You Want More For Your Life — But You're Horrible to Yourself

Have you ever realised you’re actually horrible to yourself? Like you are so hard on yourself sometimes it borders on cruel? It shocked me one day when I realised the negative loop I’d get stuck in with myself and the relationship I had with myself.

I prided myself on looking after myself, being well, working hard and going after what I wanted - all while having a relationship with myself that was, at times, pretty brutal. I just didn't realise because I thought that was normal… it was my normal.

I was constantly scrutinising myself, questioning myself, telling myself I should be doing better. And it was kind of confusing because I kind of liked that part of myself. The part that pushed me forward in the pursuit of more. But when I struggled, I beat myself up. I’d be thinking, what's wrong with you, you SHOULD be doing better. I knew better. I wasn't allowed to rest… and when I did I’d feel like I was wrong… a failure. When I spiralled and reached for old comforts like food, I’d feel humiliated… like I was the worst human ever. And then would come the tirade… who was I for wanting more or better anyway. Other people can have that sort of life, but I can’t. Who did I think I was? You’ll never have that sort of a life. 

All while shouting at myself to work harder. Try harder.

Urgh… it could get dark. And lonely. But I knew I was capable of so much more. And I wanted so much more for myself.

Until eventually I realised: I was trying to build a life I wanted while fighting myself the entire way. And that was my glass ceiling. Fighting myself. And perhaps you know this feeling too.  You might think of yourself as ambitious. Responsible. Self-aware. Someone who holds herself to a high standard. A fighter. All things that are true.

But you are horrible to yourself…. You want more from your life, but you're trying to create that life while constantly telling yourself you're not good enough, you're doing it wrong, you're too much, or you should be doing better. 

And then you wonder why you don't trust yourself.

And why you are exhausted.

It’s like this sneaky undercurrent, that’s quietly running the show. Maybe you’re here reading this because you know you just can't keep on that way. Maybe you’re feeling desperate. You can’t avoid it anymore. You can't live that way anymore. You’re thinking, there has to be another way. If I don't do something soon, my life will go by and I will have never really lived.

So what do you do?

My darling, you realise that the relationship you have with yourself shapes everything, and you stop fighting yourself.

You make a commitment to yourself in a way you haven't before — to take yourself, and what you want, seriously.

You allow yourself to listen to the voice that has been saying to you: You matter. What you want matters.

You learn how to stay with yourself, every step of the way — to listen to yourself and, from that, learn what it actually means to trust yourself.

And you find such a deep sense of worthiness within yourself — the knowing that you are worthy, full stop.

And slowly, you become the woman who chooses her life.

Not because you suddenly stop being scared, or because you always know what to do, or because life becomes easy.

But because you no longer abandon yourself when things get hard.

You listen to yourself. You trust yourself. You take what you want seriously. And you keep choosing yourself, again and again.

That, to me, is what it means to become the woman who chooses her life.