When are you going to finally love yourself and truly believe that you are enough?

Because you are. Seriously.

I’m not sure how to start this. But today I decided it was time. Time to really embrace self-love. Compassion. Kindness. By letting go of judgment. And the one that has annoyed me most these days: comparisons.

I have to come clean. I still struggle with all of it. And maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about it. About people judging. About when my brain compares. About when others compare themselves to others. For a positive reason. For a negative reason. Is there any positive reason to compare? I don’t know.
I’ll have to think about that one.

I grew up as an introverted kid. Shy. Insecure. Overwhelmed by the world. Not really understanding what was requested of me in this world.

You know that feeling? When you arrive in a new place where you’re asked to be. You know you should be there. But you don’t know where. And you don’t know what the fuck you should be doing. So you just do things. And very fast you understand: there are rules. There are paths. There are expectations. Different genders. Mean people. Kind people.

Something I didn’t add to my description: I was a very sensitive girl.

I’m a very sensitive woman. :)

In that overwhelming world, with all those rules and expectations and levels, I thought I was different. I thought I was less than.

When people would say mean things, I would cry. When people would be impatient with me, I would cry. Living in my overwhelming world, not understanding that introversion is normal, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t understand that what I felt was actually common. That it wasn’t about anything that was or wasn’t. I just felt the world around me deeply.

Being in public. Talking on the phone. Talking to anyone unless I felt safe. It was a load of anxiety at the level of an American energy drink. You know that feeling? When your cold brew is caffeinated as fuck. You can’t really be present. Can’t really focus.

So I learned to cry inside. To avoid challenging my fears. To avoid specific people. To leave art school after the third year. I learned to be “tough.” Keep the emotions in. Control myself. And I gained something I never asked for: emotional stress. Stress eating. I got bullied. I believed I wasn’t smart because I wasn’t good at school.

I think about the kids today. They get meditation sessions at school. Time dedicated to just breathing with their classmates.

I’m a Millennial. I live in Hawaii. From all the people I know, maybe half meditate.

How would I have handled the world if I had that too? If talking about stress, anxiety, insecurity was normal when I was young - what would my life have been?

Would I have said out loud how I felt? Would I have chased my dream sooner? Would I have moved to NYC in my 20s instead of waiting until 34?

I think I really started to understand who I was in a room full of mirrors. Where you see every angle of yourself. Only after a few years in NYC. To see myself by myself. Without anyone watching. In a place where I had friends who knew me but didn’t know my previous life. Or only indirectly through Instagram.

I’m not sure if the Nina in Switzerland was the same as the one in NYC.

When I moved to Hawaii, I started a six-month coaching school. Where to learn, you had to practice on yourself first. I got coached by people from all over the world. I coached others to learn. I learned so much through Jay Shetty and all the mentors. About others. About myself.

And I started to practice self-awareness. I started to be present in the middle of a thought. To notice my thoughts as they came. To see which category they fell into - judgment, fear, self-blame - and choose whether to hold them or release them. To see my parents’ behaviors in myself.

I realized I had learned from childhood to copy their behaviors until I made them mine. I saw the drama triangles in my relationships. In my belief systems. In theirs. In society’s. I started to be curious about me. To look out for my inner child. To hang out with her as much as I can.

I’m still figuring it out. I will always be a work in progress. Because we are evolving creatures.

Now I look back at my outside world and I feel so much empathy for others. Because I know how it is to be. To figure out. To struggle to say no. To not love yourself. To blame yourself for what you believe you’re not capable of. For the physical and mental struggles people carry every day. For introverts who feel like they’re not like everyone else. Who have to learn to act. To face an extroverted world. To navigate it.

With all the evil things happening in the world, we are so disconnected from ourselves and from others that we forget our humanity. We forget that we are all very similar.

That we all, no matter our backgrounds, want the same things. A decent life.
To feel seen. Heard. Loved. Present. Healthy.

To be happy…

So can you start to listen? How you talk to yourself? How you talk about others?
And notice how you feel when you do.

Be kind. Understand that you are doing your best with what you have.
And that your best is enough.

You are enough.

I am enough.

With gratitude,
Nina