Happiness Cultivator

The journey to healing old wounds has been an interesting one, especially beginning this journey with virtually no sense of self. I have spent so much of my life chasing affirmations from others. My feelings of worth were 100% hinged on others seeing it and acknowledging it. There were potentially fleeting moments of feeling confident in my skin but at best most of those moments were superficial.

I restarted therapy for the third time and have made it more than just one appointment so I am off to a much better start this go round. I have internally fought against going to therapy not because I did not see the overall value because I am a huge advocate for getting help. I just never thought I needed any, I thought that even though I had some issues I was more than equipped to tackle them. Then as things continue to not improve in your life you stop and go actually maybe I am not equipped to navigate the world properly? I am getting older but my problems aren’t getting better, the same anxiety rings clear today as it did 15 years ago. I finally woke up to my behavior and was just exhausted.

The first hurdle was to admit negative things about myself that I constantly avoided, I couldn’t possibly be the problem, right?! Once you see the behaviors than you can fix them, nothing will get accomplished by laying blame on everyone and everything around you. This was a hard pill to swallow to tear down my fake image I had of myself and find self compassion in the midst of unraveling years of bad behavior. I wanted to be all the things I pretended to be but the intention was lacking.

” For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again” – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

My therapist asked a simple question, “what did you need to hear when you were younger?”, and I remember having an answer almost immediately, “I see you and I hear you” was my response. My therapist continued to encourage me to be that person for myself. Show up for myself in ways others did not, I rejected that idea. I thought I mean sure I should be better about that but I still NEED someone to do it as well.

I began to unravel the ideas of needs vs wants and how fundamentally different they are, yet get used interchangeably. I did not NEED someone to hear and see me, I WANTED them to but what I do need is to see and hear myself. I was practicing loving-kindness meditation that I learned through my work on my workbook The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook by Kristin Neff, PhD and Christopher Gerber, PhD and had my breakthrough.

I like to meditate in the sunshine when it pours through the windows, so I began my meditation. The meditation guided me to search for words that I needed to hear to which I landed on “I see you” again and that’s when it finally hit me.

How could anyone see me if I did not see myself.

It was almost as if the sun got brighter as I realized this. I took a few deep breathes and felt a relief that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I think it was the relief of actual progress. The universe sighing saying now she finally gets it.

I NEED to make myself feel seen and heard and I WANT others to do it as well.