#5 Heartfelt Journey to Self-Love | Self-Trust
What is Self-Trust?
Choosing to listen to and follow the guidance of your inner wisdom. Knowing what is right for you even if others say otherwise.
Image - Jill Wellington
Over the course of your lifetime, you will be faced with millions of choices. Some will be easy to make, with little risk if you don't make the right choice.
There will however be times when you need to make choices that may change the course of your life. They may also be difficult if not impossible to alter once your course has been set.
You’ve probably made many of these decisions in your life already; where to live, to marry or not, to have children or not...the list is endless.
When your self-trust came from that inner wisdom within you, and you have acted from that place of knowing, how did things turn out for you? You may have had times when trusting yourself did not bring perfect outcomes, challenges, fear or doubt, more often than not though, trusting your inner wisdom has led to more love, happiness, and peace in your life.
Now compare the outcomes of those decisions and choices you have made when you doubted yourself, listened to other’s opinions over your own inner knowing, or let fear and your emotions confuse you. What happened? Likely drama or suffering and wasted time, energy, and money, causing you to miss the opportunities you really wanted to take.
Let your Self-Trust grow
The more you can love yourself after you have made choices that did not turn out as well as you hoped, the more self-aware and honest with yourself you will become. Did these lessons need to cost you so much though? Imagine how it would feel to deeply know within yourself that you are able to make the most difficult choices and fill your life with more love and joy than suffering and drama?
While we can’t avoid the lessons and some of the pain such lessons bring, we can get the lessons delivered faster and in ways that are more supportive. If you had listened to your inner wisdom – which may communicate as an inner voice, inner feeling, inner knowing or sense, or visual cue – when it told you something was amiss, what would have been possible? If you had been willing to take the time to dig deeper and act on what you sensed, heard, knew, or saw, rather than just on what your rational mind or fear told you, would you have made a self-loving choice rather that a self-sabotaging one?
Remember these times you heard, trusted, and listened to your Inner Wisdom, and the time you did not. Remember the outcomes, the consequences, the residue that you might even still carry with you. I know it is not easy to go back to those places, but there is self-love gold there. We will go through a 3 step transformational process that will help you build your self-trust by transforming the self-sabotage you experience in to self-love.
Let's jump into a couple Self-Trust activities….
Me Moment
Step 1. Admit your self-sabotaging choices to yourself.
List the top three “I didn’t trust myself when I made that choice” decisions on paper. These are decisions you knew were wrong for you at some level, even if you couldn’t articulate it at the time. Looking back, you can see and feel the signs that were there – you just weren’t strong or wise enough to make a different choice then. But you are now, and that’s what this transformation process is all about. Let’s go heal the scars that those self-sabotaging choices left on your self-respect, self-honour, self-care, self-esteem, self-empowerment, and self-expression.
Step 2. Tell your story.
Write your story for each of the self-sabotaging choices you made, telling the truth about
Why you made the choice
What you really knew
What you would have done differently had you known how to trust yourself
Begin with “I made a choice to (Insert a choice here).”
Continue your story using each of the following eight sentences starters in order. Each will bring you closer to truth and to trust yourself:
1. “This choice was not right for me because…..”
2. "I made the choice because I listened to…..”
3. "I made the choice because I lacked…..”
4. "I made the choice because I felt….”
5. "I made it even though I really knew….”
6. "I made it even thought I really felt….”
7. "I didn’t trust myself enough to….”
8. "Had I trusted myself, I would have….”
I want you to fully take this in….You were doing the best you could with what you had to work with. You can not do what you do not know. You were not taught how to trust yourself, and this is why you couldn’t make the best choice for yourself at the time.
Today is the day you promise to trust yourself always, and as a woman on a self-love adventure, committed to loving herself no matter what, you’ll be able to keep that promise! But first, the you who wasn’t strong enough to stand up for herself, guide herself, or make the best choices needs you to go back and forgive her – your little girl self or your no-so-wise-woman – for the self-sabotaging choices she made when she didn’t trust herself. Send forgiveness to yourself for each of the situations, one by one, that you just brought to light. Use the following words – written, spoken, or best, both – to create a self-trust transformation for each of the stories from your past.
“I forgive myself for not trusting myself about….
which led to….
I was doing the best I could with what I had to work with.
I didn’t know that I needed to trust myself and act on that tryst no matter what, and now I do.
I love you (insert your name here).
I will always be here for you. You can trust me”.
Enjoy the process my love, be kind and loving to yourself. Reach out if you are struggling with anything at all. xx
Go slow, go gentle. Be kind to yourself. Trust yourself and reach out if you have anything that comes up that you have trouble moving through xx
I look forward to sharing the next Heartfelt Journey with you soon. In the meantime, I invite you to journal what thoughts come up for you, process things and most of all be kind to you.
Until next time, enjoy this Journey and try to love yourself abundantly.
Much Love Cath xx
