This week has been a confronting one for me in so many different ways. When you think you’re good and you’ve done the self-work and let go of all the things you think you need to let go of to move forward, somebody will undoubtedly hold a mirror to you to show you that you’re not done yet. There is still a very long way to go in the whole learning process that they call life. And I’m starting to come to come to terms with the fact that the point in time I will be done with this learning is the point where I am dead. Burying your head in the sand causes as much pain as confronting the issues that hold us back and have us make atrocious choices for ourselves.

I think, the truth is, that there will always be pain. This is unavoidable. Our choices come in the ways that we choose to deal with it. We can choose to deal with it in a way where we completely abandon ourselves and let others make choices for us. Or we can embrace the mantra of one of my dear friends and shout from the skies “I am never fucking leaving myself” whilst we offer ourselves space and compassion to process.

For the first time in my life, this is the year I’m never fucking leaving myself. I’ve learned to assert boundaries. I’ve learned to express my needs and I’m now learning the hard lessons about where my needs come from in the face of having them not be met. I never before really thought about why these things were things that I needed until I had the rude realisation that my needs were rooted in a place of deep trauma. And instead of burying myself under piles of work, I chose to honour myself and I took some time out. I listened to what my body needed. I listened to what my brain needed and I sat and worked to process, self-soothe and heal. I gave my vulnerability to those I trust and allowed myself to be supported by incredible people.

The reality is, not everyone deserves our trust or our vulnerability. Some people will not step up for us in the ways that we need them to, even when we ask. Some may not realise at the time and we can communicate this and test. But if they disregard us again then it is not our responsibility to fight to change them or to fix it. That is their journey. We can only accept what is. We either get what we need or we don’t. We accept the situation for what it is, or we walk away.

Truth be told, there will always be a lesson to learn. There will always be work. There will always be sadness, pain, anger and all the emotions that come with being a human. The only thing I do know, as I sit here in the cold with my toes in the sand, is that I am a mountain. I am tall, proud and immovable in the fiercest of climates. The world can throw all of the shit at me and it’s going to hurt. But the one thing I’m never doing again is leaving myself. Ever. I’m never fucking leaving myself..