Enhancing your growth

In my short life so far I am in my second marriage.

I have 3 children. Plus 1 we chose not to bring earth side.

I have owned many businesses.

I have lived a life of luxury.

I have lived a life of crime.

I have beaten pancreatic cancer.

I have beaten the darkness that is severe depression and suicide attempts.

I have had a DV next to basically every relationship in my family tree.

I have been ignored and off loaded by parents when it got too much for them.

I have been taken advantage of and had my body abused by strangers and people I was meant to be able to trust.

Yet in all of this…

I have not given up.

I know it looked like I had given up many times.

Especially in the suicide attempts.

But I hadn’t.

And I know that now.

It was obvious when my psychiatrist asked me why I didn’t reattempt when I was found the last time and instead chose to message a friend. I knew, in that moment I answered him, that I didn’t want to leave here anymore.

I am no longer the woman who could freeze and disassociate and be catatonic.

I have learnt and tried so many things over the years that have taught me the truth of who I am and what I am capable of.

I am here as a reminder that things can get better.

You can have more than you believe right now.

You can actually have it all.

It doesn’t matter what has happened in the past.

You have made it to today.

Do you realise how potent and important that is?

You have survived 100% of your bad days so far.

Sad, quiet, easily annoyed, and bored are all words you could use to describe what I’m like on the bad days. Yet days like those are part of the deal with being human. There will always be off days, and that’s okay.

And you cannot tell me there hasn’t been times in between that have made you smile.

Even if only for a moment.

It is possible.

You can change your life.

You can grow so much that your past life isn’t even recognizable to you.

I look back at photos of me and often say to myself who was she?

But I know now. Exactly who she was and why she was who she was.

And I know even more, who I am and who I choose to be now.

And they aren’t actually different. In my soul. On the outside I may make different choices but on the inside I am still the woman I always was.

So what happens if you get a whole string of those bad days, maybe lasting weeks, months or even years?

Too many of us say that we’re in a rut, feel stuck, fed-up, or bored and admit that we don’t want things to be that way, but we don’t know what to do to change.

That’s the problem, when you’re in a rut, you don’t have the energy, desire or motivation to change things for the better, and it’s tough to find the insight or resources or coaches you need to make that jump.

So here are some fun and easy ways you can use right now to climb out of a rut –

• Change up your routine

Start with making one or two simple changes to your day – maybe at breakfast time, listening to some different music, exercise routine, the way you drive to work, lunch routine, etc. Don’t worry about what the changes are or whether they’re right, just make a couple of simple choices that feel good for you.

Doing something differently instantly takes you out of the norm and allows you to shake off the things that make you feel confined. When you step out of your routine you’ll be in a position where you’re able to make different choices, see things differently and get a different result.

• Connect with your intuition

Your intuition is a powerful friend that we all have, even though you might not recognize it.

According to the dictionary intuition is:

a) The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.

b) Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight.

c) A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.

Intuition is one of the best friends you’ll ever have in life and tuning into it and learning to trust it is something that can have some amazing effects.

Accessing your intuition is a bit like developing a muscle, but unfortunately it can be harder to locate than a muscle because they tend to stay in the same place. So here are some quick tips for accessing and trusting it –

• Practice maintaining an open-minded, playful, experimental, non-judgmental attitude. This is the most fertile ground to tap into your intuition.

• Practice making wild guesses in your everyday life. Guess what a salesperson’s name is, what a new person or place will look like or who’s calling on the phone. Don’t worry about getting it wrong, you’re just working that muscle.

• Try a few simple observation exercises in your daily life. Whether you’re in a restaurant, on a train, in a bar, or out shopping, practice noticing non-verbal behavior in others. Look for shifts in posture, eye movements, vocal tone or tempo, etc. Guess how they’re feeling or what they’re talking about.

That’s just a couple of fun things to help you when you get into those moments I have mentioned.

I have written this as a reminder to myself, because these days are crazy right now, and there is so much hatred and separation happening that it has been making me wonder why I have been doing all of this for.

And again, it’s ok to have moments of questioning what is happening and why you are here and whether you want to be. It what’s happens after those questions that truly matters.

And today I choose me.

I hope you choose you too.

And if you are looking for someone to support you in this please reach out.

Xo S