The soft reset

The loudest voice was never really mine 🤍

For a long time,
shame was the loudest voice in my head.

I often found myself wondering:
Where did these beliefs come from?
Why do they consume me sometimes?
I'm not enough,
Stop talking, no one cares,
You're too much,
No one likes you,
Look at the state of you,
No wonder people think horrible things about you, You're a fake,
Not everything is about you, So dramatic,
You're not worthy.

I genuinely believed that if people saw the real, authentic me, I'd end up alone. So I changed parts of myself to fit in.
Sometimes I became who I thought other people wanted me to be, just to feel accepted.
For years, I was listening to a voice that wasn't truly mine...

but I didn't know how to quiet it.
So instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" I slowly began asking, “Where did this voice come from?"

That question became the beginning of making more sense of myself.

Shame still visits me from time to time, But now instead of letting it tell me who l am, I try to meet it with curiosity,understanding and kindness.

One small step at a time 🤍

This concludes our mini series

Please share, save, like & follow 🤍

How might shame feel and show up

This is why I love looking at the bigger picture.

Not because we need to explain everything...
But because our experiences are often more layered than they first appear.

In the final part of this series we'll begin exploring some of the many influences that can shape shame.

Please come along

Series 1, Part 1

Series 1: Shame

This feels like the right place to begin.
Over the next few posts, we'll gently explore what shame is, what might shape it, and how it can quietly influence our lives.
Not because there's something wrong with us...
But because sometimes connecting the dots can help us make a little more sense of ourselves.
I hope you'll join me.
Please share, save and like to help spread the word 🤍

One thing I've been learning lately...
When I react to something, my first thought used to be...
"Why am I like this?"
Now I'm trying to ask myself something different
"What might this reaction have learnt?"
It's amazing how one small change in perspective can create so much understanding.
I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying we can change overnight.
But I do believe understanding ourselves with curiosity instead of judgement is where discovery and change begin.
What might one of your reactions be trying to tell you?

Hypervigilance isn't just anxiety

For a long time, I thought I was simply an overthinker an natural worrier.

I didn't realise how much of my energy was spent scanning,

Scanning for changes in people moods, scanning rooms for atmosphere,
Scanning for signs I had done something wrong, Scanning for clues that something bad may happen.

The tricky thing about hypervigilance is that it often feels normal, when you've lived that way for so long.
You don't realise you're monitoring, watching, checking and preparing.

I just thought I was being a worrier!

Learning about hypervigilance helped me understand myself with a little more compassion.

Maybe it will do the same for someone reading this too

The crescent moon reminded me of something important this evening🌙🤍

A crescent moon isn't the whole moon, Most of it is hidden. Yet when you look at it, it feels complete.

A bit like a healing journey...

Life isn't perfect, everything isn't finished, there are still challenges, There are still things you're working through.

But that doesn't mean you're broken.
It doesn't mean you're behind.
It doesn't mean you have to wait until everything is fixed before you're allowed to feel whole.

Sometimes we can be a work in progress and enough at the same time.🤍

Attachment explained a little differently
One of the biggest things attachment gave me was understanding.
Looking back I can see I often leaned more avoidant when people were close to me. If I felt hurt, overwhelmea, misunderstood or scared of being hurt again, I would distance myself or shut down.
But when I was alone the opposite often happened, l'a reply conversations, worry about my reactions and if l had ruined everything, I need reassurance!
Suddenly I'd feel anxious about the very connection I'd pulled away from.
It was so confusing and would make me sprial more, ! could be both!
I wanted connection but was so scared of getting hurt as I had so many times. Learning about attachment helped me realise those reactions weren't random at all.
They were rooted in experiences, relationships and lessons I'd learnt long before I even knew.
For me, learning about attachment wasn't about putting myself in a box, it was about understanding myself better and where it all began.
The roots explain the tree,
They don't decide how it grows forever 🤍