Tag: Self Reflection

I Forgive Myself

Some of you may recall reading about the story of my ex-boyfriend. It was a summary of what happened in our relationship, including the end. I chose to write him a letter expressing my feelings, one that I have zero intention of sending.

I received many kind and supportive comments, both here and on Medium, and I truly cannot thank you all enough. It meant so much to me to hear your stories, feel your love and support, and you made me feel like I wasn’t alone. There was one comment in particular that struck me and one that sends a beautiful message that we all need to hear.

The Comments

I was scrolling through the comments and my heart was flooded with love and warmth. I felt like I wasn’t alone, I felt like I was heard and understood. I felt grateful that I could release my emotions in the form of a letter and still have someone stand by my side. One comment, in particular, melted my heart and got me thinking. The comment mentioned that I should show myself kindness and make sure to forgive myself in this situation.

What a beautiful reminder! “Forgive yourself.” Two very powerful words. We spend so much time forgiving others and being kind and respectful to other people, which is wonderful, but do we do this for ourselves? We should be on the list of people that we forgive and are kind to, after all, we are all human.

The Wheels are Turning

I had to read this beautiful comment twice because it struck me. This lovely individual was right, I needed to cut myself some slack and forgive myself. As human beings, we tend to beat ourselves up over many things in life. If the same thing were to happen to a loved one, we most likely would respond with empathy and understanding, but when it happens to us, we are way too hard on ourselves. My brain started thinking of so many things.

I was reminded that I need to be kinder to myself. I spend so much time being kind to others, I should also include myself because I am deserving, every being is deserving. We are all human and we are all learning. No one is perfect. We get up every day and try our best.

Forgiving Myself

I began to think of ways that I could forgive myself regarding this situation. I forgive myself for not openly communicating, and for not knowing what to do to resolve the issues. I forgive myself for being human and having feelings that I couldn’t express fully and clearly enough. I forgive myself for not seeing the signs sooner, possibly due to denial.

It felt amazing to think about why I deserve forgiveness and kindness. This comment helped me so much with healing and moving forward. I did the best that I could at the time, and I learned a whole lot. If I ever find myself in this situation again, I will know how to handle it.

An Important Reminder

The words of others are extremely important. This is just one example of how others’ words can truly influence us. We must remember the power of words. It’s almost important to remember to show ourselves the kindness that we deserve. We are so quick to get angry and upset with ourselves, but we could all be in a better place if we chose to have the patience that we have with others for ourselves.

Thank you for reminding me that I am human and that it is okay to make a mistake. Thank you for reminding me that I too deserve the love, kindness, and forgiveness that I give so freely to others.

Every burden that we carry adds weight to our hearts and prevents us from true happiness. Is there something that you can forgive yourself for today?

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2023 and Still Me

We have just welcomed a brand-new year! When I was younger, I used to think that the New Year was a fresh start, a new beginning. It felt like magic, a new year hit, and all of a sudden, I had a blank slate, and I was a new person.

I anticipated the new year and all that it helped me feel. It was almost like life started over again and I had 12 amazing months ahead of me. The world was mine and I felt unstoppable.

Reality Set In

Fast forward to today and the new year is still wonderful, but it does not hold any extra power or magically change my life in any way. There is no reset button. It’s 2023 and I am still me.

Some of you may know that I am on a journey to live more authentically. I have a very difficult time expressing certain parts of myself and the way that I feel. My biggest fear is rejection, this leads me to only show certain sides of myself to others. Being more authentic is and still will be a major goal of mine this year.

I Hold the Power

It is up to me to hold myself accountable for this goal. It is up to me to start expressing myself in ways that align with how I am feeling. No date on the calendar is going to magically change this for me, I have to change this!

I must say that I am doing much better in reaching my goal, I can share and be a lot more open than I once was, but I have a very long road ahead of me. I have a road to self-discovery, and higher self-esteem, I have a road to allowing myself to feel what I am feeling and then put it to good use instead of letting it consume me. Perhaps my biggest setback is my inability to truly love myself as sad as this sounds.

My Wish

For 2023, I want to come out as a stronger woman, one who truly loves herself and can be herself 100% of the time. A woman who is not afraid to live and isn’t worried about what others think. This is my wish for me.

My wish for you is that you are filled with great health, hope, love, and happiness. My wish for you is that all of your dreams come true and that you realize what an asset you are here on this Earth!

This is my wish for you and me in 2023.

You Can Run, but You Can’t Hide

I am sure that most of us have been in a situation where we were unhappy with life. Maybe we didn’t like our jobs, were stuck in a relationship that we didn’t see going anywhere, or possibly we didn’t like our social circle because we felt as if we didn’t belong.

For those of you that were in situations like these, how did it make you feel? What was your first instinct telling you how to handle the situation?

Natural Response

One of the reactions when faced when a tough situation in life is to flee. It goes back to the fight-or-flight response in Psychology. As we experience hardship, we either tend to stay and fight, or our adrenaline starts to rush, and we flee to escape the perceived threat.

We want to flee to avoid having to feel negative emotions, we flee as a way of avoiding experiences, even avoiding ourselves.

Question for You

Think of a time when you felt so upset and discouraged that you wanted to get up right then and there and leave. You wanted to pack up your office because you couldn’t stand your job anymore, you wanted to run away and hide from your significant other because you felt that you two grew apart instead of together. Think of a time when you felt like an outsider, that even with friends around, you still felt alone in this world. Did you flee?

Many of you did and that is a normal response. Even though it’s normal, it may not be the best way to approach these situations because instead of facing the issue and growing from it, we chose to run away. It felt right at the time, maybe even taking off some of the anxiety, but what ended up happening?

Noticeable Patterns

After we ran from the situation, we felt much better, but as time goes on, the past usually comes back to haunt us.

The key is to look at the issue at hand and see where you can learn from it. If there is some sort of inner conflict, then these types of situations that make us want to flee can give us great insight into what we can improve on.

Communication

Much of life and life’s problems revolve around communication or lack thereof. Sometimes we may feel as though we do not have the strength, or even the skills to solve what is happening to us, so we just decide to flee to make our problems instantly disappear.

I have learned this the hard way, the problems seem to have magically disappeared until, weeks, months, or years later they resurface again because they were not addressed the first time.

Try This

Those situations that make you feel like you would just rather run away than deal with it can be our greatest teachers. Try to live more authentically and see how you can fix your life circumstances. Work within yourself to discover that you have the strength and power to face any issue head-on.

I want to make an important note that in certain situations, we absolutely must flee. Those situations include those that affect our safety etc.

The Takeaway

Life tends to find us, we can move to a different state, change jobs, or even hunt for that “perfect” someone, but what we have not corrected from our past will eventually show up in our future. We may flee, but life follows. We are still the same person inside.

I believe that life is one big test and that we are here to learn many lessons. The lessons will keep repeating themselves over and over until we have learned how to master them. Pay attention to the things that make you want to run and hide, address them so that you have power over them!

Something Else to Chase

Growing up, I was always the kind of girl that loved to make others laugh and smile. I wanted to see everyone happy, and I would do almost anything to make that happen. Ironically, fast-forward to my teenage years and I was relying on others to make me happy.

As I got older, especially as a teenage girl, I started to lack self-esteem, a reality that a lot of teenagers face. I wasn’t sure what was happening to me, but I knew that I didn’t like the feeling and I was determined to make it disappear.

I started trying to make friends with other people hoping that would help me with my self-esteem. I started looking for ways that other people could bring me happiness because I couldn’t seem to find it myself.

At one point, I almost felt reliant on other people to feel any sort of peace. I felt like I needed constant contact from my friends. I would start feeling anxious and sad when I was away from my loved ones. I truly felt at that point in my life that my happiness depended on the people around me.

I felt like a chaser. Sometimes people were there and sometimes not.
My mood would fluctuate according to this, and I was tired of relying on this unpredictable way of feeling peace.

When I became older, I was wiser and able to realize that happiness and self-worth need to come from within. While other people do bring lots of joy, it needs to start from the inside. True happiness cannot be obtained if you aren’t happy when you look in the mirror.

With this new knowledge, I started doing everything that I could to promote my happiness and sense of well-being. I started a gratitude journal, I started painting and writing, and I found other ways that made me happy like nature walks. I looked at myself in the mirror every morning and said one thing that I liked about myself. I watched my self-esteem and happiness soar.

It is natural to look to others for happiness and a boost of confidence but finding that within yourself is the greatest gift and will help you see the world around you in a different light. You will feel more in control of your well-being. I used to chase people and now I chase my dreams and goals!

Why the Difference?

One of the greatest things in life is the love and support of family and friends. Why do we treat our loved ones so much differently than we treat ourselves? We should make taking care of ourselves mentally and physically our utmost priority. We cannot give much of ourselves to this world if we are not whole.

Most of us are very hard on ourselves, I know that I am. I’m told this over and over again, yet I don’t see it myself.

Imagine that you made a mistake on a project that you are working on at your job. You might tell yourself “I can’t do anything right; I am such a failure.” Flip this situation around. A family member or friend is in the same situation, they just made a huge mistake on a project they were working on. What do you tell them? Would you tell them that they cannot do anything right and that they are a failure? Probably not. Instead, you might tell your friend that they did the best that they could do and that they are only human and it’s natural to make a mistake now and then.

You and your significant other just got into a fight and you start saying to yourself “I am never good at relationships,” you keep telling yourself “I am a terrible communicator.” What if a friend was going through this, what would you tell them? Maybe you would say that they should take some time for themselves to regroup and try to remedy the situation, maybe you would tell your friend that relationships aren’t easy, that constant effort is needed, and this doesn’t make them a bad person.

Do you see the differences in how people typically speak to themselves versus a loved one? One’s internal dialogue is so very important because we start to believe what we tell ourselves. Negative self-talk is very detrimental to us and those that we have a relationship with.

Why is it that we can so easily support the people that we love, but we cannot give that same grace and support to ourselves? Why is it that we can quickly build someone else up, while so easily tearing ourselves apart?

We are so hard on ourselves due to human nature; we know all of our faults and weaknesses and we tend to not have patience with ourselves. We also know about our pasts, and we carry parts of that with us. Whether we like to admit it or not, it does affect our confidence. We like to place other people on a pedestal, while we are the ones that are flawed as we strive to be perfect, something beyond human capability.

The next time that you are dealing with something in life, and you find that you are being hard on yourself remember to stop and ask yourself what you would tell a loved one that was in your exact situation. You give so much kindness, hope, and empathy to others, be kind to yourself…you deserve it.