Hope Architect

A few years ago I wrote a story titled the love inside of you and in that story I go in detail about how I let go of a past partner that had, for a long time being a major pillar in my life. While at the end of writing that story I felt like I’d let go of that relationship, I actually spent the next few years very haunted by memories of how I felt in that relationship and spent a lot of time overwhelmed by a fear. A fear of whether or not I’d ever feel like I did in that relationship, a fear that I realise now made me choose relationships that weren’t right for me. Underlying all of that was something I avoided for SO LONG: I didn’t love myself.

Over the course of the last eight months I’ve worked very hard to process the feelings I had, to actually let go of the ‘fake version’ of that relationship I’d made up in my mind and have worked to become secure in myself. All the while learning how to fall in love with who I am. I say fall because I’ve spent so many years of my life so distant from myself and who I actually am that in order to figure that out I had to fall into myself.

As I’ve done this quite a few things in my life have changed, I’ve developed secure friendships, left a job that I realised wasn’t meeting my values, found a new workplace and just showed up as myself. Showing up as purely my self has been a game changer for me, meetings I run are full of memes, jokes and a side of myself I knew existed but I wouldn’t let out, as I was so fearful of what other people would think. Now that lens has changed, I care what other people think, but I also know that when I turn up as myself, I give permission to everyone else in the room to do the same. In my eyes that last sentence was more important to me than my fear of what people would think, so I let go of my fear.

To get to this point took some serious reflection, growing and accepting the fact that the way I thought about things wasn’t always right. I’ve been on this self discovery journey for almost ten years now; thousands of hours of complex trauma therapy, hundred of hours spent reading books, articles and meditating. It puts me in a position now where I see things really differently, everything as an opportunity and an internal knowing that there is always a way forward.

If I had told the nineteen year old version of myself my mindset would be the way it was now I know he would be baffled with how we got there. I know I’m immensely proud of it and forever grateful to every single person who helped get me here.

While I can’t give you ten years of self discovery in this post I do want to give you a guide that I wish I had when I first started working on becoming secure within myself. Even if only one thing in this set of tools Im about to give you resonates that’s great – not everything works for everyone and thats okay. I give these to you as I know these worked absolute fucking miracles for me.

As Dr Joe Dispenza says in this article one of the most common reasons we stay stuck in the past is because we feel its better than our current reality. A feat that is pretty daunting for a lot of people especially those who’ve suffered some kind of trauma, trauma keeps you locked in the past.

I’m going to write a post on my entrance into therapy and what that journey was like over the course of the next month, for now I want to focus on steps you can take today to find some security in yourself.

If you are at a position in your life where you aren’t able to break the cycle of negative thinking or are unable to overcome your own inner demons know that this is okay. We all go through things like this, the fact that you keep showing up is something that you should be immensely proud of. From my own experience I cannot recommend talk therapy (Psychotherapy) enough. One of the biggest parts of my healing journey was figuring out how to self-reflect. Self reflection gave me the skills to realise that each time you don’t succeed at something doesn’t meant that you’ve failed it just means you need to try it a different way.

If I could go back and give myself advice on starting my journey on becoming secure I’d do the following:

• Find a therapist, remember its like dating maybe the first second or third wont work but one will
• Believe in yourself, you are unique, find five things about you that you offer and write them down. Find another five the next day, get to the end of the week and see what you’ve gotten written down. Look at this whenever you feel down.
• Start meditating daily, even if it’s just five minutes learning how to slow down is so important. This adds up I remember this took me a long time to learn and one day it just clicked, but It didn’t click because I got it, it clicked because I had put the time in
• Stop thinking of yourself as a single entity in your head. One of the best things I ever learnt was that the different thoughts / voices you have in your mind are all little kids. They need you, they need safety. Imagine telling your inner critic that you love it and that you hear it, life changes drastically when this inner dialogue shifts
• The following books were extremely helpful in my own journey, I hope they are helpful in yours:
  • You are the one you have been waiting for
  • Darkness Is Golden
  • Attached
  • The greatness mindset
• Gratitude – this has started to be proven as a way to overcome any difficult time in your life. Its a bit of a buzz word at the moment and I find it disappointing (and honestly annoying) when someone says ‘Just be grateful’. Thats not realistic as when you are depressed its fucking hard to see it, especially in yourself. So here are three prompts I was taught to use especially when stuck in dark times:
  • What is something you achieved today? Could be something as simple as making the bed. Thats an accomplishment
  • Write down about the last time you laughed uncontrollably, give it a few sentences. Visualise it. Laugh, feel the joy
  • Write about someone that you admire
• Write down 25 things that you like about yourself, what is unique to you? Wake up and read this every day. At the end of every week add another item to this list (or more)
• Befriend your inner critic.

I’ve been using some of these practices daily for almost five years now and they have changed my life.

One final thing on security that I think is important to remember is that its a journey, its not a quick sprint you can finish in a day. Some days you may feel like you’ve made no progress but I promise you it’s happening in the background. Often our brains aren’t making conscious changes immediately, instead the unconscious mind is busy rewiring itself, working its magic in the background completely unaware to you.