Go Ask Sawyer
Go Ask Sawyer
SOLO - Journey of Self-Love: Breaking Patterns, Finding Worth, and Decluttering for Clarity
Welcome aboard a deeply personal journey of self-discovery and transformation. I'm your host, Jamie, and I've recently woken up to a pattern within me - a constant search for validation and an almost instinctual undervaluing of my own self-worth. Together, we'll navigate through my journey of recognizing and acknowledging these patterns, and the steps I'm taking to break free. We'll dive into the concept of self-grace and the often-overlooked struggle of forgiving ourselves, and explore the liberating power of naming and openly discussing our feelings.
It's not just our mental spaces that need a good clear out to reach our full potential. As I embark on the process of decluttering my physical surroundings, I invite you to join me. I'll share how this simple act has gifted me with fresh clarity and perspective, and how it can do the same for you. We'll discuss the freedom that comes from releasing the things that no longer serve us, and how it creates room for growth. Together, we'll embark on a journey of self-love, healing, and finding joy in life. Tune in to soak up the wisdom I've gathered along the way, and perhaps find the inspiration to start your own journey.
Hello, happy Sunday. Go ask Sawyer. I am your host, jamie, and I am back with some information and some tips. I hate tips and tricks, but just from last week I talked a lot about losing myself. I was vulnerable and open and I appreciate all of you who listened, and I feel like I'm back on the upswing and I just would love to share with everyone the now. What Now? What are you going to do about it? Like, once you know something, what are you going to do about it? And I spoke with a friend and she said well, how are you going to not lose yourself again?
Speaker 0:I don't think it's a matter of not losing yourself again, but more or less acknowledging it faster when it's happening or starting to see the signs. So one of the first things I noticed when I was kind of in the moment of losing myself is I was searching for validation from everyone else around me, especially my partner, and it was because I wasn't confident in myself, I wasn't confident in who I was, and all of a sudden, something flipped and I needed to. For some reason, I went back into that mindset of I needed to prove how great I was in order to be loved, and I've done that before. It is a pattern of mine. I don't know where it comes from. My therapist and I are working on it but when I am at my most confident and secure, I only look for validation from myself. It's it's very much a mindset of. I believe in myself, I trust my decisions, I trust me and this is where I am. But when I start to lose myself is when I feel like I start chasing. I start chasing people, I start chasing ideas, I start chasing validation instead of attracting it to me. So I guess I'm able to finally see when that pattern is happening and acknowledge it. And then I noticed this week that the more I talked about it out loud not just to myself or my dog gunner, but the more I talked about it, the less power it started to have. I was naming it, I was claiming it, I was, I was talking about all the things inside me that I needed, that I maybe had felt embarrassed or shame for. But that was really just me judging myself. No one else was judging me for it. It was really just me, and I think so often we are our worst critics.
Speaker 0:It is very easy for us to show grace and forgiveness to anyone else. Maybe not very easy, but at least for me it's easier to show those to other people. But it's hard to show it to myself because sometimes I feel like I don't know I'm being selfish by showing that to myself. I don't know that. It's a weird thing that when I do give myself grace, I don't know how to put my finger on the feeling that I get. I don't want it. It's like I'm letting myself off the hook, but really it's just me against me at the end of the day. So, acknowledging it, naming it, talking about it, seeing when I'm looking for that outside validation and trying to figure out why.
Speaker 0:I think a lot of times that happens when we're questioning decisions that we have made or moves we have made, and if we're not 100% sure of things, we start to ask other people did I make the right decision? Did I make the right decision? And once we start asking other people, now it's another thing to kind of. You know, have a conversation with someone to work through something, but when you're looking for other people to validate what you have done again, that can be anything from a workout, deciding to hang out with someone, having a hard conversation, any kind of decision. That's when I think those are the moments I feel like I start to lose myself. I start to lose that confidence, I start to lose the knowing that what I said was correct and I'm searching more for other people to tell me I'm doing the right thing or the wrong thing. And this is the fastest I think I've ever acknowledged that, like whoa, I am going through something. Usually I push those feelings all the way down and pretend everything's okay, but in this case I was able to see it faster and, if anything, worked through it quicker. And I think that right now that's sitting in silence and having conversations and a lot of physical touch too.
Speaker 0:As much as I love hugging people, I still always get a little awkward when I do it and I don't know why. Or when I have a conversation with someone, like holding their hand. It's a very vulnerable, intimate thing when you hold someone's hand during a conversation, whether it's a friend or a partner. But I think those are things I need to do to be able to feel like we're on the same side, we're on the same team, we're in this together and then clearing up my space. So I really kind of started looking around my house and looking at all the things I've started collecting and realizing I have cluttered my space so much that I can't even think straight. So this week, every day, I started doing small things, cleaning my bookshelf. You know how you have piles of stuff in your house that you haven't touched forever.
Speaker 0:Just really being intentional about getting rid of things that no longer serve a purpose. It's funny. I just had this conversation last night with some friends about clothes and saving old clothes for whatever reason, like if you gain weight or if you lose weight, and I'm really trying to get into a mindset of like just get rid of it. Just get rid of it, because then you're hanging on to stuff that no longer serves you and it's just sitting in your house, just like if you're hanging on to something like oh, I feel bad about and again this is you judging yourself, I feel bad, I should be going to the gym more, I should be eating more. Well, we can keep having that conversation with ourselves over and over and, over and over again, and all it's going to do is continuously make ourselves feel bad about a situation. So I need to change the narrative in my head. Like put it down, put it away. It no longer is serving what it needs to serve. It needs to go away. So, getting rid of those stories, getting rid of those conversations, I'm done, I'm putting it down.
Speaker 0:Speaking of putting it down, I'm still reading the Pivot Year, which is an amazing book, and the quote from yesterday said the journey is not about how you place down what's weighing on you, which is what I struggle with sometimes. Whether I'm struggling with a decision or just an idea or something, I always have an issue with. I don't know how to put this down or give it to God or pray about it. It's a hard thing for me to visualize. And the second part of this quote says it's how you learn to stop picking it up, the strength to resolve not to begin again. And that hit so hard when I read that, because it's not about putting it down, it's about refusing to pick up, whatever the situation. The issue is, I'm just, I'm done, I'm not going to, and in my head, this means I will not engage with that anymore.
Speaker 0:Going back a long time ago, when I got divorced, I held onto the guilt of that for seven, eight years. I held onto that guilt so hard. I felt like I needed to hold onto the guilt because it was my fault and I deserved to feel guilty and this is my punishment. And so it was. It literally was like I was sitting in a punishment until I was finally able to talk about it and release it. But every time that thought would come into my head or something would come into my head, the idea that I could just not engage with it. I am not going to pick it up again. I am not going to begin the habit the people pleasing, I am not going to begin the friendship again. I am not going to begin that job again, I am just going to leave it on the floor.
Speaker 0:And that is something such a strange concept to me, because I feel like I don't know if it's the word martyr, maybe it's martyr, for whatever reason. It feels like my burden that I must engage with and I just love feeling and thinking that I can just leave it there. It's not about putting it down, it's about leaving it down, leaving it there. So part of the whole, you know, losing yourself or losing myself when you're doing that is just looking at the habits that are in your life and looking at the environment that you're surrounded with. And that was step number one and I realized I had just accumulated it and collected a lot of things that were no longer serving me and as I was making trips to half price books and Goodwill and even the dumpster, because some things I have that I was going to fix and I just can't fix them and I'm not going to pretend like I can it felt like there was a clearing inside me, like slowly things were clearing and I could see again and I could feel, and I could, I was slowly coming out of it.
Speaker 0:And then the other thing was just meditating and praying and I've really been trying to focus on in my prayers and meditations just words that come to me, like after I pray or ask for anything, or I just sit and let whatever words come into my head come into my head and then I write them down and sometimes they mean a lot and sometimes I'm not sure why certain words are coming in my head. But I think that's where that's where the answers are going to lie is really being open to allowing the messages to come in, because if we ask for something, there's a pretty good chance the answers are coming. We just either A don't want to hear the answers, or B maybe aren't. We're so clouded with whatever is happening we can't really understand what it is. So I would really encourage anyone kind of going through a moment where they are feeling like they're losing themselves or they're just in a place where it feels dark or dingy and they can't really see where the light is.
Speaker 0:Step one is just name it. I am lost, I am in a dark place, I don't know how to get out. I don't know what to do. Step two look in your home environment, your bedroom, your living room. What is one area you could start clearing, getting rid of things, moving things around? I have a Bath and Body Works bag I'm literally looking at right now. It's full of sunglasses and there's a brush in there and there's, I think, one other thing. I need to get that up off the ground because it doesn't need to be sitting there and it's been there a year. Just little things. Look around your environment, little things that are sitting, taking up space, that are not serving that peaceful, that clearing energy.
Speaker 0:I would also suggest reaching out to a friend, someone that knows you, someone that can just remind you of who you are, because so often we just get stuck in our head and we need that gentle reminder to laugh, to play, to have fun, to oh yeah, I'm just fine, I'm just stuck in a weird place right now. And then I would also suggest just stopping. Sit outside in complete quiet, send a prayer up to God, the universe, nature, whoever you are connected to, and just sit quiet for like five to ten minutes and just allow things to come into your head. Don't engage, just allow words and ideas to come in. And at the end of the day, you have to be willing to want to clean up, you have to be want to willing to make a difference or a change. Otherwise it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 0:And I think I was going back and forth with that a lot, like I want a lot of things, but I'm not moving, I'm not changing. I'm saying A, but my actions are not aligning to what I want. And I had to get really, really real with why my actions were not aligning. And get real with yourself. Give yourself the same kind of grace and forgiveness that you would give anyone else, because at the end of the day, even if we're married or we have friendships or in families, it's really just you and then just find one thing that brings you joy, if you love reading, if you love going for walks, if you love going for a run again, easier said than done, because I was stuck for a little bit, but just find one thing that you can do that would bring you joy.
Speaker 0:But the clearing of the space, I will say right now, has been the biggest help. The clearing of the space has been the biggest help. The clearing what you surround yourself with impacts your mindset more than you know. All right till next week, I'm going to keep working on myself, I am going to keep cleaning, I'm going to keep healing, I'm going to continue to find my joy, my path, and I'll let you know what I find out. Have a beautiful Sunday. Be kind. You can't be kind.