What happens when the brave, intuitive version of you goes quiet, and you’re left wondering if you can trust yourself again?
Over the past three years, I was so confident in my decisions and excited to just go out there and explore life to its fullest. But this time around, I’m a lot more conflicted, scared, and disconnected from my intuition, making it a bit of a process to come to a decision.
Over the winter, I went through a bit of a challenging experience (which is a topic for another day). This experience, and everything that resulted from it, somehow crushed my confidence. My courage. My connection to myself.
Because I ended up asking myself:
How could I have been so misled?
Where did I go wrong?
Which signs did I miss?
Was I not listening to my intuition?
So this experience resulted in a lot of anxiety and insecurity, leading me to isolate myself and feel lonely and scared.
As a result of all that, I’ve been finding it hard to trust my decisions and intentions. Is this really what I want? Perhaps I should rather play it safe?
At the same time, I believe a change in environment could truly help me heal and get over all of this.
Saying yes to change, even when it feels hard
Which is why I’m saying YES to life and a new door that has opened! I’ll be moving from a small coastal town in Portugal to Lisbon, and back to big city life for a while. I don’t know for how long or if I’ll even enjoy it as much as I believe I will. But I want to give it a try. Because if I don’t try, I’ll never know how I truly feel about it.
So, on to a new adventure.
And I’ve been going back and forth with this, although my intuition was immediately lit up and excited.
But you know how it is: your mind joins in and plants that thought in your head, that it might not be a good idea to leave your comfort zone. Despite not actually feeling great in your supposed comfort zone. Lol.
Am I ready to let go of this little life here in this town?
But it’s only one hour away, it’s not like I’m moving to the other side of the world.
Will I find people to hang out with?
I already know a few people there!
Will I be overwhelmed by the city?
But it also brings a lot of new opportunities.
What about surfing?
Come on girl, you’ve surfed once in the last few months.
Will people forget about me?
It needs effort on both ends. But if they do, then let them go. So be it. It will make room for new people.
I won’t be as close to nature anymore.
You can literally catch a train or an Uber to the beach.
And this has been my mind every day for the past week. Going from feeling excited and high on life, to sad and worried and questioning if I’m ready for such a change.
But we’ll never be ready for what is to come. Never. So the only way forward is to take a leap of faith and trust that good feeling somewhere deep inside me, that comes up when envisioning this new chapter of life. A chance to build my life, rebuild my confidence, fully step into this new version of me.
If I really tune into myself and take a moment to breathe, I feel like this is a new chapter loading. A much-needed change. An opportunity for me to step into light, abundance, and love. Because I choose ME. I’m actively taking a step towards a life in alignment with this phase of my life, which is career and taking care of myself. It’s like I’ve outgrown a place a little bit, but don’t want to fully acknowledge it. And at the same time, I’m not allowing myself to embrace the change.
Letting go of old stories and choosing yourself
There’s some little self-saboteur doing its work inside my mind. I thought I had it under control (to some degree), but then this winter came and crushed that a little bit. And my saboteurs have been louder than ever.
“You want to do something for you? Ehm, no, who do you think you are?” is what I’m telling myself internally.
There’s something about not allowing myself to be happy that constantly holds me back. There are some weird thought patterns going on within me that believe it’s better to stay in the struggle, to sell myself below my worth, to just be grateful and happy with what I already have (which I absolutely am, for the record), and not ask for more. That I don’t deserve more. That I already have enough.
It feels like I’m literally not allowing myself to be successful. And I don’t just mean in business, just generally in life. Relationships, finances, home, health, career.
And I really want to encourage you to give this a thought: are you holding yourself back from stepping into the true you? Is there something you’re longing to do or to change in your life, but you tell yourself that life is okay how it is, and it’s really not that big of a deal?
Do we really want to live our lives always wondering what could have been? What if we had been brave enough to just take that leap of faith, to step into our power, to fully embrace who we are and the dreams we have hidden away inside of us?
Well, I don’t. Sure, it takes time. But at some point, you just have to jump, without feeling ready (because you never will), without feeling confident and brave enough. That perfect moment is never going to come.
And I’m done with holding myself back and letting myself be held back by external factors. It’s taken me a few months to regain that inner strength, but it’s slowly coming back and I’m feeling more connected to myself than before. Because with every challenge we face, with every tough time we somehow manage to get through, we peel back another layer of who we think we’re supposed to be and are shown a new true side of ourselves. A more authentic and genuine version of ourselves.
Which is why, at the end of the day, no matter how tough this winter was for me, I still see it as something good, because it made me double down on who I want to be and how I want my life to look.
Did I isolate myself and feel lonely? Yes. But did that also allow me to be more efficient with my work and secure new clients? Yes. Did I spend a lot of time at home alone, stuck in my thoughts, journalling, meditating? Yes I did. And by doing so, I’ve become so much clearer on what I want, allowing me to take action accordingly and set priorities. Have new doors opened in the last few months, and has a little light come back in? Absolutely yes! And it all goes back to me turning my pain into something good.
My point is: yes, life can be challenging. And yes, external factors, be it situations or people, can hold us back from making a step forward. But at the end of the day, it’s you who pulls the strings. It’s on you to make the change happen. It’s on you to choose yourself.
Let my little story be a reminder of that to you 🧡.
Hi, I’m Caitlin and this is my little space to share my story, thoughts and learnings. There is so much to unpack, still to discover, and I want to take you on that journey with me. Because everything is a little more fun when experienced together 🧡.
