Morning ladies,

Ah Shelbyville I’m really glad that my some of my words did reach you yesterday. Your inner light never goes out, it gets dimmer when you’re wading through grief, but it’s always still there waiting for you to look and feel it again when you’re ready 🙂 I loved reading your most recent post where you were encouraging the other ladies – look at the guidance and positivity you wrote out to them. I also saw that you included some of your own progress…..I’m not sure if you meant to, but read it back to yourself and see if you can notice the lighter tone and uplifting words you use several times throughout it! THAT is awareness of self and progress right there.

Yesterday you asked how we actually learn to love ourselves. That is a question I’ve literally looked at on my computer screen and scoffed at thinking “yeah it’s ok to say it but how the hell do I even go about it?!” I think it is down to individuals, BUT, for me starting out recently, I’ve found that it’s more based in action, rather than thinking/feelings. I’ve learned that a lot of self love is about boundaries. It’s about knowing what we will and won’t accept, then acting upon it and standing up for ourselves. It’s showing up for ourselves and giving ourselves permission and compassion to say “no, this isn’t for my highest good and it doesn’t make me feel happy, calm or safe….so I’m not going to do it or go along with it”. It empowers you to be true to yourself in all ways that are right for you. It’s cutting everyone else away for a moment, including your ex, and putting yourself in a white bubble of light, with swirling colours within it and leaving your racing thoughts outside of the bubble, even for a moment. It helps me to calm down and clarify my little light within. As HSP you might find it quite easy to envision this….fingers crossed. So something as little as those actions go a long way to self love and accepting where you are on your journey right now.

Kkasxo – do you have any plans for what you’re going to do for yourself tonight instead of the concert? It’s so easy for our ego’s to tell us that we aren’t someone else’s priority because it reinforces the fact we don’t think we’re good enough. But it’s not the truth. If you’re ego is telling you that you aren’t his priority, then step into your power that you know is in there and choose to be YOUR priority. Even just for tonight. Believe me, he’s likely not going to be having a whale of a time tonight as he will be aware that given the different circumstances, he would have gone with you. Men do grieve in different ways. My ex made himself super busy in the following days after he broke up with me – this is a way of not confronting the sadness they feel face on. Men are wired differently to women and are more action based, rather than emotional. So all you see in your mind is him not giving you even a thought whilst he’s there partying, but I can promise you that he will be consciously aware of the situation. You said that you’re angry you’re having to put your life on pause – the truth is that by not going tonight, you’re not pausing, you’re protecting. You’re choosing to protect your healing, your heart and your mind. You’re choosing you.

Victoria – I can totally relate to where you’re at. Sorry if I missed it in a previous post of yours, but when you broke up with him, did you sit down with him and open up about the reasons you felt it was necessary? I’m talking the raw, deep stuff. If you did, what was his reaction and what did he say? Did your gut instinct tell you that he was clueless as to where you were coming from or did you get a feeling he was able to take it in and acknowledge it? He’s probably feeling as confused as you at the moment, so he’s trying to take space and protect himself. I know you want him to come running after you, promising you that all your needs will be met from now on. But that’s sadly not how things work….I know this all too well. If you feel you have issues to work on, then focus on taking action to do that for yourself, not just for him or your relationship. His perception of things will be different to yours, because you’re two separate people. You ended the relationship for specific reasons – go back to those reasons and list what you need to do to start improving those things within yourself first.  Your spirit will always be stronger than your ego – so don’t go into a fear habit of just looking for a quick and useless fix online.

x

R&R2018 – I originally did think of not going as a way of protecting my peace of mind. But I think where he popped up again with all the words of hope to reconcile it was a natural reaction to think he’d perhaps consider asking for me to come with. It would’ve been very awkward to attend the same event and pretend that we don’t know the other person is in the same place at the same time. I have let this go now. I had my moment of upset and I’m over it now. Tonight is all about me, nails, hair and all about making myself feel a little better!

Shelby – yes! You girls have definitely been a major part of my support network through this! I like the idea of the 48 hours of affirmations. I might just join you. I’m going to spend the rest of this week trying to learn about the concept of self love and how I can help myself feel better in this situation.

We’ve got a new member of management coming on board with us today at work so all the paperwork has kept me busy today! The hours are passing by very quickly so I am glad! Are you feeling better from your cold by the way? Did the night nurse do the trick?

Shelby – don’t worry! I find it confusing too and not quite sure where to start! Aside from glamming up, treating myself to healthy meals and hot baths I’m not really sure what to do! I’m going to try and do something productive this evening and read into the notion of self love a litte.

Shelby,

You most definitely sound like you have your rational thinking cap on today and I must say it is very refreshing especially that I seem to be absolutely filled with anger today more than anything else.

I think you’re right in saying that if we cannot currently accept our circumstances, we must at least accept the feelings that are flowing through us! I’m going to try this one, giving myself some pep talks to let myself know it is absolutely okay to feel shitty about this! It is shitty!

I completely agree with you both when you say that you’re just right where you are as it stands today. That is literally all we can do. Not to regress backwards or try to push forwards into things/feelings we aren’t bloody ready to do or feel yet. I (happily…or not) think that is actually the healthiest state of mind to be in, in this moment. It’s just acceptance and an ‘its ok’ to feel all the feelings as they come up, or we just end up boxing them up and they’ll come up full force in another time. Not pretty!

Kkasxo – It’s so hard to say for your situation as like you said, the only thing popping into your mind would be your biological dad leaving that got into your subconscious and it’s kicked it all off in this situation….hopefully once you get your appointment, yes, it might help deconstruct things a bit that you didn’t realise played a part. I actually thought my family life was ‘normal’ for years, because that is all I knew! I used to rack my brain whenever I kept reading on family reasons being the real issue for lots of people’s emotional baggage. Then only a couple of weeks ago it clicked. My home life as a child was so dysfunctional! Yet on the surface, because I had a mum, dad, nice house, got all my presents, food cooked etc, it was fine. The relationship between my parents was just craziness and full of resentment. So, maybe look into the relationship dynamics between your relatives? It might or might not bring anything up.

A little insanity to make you girls laugh tonight….I’m on the app Meetup to try and find new groups and interests I can go along to, in the hopes of making my own life better without needing a partner (new goal). So I joined this group called something like “self realisation and true life purpose”. As it’s based in London and I don’t live nearby, the organiser agreed to give me a 1:1 on skype this afternoon. I thought ‘ great how kind of her to reach out to me and help me make a start on my new journey ‘. Within 10 minutes she mentions this ‘seminar’ that changed her life forever and now she has everything she has ever wanted. She kept dropping in this ‘seminar’ and quite quickly I realised she was doing a sales pitch! I was quite disappointed as I thought it was just a support group I was entering into. She then tells me the next seminar is in Barbados on Paradise Island and a man called Dr Tony Quinn leads it. She started barking on about scientific proof of the people who finished the seminar had massive changes happen in their lives through changing their subconscious via this seminar. I checked in with my intuition and got that feeling in my stomach, so I cut off the call. I logged out to ignore her attempts at calling me back. I googled this Dr Tony Quinn and it’s part of a cult! He believes he can see through walls haha. These seminars are £12,000 for 2 weeks! My god my search for a bit of support and hobbies turn into me nearly being recruited into some weird spiritual cult!

Hope that made you smile 🙂