Tag: self acceptance

bereavement · friendship · grief · Inspiration · parenthood · relationships · self care · self development · self love

A little like you…

The real Kaz4 Comments

I think I got my confidence from you. I’m guessing, ‘cos it doesn’t run through mum’s side of the family. Women on mum’s side are shy, anxious, still strong but worry about the world and what will happen when they’re gone. I have that less, so I guess that may come from you, at least I hope. It comforts me to think I can recognise some of your traits in me.

I’m told you were confident, you could strongly voice your point of view. You weren’t scared to speak up in a crowd and enjoyed a debate or two. Ok, so I can’t quite say that’s me, but what I will say is true, I have a strength and desire to break through this shyness and speak my truth. Maybe I wouldn’t have had that with out you as my dad. Maybe I would just have accepted that this was who I am and sat back.

I like to think It’s from you that inner determination runs through me and I hope now I’m wiser and more confident, you can see that too. I know you loved books, loved to read, poems too. I can definitely say I love the written word too.

I try and remember you from when I was young but the memories are foggy, untrustworthy. Is it a memory or a story I’ve been told about you? I’m unsure. I want them all to be memories but there are only a few of which I’m really sure.

The scent of your roll up tobacco from a Golden Virginia tin box, that you would sit and roll out with, your legs crossed. Dressed in old work jeans but with a shirt that never really seemed to match. Then I remember your smile, when a glimpse of me you’d catch.

I wish my kids got to meet you, damn I wish I had more time with you myself, but my kids would have just flourished with your guiding hand or advice instead. Maybe I would have had more strength to make changes with you by my side but I’ve learnt to harness my own courage and sometimes I just know you are there as my guide.

Almost like you are standing right behind me with a hand on my shoulder, nudging me to be brave, do the hard thing, that’s when I feel you. When I have a choice that is difficult, just willing and whispering in my ear to chose the tough road because that leads to growth and change too.

Telling me to stand strong.

Don’t give up.

Shoulders back, head up and you won’t go wrong.

I’m thankful for the parts of me that are from you. It helps me to feel you are close. Through these rough times I would have loved to have you here with me, to know you were beside me taking care of me but you are within me.

I am your daughter and that is enough ‘cos that means I’m tough!

career · Education · friendship · Inspiration · parenthood · parenthood · self care · self development · self love

High school taught me….

The real KazLeave a comment

That I didn’t “fit in”

The older I’ve become, the more I wonder if we all feel this way in some respect during those difficult teenage years. Does anyone actually feel totally accepted and comfortable in their own skin and social group throughout their teenage years?

For me, my home life seemed “different” to others. My dad had died when I was 8 years old and my mum was deaf. Both of those things made me self conscious at parents evenings. Mum couldn’t communicate like the other parents, dad wasn’t there. Two things that were enough to make me feel I stood out like a sore thumb. In reality, I didn’t. No one really took any notice or cared enough about my situation at home. Everyone has something that makes them feel like they “stand out” or don’t quite “fit in”

On top of what felt to me like huge flashing beacons of difference, I was also incredibly shy and quiet. This again, created for me a huge insecurity that no one wanted to be around me. I was too quiet, awkward, no fun to be around. Of course none of which was true but that narrative took residence in my mind for a very long time. My shyness often led to situations where if I felt uncomfortable or was put in a situation where I was forced to speak up in front of many others I would go bright red in the face. This would exacerbate the more anxious and self conscious I became. I would feel like I wanted the ground to swallow me up so I could just disappear from the embarrassment of my obvious anxiety and discomfort that everyone could now physically see.

Over the years, I learnt to control this red ripening face reaction to my discomfort. I began to realise that it wasn’t as noticeable as I felt it was to others and those who did notice really didn’t care that much. This took away a lot of my anxiety and fear around this happening and allowed me to take control over how I reacted.

What I took away from High School wasn’t really a great education, I underperformed and under achieved. It wasn’t a supportive friendship group as I had a better group of friends outside of school, than inside its gates. It wasn’t a sense of belonging or safety.

For me school was just a somewhere I felt unable to find my place in, I wasn’t really a neat piece of the schools tapestry. I didn’t belong with the cool kids, because I just wasn’t cool enough. I didn’t belong with the nerdy kids, because I just wasn’t nerdy enough. I didn’t belong with the sporty kids, because I was rubbish at sport. I didn’t fit in any box reliably enough, so I existed between them all. Never really making good friends in any but being around for lots of them.

So school really only taught me to feel I didn’t “fit in”.

Inspiration · self care · self development · self love

Be proud of yourself

The real KazLeave a comment

for the progress others see, but more importantly what they don’t.

I see the way you are standing tall today, the confidence in your walk, the sparkle in your eye. You are rocking it girl and so you should be.

Keep shining, be proud. Look at how far you have come!

People think they know your struggles, they pass comment on how strong you are to get through. The biggest obstacle though has been inside you. The biggest change has been the transformation within you, the growth that allowed life to finally change. No one knows what that took, except you.

Your inner dialogue, your courage to challenge your own insecurities and the chains others tried to bind you with. The cage you were being forced into was making you miserable. The guilt you were wading through from yourself and those around you, expecting you to behave a certain way and tread the line for the sake of everyone else’s happiness.

Because your own happiness doesn’t count?

You know that the best way to empower your daughter is to show her what brave and strong looks like. Show her that her mum is not gonna put her happiness last and neither should she. Lead by example because she is watching and sees how much her mum values herself and allows others to treat her. She doesn’t know it yet but just watching you is helping her embody that and you are improving her self worth and respect.

Be so proud of that….

It’s like a light switch flicked and you suddenly saw your worth, isn’t it? You recognised that the past does not define you, your mistakes were lessons to learn and forgave yourself and others for it all. You saw that the way others behave is their choice and their journey and all you have to control is what you do moving forward, who you become and what lessons will be learnt, by you.

And my goodness, you have learnt, flourished and are transforming. A work in progress with no limits to where you can go. Life changing challenges, make room for dramatic growth. Very often it can be painful and traumatic but an undeniable fast track way to grow and rebuild your internal and external life.

So the woman you are becoming is confident and aware of her flaws but also knows her growth game is strong. She knows her own value and finally is ready to walk away from what isn’t recognising her worth. It has taken a lifetime to get here, but now that lesson has been learnt and is no longer on repeat, watch how you fly!

You have taken that pain and ran with it, examined that hurt and sat with it, analysed it and worked through it to figure out yourself and that alone is something to be proud of. So many people would have numbed it, distracted themselves, found a way to avoid it.

Shoulders back, head held high, look life straight in the eye.

Be Proud!

Inspiration · self care · self development

Define Happiness

The real KazLeave a comment
Happy People by Little Big Town

What is happiness to you? I’m sure for each of us it would look a little different given our circumstances and personalities but do we all fundamentally need the same basic things to be happy? Or do we really need anything? Is happiness a state of mind?

When asked how you would define happiness what would it look like? Would you list things like a nice home? holidays? health? a job you loved? a loving partner? If so are all those things really necessary for happiness? Many people don’t have any of those things but still feel their lives are full and happy.

When I think about happiness I feel it is a place where I am at peace with myself. Happiness comes with genuine self acceptance of all our flaws, who we are, all our mistakes, all our experiences that have shaped us. It is a place internally of having worked through all of it and being back to the true authentic self we were born to be before all those relationships, traumas and life made us feel, shame, not good enough, too much, unlovable or any of the other negative views that may have been imposed on us or we have imposed upon ourselves..

When we were born we were who we are meant to be, before the world got its hands on us. We didn’t feel pressure to be a certain way, please certain people, travel a certain path. That authentic being inside you is where your true happiness lies. Stripping back all the hurt, judgement, shame, disappointment and anger, working through it and finding that child again means you can be yourself, love yourself and travel your path purposefully.

Doing the work to find that kind of happiness is not easy. Society has done a job on us and there are opinions, judgements and ideas that you have been listening to for so long that it takes a lot of work to address. I think our childhoods and relationships as well as living within our current society leave us all with coping strategies and triggers we need to work through.

When we have worked on finding self acceptance, we can really experience love for ourselves that allows space for genuine relationships with others that are not based on a “need” we have from someone else to fulfil a part of us that is hurt, or make us feel worthy but our relationships become a place that we gain love from others and give it without it being something we are relying on to complete us and make us happy. When we place our happiness in someone else’s hands we give them control of everything. True happiness is found within yourself and shared with others with the knowledge that it cannot be taken from you without your permission.

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To experience happiness there needs to be level of gratitude for what we have. Being thankful and expressing it daily, leaves no room for negativity. Gratitude helps us to find happiness in the simplest of things: waking up in the morning, our morning coffee, the sound of the birds outside, the warmth of our bedroom….. and when practised daily it really forces us to feel that appreciation of life and what we have. Starting your day listing what you are grateful for is a fantastic way to introduce positivity and happiness first thing in the morning and setting your day off to a great start.

I think connection with others is important for happiness too. It is through working on ourselves and then connection with others that we learn and grow. We experience hurt, disappointment, kindness, love for others but all of those things are experienced differently when we are coming first from a place of self love and worth because when you have found that there is no fear of rejection or pain, you are confident in who you are.

I am a long way from this kind of self love and happiness but I have begun my journey and have quickly realised there’s a lot of work to do but I am already seeing, that questioning why I am feeling and experiencing different emotions and reactions in situations and relationships is showing me so much about where my insecurities are and how past events formed my behaviours. Its not easy to look so closely at yourself, it takes courage because we all have parts of ourselves we hide but if you’re brave enough it can bring so much growth and happiness into your existence.