Sonia Voldseth, Counsellor

I’ve been working on this essay for a while now. I finally hit publish last night. Hope you enjoy the perimenopause journey as much as I have (which is not at all!). But I hope you like the story. It’s on Substack now.

You might have noticed that I’ve changed my Insta handle to writing rather than therapist-ing, because I’m not writing so much therapy advice stuff now. But! I did write a holiday boundary newsletter because I just couldn’t help myself. It’s on Substack.

Well hello, there! In my last post, I said I was working on bigger pieces of writing. Yesterday, I submitted a 4000 word essay on misogyny and sexual harm to an essay competition. I’m hoping it’s well received but I’ve also sent it without too much expectation. It’s a nice place to be.

Now, I’m working on a piece about my experience with peri-menopause which has been … ummm … quite something.

And I can get back to writing my mental health newsletters which I’ve missed dearly.

Also, if you’re still here, thanks. I know your attention is pulled in a 1000 different directions and that fast moving content is the way of things right now, so I extra appreciate your presence on this page. 💜

Thanks to everyone who’s followed along this year!

Thinking of you all as you navigate whatever these holidays bring, and wishing you much peace and contentment.

I’m taking my annual social media break for at least the next three weeks so I can give my nervous system and overall well-being a rest and enjoy the summer holiday. TBH I still find summer Christmas weird (after 17 years) but I do love the break with nice weather 😊

Go well, friends. See you in 2024.

Aroha nui,
Sonia

Isn’t that something?
That someone would hurt us
and we’d say

“I’m really happy for you”
or
“No, no it’s fine”
or
“All good”

I've done this. Many, many times, because I didn't know how to back myself. I didn't trust that I could be angry and that it would be okay. I didn't know that I could live through conflict.

These fears can look like lots of things:

-fear of conflict
-not wanting someone else to be uncomfortable
-not wanting to be annoying
-not wanting to be a burden
-finding it difficult to be assertive

If someone hurts you, though, you’re allowed to cry, be assertive, take time & space for yourself, or do what you need to do to be comfortable.

Seems obvious when you put it like that, but of course it's never that simple.

We've grown up in a system that encourages self-punishment, self-judgment, self-criticism and self-improvement. But all of this making ourselves too much or not enough and feeling inadequate doesn't work; it actually creates inner polarisation.

I love the idea of self-companioning : which is to witness every emotion, every sensation, every experience, every idea, every part of you with compassion. To actually be your own best friend.

Isn't that beautiful?

Do you know what your own feelings and needs would be if you weren't so conscious of keeping others comfortable all the time?

Staying silent, keeping the peace, being asked to do something that makes you uncomfortable to please someone else, feeling pre-occupied with how others are feeling, trying to fix situations so that no one is mad at you.

It's exhausting and counterproductive and damaging to our truest, wisest self who remembers that it's not our job.

We might be pleasing because we identify as someone who's kind, considerate, thoughtful and have always been praised for it. We might be pleasing because it wasn't safe to displease. We might be pleasing because we want to be liked.

So many reasons we end up using this strategy, and so many reasons to change it.

A great way to start can be to:

- Notice when you're staying quiet or trying to manage other people's feelings.
- See what feeling arises within you: try to be with it - without acting on it. Yikes, I know.
- Remind yourself that if you're making kind and healthy decisions - other people are absolutely capable of being with their own stuff.

And you don't have to fix or manage or obsess.

Gentle reminder: don't be sucked in by something that's not right for you. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. If it's shiny and polished, there's got to be a backstory. And if it's not going to work for you, don't waste your precious time and hard-earned money.

There are a lot of people trying to sell stuff, and much of it is born of a genuine desire to help others. But over time I've come to see that one person's remedy cannot be the answer for every person. It's just not possible. We have different worldviews, different experiences, different genetic make-ups, different schedules, different abilities, different ideas that resonate, different needs.

In my worst days of depression, I was desperate to feel better, and would try anything. I tried many different versions of snake oil packaged as wellness. They didn't work. What I wish I'd done instead was to find a therapist earlier that could see me, hear me and support me.

Of course, this also comes with a caveat. Therapy isn't for everyone. There are people who go on a wellness journey without therapy and it does work for them.

So, here'a a gentle reminder: You know yourself better than anyone else ever will. And you get to decide what works for you.

Imagine a world in which our very own beautiful bodies, the vessels that carry us through life, hadn't been hijacked by oppressive systems.

Imagine:
-Trusting your body to tell you when it needs to eat
without relying on any external validation or judgment.
-Trusting your body to feel whatever emotion arises
without judging it as positive or negative.
-Trusting your body to rest when it needs to
without judging whether or not you've "done enough"

A few thoughts came to mind as I was writing this.
1)The systems of white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy are interwoven in so many ways that I'm still learning.
2)Thin, white bodies are (still) the bodies we see the most. That's not by accident.
3)If you aren't in a thin, white body, you can buy something to fix it. That's not by accident.
(And even if you do have that body. Subliminal marketing knows no bounds)
4)Small, hungry, agreeable, overworked women don't fight because they're too tired. They can still buy a lot of stuff in order to feel better, though. That's not by accident.
5) Self-judgment and self-policing play an important role in all of these. Both take a lot of time and energy that could be better utilised in collaboration. That's not by accident.

Thoughts?

Saying yes all the time leads to burnout, resentment toward the people that constantly ask, and disappointment in yourself for saying yes.

It's really hard to learn to say no, though. People pleasers generally hate disappointing others, hate conflict and want to make thing everything okay. That's why the yeses keep escaping your mouth even when you know it's bad for you.

Learning assertiveness means risking your identity as a nice person who's always there. It also means getting to find out who else you can be.

There's a lot of confusion about this. Pushing and punishing yourself may have been the way you learned to do well in school, do well in sports, do well at work and be 'successful'.

Berating ourselves for mistakes does get results. But a continued assault on self-worth from inside your own head is excruciating. It's also exhausting.

When I talk about self-compassion, there's often a fear response.
If I'm kind to myself then ...

- Won't I allow myself to eat all the chips all the time?
- Will I ever leave the couch?
- I'm afraid I'll give up.
- I won't kick an unhealthy behaviour. Being mean to myself is the only way.
- I'm not disciplined enough without the mean voice.

We've been told over and over that we can't trust ourselves without disciplining ourselves, and that we'll go off the rails if we don't consistently rein ourselves in. So self-compassion can feel scary.

Self compassion isn't the opposite of discipline, though. Self compassion is learning to be kind to yourself when you make a mistake (and then to keep going), to understand that your coping strategies have been about survival (which means you can forgive yourself for them and then keep going) , and to allow yourself to be human (which is far less exhausting and far more enjoyable.)