As I put the finishing touches on my very first product, (my soon to be released self help dating program), I can’t help but think back on the relationship I had with my father.

I always wondered, why my father was the way he was.  But I didn’t really “connect the dots” between my childhood and my adult life.

You see, I experienced a normal childhood.  My dad comforted me when I fell down riding my bike or was hurt, he took me to the fair, bought me ice cream or took me to my favorite place whenever he could.  He asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  He told people I was the apple of his eye.  I sat on his lap, gave him kisses and hugged on him.  However, I never heard my dad say, “I love you” to me.

As I became a young lady and my body began to change so did my dad.  Now that I’m adult I see something I couldn’t see then.  It’s as if he never accepted that I was a young lady.  I was either a child or a woman.  Even though I was only 11, 12 and so forth because my body was changing he began to address me in very negative ways. He always said the most awful things about me and expected the worst in me. Somehow, because I had a vagina I was destined to be nothing but something a man could sleep with.  He became extremely verbally abusive to me.  To the people in church he was such a great husband to my mom and father to me.  It appeared that way.  But no one knew what went on behind closed doors.

Even though I grew up in the United States, you would have thought I was raised in a third world country.  I was raised to be someone’s wife and cater to a man.  If I wanted to sleep in on Saturday, my father would awaken me by saying, “No man wants to be married to a lazy wife.” Or if my room wasn’t straight he would say, “No man wants to be married to a dirty wife.”  When I said I wanted to go to college, he said I would find a man to take care of me so college was out of the question.

Fast forward to 2011.  When I tell people I was in an abusive marriage until 2009, they tell me they can’t believe it.  They say I don’t look like the type of woman who would take that, who would live in fear in her own home.  They’re right.  Today, I am not that woman.  But you see?  I grew up that way.  That was normal to me.  And how did I choose a man that said he loved me, had children with me but disrespected me and treated me so awful? Subconsciously, I sought out a relationship that matched that of me and my father.  My husband always said that he paid the bills and had me driving a nice car and we wanted for nothing.  He provided and I should be happy he wasn’t laying on the couch.  He said he supported me going back to school to get my degree, but would call me dumb and stupid as I stayed up late doing my research papers.  To his co-workers and my friends he was such a great husband.  It appeared that way.  But no one knew what went on behind closed doors.

So, you see?  A father’s role is so important in a daughter’s life.  Children learn what they see.  How a man treats his wife is how his daughter will expect a man to treat her.  Until or unless she learns that there is another way.  I did that.  I discovered there was another way.  When I decided to own my life, I went back to school.  Going to school empowered me and before I could even graduate, our marriage ended.  He couldn’t even deal with having an educated wife with her own thoughts and ideas.  Today, God has blessed me with my own business and I’m not looking back.

It was the summer of 2007 that I had an “A-ha” moment.  It was then I realized I no longer HAD to continue living life the way I had until then.  It was then, I owned my future.  I didn’t have the full plan but I had a plan and that was better than I had ever done in my life.  I had lived according to someone else’s plan up until then.

It is my desire through Courage Factor to help as many people to develop the COURAGE to own their life, to live their OWN DREAM and not someone else’s. I pray that as you read this, a little fire starts to burn inside you….  A little flame that tells you it’s time to light up and carry out your destiny.  IT IS NEVER TOO LATE!  But you must take the reigns back.  You must get in the driver seat and stop being a passenger.  You must decide that you will not be a victim any longer.  There is another way.

I need you to stop saying, “Life is hard” and realize that your life is hard right now because of the decisions you made or failed to make in the past.  Choose right now to change your life.  One foot in front of the other is how you do it.  But never take a step backwards.  You are NOT alone.  Please, feel free to click “like” on our Facebook Courage Factor page.  Join a community of people who are living their lives COURAGEOUSLY.

If you are single mom, PLEASE, find a POSITIVE role model for your children, a brother, a mentoring group at church.  And please, recognize that you have to make a CONSCIOUS choice to break the cycle of your past.  We need more men to step up and deposit greatness in our kids.  If you are a man, consider how important you are in continuing the cycle, whether your cycle is positive or negative…