Self Love Tips: Own your strength

This blog post may upset a few of my readers, I can only apologise if it does and assure you that this is my personal opinion. Also, my opinion is that you are the hero of your own life. Please keep this in mind.

Now, right into it. I do not care for the term “happened to me” and this blog is about my reasons behind this and what I try to say instead.

I personally believe that saying “xxxx happened to me” puts you into a passive/ victim way of thinking/ speaking. It implies to me that you had no control of any of the situation- even what you chose to do following whatever happened. I can guarantee you that you had a choice in how to react, even if the options were limited.

Please understand that I am not saying this to victim shame or to imply that we are responsible for absolutely everything bad that happens in our lives (let’s face it, when something good happens, we don’t describe our part in it as quite so passive…). Quite the opposite actually; I am saying this to empower you and to remind you that, even though things do happen that you wouldn’t have chosen, you are not passive in your own life, however much it may feel like you are.

I want you to see how brave, strong and resilient you are. I want more than that, I want you to really own it. I want you to see that this is not just about being brave, strong and resilient when everything is going your way; it’s about recognising that you are always those things, especially when you feel at your most vulnerable.

Just changing one sentence can make you feel a lot more confident and able to make big and/ or difficult decisions in your own life. If we change the sentence to show the choices in life you have already made to keep yourself as safe and happy you can be; it should give you the confidence and peace of mind to continue making your own active choices.

The way I do this is by rather than saying “xxxx happened to me”, I always try to say (yes, try, this is a learning process for me too) what my part in it was. A few examples;

Instead of, “look at what happened to me, I was abused.”, I say “I survived/ escaped abuse.”

Instead of “look at what happened to me, my mother committed suicide.” I say “I am coping with probably the biggest loss I will ever experience.”

Instead of “I had to leave my old job because of my depression, I can’t believe that happened to me.” I say “I made a choice to leave something behind to pursue better mental health and peace of mind.”

Do you see how the two sentences refer to the same thing but the latter shows my strength?

This takes a lot of practice and in some situations is really hard to do but it also makes me feel like I am the hero in my story, not the victim waiting to be saved. It reminds me that I can save myself.

What stories could you slightly re-word to show the loving choices you made for yourself?

In what ways are you keeping yourself small by not giving yourself credit for your brave choices and actions?

There may be more stories that you tell yourself blocking you from feeling able to do this. For example, you may have been young when you got through the worst time of your life. You may be falling back on being passive or being a victim because you don’t like the choice you made. There could be a thousand reasons that you feel like you can’t re-word your story.

I am telling you that you can. I promise that you can.

At the very least, you are still here. You are still surviving and you are still reading self love tips.

You are already far more active and heroic in your own life than you think you are. The universe would never throw you a curve ball if you were not able do actively cope with it.

Keep going, you’re doing great.

💕 Leave me a comment if you have been using any of my tips, I’d love to know how they are going 💕