The Moment I Knew I Had to Reclaim Me

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Transcript

Ariana: 0:00

Hello, beautiful souls. Today I'll share the pivotal moment when I realized I needed to reclaim my true self. We will explore why you truly deserve the life and love you seek, and I'll provide you with a self-worth exercise for reflection and journaling. By the way, if you want notifications of when I release a new episode, or if you wanna get the stop playing small, rebuild your confidence and understand your worth workbook, go to my website balanced soul awakening.com and sign up for the email list. You are not too much, you are not too sensitive. You are not too late. Welcome to reclaiming Me, the podcast for the woman who's ready to stop shrinking and start coming home to herself. Whether you're driving home from another long shift, walking your dog under a quiet sky, or trying to outrun the voice that says you're not enough, this space is for you. I'm your host Ariana Reinhart, speaker, coach, and your guide on this journey of undoing the noise, shedding the pressure, and rising into who you were always meant to be. This show explores what it really means to heal from toxic patterns, rebuild your confidence and reclaim the love and life you actually deserve. Here we talk self-worth, healing, boundaries, power, and the sacred process of becoming a. Because you were never meant to fit in. You're on the journey back to who you were before the world told you who to be. This is your invitation. Let's begin. I knew I had to reclaim myself the day I realized silence was costing me my sanity. I learned what it was like to be in survival mode from the age of three. I've had a long and exhausting journey when it comes to relationships and understanding what it took to truly love myself so that I could be happy. I tended to continuously enter into toxic, abusive relationships because I never healed the trauma that was inside of me. In fact, I had suppressed that trauma so deep down that I didn't even know on a conscious level what I was holding in my subconscious. I could never understand why I kept entering these relationships over and over where I was miserable and where I was so broken down that I became a shell of myself. Many times I tried to heal parts of myself to be able to understand what it was that I needed in order to live the life I know I deserve. My therapist once told me that the relationships you have with others are a direct reflection of the relationship you have with yourself. That revelation has always sat with me. I will never forget it. She used to sit me down and say, Ariana. Describe the three ways or behaviors that this person is treating you that you don't appreciate or you don't deserve. And so if I said they don't listen to me, they don't truly hear me, or they abandon me in my times of need, or in the times where I need it most, or they dismiss me. She would say, okay, now let's turn this around on yourself. In what ways do you abandon yourself? In what ways do you not take proper care of yourself when you're in need or when you're struggling? In what ways do you not listen to yourself and to your body and to what you know is the right move? In what ways are you dismissing yourself and your needs? Sometimes it would be hard to take that in at first. It's definitely a lot to swallow and your ego can wanna get in the way, but once you can really process that information take it, learn from it and understand that this is showing up in my relationships because it's the way that I'm treating myself, and so those are just reflecting the way that I'm treating me. It is so, so powerful. You can grow so much from it and you can take those triggers that you have and suddenly they don't have much power anymore. Suddenly those behaviors don't mean as much or don't hurt you as much because you understand them better or you've healed them, or now you're treating yourself better, so these other people are showing up in better ways as well. It's something that I highly recommend trying to incorporate into your daily life, to try to be aware of and just to view it without judgment and to try to heal that part of you. It's a beautiful journey and makes a huge difference when you can do that. My previous relationship was probably one of the worst that I've ever endured. I was the type of person that didn't necessarily want to fully commit. I would let things slide and try to be very nonchalant in relationships because I was taught at a young age that men weren't safe, and that every man would leave me and would never love me for who I am. I'm sure like many of you, I knew in my gut that there were red flags, but I decided to ignore them. I didn't wanna believe them because I thought I was happy whether I truly was or not. But regardless, I ignored those signs until it was too late. I went through hell in that relationship and by the end I was slightly scared for my life. But I knew that I had to get out and I knew that somehow some way I was going to get out. I had a determination far deeper than I'd ever had before. This was the moment where the terrifying thought of the unknown, of not knowing what was going to come next if I left, was more overpowering than the comfortability of knowing how to navigate the relationship. I learned that I had to trust the process. I finally came to the realization that, like my therapist said, my relationship with him was a direct reflection of my relationship with myself, and I was no longer valuing myself. I didn't see my worthiness. It was through this time that I understood I had to do a deep dive and really truly look at what was inside of me, what was going on in my internal world, what I needed to let go of, what I needed to invite in. In order to be able to be happy with myself, I needed to be comfortable with being alone. I needed to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I realized that all of this needed to change so that I could start attracting the right type of people into my life. I decided to take action and went on my deep transformative healing journey. I realized that the best method is to work through the struggles. When I'm scared and I don't wanna speak, do it anyway. When I don't wanna get off my ass and work out, do it anyway. When I don't wanna set those boundaries with that person who won't take accountability, do it anyway. That's when we really grow. I am now at a point where I no longer settle. The incidents of trauma do not have a hold on me anymore, and I am in a happy, loving relationship because I put in the work on my inner world and the universe reflects that in my outer world. I'm in the most loving relationship. I am with my soulmate, the person that I know I am meant to be with. And as scary as those previous times were, as scary as the unknown was, much as I had been through hell and back, this is far better than I could have ever imagined. This space that I'm in today is so much healthier than I could have foreseen for myself. I have so much love for this man. Sometimes I honestly, I just look at him and it almost brings me to tears, the amount of love that I have in my heart. And I have come such a long way in the amount of love that I have for myself. It was by no means an easy process. It was very, very difficult, but it was so worth it because now I am happier than ever. Throughout our episodes, I will share stories as well as the skills I learned and unlearned that allowed me to shed the old version of myself so that I could recover my inner essence and reclaim me. If you spend half your nights crying on the bathroom floor thinking that you can't get out, I see you. I've been there too, and I can tell you that usually the unknown isn't near as scary as you think it will be. If you're frustrated because you're consistently being gaslit, which has resulted in your confidence being completely depleted and you feeling like a shell of yourself, I see you. At one point, I even asked my mother if I was a good person because I was so broken down and led to believe that I wasn't. I'm here to tell you that if you're asking that question, then you can already know that you're a good person because someone who's not a good person would never question themselves about that. If you feel completely lost and alone, which leads you to emotionally eat and not take proper care of your body, and now you feel disgusted by the way you look, I feel your pain. But I also want you to know that you have the ability to take your power back. If you shut down and build up your emotional walls because you don't feel accepted, even by yourself, I'm here to tell you that it is safe for you to let love in. Start with receiving love from yourself. You are incredibly beautiful just the way you are. I think it's crucial to continue to grow and evolve, but you are perfectly imperfect. I challenge you to begin to let go of that negative self-talk and start to replace those thoughts with thoughts of love, kindness, and compassion. You would never talk to your best friend in a degrading, harmful way, would you? So why do you think you deserve that sort of treatment? You are so worthy of everything you could ever imagine. You deserve to have your dream job. You deserve to have an amazing and healthy partnership where you're loved for exactly who you are. You deserve to be surrounded with loved ones where your feelings are heard and valued, and you deserve the unconditional love your dog gives you from people as well. I'm sharing this with you because I want you to understand that: 1) you can take back your power and create a life you love, even if it doesn't feel like it in the moment. 2) I know what it's like to be in that position and how difficult it is to remove yourself. And 3) I had to come to the realization that my inner world was being reflected back to me through my outer world, and I needed to change my relationship with myself in order to change my relationship with others. It is my passion to hold a safe space for women to understand that it doesn't have to be that way. I would be honored to walk alongside you on your journey to reclaiming who you were before the world told you who to be. I want you to know that it is possible to let go of and reprogram those limiting beliefs that society has taught us to hold onto. You don't have to feel burnt out and weighed down from your job every day. You can hold a safe space for and heal your wounded inner child so that those triggers no longer affect you. You can regain your confidence until you become so magnetic that the right people can't help but be drawn to you. I want you to know it is possible and it is possible for you. So if you're ready to find your inner peace and to recover your inner essence, come hang out with me every Thursday. In the next episode, we'll be discussing what we were taught versus what I now know about worth, why self-love is so important, and how a lack of it can affect our relationships. We're gonna take some actionable steps for self-reflection and discover what reclaiming can look like. You won't wanna miss it. Now I want you to repeat this affirmation after me. I no longer abandon myself to keep someone else. I no longer abandon myself to keep someone else. Say this out loud, at least twice, preferably three times. It's even more effective if you look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and say it to yourself. And today's self-worth shift for you to journal on is, what am I craving from others that I'm not giving to myself? What am I craving from others that I'm not giving to myself? Thank you for joining me on this journey of returning to yourself. If today's episode spoke to your soul, I'd love for you to share it. And don't forget to follow this podcast so you never miss a moment of this reclamation, or follow me on Instagram at balanced Soul Awakening. You are not too much. You are not behind. You are not broken. You are worthy. You are whole, and you are already everything you're seeking. This is reclaiming me. Until next time, be gentle, be bold, be you.