124 Where you are now is not where you will always be

The darkest times in life can make us feel hopeless, as if there is no way out. I found some notes from my CBT sessions I attended in 2012, and I cannot believe how I felt then, and where I am now in life. Be encouraged, there is hope.

Jeremiah 29v11:  For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Living the Empowered Life podcast, where we discuss all things empowering, encouraging and inspiring. My name is Yvonne Ellis. I'm an empowerment speaker, author, coach, trainer and founder of Uni Empowerment, a company that facilitates the empowerment of people. I help people to make positive life change, live in their purpose and develop into their best version of self. I share stories, interviews, spiritual encouragement and actionable tips to empower, encourage and inspire you to live the life you want. So if you want to live the empowered life, join me each week on my podcast so we can take the journey together.

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Hello, Empowered Lifeers.

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Welcome to episode 124 of Living the Empowered Life Podcast. My name is Yvonne, and on this podcast, I like to share things that are empowering, encouraging, and inspiring. If it's your first time here, I hope that you find this episode to be something of value to you and to my continued listeners, those who continue to support me by listening and sharing these podcasts. I want to say I appreciate you as always. Thank you all for taking your time out of your busy day or whatever you've been doing today to listen into this episode. And I hope that your week or the past week has gone okay for you. So today, guys, in this episode, I just want you to give you a word of encouragement really today about where you are now is not always where you will be. Sometimes it can feel like this is the end, this is where we're always going to be. And before I do that, I just want to share a couple of quotes with you. So the first quote I want to share with you is by Drew Barrymore. It says, Life is interesting, in the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths. I can definitely testify to that. As somebody who has gone through abuse, betrayal, lots of different things in my lifetime, I can definitely say that my greatest pains have become my greatest strengths. This quote is by Elizabeth Scott and she says, Things end, people leave, and you know what? Life goes on. But if bad things didn't happen, how would we be able to feel the good ones? That's an interesting quote. Suppose that is the nature of life, the good and the bad. And the last quote I want to share with you is by Serena Williams, and it says, You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That's an interesting quote as well. Because you know what? As I've shared in my book Into the Unknown, one of the things I said is that you have to become your own biggest cheerleader. Unfortunately, as is the nature of life, not everybody's going to cheer you on, not everybody's going to encourage you. Some people don't even know how to do that. And in the moments where you've got nobody to help you, you have to believe in yourself and chair yourself on because you have to become your own biggest cheerleader. So, as I said, this episode really is about you know where you are now, that you will not always remain there, you know, and having that hope for a better future. As I shared, I went through my drawers and I found some paperwork of some things I was doing in CBT at the time in 2012. Now, back then, 2012, I was working for the identity and passport service for the home office as a civil servant. On paper, it looks like a very high prestige job. You know, it was a very complicated job. I learned lots of skills that have helped me in other areas of life, you know, even all these years later, one of the ones that I've always said is it's helped me to be able to interview and do things like that. But at the time, the job itself and the toxic environment, you know, really caused me to be quite down, and I felt quite depressed. I was going through a lot of different things at that point. Some things transpired with my older daughter at that time, you know, a couple of years before as well. And I was just really in a phase of my life where I just didn't know what to expect, what I wanted to do. You know, I had done the things that life had required me to do, you know, be a responsible adult, responsible mother, you know, worked a good job, tried my best as a parent, but yet so many difficult and painful things happened in those situations. And I was going to CBT because I was really struggling as well with a very negative mindset. And the woman I was seeing at the time, her name was Dr. Levi, she was such a nice lady, you know, she really tried to help me to kind of look at where my life was at that moment and help me to try and try and change my mindset. Because at that time, as I said, I was going through some very difficult situations, my personal life with my older daughter, and also as well within this job at the home office. And you know, when I was reading back all what I had wrote, you know, from 2012, it just feels so surreal because I never would have imagined my life would have turned out the way it has now. And you know, the only thing I can say is by the grace of God and his hand upholding me through some very, very difficult times. You know, each week I would go to these sessions, I had like 12 sessions in total, and you know, some weeks felt so incredibly difficult to focus and to try and work through, you know, some of the really difficult challenges that I was facing internally, mentally at that time. I was depressed at the time, I was feeling confused, I was feeling hopeless, I really didn't have a sense of you know what I really wanted to do with my life career-wise, because as I've mentioned in episodes, 2018, April, May 2018 is when I stepped out, April, April 2018, I should say, I stepped out and left my job at 41 years old to set up my own business. But 2012, I wasn't even thinking in that mind space. I was still thinking in the thing of, you know, I have to try and get another job or to get out of this. And I was signed off sick at that time as well, and it was really coming to a point where do I sign off sick again or do I leave the job? In the end, anyway, I ended up leaving the job, and there was like a 10-month space for me where I wasn't working, and I concentrated all my efforts on Daughter Rise, the non-profit that I started in July 2011. But you know, I never imagined that my life would have turned out the way that it has, and I want to encourage you because maybe you are at a point in your life where it's feeling quite challenging, quite dark. You've tried all the things, you know, you've tried going back to the job and you keep going back and then being signed or sick. You've tried, you know, in relationships and it's just not working out. You've tried to, you know, do different things and it just feels like it's just a circle of things just repeating itself over and over again. None of it is making you happy. Well, that it's doing is making you question yourself more and more and making you feel even more hopeless. I want to encourage you today to say that where you are now is not where you will always be. One of the key things that has helped me in the process of knowing this is that even in my painful and challenging times, I still tried to talk to God and still tried to pray and ask him for help. I don't know how I got from there to here where I am now, all these years later. I mean, 14 years later, what we what are we at now? So 2012, 2020. Yeah, 14 years later, my life is completely transformed, you know, and all glory goes to Christ because I wouldn't have been able to even have thought about doing all the things that I'm doing now. But I want to use my story to encourage you to say that where you are now is not where you always want to be. There is a hope and a future for you. This is important for you to know. It doesn't matter your age. You know, I was back then I was 32, I think, you know, it doesn't matter if you're in your 30s, your forties, your 50s. I want you to know that there is a hope and a future for you. Despite what your circumstances look like, despite how you feel, despite what you can and cannot see, there is a hope and a future for you. And it may sound that it's very easy for me to say this sitting here from where I am now. All the things that I've been able to be successful in at this point in my life. It may sound like I'm it's easy for me to say it, but it was never easy for me to say it. It was never easy. The path and the things that I had to go through to get here was never easy. And I can't pretend to say to you that I understood what I was going through because I didn't. Every day felt like pain. I felt confused, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And sometimes when you're going through that deep type of pain and uncertainty in your life, sometimes you just have to ride the wave and go through it. With prayer and just tears. You have to ride the wave and go through it and go through it day by day. Because, you know, when you're in that situation, you know, it's very hard to see out of the darkness, and sometimes you have to just go through it day by day, step by step. But I just wanted to share with you just a couple of quick things that I remember about that period of my life in 2012 that I think helped me in some way, shape, or form. The first thing that I learned is what I was experiencing then, my current circumstances at that time were not final, they were only temporary. I think it's really important to hold on to this in whatever it is that you're going through now, that life changes, things change, God can make anything change within a blink of an eye. What you're going through now, it's not always going to be like this. Maybe it is that you have to face some things, maybe it is that you have to have faith and courage to go through it, maybe you have to just learn the lesson that can that comes out of it. I don't know. In every painful situation, there is something that we need to take from it. Maybe you need to sit and think about what that is. Maybe in five, ten years' time you'll realize what it was all about. Sometimes the answers don't come quickly. But the main thing I want to say is that it's temporary what you're going through now. Remember, it is temporary, it's not final. Whatever it is you're facing is not the conclusion of your life. I want you to hold on to that. The second thing that period taught me is as well, is that sometimes you have to do the things that are really necessary. So, you know, when I was going through that pain, when I was feeling all these things, it was necessary for me to go to the GP. It was necessary for me to tell the GP how I was feeling and get that help and you know get on the waiting list for CBT. I had to do all these things. It was necessary for me to, you know, start to deal with some of the difficult things that I was facing. And necessary doesn't mean it's easy. Necessary doesn't mean that you want to do it or you even feel like it. But sometimes we have to know within our own selves that there are certain things we have to do that are necessary for our survival, necessary for us to break through and go to the next level. And we may not like it and we may not feel like it, and we may not want to do it, but we understand that it is necessary and it has to become a priority. And for me at that time, CBT was a priority in my life. Even though there were days I struggled to even go to my appointments, I still went. There were times when I went and I didn't have much to say. But as I said, I had a really good person who was working with me and she was patient and she was kind and she was encouraging, you know, and it helped the process. It was necessary, but it helped the process, even when I didn't feel like it. And I want to encourage you today. There are some things, if you sit down and think about it, that are necessary for you to do. Maybe it's having those necessary conversations, facing those things that you have been hiding from. Sometimes necessary is vital to where we need to go in our lives. So, you know, that was a period of my life where I look back, and even though at the time it felt like a very dark place, I can see that it benefited me in lots of different ways. It made me have to face things and it brought a lot of things to a kind of head for me in my life, and I just had to do what I had to do. I left my job. I, you know, had to do the work of, you know, also as well going to therapy for some of the situations I faced in my life, which I wrote about extensively. My book, Daughter Arrives, which was published in 2010. But, you know, looking back on it now, it feels like I was a totally different person. How I've changed so much, you know, the way I view my life, how my mindset has changed, how I'm not scared now to take those risks and have courage to do things that are hard to usually do. You know, I I feel like a whole different person, a whole different woman. And I think those things have helped me to live an empowered life, live the life that I'm living today. As I mentioned on the last episode, you know, there are things that we do that make up the empowered life that isn't exciting or or or um motivational. There are things that we do to live an empowered life that has come from pain, that has come from lessons, that has come from difficulties that help each of us to live that life. I'm living the empowered life, and you know it's not easy, but I'm grateful for all the lessons and challenges and different things that I went through that has helped me to understand that where I was then is not where I am now, and there is a hope and a brighter future in store for me and also for you. And I hope that you can hear that and understand that today. You may not feel like it, but trust me, as somebody who's been through it, has lived through a lot of adversity and had to develop a lot of resilience. I can say to you that where you are now is not where you always will be, and you do have a bright future ahead of you. You may just have to take it step by step, day by day, and some of the things I've shared with you in this episode will be probably some of the things you'll have to do. But in all things, I always encourage you to take it to God and He will show you how to deal with it and support you and uplift you and help you to overcome whatever it is you're facing. So, as I finish this episode, I just wanted to share just one little quick exercise from the 2012 thing that I was doing at that time with the CBT. If you are somebody who's in this situation where you can't imagine a brighter future, that you feel that where you are now is where you always want to be, that we're not always where you want to be, but you feel like this is where you will always be. I want to encourage you with this little exercise. As I've always said on other episodes, having a journal, a book that you can write in is essential, I feel, to help you to kind of monitor your progress, your positive help you to you know encourage yourself and everything else. And I want to encourage you to actually write a letter to yourself and title it a better future. As I said, this is an exercise I did back then, and I want to just share it with you. So, this letter you're going to do is about writing a letter to yourself about a better future. Sometimes when we are feeling hopeless, it says, believing things can never change. It can be helpful for us to write an account describing us in a desired future, maybe one in five or many years from now. Someone who's been depressed, anxious, in debt, unemployed, and unable to support their family financially may write a letter describing them finding a satisfying job, getting on with colleagues, bringing home more money for your family needs in order to cope, and even putting aside for holiday. Describing things and trying to imagine those things can help us to feel encouraged for a better future. And these are some of the things you know I've talked about not in this kind of form, but in other forms throughout all the Living the Empowered Life episodes about writing down things, setting goals and all different things like that. But I feel like if you're really feeling stuck at the moment, this is something that might help you to kind of you know, imagine a day in your life where whatever it is you're facing that is challenging is not like that anymore. So do have a go at doing that and see how you get on. And it's something that you're just writing for now, and you know, maybe in one, five, or ten years' time you'll come back to it and say to yourself, like how I did when I saw all the paperwork from 2012 and say, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I felt like that at that time. I was so sure I wasn't going to get through it, and be encouraged to see that actually you did make it out by the grace of God. So the Bible scripture I want to share with you this week comes from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, verse 11, and it's the New International Version. It says, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a good future. I think that is such a fitting Bible verse for this podcast episode. I would encourage you, you know, to take your troubles, your cares, your challenges to the Lord God, for he cares for you, he doesn't plan to harm you, he has plans to prosper you if you trust in him, and you know, just pour out your heart to him, and I'm sure that he will definitely show you the way as he has shown me the way. So, guys, that is it for this episode. I hope that you found this episode to be an encouragement to you. I really do hope if you're going through things that are really challenging and hard for you at the moment, that things do get better for you. I will, as always, keep you in my prayers. And if you want to check out my books, if you want to be a subscriber to the newsletter that I send out once a month, quickly, I just want to say here that I didn't do last month because there was something wrong with the uploading software, but you know, I'm back on it this month. But if you do want to get monthly encouragement, do sign up for the newsletter, check out my other episodes of the podcast, books, online courses, all will be in the description box show notes. And um, I hope that you have a great rest of the week. Until the next episode, take care.