Inner Strength

How can one be honestly happy if they are not first honest with themselves? How long has it been since you were truly honest with yourself? Were you honest today? Has it been a week, month, years or has it been so long you can't even remember the last time you took the time to think what do I really want? I know for me it had been several years. I kept putting my feelings aside in order to please the people around me. I became a bystander in my own life. I saw people living their lives every day and I was envious of them. I wanted that freedom. I wanted to feel like me again but I didn't even know who that was. How was I supposed to be happy if I didn't even know who I was. So I started my search for who I was and who better to turn to, then myself.

My journey started inward. I got to thinking how can I love others, if I don't love myself. So how to go about loving myself. I had to be brutally honest with myself and be vulnerable in a way that I never knew possible. I had to start feeling. Every emotion that I felt I could no longer repress. I had to face them head on, no matter how scared I was. Let me just say that every single time I did this I was terrified. I had never allowed myself to be so vulnerable with myself. I always repressed everything and now I was facing the ghosts of my past. With each new day I found that facing my ghosts became a little bit easier for me. I started to discover a new found strength within myself. I would hear myself saying, "you are ok, no one is hurting you and you can do hard things." As I talked my way through my experiences, I found my biggest strength was myself. I discovered a strength within myself that I didn't know was possible to have. As I am discovering this new inner strength I feel more confident with myself and the decisions that I am making in life. The question that I pose to you then is how can you personally find that inner strength? I would suggest first writing in a journal and writing out all your feelings. Just write. Don't think just put the pen to the paper and let your fingers write out your emotions. Then take some personal time to reflect and within that time do not allow negative thoughts to entire into your mind at this time. Reflection time is a time of positive reinforcement and remembering that you are of worth. Start off small and just take 5 minutes of time for yourself. You are worth so much more than that but for now we will start small. Take time to let your guard down and be vulnerable with yourself. It's ok. No one can hurt you in this personal time. You are safe.

So repeat to yourself if you start feeling scared and think you can't tackle your emotional baggage, repeat, "I am safe, I am strong and I can do hard things." I know that as you take the time to find your inner strength, you will be amazed at the confidence that you can find within yourself. I know that have been amazed in the past month at the confidence, strength and security that I have found within myself. I am reminded of my favorite quote that said,

Thinking like a caterpillar does not work for butterflies.

So to all my fellow butterflies, it's time to take flight. No more crawling along in life, it is time to take flight and reach the potential that we all know that you have.