Liberate your Struggles

by A Journey of Riches

  This was one of the longest, most confusing episodes of my life. Apparently, I had some disgruntled players who really wanted me to be fired and they had enough other players on their side to initiate an investigation. During this period, when the investigation was proceeding, I had way too much time to think. Thoughts like, “why am I even coaching if I’m not the influence these kids want in their lives”? And, “I give so much of my time to these kids, even to the point of taking away time from my own kids, and yet they just turn their backs on me.” “I obviously am not teaching them life lessons if they didn’t even approach me and let me know that something was wrong before going to administration.” “Maybe this is a sign, maybe I’m not supposed to be coaching anymore.” “Maybe I need to be investing all this time into my own kids and husband.” “If I leave coaching, how will we support our family?” “My family’s insurance is provided from my employment at this University, how will we survive if I’m not working?” The talk in my head never quit!

  In August, I was asked to come back to work and that is when I really had a decision to make3. Do I go back to coach these kids who had turned their backs on me? To this day I have no idea why they did this. Do I go back to coach because I have a freshman class coming in who were never a part of any of this and they need me? Do I go back because I need to help them learn and grow from whatever happened last year? Do I take this as an opportunity to walk away from coaching and spend more time with my own family? I was about to have my third kiddo!

  I decided I had put way too much work into this University, the program and these kids just to walk away when the going got tough. I went back to coach them the following fall and promised myself that I would hold no grudges, be the bigger person, and give these young athletes what they needed to grow that year.

  I was now 36 years old, married to a beautiful human being and the proud mother of three amazing children, I had overcome so many struggles and emotions, and I was finally waking up. I had been on this perfect path all along, life was not happening to me, it was indeed happening for me! Every obstacle and every struggle, was a lesson I needed to learn to become the person I was put on this earth to become. The lessons I failed to learn the first couple times continued to repeat themselves until I got from them what I needed.

  Awareness, consciousness, waking up and taking the reins of your thoughts is the key to liberating your struggles. We, as human beings, are running on subconscious scripts (or programs) of how our lives have always been. We start programming these scripts the moment we are born, and therefore our parents and environment when we are growing up have a large part to play in determining what is included in these scripts. Our subconscious mind works perfectly to keep us safe and comfortable as we continue to do the things we’ve always done, think the way we’ve always thought, feel the way we’ve always felt, and be the people we’ve always been, by continually running these programs.

  I said my life felt as if it was on repeat and, guess what, it absolutely was and is until I made a conscious decision to change my thoughts and bring into my life everything I have ever desired! I spent my entire childhood, my 20’s, and most of my 30’s with the same thoughts: work really hard, go get what you want, and don’t get too excited or attached because when it’s taken away, it hurts! This “story” was the exact program my subconscious has been running on for over thirty years. I am overly grateful that I am able now to look back on my life and to see that every obstacle that I encountered was indeed a gift on my path to bring me right here where I am while writing this chapter.

  The lesson I have learned, and am currently living by, as I head into my 40’s is that thoughts create things, and I can choose those thoughts consciously to determine what I bring into my life in the coming years. In selecting these thoughts, I can continue to let my mind work perfectly by giving it new programs to run on. I now know that every struggle I encounter is part of my path and I will let go and embrace each one of them with 100 per cent faith that my desires will show up exactly when they are supposed to when I am ready for them. Life is not happening to you. It never was. Life is always happening for you!

  1 I was forced to redshirt withdraw from competition for the year which would allow me one year of eligibility back at the end of my playing career.

  2 I was called for a meeting in the Athletic Director’s office which normally would not concern me at all how ever this time was different. I asked him if it could wait an hour as I had a team meeting scheduled and I would come over right after we finished. He quickly told me I needed to cancel the team meeting and come straight to his office. My stomach dropped and I walked over to his office full of anxiety.

  3 I was asked to come back to coach after the investigation was completed and my name had been cleared, and that is when I really had a decision to make. So many emotions, yes my name had been cleared, which should have felt like a relief, but I was also still very hurt, angry, and confused… so many questions.

  “Surrender what is, let go

  of what was, and have

  faith in what will be.”

  ~ Sonia Ricotti

  CHAPTER SIX

  BROKEN DOLL

  By Sonja Stamenova

  Standing right there on the balcony of my unit, which my husband and I had mortgaged together, I was looking at the children in front of the building playing their games. I was trying to look at this as a place to be called home, the only place where I was supposed to feel warm, loved, and free. Was I feeling like that? Hell no! Every day was a struggle to survive. Life wasn’t easy.

  We were struggling with finances, and it was a real challenge to keep a roof over our heads. It was also a real challenge to pay a monthly rate at the bank, put food on the table, and buy some clothing for my two-year-old girl and me since most of my husband’s earnings went to his gambling addiction and alcohol.

  Anyway, here I was keeping an eye from the balcony on my two-year-old golden-haired girl.

  It was one of the rare moments that her father took her in front of the building to get some fresh air and play with the children from the neighborhood so I could finish some of my washing.

  And there she was, my lovely princess holding her doll looking at the other children’s game and trying to fit in. Her blue eyes were staring at them, calling them to invite her to join the game, holding tight to her doll as if to her only friend, waiting for them to notice that she had just brushed her hair.

  Only half an hour earlier, they’d both had a bath, put on matching-colored dresses, brushed their hair, and gone outside with the hope that they might get noticed, which wasn’t happening right at the moment.

  I was going to call her name and tell her to wait a minute until mummy gets downstairs to play with them. Then one of the children took her doll out of her hands and passed it to another. Then another kid took her favorite toy, saying how ugly the doll was, and threw it to the ground so hard that the doll broke into pieces. My little one started crying, and her father was laughing with the other children saying it was ugly anyway.

  At that moment, I felt a single tear running down my cheek. I was feeling the pain in my chest, remembering the times my sister and I had played together, sleeping in the same bed, sharing the same toys, same wardrobe, songs, stories, friends…and here everyone was laughing at my daughter’s tears. No one was there to hug her or to fight the naughty children with her.

  All I could do was to give her a big hug and promise to get her a new doll.That was the night I decided that the best thing I could do for her would be to give her a sibling so she would not be lonely. She would have somebody to play with, somebody to argue with, and somebody to share her fears with.

  Two months later, I found myself expecting my second child, and this time there was no excitement of carrying another human being in my stomach. There was no happiness in my eyes, as the last cent of our money that we’d kept for the rainy days was all gone. I was quietly sitting on my couch, trying to hide the tears from my preci
ous beauty and trying to explain to her that there is another human’s heart inside of mummy’s tummy—a new doll she could play with. My phone rang, and I finally got some good news from overseas. My sister was getting married to the man of her dreams and there was to be a wedding in two months’ time.

  Since I did not have a wedding, I made the decision to go for the wedding regardless of the 22-hour flight and was feeling all excited to see my whole family after three years apart. That November 2000, I boarded the plane for a 22-hour flight from Sydney to Skopje not even thinking of my condition as a pregnant woman.

  My heart was full of happiness, so anxious to take my sweetheart to meet her grandma, grandpa, aunt, and the rest of the family, so proud to see her in a white dress as a flower girl at the wedding, and it did not cross my mind to worry about my health and the health of my unborn child.

  This was my six weeks and I was flying to enjoy them without my husband. Somehow, he’d found the money for the tickets and let me travel by myself; he knew that I would have to come back to him since I had a child and another one on the way.

  My daughter was very unsettled during the whole flight, crying for her milk, and there was no milk on the plane. I had to carry her in my arms during the entire flight and could feel the looks from the other passengers, and I could read from their eyes: “For God’s sake, please calm that child. We are all tired!”

  And in that moment, I felt so sick and fainted. It is still not clear to me how I ended up in Skopje within a couple of hours, faking happiness and smiling to all members of my family as if I were the happiest person in this world.

  We all sometimes fake happiness to protect our loved ones from our pains and sorrows. We all hide our pains and tears to protect the ones that we love from the demons that are haunting us. There I was faking a good life overseas so that my family could not see my disappointment in married life.

  Six weeks of happiness went very fast. I enjoyed the wedding. Even the cheap dress bought from the markets for that occasion fit perfectly and was hiding my pregnant tummy. It was like we’d made a deal to shine this few weeks and leave all the fat and ugliness that comes with the pregnancy for when I arrived back to the man I had married.

  And there I was so soon flying back to my reality, and this time what was waiting for me was empty beer bottles all over the place, some hidden in the corners of the kitchen cabinets. I still do not understand why empty bottles needed to be hidden instead of thrown away in the garbage container outside.

  The bank account was left on zero and we had to rely on government benefits for the groceries. Our first shopping in two months ended up horrible. There are no words to describe the feeling of worthlessness a pregnant woman experiences when pushing the shopping trolley with groceries and a two-and-a-half-year-old inside, when she is exhausted from the overseas trip and then faints again at the fruit shop. I had some lemonade and continued pushing the shopping trolley with the men walking slowly next to me.

  Who was he? What did we have in common? A mortgage? This lovely girl with stunning blue eyes? Why was he treating me like this? I was carrying his second child…and, yes, why did I fall pregnant again? I did not need this child! I hated it! I hated its father. And then, without realizing it, I started hitting my stomach, doing plenty of heavy lifting, trying to force a miscarriage.

  How could we get through these struggles? Life did not offer any good with this man. We did not deserve to suffer anymore. The unborn baby did not need to enter this ugly world.

  If you are given the gift of a new life, take it and say, ‘Thank you God.”

  Life has some unexplainable ways to punish us for being ungrateful and not taking the gifts of life that God has given to us rational human beings. This is what I’ve learned the hard way. If God is giving you life, do not fight it. Take it and walk through life with it. He’ll make sure you are safe, but do not fight it. Pray.

  And there it was: 57 cm long, with the weight of 3.990 kg, the little creature that came to this world with little help from the doctors—another beautiful girl with long, dark hair. And she had plenty of hair! At that moment it was completely clear what was causing the uncomfortable stomach acids during my pregnancy.

  Since I had not gotten a chance to breastfeed my first daughter, nothing could turn me off that idea this time. So, in the presence of the nurse at the hospital holding her next to my breast, I felt her trying to feed herself. My new angel was trying to get some milk out of my breast sucking so hard that I felt extreme pain on the lower part of my stomach—very sharp pain—but I smiled thinking, “So this is why breastfeeding is good to lose your belly fat.” And, right at that moment, she started suffocating. Her eyes rolled, and her skin turned red.

  “What have you done? Do you want to kill your baby? I am not giving it to you to breastfeed anymore!” The nurse was screaming at me in panic while my baby was vomiting. A cold feeling surrounded my heart.

  “I do not know what it was, but this is not good,” I thought to myself.

  We put the baby on the formula, and everything settled down. She was feeding but lost some weight the second day. By the third day, everything seemed to be okay, so we were discharged from the hospital within the normal range of five days. She was such a lovely little creature, sleeping most of the time. Little sister was so happy.

  And then after a week it all started. She was vomiting without any reason. We were going to doctors, changing the formula, going back to doctors… sleepless nights running from one doctor to another. I could not stop feeling that something was not right, but the doctor said to change the formula, sterilize the bottles, and wait for a few days.

  This cycle would not stop, not until one nurse approached me with the words, “Do not listen to anybody but your heart! You are the mum and mums always know what to do.” And this mum took the baby to the local hospital where she would not eat until the baby was able to feed, and for a week nobody could tell what was wrong.

  On one occasion, hopelessly surrounded with pain and looking to the doctors for the only help I could find, I approached one of the pediatricians at the hospital for an explanation of what kind of sickness it could be. I was praying to him to help us, and his words were, “I am so sorry. I cannot tell you exactly until further tests are done at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Your baby is not a doll I can fix and give back to you and job done.”

  Those words felt like a knife going through my heart. I had to wake up. No more starving myself. My doll was broken, and I had to find a professional to fix it. I could not leave it as I had a few months ago, broken in my child’s arms. I had to remain strong with a clear mind; I needed to think positively.

  And that very same evening, we were transferred to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. The diagnosis was made within 24 hours. There it was, my little dolly at the operation theatre with no one but me by her side. Her sister was looked after by some friends that I knew, and the father was seen gambling 30km away.

  Pyloric Stenosis

  Pyloric stenosis is a narrowing of the pylorus. When a baby has pyloric stenosis, this narrowing of the pyloric channel prevents food from emptying out of the stomach.

  Normally, a muscular valve (pylorus) between the stomach and small intestine holds food in the stomach until it is ready for the next stage in the digestive process. In pyloric stenosis, the pylorus muscles thicken and become abnormally large, blocking food from reaching the small intestine. Pyloric stenosis can lead to forceful vomiting, dehydration, and weight loss. Babies with pyloric stenosis may seem to be hungry all the time. In my daughter’s case, to do the diagnosis was very hard because it is a sickness that runs in the families and it is usually the first male born that gets it. But here it happened to my girl, and she was my second born.

  One day I heard one of the specialists talking and explaining to his younger colleague that it could have happened because of some chemical that mother was exposed to during pregnancy, and a sense of guilt took over me. At the time, I
was a clean freak and would use any chemical to keep the house and clothing clean.

  During my stay in the hospital, I’d seen a lot of suffering, but I also got a chance to see how the suffering brings the families closer together. I cannot remember what the baby next to mine was suffering from, but I still remember that the mum said they were in and out of the hospital for nine months. Every morning she would get up and do her hair and makeup and her husband was there; he did not miss a day to come and give them a kiss on his way to work for the duration of those nine months.

  I’ll never forget the day doctors told me that the next morning my baby will be at their hands at the operation theatre. On that very evening, I was sitting by myself at the tearoom and the couple at the table next to mine was hugging and comforting each other. I was 27 years of age at that time and I would not have guessed either of them to be more than 22. One young father would drive for four hours from his home in the countryside to visit his family, and he did that every second day. Four hours each direction just to give comfort to his wife and kiss their little angel’s forehead. Can you imagine the feeling of being unwanted, not being loved? I knew it at that moment. I needed my mother, my family...a husband ...somebody by my side, and there was nobody.