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Facebook memories displayed a picture from 2011, I had just been to the hairdressers and I felt pretty good about myself. When I look at the picture now I am struck by the contrast in how I look and feel today. It isn’t just the physical changes of hair colour and weight loss, more significantly it’s about how I feel within myself and how this is reflected in my life choices.

The girl on the left lived on a diet of red wine, pasta, diet coke and crisps. My emotions were all over the place, I didn’t like myself very much and I had incredibly negative self talk. I felt that I wasn’t good enough, was socially awkward and the only way of knowing how to deal with messy emotions was escapism rather than understanding how to healthily process my feelings.

Then something significant happened- someone paid for me to attend a course which kick started my journey of self development. The ripple effect of attending the course meant that I ended up accessing psychotherapy. Fast forward 4 years and my whole life has changed in every single way, beyond what I could ever imagine. People quite often ask me what therapy is all about and I always say that each persons process is unique to them.

What I want to say is that if you grab life by the balls and really choose to invest in yourself then unimaginable things will happen. For me its weight loss, having a relationship with my mum, eating healthy food, stopping sucking my thumb after 32 years, not drinking alcohol every night, changing my career, running a marathon, being compassionate, not just liking but loving and accepting myself, being more open…oh yeah, quitting my job and going to India.

It’s not that I am striving for perfection – far from it – for me it is about making life choices that leave me feeling good about myself. Because something that is blinding bright for me at the moment is if you just stop and look – life is bloody incredible.

 

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