A Bit About Me
Ever since I can remember I have had a deep belief that anyone can do whatever they want to do, the only thing that stood in their way was what they believed about themselves. I remember maintaining this belief throughout childhood, I don’t know that this idea was held by many in my family and it was a sort of determined belief I spoke to myself when I was told to be realistic. This belief has merely become stronger as I have grown older, but with it all the feelings that I am not good enough. It is confusing to hold two ideas so completely opposed all at once. The feelings of not being worthy simply magnified themselves as I lost myself in grief, developed panic attacks and found little success in my career even though I had pushed and pushed. By 2019 life had become entirely overwhelming and I was struggling to hold on to even the basics of life, I had hit a rock bottom of sorts but each day managed to bring a deeper level.
Having qualified as a nutritional therapist, my life was relatively holistic and I knew that I didn’t want to take medication for the anxiety and depression, it was a personal choice that was reinforced in me by the feeling that my body was telling me it was time to face my grief. My mother had died November 2016, and I had done an impressive job of refusing to look at it. I’d managed to avoid looking at many other elements of my life along the way. I was blessed with a number of people/events that entered my life at that particular point- with the suggestion to stop drinking alcohol, visits to a councillor/hypnotherapist, a 12 step programme, and the opportunity to take part in some wellness events. Life had become entirely unmanageable and I had to strip it down to the bare essentials of how to enjoy life once again.
What would follow was a complete and utter turnaround of my life, I slowed the pace entirely, I took on very little in terms of responsibility, I became more careful who I was spending my time with and how I was spending it. As time past I recognised that I was using people pleasing to avoid conflict, I was ignoring all my innate intuition and I had been living a life that was a compromise. Unable to live exactly as others wanted, I was doing my damn best to live it as close to want others wanted/expected as I could manage. The irony of it all is that once I let go of trying to get others validation/approval I realised they weren’t even that bothered in the first place. This was one of many restrictions I had put on myself claiming that it was the result of others.
And I suppose that is at the root of the work I do now with people, to shine a light on where we can each take responsibility for ourselves. As I worked on healing myself and focussing on where I hadn’t been showing up as I should, I began to shift. As I shifted those around me shifted, and that is the beautiful simplicity of it all. We needn’t take control of everyone else in our lives, to organise them and their behaviours. We simply need to work on ourselves, with that we see the impact we unwittingly have on this world and those around us.
