Day 4: Creating Safety Within Ourselves

Hey hey lovely people! 🥰

Welcome back to Day 4 of the Love Month Celebration series. 💖  

We’ve been doing some reallyyyy brave inner work so far and before beginning this one, I just wanna remind you that I’m incredibly proud of youu! 🫂

We started with being honest with ourselves, then spent time getting to know ourselves even better, and on  Day 3 we touched something deeper by noticing and unlearning the beliefs we’ve been carrying for a long time. After all of that, I think it feels important to slow down a little today hehe. 

Because when we start looking at ourselves honestly and question old patterns, things, thought process, it can feel extremely vulnerable, or even overwhelming.

Soooo today’s focus is simple but powerful, “How safe do you feel with yourself?”

 A lot of us unknowingly treat ourselves like someone who constantly needs to be corrected or pushed. Especially on hard days. Especially when we are tired, emotional, or not functioning at our best. 

Over the years, I’ve come to accept better now that self-love or showing up for ourselves is not really tested when things are going well for us or going the way we want them to. It shows up in how we treat ourselves when they are not. (🥲 which is the harder part lol yes) 

Creating safety within yourself means knowing that you are allowed to feel what you feel without being “attacked” for it. That you do not abandon yourself when things get messy. That being hooman is not a personal failure.  

I know that for many of us, this does not come naturally. We learned somewhere along the way that our emotions were too much, rest had to be “earned”, or struggling meant we were doing something wrong or just weren’t “strong-enough”. 

So I get that the idea of feeling safe with ourselves can feel unfamiliar at first. And I’m happy to hold your hand while you become more familiar with it. 🤗

Reflection time! When you feel ready, please do sit with some of these today: 

💞 When I am struggling, how do I usually treat myself? Do I allow myself to feel things, or do I try to shut them down quickly? 

💞 What emotions feel the most unsafe or uncomfortable for me to sit with? 

💞 What does my inner voice sound like on hard days? 

💞 How would it look like to respond to myself with gentleness instead of urgency? 

I’ll try to add a few “practical to-dos” throughout this series, to help you feel more connected with what you think, by actually putting it to practice also sooo here’s something you can try:

The next time something feels overwhelming or too much, you take pause for a moment and quietly (if possible you can also vocalise it to yourself hehe I do this too sometimes) tell yourself “I do not need to fix this right now. I am allowed to feel this too.” 

Even better if you can name/ put a label on what “this” is. The specifics can help us feel things deeply. 

 Only thisss! No big realisations needed. No pressure to do this perfectly or a certain way. Just allowing yourself to exist without rushing or correcting. 

Alsooo, creating safety within yourself does not mean you will never feel anxious, sad, or overwhelmed or any of the “difficult to deal with scary appearing emotions” again. It just means you can slowly minimise the frequency of turning those moments into ‘reasons’ to be harsh with yourself.

 Sometimes safety looks like resting. Sometimes it looks like slowing down. Sometimes it looks like choosing not to say that one cruel thing to yourself, even if you are used to it. 

 It can feel difficult to re-arrange our patterns but but you are learning how to be on your own side. And that takes time. You’re doing sooo amazinggg simply even for trying and trying to show up for yourself each day. 🫂💖