Authenticity and Self-Worth

Your new life is going to cost you your old one. It's going to cost you your comfort zone, and sense of direction. It's going to cost you relationships and friends. It's going to cost you being liked and understood. It doesn't matter. The people who are meant for you, are going to meet you on the other side. You're going to build a new comfort zone, around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of being liked, you're going to be loved. Instead of being understood,

Instead of trying to find the one, I wonder if you could focus on being the one, for you.

instead of waiting for someone else to make the first move, to reach out and to initiate repair, i wonder how it might feel to empower yourself to release yourself from the binds of another's actions, to use your voice, to assert your needs, to set a boundary, to reach closure in the form of walking away sure, sometimes we feel we 'shouldn't have to' that the ball is in their court. though this can also keep us stuck. making conscious choices and making movement, releases us

There are no bad parts. all our parts, and all parts of self have formed and adapted through our life and been shaped through our experiences all these parts are trying desperately to protect us to protect us from hurt, to protect us from shame, to protect our energy, and our boundaries, to protect us from our fear stories. there are no bad parts. though, it may help to reflect on what parts we hope to connect to what parts bring out our light what parts allow us to connect t

I hope you find getting to know yourself As exciting as you find getting to know a lover Because you are so much fun to love And every time you buy a chocolate chip cookie Because you know it's your favourite Or you order a coffee exactly how you like it Or bring water to your bedside For when you're thirsty in the middle of the night Or you put on your favourite movie [even though you've seen it a million times] Or you order in so you don't have to worry about dinner I hope

oftentimes we hold achievement and output, as a measure of our worth. something that we can see, something tangible, something to help us anchor into our "good enoughness" to know that I am safe we fill our days with work, and meetings and hustle, with the same inner dialogue, the same old stories, "the more I do, the more worthy I am" we burn ourselves out to prove to ourselves we are doing enough and yet, it still doesn't satisfy. maybe, there are measures that are more kin

if we can reflect and find that we are the common denominator in a pattern that keeps showing up in our lives perhaps we can meet this with compassionate curiosity... to wonder why we keep choosing this or for which parts of self keep choosing this. to take accountability for those parts that [though perhaps well-intentioned] move in ways to keep us stuck. the awareness of, and insight into our patterns coupled with grace and kindness for those tender parts can empower us to

you are valued worthy, and enough someone's level of disrespect may have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. and although we of course experience it, the felt sense that it is happening to us we can also be mindful, that it is coming from them. that your worth is not anchored into another's perception not subject to change, unsteady, or fragile. And letting our external world determine our worth by placing it in the hands of others, can keep us powerless,

you are not defined by your biggest mistakes, your worst moments, or one moment in time. you are a beautiful and complex being, and life is messy, you are whole, a collection of all of your parts, and you are so much more than your darkness. we are not defined by our worst moments, though we do need to take accountability for them, to process, understand, learn, and evolve. release the shame, and allow them to shape, and to choose paths that may feel more aligned with who we

don't shrink, don't puff up, just stand your sacred ground. - Brené Brown

"I want you to know how proud I am of you after this year. And maybe the moves you made were a bit quieter. But it doesn't mean you aren't doing big things. Maybe the battles you fought behind closed doors were ones no one knew about. But you still fought like hell and you made it. Whatever it is you might have dealt with, whatever it is you overcame or endured or are still going through, I want you to know that I see you. And I hope this next year brings with it everything y

Make mistakes, And learn from them. And practice comfortability in the pace that you learn, And the pace that you continue to figure things out. Be in the process. Continue to move forward with curiosity. And release the urgency that comes with a perceived destination of 'healed.' You are in the process. You are in the right now. Sometimes it looks messy, and that is okay. Take a breath, and offer yourself the space, and the grace, to move forward gently as you grow, and as y

sometimes, we hold people to a different standard than they hold themselves, we expect more from them, than they would expect of themselves we expect warmth, and kindness, and curiosity and can't understand why they don't know show the same, because we would. we feel let down, and it hurts. we come from a place of our own values, our own backgrounds, and forget that is our story, and not theirs sometimes, we hold people to standards that they never feigned to own and measure

you are not too much, though, maybe life has been too much, maybe, you have had too much happen to you and things have felt like too much, maybe you have experienced too much, too much hurt, too much loss, too much pain, too much neglect, and not enough love, that made you feel not enough, though you are not too much. my darling, you are so much more than enough.

when we own our mistakes, when we choose accountability, it softens the fear around failure, and quietens the noise around getting things 'wrong'. it embraces our humanness, it releases our shame, it empowers us to make decisions without fear. it gives us permission to grow and to evolve and allows us to be free, to remain curious, to learn with openness, to lead with authenticity, and to connect more deeply and more honestly with others and with ourselves

you can only meet people as deeply as they have met themselves, as authentically as they have come to know themselves, and for how closely they have allowed themselves to turn inward. the parts they are willing for us to witness, though, for how honestly and how tenderly they hold all parts of self. how they have welcomed growth with open curiosity, the stories they have rewritten, and the shadows they've stayed with long enough to understand, and to meet themselves truly. fr

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and i want you to know, your story is your strength. even when its feels heavy, fractured, and hard to hold. your voice matters, even when it shakes, even if it stays unspoken. even if all you have done is survive, that is enough. your body remembers, your nervous system protects. what happened to you was not your fault, the weight of their harm wasn't yours to carry. you deserved to feel safe, you deserved to be protected. you deserved

sometimes, when we start to set boundaries, we are met with discomfort, resistance, an offering of guilt, even by those who have once celebrated our new voice, and the boundaries we set, with others. it can make us question ourselves, want to withdraw, or want to reconnect with those people pleasing parts, that previously kept us safe. or at least we perceived they did. these parts that encouraged us to play small, to compromise our authenticity, to keep us palatable in our a

burnout isn't always solved by rest. gentle mornings, turning off the noise, of course, rest matters. though returning to the same pace, same pressure, same patterns, allows exhaustion and heaviness to creep back in, or maybe never leave. rest matters, though burnout asks for more. burnout doesn't just come from doing too much, it is doing too much, in a space that is unsustainable, and being depleted in a system, that asks more than we can humanly give, a chronic misalignmen

sometimes, we don't realise we have left ourselves behind, in the quiet moments of trying to make a relationship work, we start shrinking, just a little at first, softening our voice. hiding our needs. silencing our pain. little by little, maybe barely noticeable, until it's not. a silent bargain of self-abandonment, that thrives through our fear stories, to protect from abandonment by others. becoming who they need, even when it costs who we are. and we settle for crumbs of