As a business owner and floral designer, being able to trust yourself is strongly correlated to your overall success. Success in your business and success as a human living on this planet. In this blog post, I'll be diving into the topic of self trust and some practices you can implement to strengthen the bond with yourself. If you'd rather have a listen rather than a read, you can always listen to this episode of the Flowers on Fire Podcast.
And as a precursor, today's topic comes from my own life experience mixes with things I have learned from others. Sources come from professionals on the topic, past therapists, and leaders in the industry. It's a collaboration of sources that have helped me strengthen the relationship I have with myself. Thanks for diving in and learning from me.
We truly only have ourselves forever. It is the one relationship that is always there and will never go away. I mean, we can wish it away or disconnect it away. Hate it away, self sabotage it away. The lsit goes on and on. But this relationship, the relationship with ourselves is the one thing that is always around and that we will always have. So why not make it the best relationship possible? The most beautiful thing, the most uplifting, good vibing environment? The most peaceful and stable and regulated that we can?
Life hits us with things all the time. We get hurt by things, we get stressed by things, we get angry at things. Life is always moving and sometimes it can feel like a roller coaster ride. We get blindsided, we get the opportunity to overcome problems, we get chances to feel big emotions, we get the chance to heal and reflect and nurture and love. Also the chance to be hard and dismissive and ignore and hate. Perspective is a beautiful tool that we can use to deepen and strengthen our relationship with ourselves. Our awareness and view on how we are in this world, how we interact with others, how we interact with our to do lists and dreams and goals and education impact our quality of life. Yes, quality! Think of quality relationships you have with others. Who can you always depend on? who gives your grief? Who makes life easier for you? Who makes life harder? These are all questions I bring up for you to think about because these relationships can impact us so very deeply. If you have a love one that’s manipulating or childish or aggressive, how does that make you feel towards the other person? How does that person impact your day, your year, your life?
Because the relationship we have with ourselves has the exact same influence on us, if not more. Our relationship with ourselves can either make or break us. It can give us the tools and guide is to the life we’ve always dreamed about. Provide us with the safety we crave, the peace we seek, the love we need. We can be everything that we have been looking for. Right here in our own bodies.
Self trust goes away when you practice self abandonment. Speak ill of yourself. Am harsh or hard on yourself. Have hatred towards yourself. Never have compassion on yourself. No acceptance for mistakes or grace with yourself. Also making decisions that go against yourself – who you are, your beliefs. When we feel misaligned and are making decisions or acting because of others’ opinions or outward influences.
Hopefully I’ve been able to paint a picture of why self trust is so important, now let’s dive into some practices that we can implement that will strengthen our relationship with ourselves. And I hope the list can inspire you, not overwhelm you. Like with any relationship, trust takes time to build. Think of a budding relationship. It takes time to gain trust and friendship with this person. You start with small steps and little instances that build into strong bonds over time. This is the same with the relationship on yourself. Please be patient and tender with the relationship. It’s like a little tiny sprout trying to root itself in fresh soil. After a few months it will be strong and stable. This applies to your new outlook and friendship with yourself.
The following prompts are things to guide and trigger you. Sit with them. See how they make you feel. Your intuition is always speaking to you and you can hear it loud and clear with you make space and time to listen. Mull over these things. Journal about them. Re-listen to the episode and use it as a resource to tune in with where you are at. The one thing I can promise you is that you’re already off to an amazing start by just being here. Go you and your badass self.
1. How do you speak to yourself?
2. Do you make time to spend alone time with yourself?
3. Do you give yourself time and space to honor your emotions?
4. When’s the last time you stared at yourself in the mirror?
5. Do you praise yourself? Compliment yourself? List our your accomplishments?
6. Do you trust yourself to follow your dreams? Do you allow yourself to take risks?
7. How do you hold yourself through and after going for these things?
8. Do you ever reward yourself?
9. Do you self sabotage with food, social media use, gaming, binging the tv, staying up too late, drinking too much, etc?
10. How is your self care routine?
11. Do you rely on yourself to make your own decisions?
12. Do you trust yourself to know when to ask others for help or seek guidance?
13. Do you invite in other tools to help you succeed like therapy or energy work?
14. How well do you stand up for yourself or speak up for yourself? Protect yourself?
15. Have you ever logged the times that you’ve accomplished any of these tasks? Talked to yourself nicely, practiced self care, turned away from self-sabotaging behavior?
Reminding yourself of these things can be a beautiful tool to build trust. Being aware of all of the beneficial practices you are implementing with strengthen the bond you have with yourself.
16. How are your boundaries with others?
Boundaries with outside influences that make you second guess yourself or make you feel bad about yourself. These can be boundaries with people you know, opinions found online, or even a past version of yourself. Highschool Alexa was so fucking mean to herself. She was a bully. She has hateful, ungraceful, harsh. I have learned to love that version of myself. I have learned to accept that Alexa for who she was because that’s all I knew at the time. I was caught up in behaviors and modes of thinking that did not serve my highest purpose and that’s okay. It was her way of dealing with ten thousand emotions she didn’t know how to express. Or didn’t know how to make room for. I have only learned to really nurture mysef in the last few years. I’m 32. It wasn’t until my real late twenties that I had a clue about self love and self care. My pattern was to abandon myself and watch her world burn around her. Self sabatoging was my go to behavior. I ruined relationships with those I loved and I just about ruined the relationship with myself. I was a mess. I was hurt. I have since participated in a few different practices that accept and love that version of myself. Visualization is a very powerful tool. I will sit in my meditation practice and will visualize now me hugging the old me. Hugging and loving and making the space to accept and understand and have patience for the hurt, self sabatoging version of myself. I will even sometime envision older Alexa hugging and comforting my current Alexa. When prompted in an inner child meditation with an energy healer, we were all together in the same room. Past me, now me, and future me. It was beautiful. The healer then invited me to spend as much time with these versions of me that I can and it’s been such a beautiful practice. Especially when younger five year old Alexa comes out. She was so spunky and full of life and loud emotions and drama. I loved playing dress up and dancing and twirling all around the house. I also couldn’t keep my clothes on and loved running around naked. She was so carefree. Playful and creative. Always coloring and painting and making a mess. I have a lot to learn from this version of myself and adore her just as much as the broken, messy, hateful versions of myself. As they are all version of me. And self trust can’t come without self love. Self nurturing, self care, self awareness, patience, kindness, consoling, counseling, and guidance.Self gratitude and plain old gratitude is also something I invite you to dabble in. By having a strong gratitude practice, you’ll feel your heart open. You’ll feel a stronger connection with the world around you. You’ll feel more at peace, more at home in your body, more aware. Gratitude for your eyes so you can see, your ears so that you can hear, your taste buds so that you can taste. All the many processes our bodies do for us without us knowing. Breathing, digesting, thinking, looking, feeling. There is so much to be grateful for, especially within ourselves. Our bodies. Our experiences. Our life.
I have a watch I wear that has an alarm on it that buzzes throughout the day. I believe 5 times. When the buzzing happens, I list 5 things out in my mind that I’m grateful for. You could also do this towards yourself. Five things you love about yourself. Five things you appreciate about yourself. Five things you honor about yourself. It’ll strengthen the bond and before you know it, I bet you’ll be speaking kind, loving things to yourself in between the buzzes. And hopefully throughout the day and will be a thing that doesn’t feel like a practice anymore but a way of life. You sitting in total appreciation and love for yourself. The relationship with yourself has the potential to be the strongest relationship you’ll ever feel on this planet and in your life. Why not feed it everything beautiful and joyous? Why not allow yourself the space to see just how deep you can go. How loving and strong this can get. It can be the most beautiful thing in the entire world.