Chapter 1
Untapped dreams:
The imposter syndrome trap
My childhood dreams when I fell asleep saw me flying high up in the midnight sky like a bird so free. No one could reach me, and the feeling was amazing. I didn’t have a destination in mind except to feel completely free.
Most of us don’t have that sort of freedom in our everyday lives. Work, family, bills and just being able to fall into bed at night can be a daily grind. Our bosses become richer while we slave away. Our families love us so much that we may feel like a ball of Play-Doh being pulled into a hundred little pieces while trying to stay on top of things. The bills don’t stop coming in, and our dreams may get lost somewhere between childhood and becoming a responsible adult.
Crushed dream
My childhood dream was to become a flight attendant. I wanted to travel the world and explore every nook and cranny I could. I longed to learn about different cultures, to indulge my senses and taste buds with delicious exotic foods, and to meet new and interesting people while enjoying amazing experiences. At the age of fifteen, I had my life figured out, and I was ready to be that high-flying bird in my dreams.
It was 1987. I was in year ten at school, and very quickly my dream shattered completely. I discovered that because I wore glasses and wasn’t a certain height, there would be no point in me applying for the flight attendant job. I was crushed! My heart felt as though it had been literally pulled out and stomped on by a mean person with no dreams or visions for a successful and happy life. My dreams had been crushed into a million little pieces that couldn’t be reassembled.
What was a fifteen-year-old girl supposed to do with her life now?
The thought of getting married and having babies made me cringe. I realised I didn’t have a plan B. Back then I had no idea that the universe had a plan B for me. My friends and I still laugh to this day that I am up in the clouds in a different kind of way with my career as an intuitive spiritual advisor and professional medium.
You can probably relate to being completely crushed at one point or another in your own life. Our stories will be slightly different, but the crushed-heart feeling will feel the same.
At home, in the playground or school classroom, I was not taught about self-worth and self-love. “Are you crazy? If you loved yourself, no one would play handball with you. Why would you do that?” This was the attitude I grew up around in the 1970s and 1980s.
Love yourself first - it’s not selfish
What I went on to discover as my life unfolded and my curiosity couldn’t be pushed under the rug any more is that loving yourself first brings balance into your world. When your own cup is filled up first, you will experience more joy, love, and peace and will have a sense of freedom, better relationships, and more energy to help others than you otherwise would. Learning how to love yourself the right way takes practice, but it’s doable and is even fun once you get started.
In today’s world, putting yourself first can still be frowned upon by those who don’t understand its true meaning, value, or purpose. They don’t understand that self-love is a vital part of functioning at the core level of your soul’s truth and purpose and that it can be quite helpful when dealing with the chaos of everyday life.
Learning how to love yourself with grace and integrity is a much nicer way of exploring the possibilities and fears that may be keeping you isolated and stuck. When your heart knows you’re ready to move forward but your head keeps saying you’re okay where you are, you may be tempted to just smile so people think you’re happy. But when you do that, you’re going against the grain of your soul’s truth.
On the inside you’re depressed, unhappy, and unsatisfied. You’re living in fear and possibly shame or guilt instead of love.
Fear and fraud
You can feel like a fraud when it becomes so obvious that you’re not happy doing what you’re doing, but you don’t have a darn clue how to get yourself off the merry-go-round that you’re on. You’ve decided to settle and think that things will be okay if you just keep smiling. “No one will notice,” you may think. Your inner thoughts try to convince you to stay inside the lines of your life. Your happiness doesn’t need to come first, because that would be so selfish, and how dare you even consider that kind of behaviour. And that is not to mention the guilt and shame you would feel for wanting to put yourself first.
So many limiting beliefs haunt our minds and souls. Until you can break this worn-out way of thinking and give yourself a mindset upgrade, you will never be truly content and happy.
If you want to be happy you’re the only one who can get yourself there!
How many times does your mobile phone provider send upgrades to your phone so that it functions better? To function better and reach your desired goal you need to upgrade your limiting beliefs and mindset often.
How?
With self-love.
Self-doubt merry-go-round
I will show you how to stop the merry-go-round of self-sabotage. At the end of each chapter I have included prompts and questions for you to consider as a roadmap and guide so you can focus on healing your past while honouring your own spirit and soul’s truth. I will help you break those toxic patterns that aren’t serving your highest or greatest good. Together we will take baby steps so you have time to adjust to a new way of living.