Nathalie Armstrong Coaching

If you're lucky you found a partner who can deal with your quirks and you want to keep living with it then that's okay but is it truly luck? Or is it that you get to get away with your behaviour for the rest of your life without really taking responsibility?

Do you see how accepting your quirk takes away your power whereas taking responsibility means you have a choice for how you deal with the same situation next time?

I've come a long way from not taking things personally because I know it's ultimately not me, it's them. I don't see it as criticism (although that still happens!). If someone has a problem with you, then let them deal with it. Of course it's always good to talk about it if you need/want to and are open to do that, but at the end of the day, there is not much you can do for how someone feels.

Are you hurting because of what someone said or did?

Most of the time it's not about what happened but how it made us feel.

At the end of the day we can only get to the bottom of how we feel about something and maybe that's what we're meant to do rather than focus on why the person did it in the first place. We may never know what made them do it, they may not even know why they did it. Maybe they didn't even want to hurt us. Us getting hurt in the process is the byproduct of the situation and that's on us, only we can look at ourselves and learn from it.

What boundary did you not put down?
What did you not say earlier? What couldn't you say earlier?
Why does it feel unfair?

Do what you need to do, feel what you need to feel, to get closure, even without talking to that person. The risk of not looking at it now is that you might keep getting hurt over and over again.

Remember, the only person we can work on is ourselves.

Constantly ticking things off your goal list doesn't mean you're automatically happier, safer, more accomplished, loved, accepted or better. If you've ever thought that achieving a certain goal means that your problems will finally disappear, think again. It may just mean that you've managed to avoid facing uncomfortable feelings. You may already know this or you may be busy ticking the next thing of your goal list.

Whatever it is you're running towards, just know that your problems you had beforehand are not far behind you and they will catch up on you, most likely when you're least expecting it and least prepared for it. So take the time to look at what's going on for you on the inside. Notice your patterns, your obsessions, your tendency to avoid or whatever it may be. Ask for help or support, none of this has to be looked at alone.

The ripple effect it will have on the rest of your life is worth it, for you and for everybody around you.

No matter how many times you tell someone they are loved, they are good enough, they are great, the message may never get through because they themselves don't believe it's true.

Maybe their parents didn't tell them they loved them or they didn't make them feel loved. Maybe they were constantly yelled at. Maybe they were not listened to. Maybe no one was truly there for them. Maybe they had to do things a certain way to be seen or congratulated.

Maybe they still listen to the words they heard for so many years and believe them. Who blames them? Now that they're adults, it's an opportunity to unlearn what they've been told or what they believe themselves to be true. It doesn't have to be their reality anymore. They can create their own reality and maybe they're still living in that world where what everybody else thinks or says must be true. They don't need to survive anymore, they can thrive to be who they're meant to be in this world without those thoughts and memories getting in the way.

Inner work is key here.

We don't need another person's approval, we need our own first, the rest is a bonus!

Now is the time to listen to yourself and to your body/gut feeling. It's easy to say "now is the time" but it truly is. There is only now. Will we ever feel in the right place to do what we want to do? We may never get to that point 100% so there is only now you get to do the thing you've been thinking about for some time.

We may need motivation, journalling, a good talk with friends/family/a stranger, slowing down, a day off, a trip away, a different opinion, inspiration, a health scare, bad news. We may need to feel good enough, worthy enough, brave, the perfect house, the perfect relationship, the perfect job, a plan.

What if we never have those things or feel those things?

I know regret can sneak up on you so fast, you wish you'd started/stopped earlier. Don't sit on your idea, run with it!