Telling Stories of Hope, Love and Transformation.
When a hurting woman catches a glimpse of her true Shining Self, she won’t be satisfied with less again.
About Shining Self
My blog is a lifestyle blog so you will find a mixture of topics:
- Travel
- Body Positivity
- Dealing with Negative Thoughts
- Plus Size Life
- Sober Living
- Self-limiting beliefs
- … and more!
My podcast, Your Shining Self, features stories of amazing women who have overcome some sort of obstacle big or small (healing after abortion, getting sober, loss of a loved one, family member addict… and so much more).
About Tishia (Tish)
I'm honored you're here and want to know more about me. So here you go…
I'm a 40 something (45 at this moment) born & raised in small town Northern Michigan gal, recently moved to the Pacific North West in September 2018. I have one kiddo – a 21 year old (at the time of writing this) son.
I haven't given up hope that my Mr. “Perfect” is out there. I'm a hopeless romantic and for as long as I can remember I've always wanted to be a wife and a mom. I've got the mom thing down, obviously, just not the wife thing (yeah, yeah – I did things out of order. What can I say?) Had to edit & cross that all out because, well…I'm no longer single 😉 I've been in relationship, with the most amazing man, now since November 2017!
Life has been quite the journey of ups and downs but each and every event, good or bad, has helped make me into the person I am today – a strong, independent, sassy, fun-loving, full of life, empowered and confident woman.
Oh and did I mention I'm FAT and fantastic? 😉
Kidding aside… it's taken a lot of work to get to this place. I used to be one heck of a hot mess – ask anyone that knows me and they may be a little too willing to attest to that.
Most of my life I lived behind a mask, pretending to be someone I wasn't. I felt like a chameleon, always changing my ‘color' (personality/how I acted) based on the people I was around…family included.
Because I was hurting on the inside, didn't know who I was, what my self-worth was, had low self-esteem (the list goes on and on) I started making harmful choices:
- Sexual promiscuity (any attention from a man was better than none)
- Binge drinking eventually turning into every day drinking
- Binge eating & binging and purging
- Shopping sprees (harmful in a financial sense)
- Self-harm (cutting)
- Suicidal
In my mid 30's I finally realized I couldn't go on living like I was any more. It was the morning after my 35th birthday and I woke up to another dude (who for once wasn't random – as if that makes it any better – it was someone I knew) in my bed after another one of my many binge drinking episodes that resulted in a black out. My life was unmanageable and falling apart at the seams. There were two options I saw at that time – killing myself or picking up the phone and admitting I needed help. Because I'm here writing this, you can probably guess I chose the latter of the two options (thank you Jesus!).
That one phone call was the beginning of my metamorphosis – the beginning to my transformation! It was a long process (and still is!) but one I'm so thankful I started and continue working on….every. single. day! As I began the outpatient alcohol addiction treatment, counseling, AA meetings, and more I started to learn more about me and who I was as a person – the REAL me.
And that meant, I didn't want to act. I didn't want to pretend anymore.
I'm a real person. I'm rough around the edges, still struggle some days with self-confidence, self-worth, feeling valuable, etc. but that's OK! It's so ok!
There's no more mask – I want YOU and everyone else to see the true me…faults and all! Some things you may agree with and others you may not…that’s okay! We can agree to disagree right now and all be REAL together.
Triumphant today:
- Sexual abuse survivor
- Recovering alcoholic (6 years sober as of March 3, 2020)
- Built credit up enough to finally be approved for a car loan in Jan 2016 and am for the first time ever the proud owner of a “new” car (2013 VW Beetle)…it makes me grin and feel all giddy just typing that!
Eating healthy & down 54 lbs so far!NO MORE DIETS! NO MORE WEIGHT LOSS FOCUSED ACTIONS (aka restricting food, fad diets, etc.). Instead, I learned to accept and love myself as a fat woman and that my body was fine the way it is and I didn't have to lose weight to accept myself or fit in because society and others around me say my body is wrong).- Exercising regularly (I'm more active now than ever…and I'm FAT!)
- Great relationships with friends and family
- Willingness to be vulnerable and authentic…even if someone doesn't like it
- Facing issues instead of running from them
- Loving myself faults and all!