Hi ,
I got a really great question on my most recent reel and it was:
"Where were you emotionally / how did you position yourself to walk into this season of your life?"
And in the reel, I talked about how I never thought old me with my hyperindependent ways would ever find a loving provider minded
man.
So how did I “prep” to get into my soft life era?
To be very honest, I actually put in a lot of work.
It's just nobody really saw what was going on behind the scenes.
The problem I had was all interconnected - it was my life, my career, my relationships, and my mentality so it was confusing to figure out where to even start, but the common denominator was me.
If our thoughts are our reality, then I
must have had some sh*tty thoughts and beliefs if my life was a mess (mess meaning it wasn't up to my standards and I was deeply unhappy).
If I had to define exactly how I started working on myself, it was a combination of journaling, meditating, reading, challenging my own beliefs, and taking care of myself and my environment.
I needed a routine to add a sense of stability into my life, but building a routine was incredibly hard when I also had issues
with staying consistent so I only picked things I enjoyed doing.
Here’s a simple breakdown:
- I read relationship focused self-improvement books because I had relationship problems, but it overall helped me understand people more. This led me to re-evaulate how I showed up in life, think about where I didn't have my own back, how I should have done things differently, and where I could do better. This slowly snowballed into more books around improving my mindset, learning
about the law of attraction and manifestation, personal finance, productivity habits...etc etc.
- I cleaned my bathroom A LOT because I had problems keeping my space tidy but the bathroom was a small space to focus on and I could get it done quick. And because I wanted to turn my bathroom into my sanctuary spa for my baths, I went on to adding candles, crystals, and essential oils. I mean, I had to have a nice bathrobe then right? With a comfy bathrobe, I wanted a clean and
comfortable bed to relax on so the trickle down effect from just cleaning my bathroom led to me organizing my room and making sure things were nice and neat. Something about taking care of my environment also helped declutter my mind, and the more mindspace I had, the more energy and motivation I had to organize the rest of my home.
- I took monthly everything showers along with rose petal bubble baths because I saw somewhere that saying affirmations while making rose water and then
bathing myself with it was suppose to be very effective. Now whether or not that’s true, I felt like it worked for me. Plus a rose petal bath was also very luxurious feeling to me and I was learning how to pamper myself. It was my rich girl princess moment. Eventually, combined with everything else I was doing, I grew more and more confident. I was taking care of myself more and I think because I was being so gentle and taking so much time to care for myself and honor my body, my self-love and
appreciation for myself grew tremendously.
- I treated my meditations as my daydream sessions picturing what I'd like my life to be like. I know people say you should try to keep your mind free of thought, but instead of trying to pressure myself to do that, I just let my mind wander to where it wanted to be. Some days, I could keep a blank mind, other days, I had a routine where I'd think of all the things I was grateful for or I'd imagine my dream life or dream relationship. It just
became time I set aside solely for connecting with myself.
- And lastly, I journaled like I was venting my deepest darkest thoughts and secrets to my best friend. I had always feared that if I said something out loud or if I wrote it down, it would give it too much power and become real so I always kept forcing myself to try to just be positive, but I realized that not making space for some of my negative feelings made those feelings even stronger. By writing it freely, it removed it from
my mind and I was able to let those thoughts go. With this practice, I learned how to observe my thoughts and behaviors. I learned where my shortcomings were, why I reacted the way I reacted...and I was able to dive deeper to further understand myself and slowly change my behavior.
There were a lot of tears shed, a lot of making space to say goodbye to old me, friendship breakups, health problems, literally overhauling and shedding my old life and me in exchange to be the
person I am today.
And while we are always a work in progress, forever learning and healing different parts of ourselves, I can confidently say that I’m really happy with who I am today.
I hope that wherever you are on your journey that you give yourself the love and grace, and space to grow into the person you want to be 💖
In the next newsletter, I’ll share specific things I worked on that helped improve my relationships.
Love
you,
Nadeen
