Stories: What 4 years of changing your life actually looks like

A real glimpse of what it actually takes to change your life, beyond the surface.

Facing yourself.

Feeling what you’ve avoided.

Breaking patterns.

Rebuilding how you see yourself and your life.

Especially when there’s no external support, just you and the choices you make along the way.

If you’re in that in-between, where something doesn’t feel right anymore,  this is for you.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the Nelligne Stadius podcast. Here we will explore fear, patterns and what is meant to lead yourself through life. So this didn't start because I wanted to grow. It started because I didn't want to live my life as it was. I had never even considered that it was possible to change it. And every time I tried to look at it, I judged it, I got angry at myself and others, and then I avoided it again. I hid behind my fears, telling myself I can't do this, I'm not capable and I'm too sensitive. And I kept attacking myself like that. And I lived almost my entire life in anxiety and depression. But when I finally faced myself and asked why, I couldn't point to one single thing that I felt depressed over or felt anxiety over. And that's when I started to see it, the conditions that I was living in, what I accepted and what I believed was normal. My reality it was a reflection of what I didn't want to face in myself. Because I grew up adapting to what was around me, putting others' needs in front of my own, never really learning what I would like and what I wanted, or what felt true for me. And something inside of me realized that this is not my reality, but I am the one living in this. And I didn't like this awareness because it threatened me really much. It meant leaving the comfort of hiding even though I already knew that the life I was living would never give me what I wanted. So I didn't just suddenly change. I still avoided it. I still tried to think my way out of it. And I just became more aware of how much I didn't like my life. My dad had been sick for most of my life, so that was something that I grew up with. But when things became heavier, I started to take more responsibility, and something shifted in me. Because I started also to realize that how much of my life I had adapted and how little of it was actually mine. And in that I also started seeing that I was living in the same patterns myself, not taking care of myself, staying in things that didn't feel right and ignoring what I actually needed. And my body started to react too. I gained fifty kilos during this time, and it was partially from the medication I had from my anxiety and depression, and partly from the way I was living. And it wasn't just physical, it was a reflection of everything that I was carrying. But nothing really changed because I was trying to fix the symptoms on the surface instead of looking at the root cause. And at the same time as this, I was in a relationship that didn't feel right, and that became a mirror, not just for how I was treated, but for what I was accepting. And I wasn't responsible for everything that happened there, but I was responsible for being the one staying there. So the awareness had been there for years, but I hadn't taken any action. I stayed in denial, in the avoidance, and in quick fixes that only helped me breathe for a moment. So in all of this and this relationship I started to receive signals, symbols, dreams, visions, and a drive inside me that I had never felt before. And after long days of exhaustion, I stayed up all night. I was studying my behavior, his behaviour, my dad's behavior, and my family's behavior, trying to understand, and for the first time I started to become curious, without judging. So even while I was still in that environment I started changing things. I lost fifty kilos, and I stopped the medication I had been on for years. And I didn't know it then, but I was already choosing something different. Somewhere inside me I started to understand that I could decide how I wanted to live. So when I left that relationship that's actually where everything started. Because once I made that internal decision that I didn't want to live like that anymore, everything started to change, not just on the outside but inside of myself. Because I kept ending up in situation where I had a choice. I either go back to what felt familiar to my comfort zone, or I will needed to choose something different. And that became my life for many years, making those choices over and over again. And I don't think that people actually understand what this means. It means being completely honest with yourself, feeling things I had avoided my whole life, and facing parts of me I didn't want to see. And it wasn't beautiful all the time, it was honestly hell most of the times. But for the first time in my life I stopped trying to fix everything outside of me and I turned inwards. And yes, from the outside, many people would use a word called being selfish, but for the first time I actually chose myself. I was setting boundaries and choosing who I wanted around me. I was standing up for myself and raising my standards for what I would tolerate, and staying there. And it started very, very small 'cause at first I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. So I just had to sit there, and I was looking at myself. Until it didn't feel uncomfortable anymore. And that process didn't just happen once, it was every day. Every time something came up. I had a choice, and I kept choosing even when it was really uncomfortable. And over time things started to really change. Because the anxiety I lived with for many years it disappeared. And the depression I had lived with it was gone. And those fifty kilos I lost, I've kept them off for years. But that was not because I was forcing anything. It was because I finally gave myself the right conditions, both physically and mentally. And at some point I also came to a realization that I had been living in survival my whole life. And I wasn't surprised by the drive I had for all of these years because the survival gave me that. It gave me the power to go through those things. But survival is not the same as safety. Because I could push and I could perform and I could keep going, but I was never actually safe in my own body. And the safety I feel today it didn't come from pushing more. It came from all of those hours sitting with myself, facing things, understanding myself, and becoming my own teacher, my own inner parent. And that was what these years gave me, a foundation I was never given, but that I had to build myself. And yes, I'm still learning, but today I have something that I never had before, and that is a relationship with myself. And this is just a glimpse of what a few years of choosing yourself can look like. And it can look different for everyone and it's a personal experience that we go through. Because you don't need to have everything figured out to start. I didn't. But it's in the moments when you stop ignoring what you already know, what your soul already tells you is true. Cause that's where things start to change.