to the white boy next to him and they both laughed. Now, I was a dramatic, hormonal, teenager, but these racist conditions didn’t make it any better. I felt like the ugliest person in that school and for the first time I saw my skin. One day while talking at the lunch table, someone pointed my skin out saying that I was brown skinned. The black boy sitting at the table told that white girl I was light skinned and the whole lunch table debated about it for the rest of lunch. I was also called ghetto at that school by a white boy at one point in time. All my life in my public school, every person I met would tell me I talked, proper or I talked, white. But at that white school to those white people I was ghetto.

Anyway, as I was going through this self-hatred and lack of coping skills, I met a white guy on social media. We talked about racism. He told me how his grandfather was a racist. He told me all about how he could never be racist. At the time, I was inspired. I was on my MLK had a dream and I was going to make that dream come true type of time. We talked on the phone all day for about a week before I went to see him. He had a track record of dating black girls.

During one of our conversations he had made a comment, I thought you were a white girl when I first added you as a friend, he said. Maybe it was the lighting in my profile picture. He also added that he was adding a lot of white girls because he just wanted a quick hookup. At the same time, he was adamant about liking black girls and how he wanted an actual girlfriend. I didn’t have any sense of what a red flag was. He was white and unlike the guys at my school, he liked black girls, and I was black. While I dated him for a year, the so-called love I got from him was little, but it was what I craved. Even though it was only moments