Becoming your own bestie + mini pep talk – My Journey (Part 2)

Hi lovely people, today I will be sharing a bit of my personal story, as to why becoming my own bestie has been a crucial part of my self-development journey. So, we will call this Becoming your bestie part 2, in my last episode I shared why it’s so important to become your own bestie and tips and tricks on how to get there. This is a little more personal, but I thought there would be someone listening who can relate to my story in some way, who may be struggling, or just needs to hear that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, no matter what you’re going through.

So, for some context, my self-development journey truly started in March 2023, when I was honestly in the slumps of my life. I had just moved to Melbourne at 19 with my partner, without any family or friends, I left my job of five years where I was working towards the manager position, without any real notice, so I had no income and no plan and just took a chance on myself to change my life in a new state, away from toxicity that I was experiencing in Adelaide, which is my hometown. It was an impulse decision because my partner wanted me to go with him, so I did, it probably wasn’t a smart choice at the time, but I don’t regret a second of it. This experience changed my perspective on life dramatically.

It had been six months since moving from Adelaide, and we finally got a rental after living in hotels in Melbourne City, literally moving every few nights to have a roof over our head, and it cost a fortune. I had spent all the savings that I worked towards since I was 14 years old, so I was in a pretty shitty headspace after really struggling for those past six months, sometimes finding it difficult to eat because we were literally running out of money, and I was too embarrassed to ask my family for anything, I wanted them to think I was fine and had it all under control. My relationship was crumbling at that point because I was just in such a low vibration after such a stressful experience and I’m guessing my partner at the time was too. I was losing hope, my self-worth was incredibly low, I looked in the mirror in disgust and blamed myself for everything I went through. At the point of immense suffering, I had nothing left to lose, I was emotionally drained, so I had no choice but to flip the script to change my situation.

I remember sitting in my new little rental, although I was so grateful that I finally had a home, things were still miserable. My relationship was in ruins after the stress we both endured throughout the past six months, and I think the both of us were just emotionally drained and not very happy. I thought to myself “Something has got to change here, and I can’t control what my partner does but I can control what I do.” That day I made a conscious decision to turn my life around, I suddenly remembered I had bought a course three years before this time that I never even started, the ‘Rise and Conquer Project, which is a 7-week manifestation and self-development course (should definitely go and check it out if you’re listening). Mind you, it’s not cheap, well in my situation I would have never been able to afford it at that time, but it was exactly what I needed, it literally changed my life. It was like my soul preplanned this purchase. That was the start of my self-development journey. I had been big on concepts like affirmations and positive self-talk previously because I was taught from the age of six that your words become your reality, but sometimes I believe you need to hit rock bottom to be reminded of how powerful those practices are and implement them with real intention.

So, the day I made that conscious decision to change my life, was the day I started to learn to love myself again. Self-love is one of the highest frequencies along with gratitude to attract the things you want into your life. I started getting routines in place to start my mornings, looking in the mirror every day with self-love affirmations, literally putting myself on a pedestal and quite literally falling in love with myself. Doing the inner work and reprogramming your mind is the key to fully believing and knowing that you are worthy of everything that you desire, you are enough, releasing that being you is your superpower and nobody can take that away from you, is the most amazing feeling. Is that how you truly think about yourself? Because if it’s not, it should be! But it will take practice, consistency and repetition!

One thing about me, and I can say this is that I’m quite humble, and I really struggled with things accepting compliments, or talking myself up, like if I’m going for a job or something. So, when I started this self-love journey it felt uncomfortable to start, looking in the mirror saying “I love you Portia” “I am so attractive” I nearly felt embarrassed, even being alone because I lacked self-confidence that much, I literally had to convince myself every day in the mirror, that I am worthy. It definitely takes practice, and consistency to rewire your brain to believe that you are everything and more. I started taking my self-love journey pretty seriously, I stopped following everything on social media that made me feel like I was comparing my life, and did little things every day confidently, acting as if I was reborn. At that time, I started studying for my Youth Work certificate so I would sit up straight in my chair, correcting my posture, as studies show good posture is actually linked to confidence. I would put my hand up first and share my ideas, I would talk to different people.

I noticed my external world started to change, pretty much instantly. My partner was a lot more drawn to me and started to compliment me. People started coming up to me and class and asking me things, interested in my thoughts on topics, even the teachers started to call me out on random questions, assuming I knew the answers. As I acted with greater confidence, the people in my world perceived me as confident, which attracted these sorts of experiences around me. It had been a couple of months, and I was still consistently doing the inner work, repeating self-love and beauty affirmations daily and I gradually started to believe it for real. I knew these practices were working because I would literally have people coming up to me in the street telling me that I’m attractive, telling me that I’m beautiful, both male and female! I felt that I changed my energy in my inner being, that I was radiating out to the world, and my external world showed exactly that.

As my confidence and self-love built, I started to do the things that I enjoyed more, like writing and meditating even if it was 5-10 minutes a day, I started finding different practices that felt good for me, going on my hot girl walks and yoga, and there’s more that I talked about in the part 1 of this episode. Self-love means to love yourself, which means to take care of yourself, so being mindful of what you consume, whether it’s the food you’re eating or the sort of media and TV you’re watching, even down to the song lyrics that you sing out loud, are so crucial to the sort of things that will reflect in your external world. Find the things that you love and do more of them, whether it's reading or dancing, one thing I started to do to build my confidence up is dance workouts, this also really unlocked my feminine energy. So, find what works for you, and make time for those special things in your life. Also, a tip that you might like to try is to bring out your inner child, listen to music you loved throughout your childhood, and do activities that you enjoyed when you were little, even if it's running on a playground as an adult (I have done this). You want to make your bestie feel good all the time, right? Doing activities with yourself that you get lost in, sets your soul on fire and makes you feel so good, do those things more, that is an ultimate form of self-love.

One thing I want to say, that is really important, and I find is a common theme throughout society is that you should not be afraid to be confident, it’s not selfish, and can even be looked at as frowned upon, basically for loving yourself, how crazy don’t you think, that people are so conditioned to judge themselves and the world around us so much that it feels wrong to be confident! Confidence doesn’t mean you are the loudest one in the room, or the sexiest or biggest, it’s simply a knowing that you are content with who you are. You don’t require external validation. It’s a feeling of peace when you are comfortable within your own skin, knowing you hold pure intentions for yourself and others.

This is something I still work on myself, society has conditioned us to play small, to fit inside the box, some of the common phrases you might have heard growing up is “oh they’re up themselves, they have a big head (metaphorically) or they just think they are too good. And yes, there are some big-head jerks out there, but they are mainly projecting their insecurities out to the world they aren’t truly confident with who they are. Real confident people, confident within who they are don’t particularly show up like that, and if they do to you, it may be an underlying trigger about yourself that you need to unpack around maybe how you are keeping yourself small. I’ll go deeper into this in another episode. But back to society's conditioning to fit inside a box and being afraid to be confident stops you from reaching your true self, your true potential. People are so wrapped up in fear that they would rather settle for their average life than step outside the box and take a risk to fulfil their dreams. Even if the first step is just raising your hand in a class or fixing your posture, every little thing counts, and you are the only person who can truly change your life.

So, to wrap up my point, becoming your own bestie means loving yourself so much that you don’t care about what other people say about you. It means taking the time to find the things you love and do those things, as much as you can, finding your passions, being brave and don’t be afraid to be the real you. You got this girlfriend. X

Porsh x