Self Approved: A Guide to Accepting, Loving and Expressing the Person you Truly are
By Kat Trimarco
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About this ebook
Self Approved: A guide to accepting, loving and expressing the person you truly are, is an inspirational memoir and self-help book in which author, Kat Trimarco, takes the reader on a revelatory journey through her childhood and teenage years rippled with emotional abuse, self-sabotage, and unworthiness. This leads her down the path of her adult life, mirroring the lack of self-love and acceptance through co-dependent relationships, drug and alcohol abuse. These experiences left her stripped of all remnants of self-esteem, deeply wounding her sensitive spirit.
This is the story of a seeker whose greatest gift in life’s dark moments is her quiet intelligence and her willingness to embody truth through rigorous self examination. For it is in deconstructing her negative patterns that she rescues herself and triumphs by owning her truth. Stepping into a career as a Life Coach, Sex Coach and motivational speaker, Kat guides readers with a quiet authority and wisdom to unlock her Be Yourself Blueprint—seven processes to help you discover your true state of “Is-ness”. In doing so, you will be able to finally remove the layers and masks that have hindered you from expressing your most authentic self and move towards outwardly living who and what you feel like on the inside.
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Self Approved - Kat Trimarco
Self Approved™
A guide to accepting, loving and expressing the person you truly are
by Kat Trimarco
Dedication
For Keeth Evan Cherrington
I love you, hunny.
Contents
Dedication
Introduction
PART 1: A LITTLE ABOUT ME
Chapter 1:
The Start of My Journey – Childhood
Chapter 2:
The Next Few Years – Junior and High School
Chapter 3:
Lost and Insecure – Into Adulthood
Chapter 4:
Him – A Love Like No Other
Chapter 5:
The Last Few Years – The Breakdown, the Transformation, the Recovery
PART 2: BE YOURSELF BLUEPRINT™
Chapter 6:
Housekeeping – What You Need to Know to Get Started
Invisible Forces and Beliefs
The Invisible Laws
Your Inner Know it All
What You Can Expect
Chapter 7:
Be Yourself Blueprint™ Explained –
Peeling Back the Layers
The Layers
Chapter 8:
Layer 1 – Mindfulness
The Bigger Picture
The Three Keys
Spiritual Bypass – Don’t Deny Your Humanity
Mindfulness As a Way of Living
Self Reflection Exercises
Chapter 9:
Layer 2 – Forgiveness
The Three Aspects to Forgiveness
Looking Your Fear in the Eye
Self Reflection Exercise
Chapter 10:
Layer 3 – Follow Your Guidance
The Roadmap of Life
Internal Compass
Self Reflection Exercises
Chapter 11:
Layer 4 – Take Inspired Action
Under Action
The Importance of Faith
Over Action
Inspired Action
Self Reflection Exercises
Chapter 12:
Layer 5 – Let Go!
Control
Opinions
Internal vs. External
Self Reflection Exercises
Chapter 13:
Layer 6 – Embodiment
An Inclusion Based Universe
Being It
Self Reflection Exercises
Chapter 14:
Layer 7 – Be Your Fucking Self!
What Is Your Truth?
How to Uncover Your Truth
Where Do You Go From Here?
Self Reflection Exercises
Chapter 15:
What Living Your Truth Actually Looks Like – Knowledge In Action
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Introduction
Three years ago, I lost control of my life.
Everything crumbled around me.
I reached my rock bottom.
For the thousandth time I sat with my nose pressed against the back of a bar toilet, snorting back every speck of white powder I could see. I swiped my finger across the back of the toilet cover and vigorously began rubbing my gums. As my teeth and face went numb, my eyes rolled back into their sockets and everything turned black. That’s the last moment I remember until I came to in my living room.
I was at home. That’s my safe place… right? But how did I get here?
It didn’t matter. I grabbed my purse and frantically rummaged through every zippered compartment. I knew my baby was in there somewhere. I knew I could escape once I found her. Go back to the other place. Where, for an elusive moment, my body would feel tranquil. Without pain. Which was maybe just the closest to feeling good I would ever come.
I couldn’t find her though. My little white goddess all wrapped up snug in the corner of a zip-lock baggie. My heart skipped a beat. What the fuck? Where had she gone? I knew she was in there… At least a gram, maybe two… certainly more than enough to keep me paralyzed until the morning. Did someone take her from me between blacking out and now? Or did I snort her all up? Maybe that was why I couldn’t clarify what had happened over the past few hours and how I had ended up here.
I searched high and low.
Nothing.
Desperately I scrolled through my phone, firing out messages to anyone who could bring me more.
No response.
My last resort… there was booze here somewhere. Vodka. It only took me a moment to find it. I grabbed the bottle, twisting off the little black cap, tipping it, closing my eyes and swiftly gulping back big full swigs. The warmth trickled through my body, cell by cell. Sweet relief. My body eased into the bed, or couch, or maybe even the floor. I don’t remember. I just felt as though I had melted and became one with it. Now maybe everything would be okay. If I could have stayed in that warm soft place forever, never waking, then I would have.
But eventually I did wake up to my situation and to myself. And that’s why I’m writing this book, so you can as well.
***
I used to believe my life was a series of episodes dominated by one central theme—that of people abandoning me. In retrospect, my life has actually been a series of situations where I abandoned myself. Each scenario ended up with me feeling as though a brick had been flung at my head, knocking me off my feet, leaving me crumpled and broken on the floor with no one and nowhere to turn to but back to myself. The degree to which I betrayed myself always matched the degree to which I found myself—all building upon each other and leading me to where I am today and right now.
The blows became softer with each hit. Now I can get back up on my feet and back on track more quickly. When I waiver, I feel the discord sooner. The warning signs are subtle, but I read them like a flashing siren.
This newfound awareness did not happen instantaneously—it took training. It took ignoring the signs over and over again until something in my life blew up. Now the woman I am today, the real me, knows how to observe and listen. As the days go by I continue to practice and get better at it.
I’ve learned how to better read my own life’s blueprint, to approve of myself, as well as be at peace with each experience I have. I follow that blueprint and no one else’s. I understand that nobody else exists on my life blueprint or controls the route I take and that’s okay. That’s because other people have their own individual and unique versions. We cross, intersect, and even collide with one another while following our respective blueprints. That’s how it’s meant to be. All that matters is that we follow our own. When you aren’t then life will show you. This will come in the form of subtle signs, which if ignored, start getting bigger and bigger until BOOM!... you have no choice but to make a change or continue to live with the internal discord that will only intensify, creating more difficult struggles throughout your life, leading to deep misery and possibly even death.
I’ve written this book to share with you my experiences, and to show you how I worked through manifold challenges I believed would take me down.
This is a book to help you live within your own self—to be yourself and approve of who you are. To dismantle the layers you’ve built up around who you really are that society, family dynamics, past circumstances and traumas might have built up around you.
There’s a profound truth within you and it’s the only one you need to acknowledge… the truth of your authentic self, which is invariably hidden behind all the masks you’ve put on to protect yourself against this world.
To be responsible to yourself and to acquire happiness you need to disassemble the ideas of who you thought you should become and to reveal who you really are and who you long to be. I believe we build identities and personas based on the notions of what society, our families and friends expect us to be. They can be nice… they can make life more comfortable, but they aren’t real. No matter how much you convince yourself, they don’t represent who you truly are.
Most of us approach our lives in a counter-intuitive way. We build up our hopes and expectations of arriving at some final destination of fulfillment, happiness, success, love and connection, but sometimes the path we take to get there is difficult and occasionally treacherous and exhausting. This is because we attempt to follow in the footsteps of others rather than forging our own specific and unique pathway towards our goals, desires, and dreams.
I used to spend a lot of energy examining how other people lived—looking at what they had accumulated and built around them, seeing them being supposedly happy, and then attempting to replicate their formula for success in my life. Thinking that if I could just get what they had then I’d be fulfilled and would reach my destination. I thought all I needed to do was just manipulate my behavior, actions, and looks until I arrived.
Little did I realize that the people who had the apparent trappings of success and on whom I modeled myself, often lived shallow lives and hadn’t developed the inner feelings of fulfillment, love and connection… the very riches for which I was unknowingly yearning.
That’s how I operated for a long time. The past few years, however, have been the total opposite, consisting of a complete dismantling of all the illusions and masks I had given myself as an identity.
It’s been scary. It’s taken me far out of my comfort zone—not once but over and over again. I felt as though I was enduring an internal death. A death of the person I was. And I grieved it like a death. Slowly. One bit at a time. The identity I had created for myself fell away and broke down to reveal the truth of who I really am.
I knew these falsehoods had to die, and with them the old patterns, behaviors, belief systems and limited ways of thinking. Without the death of the old I couldn’t have been reborn or allowed my innermost truth to shine and be the leading force to drive my life and the choices I make.
That’s why I’ve written this book. I want to help you live the life you really want to live. To help you feel the way you deeply desire and long to feel. To help you cure that hunger for something more. To help you take yourself from a place of endless running on the wheel of life to a place where you actually feel alive.
I know I can’t be the only one who has suffered. I can clearly see it and hear it when I look around or when I talk to my clients and friends. We’re living in a world where happiness is an illusion and anguish is the paradigm… the norm. Where struggle is rewarded and ease is considered lazy.
We don’t even call it suffering because people have just accepted that this is the way life is supposed to be. Anything to the contrary would be shining the light where no one wants to shine it. But that’s what needs to happen. We’ve masked it under the title of living.
But the way a lot of people are doing it isn’t living at all. We’re ruled by fear, which acts like a dog biting at our ankles just to keep us in motion.
I wrote this book to help you, the seeker, to create and live a more fulfilled life that’s true to yourself, even if those around you think your dreams are crazy or unachievable. I assure you it’s quite the opposite. I wrote this book to help you move beyond your current circumstances and personal behaviors that are inhibiting your growth and evolution. I wrote this book to help you live the life you want to live and are meant to live—the life you have the potential to live, but aren’t currently living. To help you return home to yourself no matter how many years or decades you may have been wandering.
In this book you’ll learn how to reconnect yourself with Source, create a life that’s reflective of who you are, and be introduced to practical tools to implement into your life.
I’ve separated this book into two parts—memoir and self-help. Part 1, the memoir, is my journey laid out for you to give you a better understanding of who I am, where I’ve come from, and how I’ve developed the Be Yourself Blueprint™. It outlines my journey from external living, rejection and denial through to self-awareness. I also identified certain themes in how I was living my life and then noticed those same themes occurring in other people’s lives. And from this place, I was able to create change.
Part 2 of this book is the Be Yourself Blueprint™, my seven-step process to lead you home to yourself and ultimately to peace. These processes, called The Layers, can be applied to your life right now no matter what stage of your journey you’re in. Along with the breakdown of each layer, I’ll be taking you further into my journey with specific stories and anecdotes that will help you further your own exploration and application.
I recommend you read this book from start to finish, starting with the memoir portion and working your way into the actual processes. My personal journey will help you understand the Be Yourself Blueprint™ in real life terms and circumstances. Read each process and then work your way through the self-reflection exercises listed at the end of each chapter in Part 2. These exercises are questions you can simply contemplate, but for the deepest effect, I recommend having a private journal alongside you to actual write your insights in. When we write things down, they become more concrete and tangible than when they are images floating around in our mind. Writing down your responses can also give you clarity that you won’t get from merely swirling them around in your mind. Be sure to implement these changes into your current life circumstances. Information and knowledge without action is useless, so this is the most important aspect.
Because this book is written in my authentic voice, you’ll come across the occasional swear word or phrase. This is how I talk in real life and, thus, how I also write.
My intention is to help you live a life led by self-love and to embrace the real you. My goal is to help you move from a place of hopelessness into a place of tuning into yourself and in the process allow the energy of the Universe to show up in your world so you can be comfortable with who you are. To embrace and love who you are.
If you’re reading this book then it has found its way to you for a reason. You may have already been consciously or subconsciously asking for help and guidance, and your yearning and desires have led you right here. I’m assuming if you’ve been drawn to and are reading this book that you want to adopt a life of feeling good about yourself, your relationships, and your life. Pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for that! I’m applauding you for that as you ease into a whole new world of feeling good and looking good without the intense mental struggle. Welcome to a world of peace and tranquility!
May this book provide some answers for your life’s questions. May it be a tool you apply into your life, day by day, to shape and mold it into what you desire it to be.
That’s my hope. That’s my prayer. That’s my wish for you.
PART 1: A LITTLE ABOUT ME
Chapter 1:
The Start of My Journey – Childhood
My parents, Chris and Bill, were both spirit-minded hippies who met at a commune in Colorado during the 1980s.
My mom was a young and free soul who left the busy city life of Toronto, Ontario, where she had grown up, to explore other lands, as well as her deeper self when she moved to the States.
My dad, who had grown up in crowded Chicago, Illinois with his three brothers and three sisters, also sought solace in the mountainous terrain of the Rockies. He always had a strong connection to nature and the land.
Smitten with each other, and falling quickly and deeply in love, they got married. Shortly after meeting, my mom became pregnant. Nine months later my brother Joe was born. Less than two years later my mom had another surprise growing in her belly… ME! At almost nine months and ready to pop, she and my dad moved to Nova Scotia where I was born on the winter solstice and shortest day of the year —December 21, 1988.
My mom gave birth to me in the tranquility of my Nana’s home with nothing more than a midwife and her own breathing to get her through the physical pain. Years later my mom would describe my peaceful and calm exit from her body and entrance into this world. My Nana’s house was large and rustic. It was located only blocks away from where the famous Bluenose ship docked in downtown Lunenburg. Years later the house was renovated into a quaint bed and breakfast. When I was a teenager, I had the pleasure of going back to visit and walk through the very building.
Without remembering the actual event of being born, I feel in the depths of my soul that I can remember the deep connection between my parents and me. The union between us runs deeper than our physical DNA—it runs into the sacred contract between our souls that allow us to learn and grow through our relationship here on Earth. On some level, I knew that despite the challenges that would later unfold in my life with our relationship, that I had chosen my parents in this lifetime.
As quickly as my mom and dad fell in love, they grew apart. Only six months after my arrival, they went their separate ways and divorced, leaving Joe and me in the primary custody of my mom with weekend visits to Dad’s place. To this day, they’ve never shared with me the details of why they actually divorced and, to be honest, I’ve not thought to ask. Because they separated before I was old enough to remember, I’ve never pictured them as a couple. To me, my mom and my dad’s lives were very separate, and having two parents with two different households was the normal for my childhood. In the first few years of my life it never bothered me. I liked living with my mom while at the same time I loved going to my dad’s for weekend visits. That was until other partners came into the picture…
When I was about four, my dad remarried a woman named Lisa. My mom wasn’t far behind—she tied the knot with my then step-dad when I hit about eight. His name was Stone, which ironically I came to discover suited his overall nature and behavior.
I didn’t get along with my step-mom from the moment I met her. She was half Japanese and half Canadian, tall and lean with long thick dark colored hair. She was very natural, although not at all beautiful in my eyes. She had unshaved armpits, and a dress style somewhere between a mountaineer and a teacher—boring and dull yet seemingly practical. Her personal style seemed to match her personality—dull and unhappy. Before her appearance in my dad’s life, I remember him being playful and full of life, yet she seemed to bring with her a dark energy that dampened the house with her grouchiness.
Having no kids herself, she seemed oblivious as to how to interact with Joe and me, and she treated us as if we were nothing more than the leftover baggage her new husband had lugged into their relationship because he had no other choice. She loathed us, and we quickly began to feel the same towards her. In addition to the tense relationship between us, it seemed she and my dad were always bickering. I noticed how critical and judgmental she was towards everything about him, how he acted, and the choices he made. I didn’t like this one bit.
As time progressed, I began dreading the idea of visiting my dad not because I didn’t want to see him, but because I couldn’t stand being around her. During every visit, Lisa and I would get into fights. The tension between us was constant. I longed to have my dad back, but this never happened. I felt as if I was in continual competition with Lisa for my dad’s attention and love—her neediness would always trump mine. I was always left questioning who I had to be in order to win my dad’s approval. I craved his love, but it seemed as though there was nothing left of it after pouring it into his romantic relationship.
My dad and Lisa soon moved to Calgary—a city on the other side of Canada from where we lived. This meant our visits became fewer and farther between. Meanwhile, my step-dad, Stone, took a job in Japan when I was about ten years old. With little notice or warning, the four of us packed our belongings and flew across the world to make a new home for ourselves in Asia. I was excited about the adventure, feeling no attachment to our current home in Nova Scotia, but I knew Joe felt like his roots were being ripped out of the ground.
With an English speaking school costing more than $20,000 per child each year, my mom decided to home-school Joe and me for the duration of the year. Until then, Mom had struggled to make ends meet, and I could feel her relief at the financial burden being lifted after she married Stone. With her not working in Japan, aside from an infrequent English class she taught to a few Japanese women, she was dependent on him to provide for us. He made sure to remind us of this often.
While the opportunity to live in a foreign country at such a young age was wonderful, the dynamic inside our home wasn’t. All living quarters in Japan were small, meaning the four of us were sharing a two-bedroom apartment with paper-thin walls. Almost every night, Joe and I could hear mom and Stone having sex, which often turned from moaning and groaning into a fight, escalating to full blown screaming matches before they finally went to sleep. This became the norm most nights. As an energy sensitive child, the behavior I observed between them affected more than my eyes and ears and left me with a shameful and scared feeling in my belly. I always felt on edge. As if there was a tension in the air that was so thick I could cut it with a knife.
About half way through the year, Joe and I were shipped off on a plane to visit our dad for a couple weeks who was now living in Lake Louise, a tiny ski village in Western Canada where he and Lisa worked. Part of me was relieved to get out of the apartment in Japan, but I didn’t want to be so far away from my mom.
I’ll never forget one particular morning during this visit. My dad’s and Lisa’s apartment was also quite small with only one bedroom, leaving Joe and me to set up camp in the middle of the living room. Joe slept on the couch, and I took the floor.
My dad came into the living room where Joe and I were sleeping. It was early—the sun was still hidden behind the horizon. My dad gently shook my shoulder, telling me it was time to wake up.
But why? I didn’t understand. It was still dark outside. Where did we possibly have to be at this hour? I didn’t respond to his shaking.
Again, he shook my shoulder, now fully rousing me from