Once again, I had reached another important crossroads. I was either going to move forward in a new direction or stay stuck in the path of certain destruction. The first step in moving forward was to take control of my life.
While my children have always come first, I still wanted to embark on a new career that would make them proud of me and instill some new pride in myself as well. Right around this time, the flyer for the casting of The Real Housewives of New Jersey came to my attention. While I was at first reluctant to be involved with the reality show, I soon realized that maybe this was the new beginning that I was looking for. Was my real life in suburban New Jersey interesting enough for television viewers? I wasn’t sure. But when I began to look at the opportunity as a whole, I saw that it would not only mean I’d be working again and embarking on a new career, it would also enable me to spend more time with my daughters and help them further their dreams.
Joining the TV show also represented a chance to establish new friendships, with my castmates. I believed that we could all come together and show the world a new level of strength and understanding among women. As the only single mother in the cast, I would also have a unique voice and platform on the show, and I believed that my fellow castmates would become supportive girlfriends, allowing me to show single mothers of the world that we are not alone.
As the season progressed, I continued to be in the line of fire. Although the other women didn’t know me that well, they seemed to dislike me very much, and eventually things came to a head. The women became determined to find out on their own what I was about, no doubt hoping to find something juicy, but through their “investigation” nothing but good things turned up in the past twenty-three years. So they had to dig beyond. They went back as far as 1986, when I was still practically a child. They judged me by things that happened far back in my past, at a time when we didn’t even know one another and I hardly knew myself. The information in “the book” represented a chapter in my life that I closed a long time ago. In fact, when it was first published in 1996, the joint decision by my children’s father and me was to take the high road by ignoring it. However, when it was presented on national television, I had no other choice but to address it.
Instead of recognizing that I had had the strength to walk away from an abusive relationship with an obsessed man, my castmates apparently wanted to bring me down for being involved with him in the first place. Instead of lifting me up and acknowledging my strength for changing my life after I got arrested, they only seemed to want to focus on that I was, in fact, arrested.
At first, I was upset and disappointed about how things turned out on the show. I had believed these women were my friends, and it was a harsh way to learn the truth. I felt alone once again. But I soon realized that I wasn’t alone at all. I began to get e-mails and letters from fans of the show who understood what I had been through in my life, and instead of judging me for it, they embraced me. They admired the strength and courage I had that allowed me to move on with dignity and change my life. Some had been through similar experiences with abusive men, and they wanted to let me know that they supported me. Even Charles Kipps, the author of “the book,” recognized the kind of danger I had been in and my desire to move on from it. After the book was presented on the show, Kipps wrote an article in the New York Post on June 26, 2009, in which he stated, “No question, Beverly/Danielle now wants to forget Kevin, the man who brandished a Berretta [sic] at a strip joint because he thought she was cheating on him and dropped a bullet onto Beverly’s forehead with the admonition: ‘The next time you see one of these coming at you, it’ll be coming at you a lot faster.’”
Despite having to go through some difficult moments on national TV, I’m grateful for what The Real Housewives of New Jersey represents to me. It has given me a platform whereby I can reach out to others who have been through similar experiences, and if I can help others by reliving the negative incidents of my life, then I will continue to find the strength to do so. The overwhelmingly positive response from the women and men who watch our TV show is encouraging. That kind of outpouring of understanding was not expected, but it has been well received and greatly appreciated.
Now I’m starting over yet again. But I’ve already done the hard part. This time I can exhale. I’m now an author and TV personality. I have been given a gift and a unique opportunity to communicate good things to others. Positive things. I will continue to do so. This book has been a journey for me to find and share the truth—The Naked Truth—and I’m blessed for it.
12
EMBRACE YOUR LIFE
I believe that you have to learn to love yourself before you can truly love another. This has nothing to do with being conceited; it has to do with embracing yourself so you are putting out the kind of energy to the universe that you would like to receive for yourself in return. There are no mistakes. Only lessons. Choose to learn and move forward and embrace each lesson learned, for it’s the experience you will grow from. During my life, I have continually learned the majority of my lessons the hard way. Some lessons were learned while I was locked up in a prison cell. Others lessons were learned while I was recovering in a hospital bed. Many lessons were learned when I was working as an exotic dancer. More recently, I have learned new lessons from my experiences on national television.
I have been given not only a second chance in life, but a third, fourth, and maybe even more. These opportunities are extremely rare and I’m grateful for them. With each new lease on life I have learned so much along the way, and each time I reach a better understanding of myself.
I believe that you should not let the past define you. Embrace it, own it, then move on from it. If you are trying to deal with something bad that happened in your past, the best way is to dig deep within yourself, ask for forgiveness, and forgive yourself. If you are going through a rough time, know that you are exactly where you need to be. Once you get through it, you will get to the next level in life. You shouldn’t think that whatever mistake you made or what you did wrong defines you as a person or your destiny. You define you. You get to choose your destiny. It is your path, your journey. Don’t let anyone steer you away from your destiny. If you allow this to happen, you will have to travel the same path again and learn the same lesson twice.
I want to share a mantra of mine that reminds me of the most important lessons I’ve learned. I encourage you to learn it and repeat it as well:
Life is a gift
Love is a blessing
Trust is earned
Yes, I have made wrong decisions in my life. I have slipped and fallen hard many times. However, what counts is what we do when we muster up the strength to get up again, and move forward. I strongly believe that mistakes are only mistakes if we don’t learn from them. When you have gone through all the experiences that I have, you can end up being consumed with negativity. However, it is a personal choice and I choose to be positive with all of my thoughts and actions.
Don’t Look Now
Mirrors have never played a significant role in my life. I’ve never liked looking at myself. I used to be puzzled by why I didn’t like to see my image up close, but I realize now that the reasons were much more complicated than I originally thought. They definitely weren’t skin-deep.
My ongoing battle with the mirror began when I was young, and I feel it has a lot to do with the sexual and physical abuse that I was tormented by and that was left largely unresolved within me. When I looked at myself in the mirror as a teenager, I didn’t see a whole person. I saw just a fragmented image of what I was supposed to feel like as a young girl. I thought I should see a young, happy, carefree teen blossoming into a woman, but instead I saw a fearful, lost, and confused person.
Sometimes looking at ourselves is the hardest thing we can do. We try our best to put on a brave face for the world and the people around us, but when we are left alone to look at ourselves in the mirror, that moment of reality can often be difficult. Of course, I don’t mean lo
oking at oneself just in a physical sense. I’m talking about looking at the person who is revealed by looking into our own eyes and the moment of truth that occurs from deep within our souls when we do so.
I’m finally reaching a point where it has gotten much easier to look at myself in the mirror, and I think being on the television show and writing this book have certainly helped. These two platforms have allowed my voice to be heard and have enabled me to confront the issues of my past that I’ve avoided for so long.
Until now, I suffered from guilt and shame for many years because of the abuse that occurred during my childhood. However, through healing and self-discovery, I have finally realized that the abuse was not my fault. It should be the abusers who find it difficult to look at themselves in the mirror, not me. I hold my head high and am proud for having had the strength to survive all that I’ve gone through. I’ve found my way out of the darkness that others created and am now living in love and light.
If you’ve been through any of the types of abuse that I’ve been through, I encourage you to be proud when you look at yourself in the mirror. Hold on to the truth that it wasn’t your fault that you were abused as a child. You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no need to carry shame. Let go of the past and move forward to the future. Remember, this is your life, so live it your way. Now you can look at yourself in the mirror and smile.
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
When it comes to love, I have received many mixed messages throughout my life. When my abusers would sneak into my room in the middle of the night and tell me to keep quiet as they violated me, they didn’t love me. How could they? They didn’t even love themselves. For a young child, the feeling of being safe is one of the essential foundations of love, and I never felt safe. Not once.
Later, I was in many relationships with men who told me that they loved me, but I wondered why I was still in so much pain. I felt empty. Please recognize your self-worth and leave an abusive relationship before it’s too late. I beg you. If you think that it’s easier to just stay in it, you’re wrong. If you think that he or she will change, he or she won’t. If you think things will get better by themselves, they don’t. If you try to leave and your partner won’t leave you alone, seek protection. Go to the authorities. Ask friends and family for help. Many people think that breaking up with a partner is a personal defeat—it isn’t. By staying in an abusive relationship, you’re just defeating yourself every day that you’re still there.
So, what’s love got to do with it? Everything. Love gets you up in the morning and motivates you to tackle the challenges of the day. Love puts you to bed at night and lets you sleep easily. In a healthy relationship, love is supposed to make you feel free, not like a captive. We all have a choice when it comes to love. We can choose not to be abused and seek out true love. We can choose not to be afraid to be alone and know that love will eventually find us. But it’s up to you to make the right decisions in your life that will open up the doors and allow love to find you.
Find Yourself First
True love exists. That fairy-tale relationship of a man and a woman and the happily-ever-after is out there for all of us. I still believe that my knight in shining armor will arrive one day soon. He will appear in all of his glory and we will be together for the rest of our lives. Why hasn’t he arrived yet? Because of me.
I have had many relationships. While some seemed right at the moment, in the end I wasn’t with the right partners. If I had been, I would still be with one of them right now. Quite honestly, I think they were holding me back from finding my true love. After a breakup, many people—myself included—tend to jump immediately into another relationship. We believe that’s better than being alone. It fills a void. But inevitably the next relationship becomes a rebound relationship. Are you as tired as I am of going from rebound to rebound? Well, I’ve found that the only way for this cycle to stop is for you to stop it.
The quick fix and the Band-Aid on the heart seems like an easy way to go, but in the long run, it isn’t. You need to get to the root of the problem of why your relationship failed. I think that more often than not, the root of the problem is you.
I believe that, to find true love, you need to find yourself first.
I think when you’re comfortable and being the best version of yourself, you will attract the best partner for you. When you’ve found a way to completely love yourself, that’s when the glow comes from within and the rest of the world takes notice. Taking the time to work on yourself and your issues will put you in position to be able to tackle a real relationship, one of substance.
I have put in a lot of time both personally and professionally working on myself, and I fully realize that I have more work to do. I am a work in progress. But I believe I am now entering a place where I will be able to accept my true love. He may not be perfect. He may even have been through a few marriages that didn’t last, just as mine didn’t. However, if two people focus on themselves first and do the work they need to do to come into their own, in the end they will be with each other for the right reasons.
Tearing Down to Rebuild
When I was married to Tom, even though I had complete financial freedom, I wasn’t really free. Even though I had peace of mind with regard to the financial side of things, I didn’t have peace regarding a truly loving relationship. For women, this is one of the most important things in life, and I urge you all to realize it. The mindset of putting up with what you don’t want in a relationship because you have financial security is really selling yourself short . . . or, just plain selling yourself. You need to learn to love and respect yourself the way you want other people to. This rule applies to friends and loved ones alike.
A lot of men and women seem to settle for someone just for the sake of having another person there. What people don’t realize is that you’re allowing a person to occupy a space in your life that doesn’t really belong to them. People think it’s better than being lonely, when in essence you’re screaming out to the universe you have what you need when you really don’t. It’s full. Slot taken! It’s the same thing with love. If you keep your love life vacant, while you work on everything else about yourself, that place reserved for love will eventually be occupied by the right person. I’ve learned through my spiritual work how to set the bar high and to keep it there. I have had opportunities, but I’ve chosen not to go down just any road. What I’ve decided is that I’m going to have it all. I deserve it all. So I asked myself, “How can I get there?”
I learned that before you can reconstruct, you have to tear down the structure first. What I am referring to is breaking down all of the walls that are not built correctly and starting fresh so that your life has a solid foundation. The first step is to do a purging of your spirit. Once you get your spirit healthy and uncluttered, all else will fall into place, including love. But you can’t do it all at once. You have to build with baby steps. You don’t just start running, and believe me, I wanted to! I had to give up complete control of my life. Turn your life over to a higher being. In my case, I turned it over to God. Remember, faith walks in when all doubt walks out the door. Send doubt packing, and negativity will follow. Allow only the positive in.
The Climb
Until recently, when my daughter Jillian wrote me two original songs, my favorite song was “The Climb” sung by Miley Cyrus. When I heard the lyrics, they really hit home with me: “Ain’t about how fast I get there. Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side. It’s the climb.” Miley is right. It is all about the climb.
I’m as guilty as the next person of pushing and striving to get to that next level of success in my life as fast as I possibly can. But when we become so focused on reaching our personal goals and career destinations, we forget about the journey it took to get us there. Getting to the top can be more enjoyable and even more memorable than the success itself.
For me, the climb represents the journey as well as the little details and special moments that
mean so much along the way. When you reach the success you aspire to and look back on your life, I think it’s important to pause and ask yourself, How did I get here? Who helped me along the way? What did I have to sacrifice? What was the meaning of it all? I have learned in life to slow down and take one step at a time. Once you have completed the necessary measures, you can move on to the next step.
There will probably be many obstacles and speed bumps along the way as you make your climb. I think that’s inevitable. But I think you should try not to sell the bad times short because you can learn from those experiences and grow from them as a person. Don’t forget the sleepless nights of worrying. They are a part of your climb that helps build character, which can last a lifetime. You’re sure to learn from your bad decisions as well as your good ones.
We all have a set of goals and dreams that we hope to conquer, both professionally and personally. But we can never forget the road we take that gets us there. It’s important to enjoy the journey just as much as the final destination.
Like Attracts Like
At times in my life I wasted my time asking, “Why me?” as opposed to addressing the real issue. I also wasted a lot of time blaming others for negative things that were happening to me. In time, I realized that one of the reasons these things were happening was me—it wasn’t just fate. For many years I was in a negative place and was attracting negative people and experiences into my life. Since then I’ve discovered that whatever a person puts out into the universe—whether it be negative or positive—will come right back to him or her. It’s called manifestation, and my energist, Sarai Salinas, taught me all about it. She is my personal trainer for my spirit.
She told me that energy is just like a boomerang—what you put out into the universe will come right back to you—and light attracts light, while darkness attracts darkness. By extension, love attracts love, and hate attracts hate.
The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words Page 14
