Daring to find myself …

~2 minute read.

Today’s guest blogger is Catherine Mollica.

In her own words …

I never thought of myself as being courageous.  My idea of courage was when I jumped out of a plane 14,000 feet above Byron Bay, but that was easy and great fun. 

What wasn’t easy was finding myself single at 47 and having to raise my 9 and 11-year-old children on my own.  My husband suddenly, without warning left me for a 25 year old and two years later moved overseas.

I was shocked, devastated and heartbroken.  I couldn’t eat, sleep or function properly and found myself in a very dark place.  I didn’t want to live anymore and couldn’t imagine a future for myself.  I felt stuck in the life that he had left me with.  The very thing that scared me the most, raising my two children alone, was ultimately my savior and greatest achievement.

I had to find the courage to seek professional help, so that I could find a way to move forward.  I retrained, so that I could have a new career.  I was Mother, Father, cook, cleaner, gardener and I had to make every decision for my children and myself.  I had to find the courage to do many things that I never thought I would do alone, including negotiating and buying a new car and my own home.

The very thing that scared me the most, raising my two children alone, was ultimately my savior and greatest achievement.

The only support I had was from my elderly parents, whom I then lost within 3 years of each other.  I felt alone again and was very unhappy with my life.  I realised I needed to do more work on myself and reached out to a friend who runs a wonderful program on creating a life that you want to live and asked if she could help me.  Having the courage to ask friends for help wasn’t easy for me, as I didn’t want to feel like a burden, but I have a wonderful network of people around me and have learnt that it’s ok to ask for their support.   I’m still working on it, but keep reminding myself that if the situation was reversed, I would be happy to help out my friends if they needed me.

I had to find the courage to do many things that I never thought I would do alone …

Almost 10 years on, I have a job I love, I’m the happiest I’ve been in a very, very long time and I’m the proud Mum of a 21 year old son, who is a pilot and an 18 year old daughter, who has just finished VCE and is about to embark on her journey in life.

So, I am now entering another new phase in life, but I know that whatever life throws at me, I have the courage to face it.

Catherine Mollica

If you would like to connect further with Catherine, you can get in touch via:

Catherine is another of my very dear school friends who has shared her story of courage with us. I feel very honoured to be able to share it and I know it will encourage and energise others. There are so many strong messages in Catherine’s story, and one that I want to re-share here because of its strength is:

“Having the courage to ask friends for help wasn’t easy for me, as I didn’t want to feel like a burden, but I have a wonderful network of people around me and have learnt that it’s ok to ask for their support.”

We all need to keep reminding ourselves that it’s ok to ask for help. We would all offer help in a heart beat if needed.

Catherine, thank you for sharing your learning and wisdom with us.

@CourageChick

aka Dinzzo

#celebratingfriends

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