I did actually write last week even though I didn’t post anything. A combination of being short on time while also feeling that what I had written was a little too raw to just share and move on without being sure I’d articulated myself in A way that felt safe but still honest. My emotions have been a rollercoaster recently, and I feel as though I am shedding layer after layer that I hadn’t realised I’d accumulated over a period of time in which I lost myself a little. I’ve had to dig through it all to find my way back. It’s been difficult having to face the ways I’d let myself down by falling back into old patterns but it’s also given me some much-needed wisdom and a renewed sense of pride in myself for coming out on the other side. The thing is, although I’ve had some hard lessons to learn over the last couple of months, they’re lessons I’ve actually encountered before during a time in which I lacked the awareness and recognition of what opportunity for learning was presenting itself to me.

I wrote about these lessons last week but I’m not quite ready to share that yet. My self trust is on shaky ground, having only just resumed the practices and healing work upon which they are built. The fact that I’ve even put in the time and effort over the past year or two to painstaking rebuild the foundations through excavation and exploration of the ways in which I was hurting and pouring healing energy into the cracks they left behind has made all the difference in how I have faced these lessons I’ve encountered recently. i’ve been able to identify the opportunities to stop and choose another way far more quickly and with less damage to myself than before. As I’m sure many of you can relate, I have in the past fallen victim to my inability to walk away from spaces that hurt me because I was holding out the hope that things could be different. I am ever the eternal optimist when it comes to the people and situations I encounter. it’s gotten me hurt more times than I can count, I stayed in toxic relationships, friendships, environments because I hoped things might change. I found it hard to understand how people I cared about couldn’t reciprocate the same energy. I always wanted to feel seen and heard in the ways I showed up to witness others. Ultimately though, I was asking the wrong people and places. I ignored every sign, every gut feeling, every tug at my intuition that there was something better waiting for me elsewhere.

I’ve come to realise that underneath all of that longing and staying in spaces that did not deserve me was a cry to see and hear myself in the way I was so desperate for others to. The relationship I was frantically searching for existed within me, I was just unaware of it. until I was. Somehow things shifted and I began pouring energy I spent so long giving to other people into nurturing a relationship with myself for the first time in my life. I was learning to trust myself, realising how much I put up with and how much more I deserve. I imagined what that might look like, filled journals daydreaming of the kind of life I was beginning to build for myself. But until the last few months I haven’t really had the opportunity to put all that growth to the test. It took a minute to realise I could use it to break those old cycles I’ve been trapped in. It took falling down to realise I’d allowed myself to fall, tripped myself up even. It took feeling like shit about who I was being to realise how much better I’ve been feeling about myself through the growth of my relationship with myself. And I realise that relationship with myself is exactly what I needed to finally begin turnIng my back on what was hurting me.

So that’s what I’ve been doing these past few weeks. Re-focusing on where I want to pour my energy. Deciding where and with who it was elevated and what causes it to drain away. Choosing what to say yes to and what needed to be a firm no. Your relationship with yourself is one that will last for each and every moment of your life. You get to decide whether it is an abusive one or a loving one. You have the power to make choices that serve that relationship rather than destroy it. Life will test you, leave you battered and bruised if you let it. Please don’t. Pour all that light and love that you’re so quick to give others into your aching heart and care for yourself with the reverence your soul deserves. Open your heart to all life has to teach you and chase people and places and things that fill you with joy and contentment.

You deserve to be seen and you deserve to be heard in all your infinite glory. Choose to witness yourself in all your magic. Build a beautiful relationship with yourself and see how wildly you begin to bloom. This is your becoming. This is how you return home to yourself.

if you want to hear more about my journey towards a more authentic existence, follow me on instagram @the.authenticity.project and on medium . see my photography work on instagram @s.ophiea.lice and connect with me on linkedin.

big love to you all x