Healing is an Inside Job

Hello Dear Friend,

I call you friend because I have never met a stranger. On some level, I have always felt like I have known every single person who has crossed my path. Whether deeply on an intimate level or on the smallest of levels. I hope these words find you today. In no matter what state you may be in, I just hope that they find you. I hope you are on your journey called life and you are meeting yourself in the mirror each day with kindness because to me THAT is what truly matters. No matter what. Meet yourself with compassion. I’ll tell you a story about a time when I figured that out. I was living in the Netherlands, working for a criminal terrorism court. Miserable. Hating every aspect of my life and myself. Running from the truth of who I really was. A more powerful human being than I wanted to admit. I was stuck in victimology and I wanted desperately to be loved and seen for who I really was. What I didn’t realize is that I wanted to SEE MYSELF for who I really was. I thought it was that I needed to be seen by other people, but the truth was, I needed to see me. I needed to accept me. I needed to be there for me. And one day, during a more ugly cry, I went into the bathroom and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was horrified at the shell that I finally saw looking back at me. It was as if she was crying out to me in that moment. She desperately wanted to be seen by me. She wanted me to love her. She wanted me. I remember looking at myself in my eyes and saying “it’s ok poo. I’m here” and actually meaning it. I put my hand on my heart and I wept but I never broke eye contact with my reflection in the mirror. I just let her cry and cry and pour out everything to me. It was in that moment, that I realized that my own healing was an inside job. It was not for anyone or anything else. My healing would really begin when I could meet myself in my own rawest form and not run away. It was in that moment that I started to gain my own trust in myself. That I would be there for me. That I would not abandon myself ever again for someone or something else because that reflection in the mirror on that day was forever burned into my heart. And that is what I pray for you. To find that moment within you, where you get to commit to you.

You can do it.

I love you.