Do have your own back?

I want to talk a bit about something I have been exploring in sessions and on Instagram over this last week;

The pain of feeling we have abandoned ourselves

And the power held in every moment we connect back to ourselves.

What this means, why it matters and some thoughts on how.

Anniversaries are oddly powerful...

It's one year ago today (27.07.24) that I started my professional Instagram - putting myself out into the world to share my message of self-healing and shared human experience.

It's one year ago that I was preparing to go away on holiday as I am now. But last year I had been travelling weekly to sit with my friend Danni who was dying of Fallopian Cancer. As I packed for holiday I thought I would never see her again.

It's one year ago that the wheels really started falling off for me - when distress, stress, grief were more than I could hold. When life began to be too much.

As schools have finished and holidays begun around me, my mind has returned over and over to last year. Grief has emerged again, memories of Danni's decline and of my own desperation, anxiety and steady mental collapse.

Also a soft recognition, that it was on this time I was writing the book I have now finished and starting to see myself as someone with a voice. In the awful pain, purpose emerged and on some days (even as she died and I sobbed) I could feel an energy. It was such a confusing and meaningful time.

The world recently lost the poet, Andrea Gibson.

I only found out about them after their death but everything I have read of their work since has resonated with me. This is short but I feel it as I reflect back and look forward,

"Even when the truth isn't hopeful, the telling of it is."

This line says so much about everything I do - my therapy work, my book, this blog, my Claim You email newsletter, my Instagram, my local Hearth group. And I believe it has something to offer us all as we try to heal and live with purpose and wellbeing.

We have moved into a New Moon this week and for those with an astrological interest, you will know we are now in Leo. Like a lot of things, I have no basis to believe in astrology but I tend to think about most things,

take what resonates and leave the rest behind.

I read an article about what a Leo perspective offers and this is what stuck for me and what I took from articles I have read:

Leo invites us to stand full ourselves with courage and pride - fully expressing who we are, not masking and fiercely embodying all of ourselves. Our pains, our pasts, our vulnerabilities, our sensitivities, our struggles, our pleasures, our loves...they all weave into the power of us. To be lionhearted is to stand in who we are - not "the strong one" but embodying the strength of fully owning ourselves.

There's something about this point of the year that helps - a moment of halfway to review. The warmth of the Summer - encouraging us to open up, to soften, to let go, relax. Space for rest, joy and pleasure. Time to reflect on how far we have come and where we want to go in the remainder of this year.

The Leo vibe feels like an invitation to again,

Claim You - all of you

Claim Your Life - make choices

Claim Your Power - use your choices to make change for yourself and others.

And to do this by acknowledging all of yourself - standing in the truth of you.

Because it is the truth which holds the hope. Even if you don't feel hopeful doing it, even if there is no hope in seeing all of you, even if it feels bleak and lonely. Because masking and denying is what really extinguishes hope for change.

Please know you are not alone if this is hard.

Or that there are parts of you which you struggle to believe are acceptable.

Or if you feel the pain of having had to abandon yourself over the years (through trauma, through stress, through lack of support, through unrelenting events, through a lack of awareness....).

Or if you feel on some level unloveable.

These are all experiences I can stand next to you in and say, "Yes, I get that. Me too. I feel that." And which so many others stand with you in.

"Our passing on this earth is so absurd and fleeting, that it calms me to know that I have been authentic, that I have managed to be more like myself as much as I could"

Frida Khalo

I love this - to use our authenticity as an anchor in our lives. A way to feel steady. Or to steer us and our choices.

I don't feel brave when I post on Instagram, I mostly feel insecure about lack of engagement and in negative comparison to others with more followers.

But I keep going, because I know that there is truth in what I say. Because I know that truth helps people. Because I know that people who say, "Yes, I get that. Me too" have helped me when I felt alone. And because it is the truth of who I am to speak.

In my childhood I was the girl who had to stay quiet.

So my purpose and my healing combine.

I invite you, in these Summer months, to hold space for you. To be curious abut the truth of you and the hope of claiming that.

What might it feel like, in your body/inside you, to stand lionhearted in all of you?

What parts of you stay hidden and unacknowledged?

How might you begin to bring them home? To say they exist, to let them be part of your identity and sense of self?

Can you give space to seeking some rest, some pleasure, some joy? Or learning what these mean to you?

Can you consider how far you have come and where you want to go next?

Can you invite yourself to choose more of what feels right for you (even in very small ways) vs what you feel you should do?

Can you start to learn you body cues for "yes, that's right for me" and "no, I don't feel open to that"?

Can you start to visualise a future where you are safe to feel good, to feel as fully yourself as possible...what do you do there? How do you move? Who are you with? What is a good day for you? How do you feel? What is the expression on your face? How do you feel in your body?

I offer you the energy of the lion, not to feel strong.

But because we can find strength in truth.

And when we move together.

And when we begin to see the answer is not in abandoning ourselves anymore but by standing fully in who we already are.

I will be back again in the 3rd week of August. And I too will be reflecting on these things and trying to connect over and over to how I feel inside and go slow. It's what holidays are meant for after all...

Sending so much love to you,

Emily

Ps: I have got a lot out of listening to this podcast by Sonraya (a writer in my collective) - "Ordinary Humans, Extraordinary Souls" and in particular an episode called "Creating Radiant Boundaries". It's on Spotify. It is aimed at women but I can 100% tell you that it is applicable to men and those who identify as men or male or non-binary too. Where she discusses womb-space, I hear that as listening to your gut and body, especially in the pelvic region. And if you have any issues with knowing what you feel or how to make choices which are truly healthy for you, particularly if you have experienced trauma, then it is a brilliant and informative episode.