In My Life

Guest post by Martha Chinnock.

I have to admit, I was super excited and super scared when Elizabeth asked me to write about living my truth.

I am honored and humbled to be included on her mission to help people live their truth. And I am very flattered that she felt that you should get to know me and how I live my truth.

What does living my truth look like?

Well, first you should know a little about me. I have been married for over ten years to a phenomenal dude named Rob. We have two beautiful children, Abby and Amelia, who are 8 and 7. Up until this year, I was a work at home mom with my own successful at home business and a volunteer with the base, my church, the kid’s school and activities and the community. Earlier this year, some of my truth came out in the form of me needing to take a part time job to make some consistent income so on top of all of that, I now am an administrative assistant to two wonderful women.

All of that is great information. And for a long time, if you asked about me, those are the kind of answers you would get: who I am in relationship to other people. I am a wife, a mom, etc.

But none of that is who Martha is. Those answers are not my whole truth.

Martha is fun, full of life, confident, a procrastinator, a dreamer, an optimist, and most of all, marvelous.

A few months ago, I was pretty lonely. We moved to San Antonio two years previously and I still hadn’t found my exact niche here. For those two years I did what I was “supposed” to do – work my business, volunteer at the school and the base, keep house as best I could. I had met plenty of really wonderful people. My husband’s job here has great hours, my kids are in a great school. We live in a great community.

But I was still lonely. And depressed. So I got some help solving the chemical imbalance and I started kind of hanging out on Twitter. And I started watching/stalking some amazing people on there.

Stalking Elizabeth on twitter is what lead to me learning about living my truth.

Watching her rant about Vegas, write about her relationship or lack thereof with her husband, watching her grow in her relationships with her BFFs and watching her brand Live Your Truth made me realize that I too can live my truth.

Living MY truth. Living YOUR truth.

What does it mean to you? What does it mean to me?

For me, it means being Martha in the whole.

Not forgetting the parts of me that make me. Sometimes I get busy and forget who I am. Instead I focus on being a mom, a wife, a business woman, a volunteer, an administrative assistant, a sister, a daughter, a friend. I am really good at all of those things. Probably better than most. But I have not always been a very good Martha.

I have been working on living my truth for months now. Ever since I heard of the concept, it has stirred something inside of me. The idea of remembering who I am. Who I am as an individual. But sitting down to write about it is causing a conflicting set of thoughts running around my head.

The first part is to wonder if I really am living my truth enough to write about it.

I fully admit that I have at least two areas of my life that I do not have control over. The truth in one of those areas keeps me from doing things I want to do, and I use it as an excuse. But now I have admitted it, and I am working on keeping it from keeping me to do the things that I love. Things that I want to do in my life. Admitting it is the first step, action is the second.

The second is to remember that I am living my truth.

Those are five very scary words to write. I remember that this is my truth, not yours. No one has the right to judge me on my truth. And I am living in my little world of Martha the best I can. When you declare that you are living your truth, you are declaring that you know who you are, where you want to go, and that you are comfortable in your skin. And that you are uncomfortable enough to make the changes that you need to make to be living your truth. Some of those changes are easy. Some are going to be long. Some are going to be hard. But they are all worth it so that we can keep true to who we are.

What does living my truth entail?

Being true to who I am. Doing things everyday that I love. Listening to music that makes me happy. Wearing clothes, shoes, jewelry, and makeup that make me feel good, powerful and strong. It means doing the things that I want to do. Yes, my truth involves some not fun things (doing laundry, dishes, and cleaning the toilets is not fun to me).

Also in my truth is that I am a wife, a mom, a sister, a business owner. So part of my truth reflects that. You will find me cleaning right before guests come over. You will find me taking off from my job so that I can go to field trips with my kids. You will find me watching TV that my husband wants to watch because his love language is quality time and I want to show him that I love him. I go to meetings and network to build my business.

I just have to be careful to also remember to do things that are just good for my soul – watching movies while doing a tweet chat, going to a friend’s house to craft, and having just M&M’s and diet coke for lunch.

All through working on this post the song “In my Life” by the Beatles kept running though my head.

I looked up the lyrics to the song: the lyric refers to someone who loved someone before, and it was good. But now the person loves someone new and they will love them more.

I find it a great comparison to my life before living my truth and after embracing this new way of living. I liked my life before, but now, in my life, I love living my truth, living my life, more.

Martha Chinnock lives in San Antonio with her hubby and two girls. She loves black olives, reading, and her fake nails. She has been blogging for a few months – check her out at http://marthachinnock.com or on twitter as @marvelousmartha