A Little Bit About Me

Hi and welcome to my totally revamped Carina’s World blog!

I am Cheryl Stallworth, writing as Carina Lynne.  Thank you so much for coming to check it out. I hope you will find something that resonates with you.

Many of you may not know this, but I actually created my Carina’s World blog in 2015.  At the time, I was focused on a place to showcase excerpts of my work and just writing my personal thoughts.  I wasn’t very consistent with it.  A lot has happened since then that has sent me down another road.  I realized there was something important and long overdue that I needed to face.

Myself.

You see, I’m the middle child of three girls.  To hear my sisters tell it, I’ve always been too sensitive.  What they didn’t realize was that I was insecure, always afraid I could never be enough.  As a child, I lived inside my head, in the numerous books I read, in my imagination.  In the sixth grade, I discovered romance books and that was probably the worst thing that could’ve happened to me because I was too young to really understand that what I was reading was fantasy.  Although I enjoyed times with my friends, I compared the women in those books to adolescent girls and boys around me.  Somehow, in my mind, they were all so confident and secure in themselves whereas I felt…less.  I wasn’t confident, although I learned how to act as though I was.  

Of course, I realize now I was probably not the only one who felt that.  At the time, however…

Anyway, fast forward to seventh grade, when I fell in love and, in my mind, I was that heroine in the romance books who was being pursued by the hero.  Everything that happened between us, I tested against the courtship in the books, except in those stories, misunderstandings got solved without too many tears shed and there was always the happy-ever-after.

Yes, well, when things didn’t work in real life, I was left reeling.  My greatest fear was realized – I wasn’t enough.  I was less.  Why wasn’t I enough?

For those of you who want to point the fingers at my parents, don’t.  Sometimes, in spite of a loving upbringing with both parents in the house, children stop listening when facing unknown situations because they think parents will not understand.  I didn’t go to them and ask questions.  None of my friends talked to their parents, that I knew of, so I certainly wasn’t.  Our parents taught us love, faith in GOD the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  They taught us right from wrong, morals and values, and kept us involved in the church.  They made sure we understood the importance of a good education.  They taught us to think for ourselves.

Life went on and I pushed that knowledge of never being enough way down deep.  I learned to analyze every word, thought, and deed in romantic relationships.  If such and such happened, I would react this way.  If he said this, I would respond in this way.  Even down to the most intimate of times, I continually analyzed how I should respond, the type of sounds I should make.  That isn’t to say there weren’t moments that took me out of my head.  Once back to myself, though, my brain would be running to catch up, so I wouldn’t say or do something to ruin anything.

I’m sure we’ve all learned at some point in our lives, that if you never stop to do the work to get to know yourself, whatever you never dealt with that is sitting deep in your subconscious, affects your life.  It’s that question that trembles to the forefront of your mind when you’re in the depths of despair, then disappears because you shove it back behind that door and lock it tight.  For me, it was all about showing I was strong, that even a shattered heart and disappointments wasn’t going to break me.  I shoved those feelings down and kept it moving.

But a chasm began to grow inside of my soul and my spirit.  It affected my mind and showed in my life, although I told myself there were other reasons for things that happened.  Yet I’ve dealt with depression, the failure of four marriages, the ending of romantic entanglements, a growing dissatisfaction inside me, health challenges that could have origin in unresolved issues stressing who I am at my core.

The past couple years or so, I have been making my way back to my roots, my faith, and remembering things my parents taught us.  It hasn’t happened all at once and there have been times when I take two steps forward and four steps back, a lot of starts and stops.

Until the day came when I knew it wasn’t enough.  I had to do more.  I had to go deeper.

So here I am.  I’m ready to do the work to restore my spiritual, emotional, and mental health.  Yes, I’m also working on my physical health, too.  My journey is a search for the most fundamental part of me – an awakening, if you will.

I’ve shared my background so you can understand that I’m not some woman up on a pedestal who has never had a moment of misery.  I’ve experienced highs and lows, successes and failures, wins and losses, and, finally, my eyes are opened to something long overdue that I must acknowledge, in order to heal and grow.

Come and join me on this ride if you will.  We’ll cry, we’ll laugh, we’ll learn and grow, and, hopefully, make some awesome connections.  Always, always, feel free to comment and share as much or as little as you desire.  The details of each of our lives that brought us to this point, isn’t the focus.  Self-love and care, understanding, forgiveness, acceptance and growing are the steps that will lead us to the goal of achieving inner peace and living fully, joyfully, phenomenally!