One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my life is that everything: love, success, happiness, and fulfillment starts from the inside. Everything starts with you. Once you create a healthy relationship with yourself and operate in a sense of love, the world around you will start to change.
We all know people who spend their days spreading negativity, judgment, and malice to everyone around them. These people are operating from a negative inner world. Because exactly what you feel inside you will deflect to the outside world, and it will become your reality. The people who choose to spread negativity, talk down on the next person, or judge someone’s situation really feel that exact way about themselves. Their inner feelings are creating the world they see around them.
Using myself as an example, I feel as though I treat everyone with respect and the way I’d like to be treated. Not to say I don’t have my days as we all do, but for the most part I think of myself as a positive, optimistic person. I feel like that truly reflects my inner world and my thoughts about myself. My inner voice is not a critic, but a supporter. I can reassure myself in times of doubt, and I know that I’m worth living a life of happiness and fulfillment. But that wasn’t always the case.
There was a point in my life where I was very unsure of myself, didn’t know how to put my needs first, and had a harsh critic as my inner voice. Academically, mentally, physically and spiritually I was struggling. My outer world was a direct reflection of how I was feeling inside. During this time in my life, there was a certain hardship that affected me greatly, failing out of my first year of Undergrad. While this was a substantial setback and failure for me at the time, looking back I now realize that it’s one of the biggest blessings that could’ve occurred in my life. It was during this time, when I felt like I was at rock bottom, that I had to work to rebuild myself. I decided to work, enroll in my local community college and start fresh. I had to be my biggest supporter, and it was then that I realized it’s up to me, and only me, to get my life back on track.
This period of self reflection helped me to gain my evolved, supportive inner voice, and I began to see a shift in my reality. University and internship acceptances started to roll in, I had a clearer sense of where my life was headed, and I was putting my health and my needs first. Fast forward about 2 years, I received internships, completed my undergraduate studies with a full-time job, my relationships and friendships improved, and most importantly, I created a strong sense of self.
For myself, it was this event that truly made me understand the importance of having yourself on your side. If you’re reading this and you feel like your outer world isn’t meeting up to your expectations, take some time to self-reflect. Observe the areas of your life that aren’t meeting your expectations, and get to the root of why. I guarantee you if you have an area of your life that isn’t fulfilling you, it’s coming from a part of you that isn’t healed or coming from a place of love. Once you start to dissect your thoughts and feelings toward yourself you start to gain clarity on why certain things aren’t working out in your life. It’s not an easy path to take, but once you start to see the change in your outer world, you’ll be glad you decided to make the change.
Love and support yourself, and the world around you will do the same.