The breath of fresh air softly blew the curls that dangled ever so softly around her face, into her eyes. Gently she raised her hand to brush them aside as she stood beside her bike and paused for a moment to take in the breathtaking sunset and scenery in front of her as she looked deep into the green valley and the brilliant orange sun full of scarlet speckles. She felt a sense of peace and calmness wash over her. Finally, she thought, I am back to my peaceful state again. For so long it had seemed that she had struggled with the demons of her own mind. She had begun her soul’s transformation as she had begun to ponder what life was really about and how she could feel happy again.

It seemed that a few years ago she felt that she had been struggling in so many areas of her life. Relationships with others seemed to leave her feeling empty and lonely, as she applied various means of trying to “fix” things with others. Behaviors such as people pleasing, doing what others wanted, trying to be who she thought they wanted her to be. It all made her feel hopeless and a sense of despair, because it didn’t seem to matter what she did, nothing really took away that deep longing that she felt inside. She believed that the emptiness she felt came from wanting to belong and to be truly loved by somebody.

She had come across so many others who felt the same, they shared their stories often and openly with her, and she listened with compassion and care. Each story was different but always seemed to end the same. Some stories were about the ways that other people had hurt them, others stories that she heard were about how they felt a deep sense of grief because somebody that they loved had died, and it had felt they had taken their love away from them. Others were bullied, and or mistreated, others felt unhappy with how they looked, or felt like a failure in some way and some people had been criticised by their parents and had never felt enough.

It didn’t seem to matter what the story was to begin with, the ending was always the same though. It always had a theme around why they weren’t enough, and because they weren’t enough in some way, they didn’t feel worthy of being loved. They all felt lost and empty and a deep sense of despair inside.

Unbeknown to each person that told their story, they were not aware that others felt the same. They really honestly felt that they were the only ones who felt the heat of their own self-critical talk. The only one who felt a fear of being rejected and the loneliness and emptiness of not feeling enough, and feeling like love and happiness was outside of them and was something that they had to find. To each person it had felt like they had looked and looked for happiness and love but just couldn’t seem to find it. Some were still looking and others were in a deep sense of despair as they had given up ever trying to find it. Some people really honestly believed that if they could just find that right person, that would love them exactly for who they were, then they would feel whole and loved and worthy and a sense of peace and happiness within themselves again.

Other people were angry and resentful at others, as they had felt that they had once had this magical relationship that they felt loved in and they had felt really good. Then for one reason or another, this relationship had ended and that person had taken their love away. This then seemed to make them feel even worse about themselves, than what they did in the very beginning.

To Sara, it seemed that the whole world felt lonely and disconnected. Most people believed that this was because other people did not love them in the way that they wished. But really it was because they felt lonely and disconnected within their self. This then lead them to believe that on a deep level they were unworthy of their own self-love. And at times she felt it too.

She was tired and exhausted of living this way and through sheer desperation she had begun what she called her soul’s journey. It was during this journey that she had really started to feel differently about herself. She was beginning to be able to laugh at some of the thoughts that her mind had come up with, to tell her how bad she was, or how she needed to be different so that somebody would love her.

Her mind loved to play games with her, and she had learnt that her mind loved to play the “Hero”

It loved to invent problems by the way that it looked at things, and then to pretend to save the day by coming up with solutions to feel better. For example somebody may not have kept their promise to Sara. The person may have promised to phone her at a certain time. Suddenly her mind would run away with an idea, which was generally to the detriment of Sara’s emotional wellbeing. Her mind would start saying something like “Well they obviously don’t care about you enough to call”. Or “See you are not worth it, people only pretend to like you, but they really can’t be bothered with you.” Or” You’re just not worth people’s time.”

All of these statements were untrue of course. It was only Sara’s mind’s perception of how she thought about it. In reality the person was just busy and hadn’t got a chance to call her. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about her, or only pretended to like her.

Now her mind was able to control her again through telling her these stories. Sometimes her mind would tell her how bad she was, how unworthy she was, that she didn’t have any friends, and that she is really not loved at all by anybody. It was during these times when Sara felt awful and really sad. So her mind would jump in again and want to be the “Hero” to solve Sara’s problem. So it would tell her that she would feel better if she just had some Ice-cream, or a drink, or a smoke.

These habits seemed to distract her and numb her and sometimes it would sort of fill some of the void and emptiness that she felt inside. This would only last an hour or so until later on, when she realised that she had let herself down again, by breaking her promises to herself. Now she not only felt bad about herself and unloved and unworthy, but she also felt guilty and angry at herself. How could she ever attract somebody when she couldn’t lose weight. Or how could she possibly even try and be who she thought that she needed to be whilst she was doing this. So Sara’s mind would jump in with even more dialogue, whilst she still felt the emptiness of constantly searching for this distant far off happiness that seemed like a lifetime away from her.

As each day progressed, she started to read more and more about how her mind liked to play tricks on her and that it wants to create and solve problems, and that it is layered with so many different filters and beliefs that it made it hard to be able to see the real truth of anything, much less her own worthiness. Her mind had bought into so many different ideas of who she needed to be, to be loved and her mind seemed to believe that she was unworthy of anything and was not loveable. It made her heart sink with despair, and it just seemed so hard to shift. Her mind constantly swirled with self-doubts and fears. She wondered how everybody else seemed to cope with life so well, when she felt like she was the only one that didn’t have confidence and self-esteem.

Her breakthroughs started when she was able to read and listen to things that really got her to realise that she was not just her mind. She came to learn that her mind is just a tool that can be used to analyse things and to help her in her day to day roles. She also learnt that her mind was really not very helpful, in realising happiness and self-love. She began to see that there was another part of her a deeper part of her, that was always available to her, when she was quiet enough to listen to it. Through meditation and a deep belief that there was something more to her, she began to reconnect with her spirit again. It was the part of her that deep down, knew everything would be ok no matter what. She knew without a doubt, that she was love, pure love, fully created in love, this feeling of freedom exhilarated her and she no longer felt that she was a prisoner to her mind.

As time went on her mind had less and less control over her. It occasionally won, but only in the short term, because now she had the anecdote. Now she knew all that she had to do was to reconnect with her spirit and to feel the instant love and connection for herself again. No longer did she have to try and search for it outside of herself, no longer did she have to do things to try and please others, which never seemed to work anyway, and only made her feel worse. No longer did she have to push herself to be “better” and “more” all of the time….

She could finally rest in the peace of knowing that all is well and there is nothing that needs to be done, to be loved in this moment. It became a deep knowing in her that she could experience time and time again. Every time her mind dragged her into another story and drama as to why she was not enough, and why she was not worthy of love, its power over her became less and less. She realised that the true purpose of life is Joy and Growth and that we are all inherently perfect just as we are. She believed that her purpose in life was to feel joy and gratitude for all that is, in each moment, whilst growing and becoming more. Just as a seedling is beautiful as it is and yet becomes even more beautiful and majestic as it grows into a wonderful large tree with beautiful flowers for all to enjoy.

She began to embrace all of who she really was, which was pure love and she allowed her light to shine brightly in the world, allowing herself to be a beacon for all that were seeking love, peace and contentment within themselves.