Becoming your own bestie part 1
Hey my loves! In this post, I explain the importance of building a healthy relationship with yourself, and why becoming my own bestie has been the highlight of my self-development journey. I share my tips and tricks on how to become yours! It took a lot of work, but in the end, it is intensely rewarding. We look at self-awareness, core beliefs, trusting your intuition, being intentional, acceptance, triggers and setting boundaries, - the concepts I believe changed my life. Think about how well you treat your BFF, that’s how nice you should be to you!
The first step of self-development is acknowledgment that you need to take action to improve your health and well-being, more so, to take control and change your life. Instead of surviving day to day, one will begin to thrive. You are evolving every single day; life is a never-ending journey of learning new knowledge about yourself and the world around you. Whilst navigating your way through life, there is only one person with whom you will spend every minute of every day with. And that person is you. Ask yourself, do you enjoy your own company? Do you enjoy being alone? If your answers to those questions were no, then you must dive in deep and start the inner work, I promise, it is overly gratifying, refreshing, and it will change your perspective to benefit your life forever.
So now, you’re probably thinking, how do I start?
In the beginning of your self-development journey, you need to think about who you are, or who want to show up as. To get clear on your life values, journal down your positive attributes and core beliefs. Core beliefs are beliefs that you feel on your heart to be your truth, as you grow, these can change and evolve with you! You always have the power to change your story, that is the beautiful thing about life. I will share three of my many core beliefs, that I carry through life with me.
Number 1. I am worthy of all my desires.
Number 2. I am always grateful for everything I have in my life.
Number 3. My thoughts become my reality.
Some of my core beliefs will stay with me for life, others will change with life experience, usually, they are inbuilt during childhood, or picked up subconsciously through major life events.
Another concept to becoming my own best friend is trusting my intuition. Sometimes listening to oneself takes an immense amount of courage and self-trust, to make the right decisions that are in alignment with you and your soul path. It can feel scary, walking into the unknown – that’s a part of growth. When creating your desired life, you must listen to that little voice within, and go after the dreams that are set on your heart. Deep down, we all have our greatest aspirations, that is your true calling, what you were put on this Universe to do! A lot of the time, people don’t do what they were meant for because of the sheer fact of how other people will perceive them. I know because I’ve been there myself. But once you find that true love within yourself, others’ opinions won’t matter because you know and are confident in who you are. Usually, people’s opinions are a reflection within themselves, and if you are doing more… It’s most likely going to be talked about, and that’s okay!
Even the most successful people in the world, incorporate self-development into their daily routines, this leads to my point of being intentional. It is truly important to fuel your life with healthy habits, it creates a flow for each day and increases organisation and productivity. Throughout all my teen years I was never a morning person, usually because I was always going to bed at ridiculous times. Scrolling, mindlessly. That changed in my self-development journey, following the same morning and night routines every day completely shifted my vibrations, improving my mood and quality of life! Becoming intentional with time also helps to stay consistent with new habits, and helps you to quit that mindless scrolling, which is unfortunately becoming too normal in society. Some examples to include in your everyday routine; are investing in your health; starting your day with a glass of water, and drinking plenty through the day, skincare routines, meal plans, exercise plans, to-do lists, weekly goals, and journaling gratitude. These are just some simple, uplifting ideas to change the frequency of your lifestyle. Becoming my own best friend meant spending time alone and being okay with that. Embracing solitude, being able to sit in silence, consciously choosing the thoughts that fuel our lives. There will be times where your mind will wander to the negative fields, you must bring your awareness back to the present and change that thought to a positive one. Thoughts are investments, so make them good ones. Be intentional with them!
To feel comfortable within yourself you must forget others’ opinions of you, and never compare your life to someone else’s. Everyone lives extremely different experiences in a lifetime, good and bad, as to why each human is so individually unique. Everyone has different goals, different concepts of what happiness looks like and different versions of what it truly means to be alive, and because of that people will judge you. You must accept yourself, kiss yourself in the mirror every day and tell yourself how perfect you are. It creates a sense of peace in life to acknowledge and accept your flaws so that nobody can use them against you. Nobody ever being able to take your power away from being you. How good does that sound?! When you can be genuinely happy for others, I believe you have reached a healthy place in your life, where you do not feel threatened by other people’s success, but instead inspired. And that is a fantastic way to be. A life skill, that I believe is important to master is to observe without judgment.
With self-development and inner work, come triggers that rise to the surface. You must be okay with being uncomfortable and forgive yourself for things that trigger you. This will still happen years into self-development, something will happen, or someone will say something, and it will trigger you, sometimes you don’t know why but it’s like hmmm that’s interesting! Why am I triggered? Sit with it for a moment and no doubt, there will be a situation that happened, probably in the early years of your life that has caused that trigger to come up today. Unresolved trauma. Dealing with triggers means going through some difficult emotions like shame, abandonment, guilt, rejection, fear, sadness, and many more shitty feelings. Feel through them, and then release them. Crying is one of the best forms of release, letting yourself cry and feeling through built up emotions from even childhood, you will feel so much lighter after, getting rid of all that junk deep inside. Sometimes this process means having to take responsibility for your own shit, any part you had in situations, and forgive yourself, then let it go. It feels like you can breathe after. It’s truly amazing with the unfortunate amount of trauma we hold from past experiences that we don’t even realise is underneath. By doing the inner work one’s pain can really determine strength, learning lessons from past experiences is how we grow.
The hardest and last concept for me personally to conquer, and I’m still working on it every day, is setting clear boundaries. This goes for all relationships from your partner to your co-workers, best friends, family members, and even your parents. Sometimes you don’t realise the impact unclear boundaries can have on your mental health and quality of life. When you start putting yourself first it can honestly feel weird, and selfish in a way, but being uncomfortable is a part of growth. This puts you in control of your life. Setting healthy boundaries means you have a deep understanding of your needs and values. Setting boundaries sometimes means letting go of what no longer serves you, this creates space for what’s meant to be. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes lonely, but at the end of the day it’s your life and you deserve to feel the absolute best you can.
Remember this is a journey, self-development is the ultimate form of investing into oneself. It requires devoting time, attention, consistency, and effort now for a payoff later. People are unwilling to make this trade-off because they crave instant gratification and desire instant results. Be different. Be patient. You are what you choose to become in this moment.
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