I Starved Myself for Too Long

I used to have a life I strived for; private jets, 5 star hotels- no worries- not really.

Life was comfortable, I had everything I needed, a lifestyle that suited my personality to the ground (even though I was flying in air), and I had put in the work and made the sacrifices to be there.

I hadn’t thought past how things would be once I achieved what I set out to achieve.

I hadn’t got a new goal.

I didn’t think I’d want more than all I had.

Accept, when I arrived at my destination, I did. I wanted more. Not from greed or ambition. But from a sense of unfulfilled and something being off.

I looked at those around 10 years ahead of me and thought “no”, “I don’t want to be you”. And that told me all I needed to know.

So through a mix of wanting a more meaningful life, and believing my dying relationship was the starting point; I quit it all and headed back to the UK.

For some people, that’s the dream. Quit the life you’ve built and start a completely fresh one. Sounds liberating, exciting, exuberant.

Yet- if you’ve done it or if you one day do it- you’ll find out, that’s not always the case. Like any high, you’ll hit a low.

I left my luxury lifestyle and found a mundane, average one that, you’ll already guess, I felt repelled by. My lifestyle and environment no longer reflected back the person I felt myself to be- and I had exchanged one lack for another.

The humbleness I experienced from that … can’t even say I fell from grace- step from grace, hurt. Bad. Any not in an egotistical way, but in a very emotionally raw and excruciating way. Because I lost it all.

Anyone who’s lost it all, will know how dark it is. Not materialism - we can survive that. But loosing yourself? Losing what you thought you’d never live without? Losing love? Losing your future? All of them together? Different level of burial.

Eventually, I started to try to get back up. Eventually I crawled. Eventually I stood. Eventually I walked.

But this journey took years- and I hadn’t even began to run.

I still hadn’t processed or recalibrated who I was. I was still trying to fit into environments that weren’t mine. That didn’t share my values. That didn’t match my energy. That didn’t share my desires.

I was still living a lifestyle that made me feel flat and depressed.

I mistook stability for stagnancy.

I shrunk to fit in.

Denied myself what I loved so to meet everyone else. To stay agreeable. To stay conventional. For approval.

I was so traumatised by loss, that remained invisible to keep connection. I didn’t dare put myself in a position where I presumed a friend may feel I were stepping on her toes, competing or challenging her. Of course, whether this would be true or not, I do not know. I never tried.

I wanted to make sure I was working around others, so that others were comfortable and I didn’t cause any ruptures.

I listened to others when it came to how to spend my money, what courses I should do, where I should invest.

I turned to groups and services that weren’t supportive to my journey or aligned with me because I was looking for a life raft and couldn’t see that I was a capable swimmer- and better off swimming.

I denied myself things that I thought people would perceive as “too much”, “a waste of money”, “lavish” or “bold”.

I changed my dress style day to day to jeans and t-shirt to show my environment I belonged, and not to draw attention to myself.

I dulled beauty from my life.

I didn’t try to put myself out there.

I forced myself to settle for the mundane.

Eventually, I adapted- but I wasn’t fully me. I erased parts of myself that I didn’t think had a place for expression. Ignored my own needs. And prioritised others.

I was living in survival mode.

Until I decided to change. Radically change something.

So I went travelling. Something I had also denied myself because at midlife- I should really settle down and save money and buy a house.

But I said to myself “it’s just one long trip which stops me from moving so it’s a compromise to my patterns”… meaning the patterns I thought I had to break, when in fact I was just denying myself the truth to who I was- and am.

I need beauty. I need space. I need movement. I neee pleasure. I need variety and stimulations I need humour. Luxury. Art and novelty.

My life had none of that.

Until after this trip.

Then I became a mother- and that’s when I woke up.

I realised how much I had been denying myself. How I had become a shadow. How sad and deprived from my natural self I had become. I hadn’t glown up- I had stayed down.

I had denied myself of who I was and all the things that made me, me. I had followed people I didn’t admire. I listened to people who weren’t experienced.

I had truly lost myself. Motherhood woke me up.

Meaning; it wasn’t until a life changing situation that would alter the course of my life (welcomed) that I had realised how off course I had floated.

Once I saw it- I made a vow to myself to do something about it.

Being stable- feeling stable- living stable: doesn’t mean choosing a conditioned path that the masses follow.

It means choosing your definition of what that means to you. It means: asking yourself “what do I truly want from my life?” And “how do I want to wake up everyday and feel?” And committing to the process of understanding what the definition of those things are.

It means; trial and error.

Permission to be you.

Self discovery.

Play.

If you starve yourself of anything you need- and want- you will, in some form of way, eventually die.

You deserve to live.