Nov 8, 2022
Two weeks ago I was sitting by a pool, looking out over the harbour, in a space of peace, calm and happiness that had very little to with the location, but were simply enhanced by its beauty.
My thoughts were drifting past me, no energy attached to them, until two questions did catch my attention, they were;
“How did I change from who I thought I was, into who I am now?”
“When did I change?”
Strange questions, and I don’t know why they came up, but as I have learnt to do, I let them settle and started to reflect on my LIFE’s journey.
To gently look for the answers to questions I hadn’t previously thought were important, but now I wanted to know, and, as with all gentle, non-judgmental reflection, the answers came flooding in.
I want to share with you what I now understand, in the hope that my reflections give you greater insight into the truth about change and empower you to make the LIFE changes you deserve.
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first. As you may know, I struggled with out-of-control drinking for almost 30 years, and the price of my struggle was sky high.
It felt as though the loss of self-respect, self-esteem, truth and faith in myself (to name a few ‘losses’), wore a hole in my heart. And I believe my actions wore a hole in my son’s heart too.
I also believe that both those holes have healed through my change of behaviour, honesty, love, compassion and forgiveness. So I will not dwell on those any longer.
Changing my drinking was a massive shift for me, and from that one shift, that one understanding about MYSELF, not alcohol, that hadn’t existed before, I became what others have called, inspirational, brave, strong…..none of which is true, I just understood the nature of change, and in that understanding I found the keys to profound, easy change, which are;
Clarity, Confidence, Safety & TRUST
Let me break it down further.
Clarity gave me both greater and new Understanding and the willingness to understand that there was more to learn beyond what I had always accepted as true.
Understanding gave me new Confidence to explore other ways of thinking.
Confidence made me feel Safe to accept wisdom instead of just knowledge.
Safety allowed me to TRUST
To Trust in myself and my ability to follow through on my decisions in a way I hadn’t done before, to not drink without fear or stress.
With these in place, I couldn’t fail, and I didn’t fail.
But my drinking wasn’t the only part of me that Changed and Healed.
In the past I had really struggled with jealousy, resentment, a smallness of mind, and anger, emotions that I was ashamed of then, and embarrassed to write now. I had also felt unworthy and dishonest.
And I really disliked those aspects of myself, but had also, with great sadness, accepted as part of who I was. Part of my makeup.
I had tried many times to rationalise with the good kind, loving woman I also am, to try to understand the roots of these painful emotions, so that I could let them go, and to be honest, had gotten nowhere.
But now they are no longer there, and I wasn’t even aware that I never, ever experience any of them, or even when I stopped experiencing them!
I only realised as I sat by the pool, that I had profoundly changed in ways I hadn’t even noticed. That in going through the process of change above, I had found myself again.
And in finding myself again, I had reconnected with who I truly am, and that the negative parts of who I thought were me, were only able to flourish in my lack of understanding and accepting who I am, and delivering the compassion and love to myself, that heals all hurts.
There are still many, many things I don’t know about myself, but I do know this, and it applies to each and everyone of you too.
No matter where you are, or where you have been, ONE change and healing in your LIFE, has the power to change and heal every area of your LIFE.
I also know that the process of change and healing is the same regardless of where you feel trapped, paralysed, lost, confused, isolated and fearful.
But to live the change you want, it is so, so important that you don’t focus on the ‘what you do’ of the change you long for, the way you drink/eat/people please/over give/under self-care….by focusing on what you DO, you are missing all the signs and signals that allow for easy change and healing, when the focus only needs to be who you are BEING to YOU, when you DO them. .. Does that make sense?
Here is a truth that you might find hard to accept, as it asks you to take responsibility and act. It is your truth and mine.
Change is a process, a simple process, that is not hard, it is new.
Easy change comes from a new way of thinking, feeling and acting. That’s it. That’s all.
But because you can’t ‘see’ the process, it seems hard, and you question yourself
- Where do I start?
- What do I do?
- Will it last?
- Will I be safe?
- Can I trust this / me?
And in those questions, there are no answers that offer you the vital ingredients to change,
Clarity, Confidence, Safety & TRUST
And so the change you long for, you dream of, stays a mysterious, out-of-your-reach miracle, that you hope and pray for, but never arrives.
But when you have Clarity, Confidence, Safety & TRUST, you don’t even need to know every step before it unfolds.
You simply take the steps over and over again, as you walk down the path of what change truly is, a wonderful journey of self-discovery, where you realise that no part of you is painful, or bad, or unworthy, or wrong or anything else you might have learnt to believe is true of you, and in doing so, you HEAL.
Where you fully accept who you are, what your dreams are, and your deservedness to have them all.
Again, Change is not hard, it is new.
It’s like learning to drive with an instructor, practising, and then having the freedom to go where you choose.
Don’t overthink change. Don’t add extra layers of stress that will halt change, instead, breath, relax your mind, tell yourself how proud you are of YOU, and in that energy, keep taking the next best step for you.
Are you ready for profound, deep down, long last Change and the HEALING that comes with it?
If you are, lets talk (you can contact me HERE)
And always and forever
Be kind and gentle with you
Sonia x
Oct 30, 2022
What do you want to change in your LIFE?
What keeps you awake, confused and lost in what to do next…actually not necessarily ‘what’ to do, but the ‘How’ to do it, and then ‘How’ to stick with it?
What do you know you need to do to make your LIFE, Happier, Healthier, more Peaceful, Loving, Joyful and Healed?
Do you want to Drink less, Eat less, Spend less, Worry/Stress / Overthink less /People Please less?
Or do you want to earn more money, have more respect from others, have better relationships, be more confident?
Maybe you want to do less, or have more, of all these things, or your desires might be very different, but whatever your dreams are, let me help you by suggesting that, rather than create a long list that daunts and paralyses you into inaction, make a decision on which one would make the most difference NOW, and start there.
And now you have your start point….this is the day you can confidently write;
“Today is the day I will start my journey of (fill in your blank less, or desired more) and finding the happiness in LIFE I deserve”
(And Hint here…..when you change one area of your LIFE in which you are unhappy, all areas start to shift, they literally can’t not, and your transformation begins)
So, what’s the next step?
Well, conventional thinking in the less arena is, AVOIDANCE, Mindfulness etc ….avoiding, being mindful of people, places/situations where you are more likely to feel triggered and more likely to pick up the behaviour you desperately want to put down.
And in the more arena, is journal, meditate, take assertiveness courses – all of which I personally love (well maybe not the assertiveness courses).
And these strategies are great, except that they don’t resolve the drivers, ‘why’ of your painful behaviour, just put a sticking plaster that doesn’t stick over the wounds when your LIFE gets tougher.
And you know that, because for every success you have, you then slip back, without knowing why and with no new learning and supportive resources to trust, to move you forward again.
I lived for most of my adult life, unhappy, lonely, despairing over who I felt I was, weak, a failiure, unworthy of time/attention and love, and I don’t want the same for you too.
I deserved better, you deserve better. I now have so much more than the ‘better’ I was looking for, and so will you, if you read my words, reflect on them to keep them in your awarness, and ACT on them.
So, the first step of the process of change that transformed my LIFE was that I stopped looking at WHAT I was doing, and looking inside to WHO I was being…..that was the start of every profound shift, in every area of my LIFE.
Let’s do this. From today I would love you to stop looking at what doesn’t work and look in a different direction, to a process of change that does work.
A process that works because it is all about YOU, is as individual as your thumbprint, and is a process that can be applied to any and every area of your LIFE that you want to transform.
Here it is.
- STOP focusing on what you do as the problem of what do or don’t have.
- STOP focusing on Alcohol, Food, Stress, Worry, Anxiety and all the rest and START focusing on who you are BEING to you, when you drink, eat, worry, stress etc.
- On who you are being when you don’t act confidently, when you don’t put yourself up for promotion, start the business your heart tells you to do.
And instead
- START paying attention to WHY you make the choices you do, but not on the choices.
- START to identify and recognise the patterns of thoughts and feelings that arise BEFORE you do what you do
Become a professional and inquiring THOUGHT CATCHER, be aware as a third person observer, when the thoughts arise, and ask yourself.
“What STORY am I running now that leads me to drink/eat/shop/worry/stress etc, or say No to opportunities I would love to have?”
You are always running a Story before you act in a way you don’t like, and it is very likey you have been running for years, and so believe it is true. It isn’t.
Here’s a few examples of Stories I hear from clients often.
“I can’t do this, I can’t change, Change will be hard, I’m not good enough, We always did it this way, I’m not brave enough to speak up/say no, Everyone says change will be hard”
Do you recognise you here too?
And here’s the gift of recognising your Stories.
When you recognise your Story, you immediately take yourself out of your thinking storm that create the the fears that come up, and start a very different conversation with the only person who knows your answers, YOU.
And when you do that, you can start to gently, lovingly, self-curiously challenge your current Story, and re-write your Story to a more empowering one.
The process I use of my clients to change their Stories is so simple.
I ask them what STORY they are running when they are struggling to makes changes, so that they have real clarity, and then I ask them to answer these 5 Story changing questions
- Is this story true?
- Is this story always, 100% of the time true? (be honest and know that, ‘Most of the time’ is a NO, because what is true once, is true every time).
- How does this story make me feel?
- How would I act if I knew this story wasn’t true?
- What else might be true instead?
The answers you give allow you great insight into your inner world, into your Unconscious Mind, that is always, always the driver of your actions, and in doing so, to disrupt the pattern of your Story, loosening the old Story’s hold in your own mind, and giving you an opportunity to explore what else might be true.
Change is NOT hard, its about taking different actions, some small, some bigger, and some very big.
But even for the very big ones, change is not hard because of the action it requires, it is hard, but because of the STORIES you hold on to and believe about yourself, the world and your place in the world. That is all our truths.
Please use this simple process of mine, test it out on smaller issues, practice it, reflect on the message of the process to keep it in your awareness, and your LIFE will change.
It will transform, it will not seem hard and I promise you, you will be taking powerful steps towards living and loving the Happy, Healthy, Healed LIFE you deserve.
If you would like a more in depth conversation about my process of HEALING, message me (HERE) and as always and forever
Be very kind and gentle with yourself.
Sonia x