Most of the time we want to change something about ourselves because we want to feel a certain way.
For years I just wanted to feel sexy. I wanted to feel confident. I wanted to feel good in my body. I wanted to feel a certain way and what I was led to believe was, if I change my body then I would feel that way.
It’s the same with a whole bunch of things. We are led to believe that if we can just get the job then we will feel successful, if we can just be in a relationship then we will feel loved. Typically we go out and seek things externally because we wish to feel a certain way within ourselves
Have you ever achieved something and it not feel the way that you thought it would? You think to yourself-
” I’ve been wanting this for many years, I’ve been driving towards it, striving towards this and now I’m finally here it just doesn’t feel like I thought it was going to feel.”
You didn’t get that feeling inside of you that you were hoping for all those years. You sought the accomplishment so that you would feel a certain way not because of the accomplishment itself. Here’s the kicker; we can feel that certain way without getting the external. The feeling can be cultivated.
Earlier this week, I went for a walk and I was strutting along, I had my crop top on, wearing a singlet and I was loving it- I was loving me. I was wearing shiny colourful pants, I was rocking my bumbag and had my headphones in jamming out to some fav tunes. I was feeling so good about myself. I was just in the zone of feeling sexy, confident and in my power.
I suddenly caught a reflection of myself and thought “oh, I don’t look the same way in my head as I feel”. I saw that my interpretation of seeing my reflection did not match how good I felt. It was as though in order to look as confident as what I felt, I needed to look different. I didn’t look the way I thought that I’m “meant” to look in order to feel the way that I felt. Weird right?
Then, I thought “What does it matter what I look like if I feel great and if I feel amazing? Isn’t the reflection just a moment in time, jaded by my conditioning? If I look at a picture of myself or in a mirror , and it doesn’t quite add up to how I think I should look what does it matter? Because it is how I want to feel that would spur me onto changing the way that I look, so if I already feel that way, then I can get on with just enjoying life.
It’s the feeling that we’re chasing, we want to feel good, whole and complete and confident so what does it matter if in the instance when I look in the mirror I don’t necessarily have is flat stomach?
We chase change and seek to “fix” our bodies and our life because we are after the feeling that we think will come with it. I have changed my body , got the relationship, earned the money, had the great job and had a whole bunch of the tick boxes and still didn’t feel as confident and amazing and in love with myself as I do now. The external tick boxes never gave me this feeling, at least not for long.
Nothing outside of you is going to make you feel the way you want to feel. It doesn’t mean that you don’t strive or that you don’t want to go and achieve certain things, it just about having a realistic idea of what it will give you. Why you’re chasing change is more important than what you are chasing.
If we choose something over there, in the future and think that it’s going to feel the way we want to feel now, we will be sorely wrong and forever stuck in the cycle of chasing more and more.
You can achieve anything you want but if you don’t know how to feel confident and happy and loving within yourself now, then when you get there you won’t know either. Happiness, self love and contentment within is an inside job first and foremost, everything that you achieve externally is just icing on the proverbial cake.
Happy self loving.
Love Luna xoxox