Not a guide to becoming someone new.
An invitation to return to yourself.
I've heard too many people struggling with climbing out of survival mode. Positive affirmations just won't do it when you still feel hopeless. Finding inner authority is really hard when you're still feeling lost. Especially after long periods of darkness. Where life just put you down and people disappointed you. Where you don't even know who you are anymore and hope feels quite distant.
I wrote these when I lost myself completely. I didn't know who I was anymore and I didn't know how to get myself back from the depths of despair. When fear took over me on a daily basis and anxiety was crippling me.
I didn't write them sitting down nicely at my desk with my coffee and a cupcake next to me. I wrote them in my messy moments, in full anxiety mode, whenever I felt the urge to connect because there was nothing else left for me to do in those moments. At 3am in the quiet of the night when my thoughts and emotions were louder than ever. In the afternoons when anxiety wouldn't let me breathe all of a sudden and didn't know where else to run to. And in the moments when I felt immobilised by my desperation.
These conversations with the Universe have helped me deeply, especially with understanding that honesty is one of the most powerful medicines for the inner turmoil.
We cannot and we will not get any better unless we finally start being honest with ourselves first. No bypassing, no throwing feelings under the rug, no hopeless hope like "it will get better eventually."
I invite you on this journey of self-discovery through the six phases of conversations with the Universe.
Dear Universe,
I don't understand why this still hurts.
I've thought about it. I've talked about it. I've "worked through it." And yet, here it is again. Tight in my chest. Heavy in my body. Quietly waiting for me when I slow down.
I don't know what else you want from me here.
I've tried being strong, tried being positive, I've even tried changing it into something meaningful. Some days I even convince myself that I'm over it, until my body reminds me that I'm not.
I don't want to carry this anymore. But I also don't know how to put it down. Part of me is afraid that if I let this feeling go, I won't know who I am without it. That this pain has been holding something together inside me — a story, an identity... a reason.
So I'm not asking you to take it away yet. I'm asking you to sit with me here.
To help me stop fighting myself for still feeling this way. To show me where I've been chasing healing instead of allowing it to happen. To soften the part of me that believes I should be further along by now.
I want to just accept myself as I am right now, to accept whatever it is that is happening now within me. To stop feeling like it's wrong to be myself, to stop putting all that pressure on me every single day.
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Read slowly. Notice which one makes something in you go quiet — a small recognition, a loosening, a yes that arrives before you've decided. That's your answer.