By Barbara Whipple


By any definition, I am an overachiever and always have been. I was a firstborn, first in my high school graduating class, first in the family to go to an Ivy League school - you get the picture.  Once I had achieved some degree of success in my career, I decided it was time to start a family.  I prepared for motherhood in the same way I had planned for every other aspect of my life - notes, timelines, to-do lists - you name it, I did it.

Fast-forward to 2004.  My sons, now six and eight, were in school full-time and I decided to start my own business as a professional organizer/relocation specialist.  Within a year's time, the business grew steadily, and I was adding clients and extra help along the way.  Never mind that I was burning the candle at both ends and that the care for my boys, the house, and related activities was being pushed to the limit; I was running a business and feeling on top of the world while juggling many balls.


That is, until I received a wake-up call in June 2005.  I had traveled with a client to a retreat for a much-needed four-day getaway.  While there, I participated in some workshops during which I was asked what I feared most.  That was easy: snakes, heights, ocean liners, sharks, and the like.  Then the facilitator asked the question a second time, "Take a moment and really search your heart - what do you fear most?"  I literally shrank and sank in my chair.  My next answer did not come quite so quickly, nor was it quite so simple.  It had been buried deep inside of me for years, protected from any possible unearthing that might occur.

In truth, my biggest fear, something that I was not prepared to say out loud, was that in finding my true, authentic self, I risked losing that which I loved and held dear to my heart - my two boys and my husband.  In other words, at forty years old, I finally realized that my angst in life had less to do with creating the perfect life for me and my family and more to do with filling the void in my heart - a product of old, familial wounds.  During that moment of realization, I came face-to-face with the possibility that I was truly unhappy with my life - certainly not as a result of an unloving husband or any problem with my two wonderful sons, but as a result of unrecognized, unfinished business.

My lifelong history of taking care of and/or listening to others, rather than nurturing and healing myself, had taken its toll.  Moreover, my ability to "fill the void" of my aching heart by creating successes in other areas of my life, rather than listening and paying attention to my inner voice, paved the way to this day of reckoning I had not prepared for.  Oh the irony!

And thus began my personal and painful journey of "excavating my authentic self" in hopes of healing old wounds, and in order that I may one day enjoy richer, more loving and intimate relationships, not because the players have changed, but because I have found worthiness in my very existence.  These last nine months, while unconventional and inconceivable to most, have been some of the most excruciatingly painful yet therapeutic for me, my family, and friends.  My journey is far from over, but I know I am better for having confronted it no matter what lays ahead, even at age forty.  Better late than never, I always say.  No regrets.  No regrets.
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