Self-silencing is much more common that people think.
Feeling too afraid to express your true thoughts, desires, and emotions often stems from childhood experiences in environments where self-expression didn’t feel safe. This behavior is frequently shaped by generational patterns passed down unconsciously, where parents, influenced by their own upbringing and unresolved trauma, lacked the tools to create a space for open and secure communication.
If you recognize that you have a tendency to self-silence, it’s essential to take proactive steps toward building healthier habits and learning to express yourself more openly and authentically.
Watch my video below, to gain more clarity on self-silencing.
Self-sabotage isn’t something we are necessarily aware of yet it can create havoc in our lives and it can stop us from reaching our full potential.
When we have grown up in an environment where there was constant chaos and drama and where our parents shamed us and criticised the majority of the time, it will feel more familiar to us to continue this dynamic in adulthood. We may lead equally chaotic lives with dysfunctional relationships and poor choices.
If we were constantly given the message that we weren’t smart enough, strong enough, attractive enough and in more general terms good enough, then this becomes our internalised voice and it pops up every time we try and take a step forward in our careers, relationships and day to day life.
Even if this internalised voice is negative and not true, it has been our mind’s companion for as far back as we remember. We took on this identity and it is harder to change it when it is all we have known.
If you can relate to this topic, then please watch the video to find out more.
I offer one to one coaching to those of you who struggle with this, so please feel free to get in touch by emailing me at: courageisallyouneed@gmail.com
Facing your trauma in the initial stages of awareness, may feel incredibly uncomfortable and daunting. Even admitting to yourself that you suffered abuse or trauma in your childhood, can feel very scary and soul crushing at first.
If you do reach that point however, please know that you are doing the right thing no matter how uncomfortable.
The only way to heal emotional pain is by acknowledging it, feeling it and grieving it.
There may be people out there that make big promises of how to heal quickly and offer quick fixes for alleviating your suffering, but please know that these quick fixes never work. They may provide temporary relief but they don’t holistically address the deeper parts of your psyche that need nurturing.
I am telling you this because I have been there myself. I have tried short term treatments and they don’t work in the long run. My healing journey from childhood trauma started at the tender age of 16 and I am now 41. I am still working on my healing and will continue to do so.
To change dysfunctional behaviours such as people-pleasing, avoidance, dissociation, toxic shame and inner critic attacks we must put in consistent effort daily for months, even years.
Dysfunctional behaviours that we learnt in our childhood to survive the abuse, need a long time to ‘undo’!
The only way to improve your emotional wellbeing is by peeling away each painful layer gently, acknowledging it and pouring self-compassion and love into it.
Narcissistic mother & son enmeshment is real and is something that affects many adult sons of narcissistic mothers.
If you feel that your mother is overly controlling towards you, doesn’t allow you to form relationships & is envious of your partner, then you must watch this video to educate yourself on this destructive dynamic.
If you have any questions at all or need support talking about your experience with a mother like this, then please get in touch by emailing me at courageisallyouneed@gmail.com
A little over 3 months ago, I finally made the decision to embark on a sugar free lifestyle. This has ultimately been life changing for me and required buckets of discipline and persistently resisting temptation.
In this post, I will talk about why I made this decision and what changes I have noticed, especially after a lifetime of constantly eating too much sugar.
The following video was hugely inspiring to me but my dear friend ‘Ketodawg’ was the main reason I embarked on this life-changing journey.
I will talk a little more about ‘Ketodawg’ in my next post but for now, please watch this video before reading any further.
Many of you, just like me, have probably enjoyed eating pasta, bread and starchy foods for as long as you remember. Many of you have a sweet tooth and can’t imagine life without sugar or processed food.
In my case, my childhood was filled with sugar. Both my parents had a sweet tooth and they allowed me to eat and drink sugary things as young as 2 or 3 years of age. I preferred drinking chocolate milk instead of regular milk and loved sugary cereals for breakfast. We always had packs of biscuits in the house and I learned to bake cakes before I learned to cook food.
In many households, this was and still is the norm.
Did you know that more than 5 grams of sugar in your bloodstream, can already be harmful to our bodies? Our bodies are not made to carry more than this amount in any given moment.
If I take a moment to consider what my daily intake of sugar and carbs was for most of my life, I would say it exceeded 200grams a day. I am pretty sure I was already insulin resistant, which would have eventually lead to type 2 DIABETES.
I loved comfort food, so would regularly cook high carb foods such as pasta, rice and potatoes and I enjoyed bakery items, cakes and biscuits daily. I managed to reduce the sugar in my tea from 2 teaspoons to half a teaspoon, but that was still not good enough, as I was drinking 6-8 cups of green tea per day. At my absolute worst, I weighed 72 kilos. I was completely addicted to sugar, had always been an emotional eater and essentially learnt bad eating habits from a young age.
My father developed type 2 diabetes from an unhealthy, overindulgent diet and this is sadly what killed him in the end, at age 70.
For nearly 3 months now, I have been following the Keto Diet which means reduced carbs, no sugar and lots of healthy fats and leafy greens. This reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. When this happens, your body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy. It also turns fat into ketones in the liver, which can supply energy for the brain.
The first week I started Keto, I was having intense cravings for all the foods I couldn’t eat. I was reluctant to throw out all of the yummy biscuits that I had brought back from a trip to Greece. I was also convinced that I wouldn’t be able to give up pasta, which was my go-to food most of the time, especially when I was really busy with work.
In the first 10 days of my Keto diet, I experienced Keto flu symptoms just as I had predicted from the research I had done. I reduced my intake of carbohydrates and sugars to a maximum of 25grams per day, which in turn made me feel lightheaded, fatigued, irritable, low and achey. To compensate, I was drinking plenty of fluids so I could feel better. A keto diet can cause you to rapidly shed water stores, increasing the risk of dehydration.
After this initial 10 day period, my cravings for sugary foods had gone and I was getting used to my new lifestyle.
My body had already started burning ketones from fat instead of glucose. This was evident in the fact that I had started losing weight.
The most amazing thing I started noticing was that I was no longer having these afternoon energy crashes, where I felt like I was going to fall asleep. I also felt like I had better mental clarity, less of a ‘foggy head’ and my energy levels overall were hugely improved.
I lost a total of 10 kilos, which I am extremely proud of and I feel much more confident in my body than I used to.
Last but not least, I have generally felt more stable in myself. As I have lived with the effects of CPTSD all my life, I have definitely noticed that I am much calmer and more positive now. This has been extremely important to me, as I never wanted to be on medication for my symptoms.
My friends and loved ones have also noticed that I am much better in myself and have even commented on my skin, saying that I have a healthier glow.
Overall, I would highly recommend cutting out sugar and processed foods.
Since these lead to chronic inflammation in the body, which eventually cause Type 2 Diabetes , Cancer, Alzheimers and ill mental and physical health, it is a no brainer for anyone that is looking to be healthier.
If you suffer from anxiety, depression, PTSD or CPTSD I would highly recommend changing your diet, before resorting to medication. A good diet and regular exercise does make a huge difference. I have seen the results myself.
What is your experience?
Do you pay attention to what you eat and listen to your body?
Have you noticed any changes at all when cutting out sugar and processed food?
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others.
Emotional intelligence is the one part of the human psyche that we can develop and improve by learning and practising new skills.
People with higher emotional intelligence find it easier to form and maintain interpersonal relationships and to ‘fit in’ to group situations.
People with higher emotional intelligence are also better at understanding their own psychological state, which can include managing stress effectively and being less likely to suffer from depression.
My newest video on my youtube channel, talks about emotional intelligence in more detail.
Working with children is something that I have very much enjoyed doing on and off for 9 years.
After graduating from University 14 years ago, I spent part of my time running my jewellery business and the other part of my time was spent working as a nanny with children aged 3-11 years of age.
Being a part-time nanny, allowed me to have enough time to work on my jewellery whilst also earning a little extra money to keep things stable financially.
At present, I find myself in slightly different circumstances.
Although I will not be pursuing anymore nanny jobs, I am considering coaching a young teenager in the next few days.
In a few hours, I am meeting her and her mum for an initial consultation, to see if she would feel comfortable enough opening up to me.
Here in the UK, when you work with vulnerable individuals, such as children, special needs adults or the elderly, you need to make sure you get a DBS done.
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), is able to provide information about an individual as to whether or not he or she has a criminal conviction or has been charged with a criminal conviction which has expired. This provides the employer, which in my case is the mother of this girl, with peace of mind.
I haven’t actually applied for this yet as I will ask the mother how she feels about this.
Although I have never had a conviction in my life, it is still important to do things properly.
Coaching a young girl, who has just been through an abusive situation at home with her stepmom, is vulnerable territory.
Things have to be dealt with very carefully and I will have to refer her to a psychotherapist, if I see that her symptoms are serious. As a coach, I can only guide her with compassion and validation of her feelings but I can’t offer much more. Her mother has said that her daughter hasn’t found any of the counsellors at school helpful and that child services are happy that she will be talking to me, due to my background and focus of my business.
If I can help this young girl, I will be extremely grateful.
When I was that age, I had no idea that I was actually suffering from abuse. I thought my life was normal, even though I had no confidence and felt empty and unloved.
All children deserve a chance to be supported and have their feelings acknowledged. All children deserve to feel safe, loved and to feel happy.
Before I talk about today’s topic, I just wanted to remind you that I have released my first PDF course which is aimed at helping you become more assertive and stop your people-pleasing habits.
To view the contents of this course, please click the link below:
There are 5 places left for the discounted price I am offering so if you are interested then get in touch now by leaving a comment below.
In today’s post I wanted to talk about the challenge of new beginnings..
As much as they can be exciting and refreshing, new beginnings can sometimes be very tough. The fear of the unknown can be very daunting.
When things don’t go as we planned, how do we deal with the fallout?
No matter how perfectly we may have planned everything and thought everything through, the uncontrollable will always be there..
What if we moved to a new location and then our dream job ended up being a nightmare?
What if our new partner cheated on us?
What if we changed careers only to realise that it isn’t what we thought it would be?
How do we cope with life’s unexpected challenges?
After the initial disappointment or grief, how do we keep moving forward?
What if we get very scared and anxiety starts creeping in to our daily lives?
Owning our fears gives us control over our worries rather than our worries and fears controlling us.
Asking ourselves ‘What am I scared of?” can be very helpful. Writing down our fears can also help us clarify things a bit more.
Trying to change our negative thoughts into more positive ones, can make a huge difference in the way we feel. CBT works wonders for this!
If we think to ourselves that ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, then we can give ourselves a temporary boost of hope.
Having supportive friends or family around us can also greatly help..
Sometimes though we can feel more down than we had anticipated and sometimes we may feel so unmotivated that all we want to do is stay in bed and hide all day! That is also okay, as long as it doesn’t become a habit!
The following quote is one of my favourites regarding change:
“When we make a change, it’s so easy to interpret our unsettledness as unhappiness, and our unhappiness as a result of having made the wrong decision. Our mental health and emotional states fluctuate madly when we make big changes in our lives, and some days we could tight-rope across Manhattan, and other days we are too weary to clean our teeth. This is normal. This is natural. This is change.” — Jeanette Winterson
When we look back on the tough times in our life, do we ever find that they taught us something useful?
I have had 2 of these moments..The 2 toughest times in my life, helped me make huge changes in my life for the better and for those times I will be forever grateful!
As Freud once said:
“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” — Sigmund Freud
When you have grown up in a dysfunctional narcissistic home, taking on others’ emotions becomes the norm. Narcissistic parents teach their children to cater to their feelings & moods and the child learns to ignore their own emotions.
The following statements from his book, can help you identify whether you struggle with taking on others’ emotions and neglecting your own.
Answer with “never,” “seldom,” “occasionally,” “often,” or “usually.”
I feel as if my happiness depends on other people.
I would rather attend to others than attend to myself.
I spend my time and energy helping others so much that I neglect my own wants and needs.
I tend to take on the moods of people close to me.
I am overly sensitive to criticism.
I tend to get “caught up” in other people’s problems.
I feel responsible for other people’s feelings.
If you reply mostly with ”often” or ”usually”, then this is something you should consider getting support for. This means that you are extremely affected by the emotions & moods of those around you and aren’t able to focus on your own needs first.
If this is something you relate to and need support for, then please leave a comment below.
How do we develop ourselves into better human beings?
What steps can we take to become wiser, more self-aware and more humble?
Self-growth is a topic that I think about a lot and when I am interacting with others in my environment, I feel saddened by the fact that so many people don’t seem to acknowledge their weaknesses, don’t find time to make improvements in their life and just seem to be on a path of complaining & under-valuing their lives.
Although I acknowledge that in my own journey there are many things that I may not be able to completely change, due to circumstance or mental illness, I definetely aspire to bettering myself on a daily basis.
One of the biggest motivations for most people to make changes for the better, comes from a feeling that something isn’t quite right in their lives. They are either too stressed, too angry or just simply feeling depressed. They may start noticing certain destructive patterns repeating in their life and feel completely stuck in trying to make changes.
This is where coaching can be really useful and for the more complex mental health issues, therapy can also be an invaluable source for self-growth.
Although many people think that they have things under control, it is those same people that actually live chaotic lives and just don’t seem to prioritise their own self-development. They aren’t able to be introspective and they remain in the same state of mind most of their lives. They end up reaching the age of 60 and are still acting in ways that are either unhelpful, harmful to others or self-sabotaging.
So what is the first step to self-growth?
What is the one, most important thing that can motivate us to start making lasting changes?
We must acknowledge our weaknesses- It is helpful to write a list as honestly as possible about the things we really struggle with and want to work on. It is good to spend as much time on this as possible, looking at all areas in our life: relationships, work, spiritual, physical health, mental health etc..It might also be helpful to ask close family or friends for feedback about this. Which areas do they think we struggle in. It might not be easy to hear about our struggles at first, especially if we are not aware of them. In the long-term however, it could be very beneficial to us.
It is important to set 1 goal at a time in the area we would like to improve in.
We need to realise that change happens when we break out of bad habits and form new healthier ones. Again this needs to be broken down into smaller goals, by breaking out of 1 bad habit at a time and forming 1 new healthy habit.
We have to accept full responsibility for all areas in our life. This means that we have to fully accept that we are the only ones who can make changes. We can blame others until we go blue in the face but at the end of the day, it is our job to improve our lives. Accepting responsibility of course, doesn’t mean that we completely ignore certain disabilites we may have or certain traumatic events that we may have experienced. It means that we fully own our journey and embrace the unpleasant things we aren’t able to change by grieving them whilst also trying to have gratitude for the things that we are fortunate to have and are able to do.
Enrich our world with learning and doing courses in self-development
Growth comes when we face certain challenges. We have to push ourselves to move out of our comfort zone. Sometimes the things that scare us the most hide the biggest opportunities for self-growth. It is important to face these fears and see how far we can get.
What is your experience with self-growth? Have you looked inside yourself to see if something needs to change?
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