Dear Younger Self

By Tracey Watts Cirino

Empowering Transformation: Dear Younger Self by Tracey Watts Cirino

In this exclusive edition of Dear Younger Self. Tracey's positive energy bursts from every word, invi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beyond Common Inc.
• Release date: Oct 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961364158

Tracey Watts Cirino

Dominic's version of Mommy's Bio: I wrote this bio for my kind, loving, and beautiful mother. Tracey Watts Cirino is a, # 1 International Bestseller selling Author. Her books include Beyond Common: 12 Essentials for Success in Life and in the Workplace, Woman Who Shine, and Women Who Dream. She stands on stage and coaches and trains lots of people who love her work. She is really great at helping others see what is great about themselves. She helps them make a bunch of money and get their business technology in order and I always hear her talking about doing things that make you look and feel your best. She has worked her whole life trying to be the best she can be after going through a painful childhood. She knew if she ever became a mom, she was going to work hard to make sure her kids felt loved and appreciated just for being them. I have to say, she is really doing the most amazingly, wonderful job! She is the best and I love her with all my heart. ?

Book preview

Creating Clarity Through Chaos

Angie Frontera

When was the first time you . . .

Felt unworthy?

Felt not good enough?

Felt not smart enough?

Felt like a waste of space?

Felt like a waste of oxygen?

When was the first time you felt like you weren’t even sure you wanted to continue participating in life?

I was six years old, the oldest of what would eventually be five of us kids. I was living with my mom and biological father, Robert (a.k.a. sperm donor), and two younger siblings: a five-year-old sister and a few-months-old sister.

Long story short, Robert had friends over to the house to watch football. While all the adults were upstairs watching the football game, us kids were playing downstairs in the basement. While downstairs playing, one of the visiting kids used crayons and colored all over the inside of a book I checked out from the school library. It was the first book I had ever checked out. The teacher was very clear about how each of us was responsible for anything that happened to our books. I was terribly upset. I very quietly went upstairs to tell my mom what happened to my library book. I approached my mom’s chair, crouched down on my knees to quietly whisper to her what had happened. Robert jumped up out of his recliner and headed for me. As kids, we knew better than to interrupt Robert’s football games. Robert picked me up and literally threw me down a hallway, resulting in rug burns all over my face. Robert’s friends gathered their kids and left. Of course, that was my fault too. And an excuse for Robert to start a fight with Mom, leave the house, and go to the bar to catch the rest of the game and get stupid drunk.

A week later when I returned to school, I was called to the school principal’s office. The principal and two male police officers were waiting for me. I was told to strip down to my panties so they could check for marks and bruises. Being the compliant child I was, I did as I was told. I was mortified, embarrassed, and ashamed. I was silently crying. The tears were running down my face onto my flat, bare chest. I tried to be modest but was told to raise my arms up in the air and slowly turn. The principal and police were watching every move I made. No one seemed to care I was humiliated beyond measure . . . I wanted to completely disappear! All adults agreed I had no other bruises or marks and could get dressed again. I complied. I was sent back to class like nothing had happened.

But everything had happened for me.

I learned I didn’t matter. My feelings didn’t matter. My shame and embarrassment didn’t matter. Other people and things (like football games) were more important than me. Whatever was said to me, whatever happened to me, I was expected to just take it and keep my mouth shut. People would not have my back or protect me. I was expected to cover for people to prevent them from getting into trouble. There was safety in keeping my mouth shut. When uncomfortable, just disappear. I learned when someone of authority tells me to do something, comply; do not ask questions, simply comply.

I learned to . . .

NOT defend myself,

NOT speak up for myself,

NOT take a stand for myself.

When I first learned about the opportunity to contribute a chapter to this book, I literally got chills from head to toe and broke down in tears! The title was perfect! I have told myself a million times over the last twenty-five-plus years something like, I wish I had known that when I was younger so I wouldn’t have had to figure so much of life out the hardest way possible.

When most of us are young, me included, we are absolutely positive we already know everything and don’t need anybody, especially old people telling us anything. They’re too old to understand anyway. I have told my adopted daughter so many times to listen with her heart, not just her ears, to what certain others have to say, learn from their wisdom and mistakes. I also know when we’re young we think we’re the exception and we’re invincible!

Don’t be like that! I’ve learned to listen to and learn from others’ experiences—even when they’re younger than I am. I believe we must always be open to learn from others’ experiences, especially their hard life lessons. It could save us from some really dumb decisions and some real hard times down the road.

Never think something doesn’t apply to you. Because it just might one day.

Never think something won’t happen to you. Because it just might one day.

You are special, but not so special life won’t hunt you down, tackle you to the dirt, chew you up, and spit you out. Life has a way of teaching some hard and fast lessons that will bring you to your knees and all but physically kill you.

There might even be times where life is so upside down, sideways, and every which way, that you will wish you were dead.

I did. In early 2014, I lost everything: my twenty-two-year-old very successful business and eventually our home due to over $180K being embezzled by my office staff in late 2010 during a very short time frame while my now ex-husband was in the hospital and rehab. Things got so horrible, the only thing that saved me from taking my own life was my adopted daughter, Ally.

Ally was almost nine years old in April 2010 when she came to live with me and my now ex-husband. Two months after Ally came to live with us, my ex told me that she needed to go back. I’m like, Go back where? What?! She isn’t a shirt you return to the store! It was at that point I gave him an ultimatum to live up to the promises he made to both of us or pack and leave. That felt really good! Liberating! I felt like I could breathe for the first time in years! I had been putting up with his refusal to help financially support our family and the emotional abuse for years. It was time. Finally in July 2012, he moved out.

I believe if Ally weren’t with me in 2014, I’d be dead now. I was at that point, a single mom, working thirty-one hours a day, nine days a week. But if I offed myself, who would raise her? Who would love her like I did? Who would take care of her? Who would teach her what she needed to know to grow up? Who would take her to therapy? Who would be her advocate if I weren’t here? After the honeymoon period with Ally, most of the time she wasn’t the easiest. Being abused herself before she came to live with me, she brought plenty of her own emotional baggage to the party. We’ve been through some downright tough stuff over the years, for sure! I knew in Ally’s heart and mind I was all she had. I didn’t want to destroy her life again by taking mine. I would just have to figure a way through all that was happening in that temporary period of my life and get on the other side of it. And I did.

Today, I credit everything I’ve ever been through in my life with who I am today. I’ve been able to discover my true purpose in life on this side of paradise because of all the turmoil and craziness.

If it weren’t for the decision to love and take on a foster child, I don’t believe I would have ever gone down the road I did of learning about abuse, mental illness, what makes us tick, etc., and eventually become a coach.

I would have never learned what it was like to be a foster child at eight years old, to figure out a way to maneuver through the responsibilities of being a foster parent to a child who had been hurt and lied to by authority figures. I would have never felt at the core of my soul the shame that happened when I went from having a comfortable financial life to living on food stamps and scrounging around the house looking for change for gas money. The absolute worst part was when I had to borrow from the savings account I had set up for her. The agonizing fear, frustration, and drama of having strangers renting the downstairs bedrooms so we could stay in our home.

For most of my life, I was so busy trying to make everyone happy. It never occurred to me that I deserved to be happy. I honestly didn’t know until a few years ago that I couldn’t make anyone happy. All emotions come from within, even happiness. We can each only make ourselves happy. Nobody can ever make you feel a certain way. And when you allow yourself to feel emotions based on what others say or do, you are giving all your power to them. Despite what life is handing us at any given moment, we can still experience all the emotions, including joy and happiness.

I’ll say it again: We cannot make someone feel a certain way!

You teach people how to treat you by what you allow. So how do you want to be treated? With love, kindness, respect, and understanding? Then demand that. Accept nothing less than that.

Why do we go through life and undermine our feelings? Why do we make excuses for people’s behavior toward us (and others) and write it off as if we have done something to deserve their hateful, selfish treatment? Why do we feel we don’t deserve better? Why do we feel so unworthy of great things? Why do we feel like literally everyone except ourselves is deserving of whatever they want? Why are we forever putting ourselves on the back burner?

Really sit with those questions for a few minutes.

Really contemplate your thoughts and feelings to those questions.

Get emotional about those questions.

Why is our self-talk so berating? Would you allow someone to talk to you the way you talk to yourself? I certainly hope not! Why is it easier for so many of us to take a stand for others, even take to the streets in protest, for what we believe to be unjust and unfair treatment of people but seem so completely unable to stand up for our own damn selves? It’s time each and every one of us take a stand for ourselves. Stop believing all the smack people are vomiting out of their mouths and keyboards, whether it be about you or the world in general. Decide what you believe and take a stand. Quit being so wishy-washy.

Why do you allow all this BS drama in your life?

Aren’t you worthy of happiness, love, and joy?

Why are you worthy of the life you want?

If you even had a twinge of not feeling one thousand percent deserving of the life you truly want at your core, you must examine that immediately! Ask yourself some deep, soul-searching questions. And don’t stop till you can come up with some genuine responses. And if you’re not bawling your eyes out and feeling like hammered hell at the end of all that, you’re just lying to yourself. You’re just sugarcoating. Get to the meat of your stuff! Then, go find a great coach to help you examine where all those BS stories come from and rewrite your story!

Get out and meet new people. Create great, lifelong friendships based on honesty, love, and trust. We all need a confidant we can call 24/7/365 when we need support. We all need that trusted soul to jump our poop when we are headed down the wrong path. Someone to jab us in the chest with their finger and ask us, What the hell are you thinking? Someone to keep us from making really dumb decisions. Someone that will jerk us out of harm’s way. Someone that can genuinely be happy for us.

Staying in an abusive relationship led to many years of soul-destroying verbal and emotional abuse aimed at me for my inadequacies. One thing I still find funny is the millions of times I was told my clothes were too loud, my perfume was too loud, my jewelry was too loud, my mannerisms were too loud.

Okay. So what? That was someone else’s opinion of me. Was his opinion of me even true? Not to me.

For years, I allowed people to fill my head with their opinions of me. Who cares what their opinion is? The only thing that really matters is my opinion of me. My own self-image: How do I see myself? What qualities do I bring to the table? Am I pleasing to God?

Back when I was miserable and hated my life and everything about it, I would think things happened to me. I never considered that some bad things happened for me. I was listening to a web training. It hit me like a ton of bricks. My thoughts went to the way I was still feeling about spending so many years in a loveless, tumultuous marriage and in the embezzlement. I was so angry and disappointed in myself. I actually hated myself for putting up with so much crap, not taking a stand for myself, for allowing myself to be treated so badly for so long, for wasting the best years of my life for nothing! And just as quickly, it hit me: it is what it is, and all of that helped get me where I was at that exact moment in time. I would not be learning all the things I had learned over the last few years to be able to help others live their best lives if I hadn’t experienced what I did. I wouldn’t be learning to coach and help others by giving them hope and teaching them how they could also get peace in their lives.

So today, when something less than desirable shows up in my world, I ponder how to use this to my advantage. What can I learn from this? How can I use this to help others? Then I get to show up differently. I get to create something powerful and empowering for myself and others.

I was brutally reminded of that for-me-and-not-to-me lesson just a few months ago, in August 2022. I was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital for three days. While there, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, two bulging brain aneurysms, and a brain tumor. It took a few weeks to really wrap my head around all that. Then I started feeling depressed. I felt like, Well, here I am, finally getting my life together again and truly happy for the first time ever. I have some money in the bank and my own home, a new grandson I love more than life itself, and this happens! I started to default back to my old habits and my old thought patterns. Thank goodness for my family, some fabulous true friends, and an incredible coach who really love me! They really helped jerk me back. Real quick.

I believe all of this dis-ease came from all the years of turmoil, fear, and anxiety and not living as my true, authentic self . . . just wandering through life with no purpose. It finally caught up with me. So now instead of being angry or depressed about it, I get to do everything I can to reverse the situation and get healthy again. The diagnosis reminded me why I’m here and what I’m supposed to be doing. Now I get to create something powerful in support of myself and others.

You alone get to decide how you are going to show up—all day, every day, every second of every day. Why not show up powerfully? It is literally your choice!

In the last couple years, especially since my diagnosis in August 2022, I’ve learned that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’ve come to love and value myself again and realize that I do deserve whatever I set my sights on. I’m running a successful business with my mom, I’m building my coaching business, helping raise my grandson, and volunteering. I get to learn about whatever I choose to on a daily basis.

After losing almost everything and basically starting over from scratch, I have an entirely new perspective on what’s most important to me. My dreams and goals have changed drastically from several years ago. I get to be my true authentic self and make decisions on what I want and what I feel is best for me and my family. I get to coach and mentor amazing people who also want to create the best life possible for themselves and their families.

I’m genuinely happy at my core for the first time in my life!

If I can do all that, you can too!

I hope I gave you some value today with some of my experiences and thoughts. If so, I’d love to hear from you.

If you are interested in the possibility of being coached and creating your own incredible possibilities, please feel free to reach out to me via email at [e-mail]. I’d love to create something powerful with you!

ABOUT ANGIE FRONTERA

Angie Frontera is a certified Transformational Life Coach who empowers women to be their authentic selves by helping them discover their own hopes and dreams so they, too, can leave a dent in this world. She utilizes several diverse tools to help her clients learn how to appreciate their unique value. Some of the tools she utilizes are EFT, NLP, meditation, Jack Canfield’s Success Principles, and others. One of her goals is to love and help guide everyone she meets toward a powerful, peaceful life in harmony with God’s purpose for them.

Angie strongly believes in the empowerment of life happening for you, not to you. She believes there is a lesson in almost everything, and what we do with that lesson will influence the quality of our lives for the great or not so great.

Angie is a mom, daughter, sister, aunt, and nonna (Italian for grandmother). She enjoys quality time with family and friends. Angie is one of four generations sharing a home in Pigeon Forge, TN, USA. She loves to travel both domestically and internationally. She absolutely loves and adores her new grandson born in December 2021. She loves teaching and playing with him while watching him change from a baby to a little boy as his personality develops into a young man.

To connect with Angie

www.AngieFrontera.com

[e-mail]

Facebook: AngieFrontera0412

Instagram: @AngieFrontera

LinkedIn: AngieFrontera

From Shelter to CEO

Kristy Whilden

Hey there, you beautiful human. I see you. Stop crying right now and pay attention. You don’t know me yet, but you will. I know you feel hopeless, worthless, and inept. You have officially hit rock bottom. But what you don’t know is something incredible has also just happened. The moment you decided to move to the rape and abuse shelter to protect your children and start your own healing journey, you were planted. And it is now time to grow. You have been hurt, neglected, and abused. Yet you are so strong. When that so-called dung heap of a "man" decided to drug your wine, take every ounce of dignity you had left, and toss it in the trash like the garbage he is, you know what you did? You survived. How do I know all of this? Because . . . #MeToo . . . I am you.

You have to suck it up and move forward. There are three little people counting on you.

Across the hall finally sleeping peacefully is your beautiful little girl. She is fighting battles you cannot see but you know are there. Trust your mommy gut. She needs you now more than ever. Hug her every day. I know you were young when you had her and had no idea what you were doing, but she forgives you. She loves you something fierce because you are the only thing steady in her life. She is your inspiration, best friend, and your rock. Your daughter will graduate from college at eighteen on a life path inspired by you. What a beautiful gift you will receive the day she becomes your business partner.

Look in the bed next to you. That’s your baby boy. He will be your savior through this difficult time. He may only be four years old now, but you will soon see how truly fantastic he is. When you are at your worst, hug him. His hugs move mountains. Sometimes he knows you need him before you do. Treasure every interaction with him. He’s not only your savior but your daughter’s as well. Because of you, he will become a LEGO-building, gifted and talented, Irish-dancing machine. He loves school and has many friends. He is a true gentleman. You have always been and will continue to be his number