Month: February 2025

Get yourself out everywhere.

I’ve limited myself a lot, minimised myself a lot.

The last five years since meeting my ex, it was a rollercoaster, incredibly uncertain but it was also imprisoning – I take responsibility for it though. Like it or not, I did make the decisions.

And you know what? We make the decisions for good reasons, maybe they’re not practical, maybe they’re not healthy, but we want security as much as possible, there’s something to navigate for you.

Satisfy as many parts of you on a daily basis, pleasure, challenge, bit of a struggle, deep focus, laughter, connection. We are holistic beings and, for me, the biggest challenge is bringing all the pieces together.

But march on we do, as peacefully as possible, with strength and determination.

This subject deserves its own post.

Know what you want. Yes, tick.

Goals are dreams with deadlines. Yep, got that one.

Hustle, hustle, hustle until you make it. Granted, understood.

Only trouble is, you’re missing a vital ingredient.

You have to believe you can achieve it. You cannot achieve greatness if you doubt your abilities.

Think about it, if you’re investing time in developing skills and you have no emotional connection or intellectual grasp with them, you’re just putting yourself in stalemate and you’ll run yourself into the ground, I’ve seen it so many times.

I know it sounds esoteric to ‘start believing’ you can win but ask yourself ‘why do I have doubts?’ And ‘is it possible I’m trying to protect other people’s feelings/opinions?’. Do you want to stick to your familiar conditioning and stay ‘safe’?

Why aren’t you where you want to be? 

Has to be something in you.

I was midway watching a podcast earlier today and there was a moment where the host, of a very edgy podcast, admonished his guest for speaking in ‘Normie’ terms. It was regarding sexism, basically. Yawn.

During his lecture, the host admitted it was very uncomfortable confronting his guest but I was so pleased. I felt uncomfortable with him because it’s something I’ve been afraid to do with people around me.

Learning to stand up for myself when I’ve been such a people-pleaser is excruciatingly uncomfortable at times – BUT IT’S GOOD!

If confidence is to be a real thing, then the rule must be applied evenly. Other people can be confused, so can I.

Yes? Logical, right?

But the emotions have to catch up and you have to train yourself. Believe me, I have to deep breathe my way through lots of conversations now when I’m asserting myself. I welcome the experience but make no mistake, it is a conscious and concerted effort.

My friend, believe in yourself. You’re greater than you know.

Was reading my book last night.

There was just one line that made me ponder.

“They will never be really in love.”

And it occurred to me, what if we switched it to 

“They will never really be in love.”

It’s a tiny change that totally alters the whole meaning. The first addresses the extent to which the two would love each other and the second denies that the couple are in love at all!

One Small Shift.

Now, imagine if we were able to make one small shift yourself. This shift…

Starting to believe you can be successful.

Do you really want what you’re aiming at?

Is it YOUR ambition or are you trying to please someone else?

Would you be happy with what your life if you achieved this goal?

Make sure you’re doing the right things for the right reasons. There is no greater tragedy than to achieve grand goals but have no investment in them and that are not authentic to you.

I caught myself using this phrase the other day.

It got me thinking, the language we use is indicative of the state of our minds and our actions.

Steal, it’s not a positive word is it!

I certainly know I’ve felt guilty for standing up for myself, I’ve been criticised for going against the grain and disagreeing at times.

It’s only now, in my forties, that I truly understand I deserve time and space for myself, to do what I want to do in whichever way I want to do it. I’m not a malicious person but I’ve definitely been frustrated by the hypocrisy of close people in my life. Rules for thee and rules for me sort of thing.

We all need time to absorb what’s happening in life and there are myriad ways we can do that.

Carve out time for yourself. It’s your right.

It’s always been easy to race and race on the hamster wheel. 

We are forever comparing ourselves to other people, other people’s achievements, other people’s methods.

By now, we know that other people are going to do what they’re going to do. Inescapable.

Never am I saying you should rest on your laurels, no, no, no. There are beautiful and powerful things that you can do. 

What I am saying, understand that it will take time. Life is not a series of end points, it is a series of pivots and transformations and…

Every experience is necessary. You’re not just a turning cog, you are a complex, increasingly integrated system, with many influences – often feeling displaced or contradictory.

We each have God-given gifts, who’s to say that people giving instructions and rules even follow them or get the results that they want. We live in a world, ever so now, of highlight reels and people don’t see the behind-the-scenes footage. Keep that for yourself, maybe share the odd bit but give yourself space, giving yourself the time that YOU need and you alone.

It’s your life.

I met my ex online, on a hookup app of all places, in March 2020. It’s not the origin story, frankly, that I want to tell.

I couldn’t tell you exactly why but, at his say-so, we didn’t meet in person for another three weeks. I found this strange or at least it made me wonder why. In the interim before our flesh-to-flesh meeting, we FaceTimed. The conversation was all a bit frantic. From the beginning, he REALLY disliked being asked questions. 

Instant red flag, right? 🚩 Correct! ✅

But continue with the charade we did. When we actually met in person, halfway between where we both lived, on the edge of the City of London, we nearly had sex in a public alleyway. No joke, more frantic behaviour. It was the hook frankly. 

We went to a small park lining the banks of The Thames and, in a rare moment of intimacy and, even rarer public display of affection, I lay on the bench and rested my head on his lap. He stroked my forehead quite sweetly. This would be the last time it happened. I believe he knew what he was doing. He dropped the RULES because, as it would turn out, he wanted someone who he could offload on. Over and over and over.

The several breakups we had in the total of four years we offed-and-oned were basically when I couldn’t ignore being shut out anymore. But even in the periods of separation, I obsessed about him because I thought he was The One. Thankfully, with some proper distance, and a fabulous therapist, this believe is evaporating.

You have to be able to speak and be heard in relationships. Communication really is everything. Otherwise, you have one-sided relationships where the person doesn’t care about you.

I hold my hands up and admit totally that I allowed this to happen, not just with him but with everybody. I allowed myself to be used.

The instinct, of course, to imprison myself in these situations still lingers a bit. My feelings have not quite yet caught up with my intellect. Rationally, I knew very early on that things would not work out with this chap but I fell hook, line and sinker for this man. It was very quick and totally immersive, despite the fact that, from the start, he said he wasn’t looking for a relationship but somehow we both ignored our instincts and indulged the enormous gravitational pull we had towards each other.

Most of it was sex, I will admit and I have specific reasons for that, which I won’t go into now but once that wore off between us and, particularly, when he voyeuristically asked me to have sex with other men (which I did to please him – grubby! Pitiful but there it is), the understanding of how fucking (no pun intended) doomed this was became obvious to me.

If you allow yourself to be imprisoned, people, I’m afraid, will take advantage of it. We attract what we believe and the walls either go up around us or we use our courage and conviction to walk away.

I knew the truth, I just chose to hide from it, for a long time! Now, I choose the solitary path, for however long, to build myself up. 

There is plenty more to share of this story but I wanted to be honest and I have.

Thank you for reading.

I have two ‘just overs’ to mention.

Numero uno is just over three months since the split from my ex.

Number duo is just over two months since drinking my final drop of alcohol.

It feels longer.

The effects are great. 

It makes me realise just how much what I believe were ‘needs’ can change. Needs often are a distraction from what you CAN do. You’re more capable than you think. I am definitely more able than I give myself credit for.

Accept that each stage of your life is necessary. People talk about mistakes but they fail to understand that we can only operate out of the thinking and feeling we believe at any given moment.

We don’t have mental crystal balls or emotional scrying mirrors. You are where you are, I say it a lot and it sounds obvious to read but I don’t think people accept where they are, always want to be somewhere else and, as I’ve observed, would rather argue and be miserable in a particular situation than resolve it as simply and easily in the moment.

Tempus fugit, and it passes quickly, no doubt.

Learn to fill it with joy and creativity.

Make love not war.

Progress, success, fulfilment, whatever you want to call the dream state, you and I both know it’s a balancing act.

There are certain things we know will make us feel great – exercise (whichever form it comes in), great sleep, good sex, eating healthily (not eating healthy as some of you say to my dismay!) – these things nigh on guarantee a great day but some days just end up being brilliant or blah for no apparent reason (so it seems).

I believe the key is more and more observation and acknowledgement.

Usually great days are preceded by a decision to have a great day (putting you in the driving seat of how your life turns out) and, often, will involve all or most of the things you love doing. A sense of accomplishment at the end of the day usually has an automatic effect of setting up the next day for a win!

We know not every ‘dial’ is ramped up to ten every day, it’s a rollercoaster and, of course, we all have those niggling ‘issues’ that play on our mind that we obsess over when we’re laying in bed at 3am (it’s always around 3!)

Accepting that things have landed in their respect spots is vital if you’re going to move through life peacefully and productively. Agonising only delays abundance.

With all this said, I hope you are having a delicious day and, if it’s a hard one, I wish a great one to come your way.

Don’t you think that ‘selfishness’ has a bad rap?

If you’re not looking after your own best interest, who else will and should that even be a position?

It’s clear to me that we imprison ourselves, we do a perfectly fine job of that regardless of other people.

I see numerous people actively behaving against their own welfare and I’m afraid, the majority of the time you have to leave them to it.

You can’t rationalise people out of a position they didn’t rationalist themselves into.

My therapist yesterday quoted a fantastic phrase “the body keeps the score”. It’s, in fact, the title of a book, you have to start racking up wins for yourself, feeling good about yourself, asking what it is that you want and feeling good about that too.

That’s what putting yourself at the top of the list means. You live your life, you have to, no one else can walk in your shoes. No one else is going to do the work for you to achieve your desires. No one else will care about your life like you do.

Call me selfish, call me crazy but that’s the way it is.