Some Advice You Did Not Ask For

“Your new life is going to cost you your old one. It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It’s going to cost you relationships and friends. It’s going to cost you being liked and understood. But it doesn’t matter. Because the people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side.

And you’re going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of understood, you’re going to be seen. The only thing you are going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are.

Let it go.”

Brianna Wiest, The Mountain is You

Here to interrupt your scroll with a friendly reminder: the way you speak to yourself matters.

A few weeks ago, I sat down with someone who challenged me to think differently about myself, by thinking differently about the things I write down.

He said, what if instead of asking “why isn’t this better,” you said, “I wonder how this might affect the 1,976 people who read it?”

And that’s when it dawned on me.

The number one thing holding me back today is my inner critic.

I’m sure we’ve all heard by now that storytelling is one of our most powerful tools.

I think that’s why negative self-talk makes for one of the gnarliest character deficits.

At the end of the day, the stories we tell ourselves dictate how we show up for others.

An ex-boss told me I was the office “energy suck” during my annual review.

My boyfriend at the time regularly pointed out that I couldn’t get out of my own way.

While both observations stung equally upon delivery, they were probably fair assessments of how I was showing up at the time.

When one has a constant inner monolog consisting of nothing but criticism and self-hatred, it can make them hard to be around.

Self-compassion isn’t always easy.

Personally, it has been one of my most difficult pursuits. Especially as far as the last three years went.

But it has also been one of the most rewarding.

Since its inception, the main purpose of my blog was candor.

I wanted to become a more relatable person by way of vulnerability. I hoped to compensate for my clumsy, quiet disposition with full-blown WordPress transparency no matter how ugly, uncomfortable or inappropriate.

And so anyway, here’s another post and some advice you did not ask for.

Speak to yourself kindly. You are somebody’s reason. And even on the bad days, you are someone to be loved.