When a self sacrificing spirit backfires

You’ve been self sacrificing yourself for far to long and now you’re done. You don’t recognise the person you have become and you may not particularly like this person much either.

The pain of feeling lost can be overwhelming, after all, this realisation usually always comes after MANY years of disowning your own needs because of the responsibilities placed on your shoulders.

The most unselfish thing you can do is to look after yourself first so you can give the best of yourself to others. It takes a whole approach, in your physical actions by fuelling your body with more nutritious foods and exercising and mentally by understanding what you value most and creating a shift to become more like the person you want to be.

For those who are familiar with my blogs, it comes as no surprise that birthdays were a sore point for me once upon a time. I hated them for a few reasons.

I grew up not celebrating them, which made me feel like I didn’t matter much.
I hated getting older.
I hated the reminder that another year had gone by and I was still not enjoying my life.

Everything changed once I took ownership of my happiness, when I started looking out for myself. I began celebrating birthdays again. I embraced ageing as an opportunity to refine myself more, I began living, not exisiting!

These were things I had never done before because I felt it was selfish to put myself first and foolish to go against my “beliefs” of what was the right thing to do. However, as the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup! So I started looking at what I needed to do to truly make myself happy and I did!

I was able to get off the antidepressants, I began truly loving my life, I changed careers, I began helping and inspiring other people to make changes that also brought them happiness too.

Turning it all around

I recently recorded a video for our Overhaul clients. It was a video that introduced them to a side of me they weren’t familiar with. I shared with them some of the experiences in my life that helped me grow and become the person I am today. The feedback I got from those who watched it was moving, many crying as I shared some of the voids in my life where my values were derived from.

These days I act, think and behave very different to the way I did 10 or 20 years ago, not only because of maturity but because of the amount of personal development I’ve done to overcome things that really had a grip in my life, overcoming debilitating fears after being brainwashed by a cult, overcoming depression, PTSD, coping with suicidal feelings, difficult and hurtful relationships, being bullied, being made redundant, bulimia and more.

Life changed when I took ownership for where I was at, when I stopped allowing myself to be the victim, when I started training with weights, lessons by the bar I call it, the lessons that changed my life.

Sometimes when shit hits the fan in life, it’s because we’ve ignored or missed the signs that a change was needed. If you’re going through one of these moments, it’s important to recognise there is something greater in store for you and what you have before you is an opportunity to build your character more as you work through this. We need to take these challenges and run with them with the right attitude, doing what we can at the time to keep ourselves moving forward.

You are always in control of your life. So what can you do in these moments? These moments can be likened to voids and the voids in our life leave very powerful clues about we value most. Recognising where our values are being fulfilled and how we can bring more experiences into our life that fills our cup is a great way to start.

Here are a few examples I discussed in the video I shared with my Overhaul clients before they attended the Mindset Overhaul seminar:

My involvement growing up with what I later found out to be a cult means I value “Empowerment”
Not celebrating birthdays and feeling special has made me value “Connection”
Not going on many family holidays growing up has made me value “Adventure”
Being the eldest of 7 and raised in a strict household made me value “Freedom”
Not being a good learner in school has made me value “Knowledge”
Being bullied made me value “Equality”

So many powerful experiences that taught me how to live a truly satisfying life now. Living a life that doesn’t support your values depletes your soul. Slowly we can lose our identity. We become so used to serving others and putting everyone else’s needs before our own that we begin to feel guilty for taking time out to fill our cup again.

Looking after yourself is not a selfish act. You just can’t pour from an empty cup and you can not give your best if your cup hasn’t been topped up first. If you would like to explore what your values are and start looking after yourself more again, let me help you on this journey! I love this stuff and I love empowering those I work with to find their happiness again too. It’s so empowering to live life on your terms. Life is far too short to just exist! Live life now!

You can join me for face to face coaching or my online workshop “Living In Alignment“ may be right up your alley! If a total lifestyle transformation is what you’re after though, then ask us about our online memberships and lifestyle transformation program we run out of our personal training studio in Lilydale! You’ll also get to attend my mindset and nutrition seminars and weekly coaching calls to help you work through some of the things that are holding you back from creating that successful lifestyle change for yourself too.