by janine | May 17, 2017 | Blog
Let me just tell you.. the moment I got an iPhone I was so happy for the “block” feature, after having a blackberry for so many years I just wanted someone to block, because I could.
Fast forward years later and someone whom I kept going back to despite the fact that they were clearly NO good for me was sending me messages and it was hard for me not to respond.
Know what I mean? Like you know he’s no good but you secretly love that he’s still giving you attention and wanting to see you, even if it is only once a week, in the middle of the week to “watch a movie” . because deep inside you think that means somehow he might be coming around, changing his mind, realizing what a f*cking magical Unicorn you really are.
Maybe this time it would be different, OR you just want that moment of comfort you feel in his presence because being alone just feels so damn lonely. Yeah, that.
So Anyways, my friend demanded I block this guy. But I refused. My reason? I decided that If I blocked him I was creating an energetic vacuum. I was putting up a wall that would only perpetuate further behaviour of the same. A weird way to look at it I know. But I knew me ( and I’m weird anyway) and I knew it didn’t just mean I wouldn’t go back, it meant I would consistently wonder if he was trying to contact me. It would drive me more crazy wondering, than it would trying to resist texting back when he did slide into my inbox.
I tried blocking though. I gave it an honest shot, because you know if one thing isn’t working it’s time to try something new and I was no good at ignoring. But it only put more attention and focus on what I was trying to get away from.
So I realeased the block, literally and energetically. I removed the barriers I created so that I could create room to let go, to grieve, to forgive and to move on. I still deleted everything including the old messages that reminded me of what was once so full of hope and promise.
Now, there is certainly a difference if someone is harassing you, block that nonesne asap! But if you are blocking someone because you do not feel strong enough yet to resist responding to their messages then I encourage you to explore that further. Perhaps blocking is necessary while you find your foundation again, but keeping blocks up only draws energy to the areas you are trying to move away from.
It is so empowering to receive messages from someone you once could not say no to, and being able to smile and hit delete!
Holding onto old text messages keeps you in that old energy, it keeps you wishing and hoping for the way things were instead of grasping your new current reality, the way things are.
Looking through old pictures brings up those old feelings and your brain does not know what’s current and what is not so conjuring up those feelings keeps you stuck in the past, unable to move on.
It’s good to set aside time for grieving, to go through what was and allow yourself to send thanks, offer forgiveness and let go peacefully. In your own due time.
But if you are spending weeks or months reliving what happened, re reading old messages, pulling up old pictures you are not giving yourself the grace of letting go and moving on.
It’s not easy, trust me with all my heart I know, but I also know the freedom and liberation that comes from finally deleting the old stuff and creating energetic space for what is to come.
You cannot invite in new Love, new experiences, new relationships if you are still hanging onto the past.
So, it’s time to remove the block, delete the past and move towards your bright and promising future!
It’s okay to let go, you are not losing anyone, you are gaining
yourself.
XO
by janine | Apr 25, 2017 | Blog
“You are worthy”
“You are enough”
You read these well meaning quotes on the internet and perhaps you even repost them as reminders and notes to self. But they get lost in your feed and nothing ever really changes.
Here is the thing about affirmations like this.
Reciting something that seems so far off of where you are at this moment can feel more like a pipe dream than a reality.
It is important to know that you are enough
It is crucial to believe that you are worthy.
But if you are so far removed from these beliefs then how possibly can they serve you?
I see the Hashtag #knowyourworth thrown around often by women who very obviously do not know their worth.
Fake it til you make it is a good way of aligning yourself with the dreams and desires of your heart, acting “as if” you have what you want until you get it.
But you have to know what makes you feel unworthy. You have to release the resistance to the idea that you do not believe you are worthy, so that you can actually start to feel worthy.
You see, many woman are ashamed to admit that they don’t feel good enough or worthy.
You know it in your bones that this is why you keep choosing men who are less than what you desire, but you are not so quick to admit that the reason you are okay with your date being late, cancelling for the umpteenth time, bailing, pulling disappearing acts, not giving a crap about your day or your life is either because you don’t feel you deserve better or that better even exists anymore.
I know it sounds sad to read it out loud. But listen, feeling bad only makes shame worse. I will be the first to tell you that I do not feel bad for you. Not one little bit. Because there is nothing to feel bad about. You see, I know that you are worthy and deserving and so capable and while I don’t feel bad, I can certainly empathize. I can let you know that it is safe for you to feel the way you do without believing that it is bad or wrong.
You are just currently in a state of mind that is causing you to settle for less and stay small.
Although this is a little bit tragic, what I do know from years of personal experience is that you do not have to stay there.
So how do you go from picture quote and hashtag to living and breathing your worth?
1, You figure out what you currently believe about your worth.
2. You admit it. You stare your belief right in it’s lying face and you tell it “I SEE YOU and everything that comes from you”
3. You get real about it. You dig deep into all of the choices you make because you do not feel worthy of more. At this point you will probably cry, and that’s okay. Remember not to feel bad for yourself but to take a stand for yourself.
4. Forgive yourself. This is where you can have compassion for yourself. See the wounded parts of you and let yourself know that no matter what happened in the past, it is okay now. You are forgiven and it is time to move forward.
5. Love yourself, even your mistakes. Everything you thought made you less of who you are is just a part of the colourful mosaic that you are and nothing is ever truly a mistake. The word itself says “mis-take” meaning you were just a few steps off of where you deserved to be.
Every single thing you felt that was wrong about you, let it be right.
6. Choose affirmations that feel more in alignment with where you are right now. Ask yourself what you need. Ask yourself what you want and then create statements that support that.
Examples:
“I know I have chosen differently in the past but I am willing to choose better now”
“Even though I have not felt worthy of this before, I choose to believe that I am worthy now”
“In this moment, I am enough”
“With all of my quirks, nuances and eccentricities I choose to love and accept myself”
Meet yourself where you are at right now and getting to where you want to be will be a lot less overwhelming and much more possible.
XO
by janine | Apr 21, 2017 | Blog
Are you having a hard time letting go of an ex/past relationship? Are you having a hard time moving on and cant stop thinking about how they did you wrong, what they’re up to now and why you weren’t enough?
Very often our inability to let go of someone is not directly about the person themselves but what it is they brought to the relationship and who they are as a person. DUH, you know, right ? But it runs a bit deeper than just liking the way they told jokes or slayed in the kitchen or played that guitar.
When you have a hard time letting someone go who’s time has expired in your life, chances are it is because they are, unknowingly, holding hostage a part of your power that you gave them or they possess a quality that you feel is missing in you and you are desperate to feel it again.
I can speak from years of experience, I was the Queen of hanging on. I’d never fully let anyone go, always keeping them in my back pocket for a rainy day. What this did was stop me from truly finding someone who was better suited for me, but it also kept me in the mindset that what they had, I lacked.
It has been said, time and time again, that people are mirrors for us. They come to show us parts of us that we are hiding or denying and they also reflect back to us the parts of us we want or need to change. Don’t ever underestimate the learning power of your connection with someone else, even if brief. These people come to teach us lessons and are so valuable if you are open to receiving the lesson.
When someone is so outwardly confident and you are struggling with your self-esteem you will naturally gravitate towards them because they possesses something that you know is lacking in you.
When someone is stable, responsible and powerful in what they do you find yourself more drawn to them because some of that you want to have too.
Since I was quite young I felt powerless in my life. It was not always a conscious knowing, it was quite subtle. I mean I was pretty bossy but when it all came down to it, I was being bossy and telling people what to do because I felt no control over my own inner world.
Naturally I was always attracted to and dated guys who exerted their power, sometimes too much. Whenever one of these relationships would end I would find myself desperate for reconciliation or relief from the gnawing feeling of emptiness inside of me. Empty, in my core. Empty because I was abandoning myself, my truth and neglecting my own inner power.
When you learn to see people as a mirror you can start to accept that we are all more alike than different. You will realize that what you admire and are attracted to in another is possible for you too.
Think right now about someone you admire, not necessarily a love interest, maybe a famous person or maybe someone you are close with. What do you admire about them? Does anything about that ever make you feel inadequate or less than? Do you find yourself wishing you had what they do? Do you feel envy or attraction? What do you actually feel when you see or think of them?
Some people are born naturally talented, so it is not to say that someone’s amazing vocal skills are possible for you too, although I’d argue that some singing lessons and a good producer could always help. But my point is that people can inspire us to be our best selves and show us by example what is possible for us. Or we can let our insecurities and inadequacies keep us small and longing for more of what we think we want, but really don’t need. (The ex!)
So, if there is someone you are still pining over, if you feel you have completely lost out because someone left then I encourage your dear, sweet heart right now to explore the idea that just maybe what you are missing the most are the lost pieces of you that you think you don’t have, but you do.
Everything you need is within you and in this lifetime we are likely to love and lose a few, or more, times but the one thing that is for certain is that the love that is rooted within you cannot ever be lost.
Allow yourself to grieve your loss when it comes to the physical connection & presence, habits, rituals and intimacy but know that in this world of over 7 billion people, you will certainly find another and next time it can be even better because you will now know more of who you are and will rely on them not to fill your voids, but simply just to love and enjoy. Xo
by janine | Apr 10, 2017 | Blog
Taking one’s own life is the ultimate oxymoron of taking control over a life they once felt they had no control over.
This is my very personal and not professional nor universal experience and angle of suicide.
Suicide hit me in a time period before I understood what depression really felt like
It hit me when I thought I could save the world
It hit me when I thought everyone opened up about their struggles
It hit me when I was 4 classes fresh into a psychology certification
One foot in the door, my first stepping stone to a phd
Suddenly everything I thought I knew, I didn’t
Suddenly feminism and freudian theories didn’t seem so important
Suddenly all I could wonder was, why didn’t I know, why didn’t I help and how on earth does it get so bad that such a permanent solution was decided upon.
All of this before.. before I fully understood.
My stance on suicide eventually went from shock and grief
To Understanding and relief
You see this world gets hard
And it isn’t always the saddest people who take their lives
Sometimes it’s the smartest ones
Sometimes it’s the loneliest ones,
Lonely doesn’t always mean sad
Sometimes it’s the most misunderstood
Sometimes it’s the ones who are unheard.
This world is LOUD
And suffering has become so silent
Suicide and depression are to our society
What the caves and caverns are of this world
Dark, and deep, claustrophobic and only the bravest venture into them
But not everyone comes out the same, or at all
It’s okay to talk about a bad day, traffic hold ups, angry bosses, annoying employees, misbehaving kids and broken down cars
But its not acceptable to talk about days when you’d rather drive off a bridge or jump through a window than spend another moment inside your own head.
No one openly admits how many times they’ve contemplated the details of their demise
The how, the when, the where and the aftermath.
Struggling with a brain that wont stop
Its like going a million miles an hour
On a runaway train
All the coping mechanisms,
All the mindset techniques
All of the positive vibes and happy memories
Nothing can stop this train from going off the tracks
It’s going to take the most skilled engineer to steer this baby back
This life has it’s fucking hard moments
I teach every day about living in the moment
About being positive
About just LIVING your life
I talk about overcoming anxiety, and depression
And I mean it. I mean all of it.
But it’s not glamorous to talk about the muddy stuff
Even though it’s helpful
More of us than not have or have had dreadful feelings
Some more often than others
But people are afraid to talk about them
There are stigmas
and the worst of all
Shame
The paralyzing fear of being cast out of your tribe
I remember the first time the thought ever crossed my mind.
It startled me.
Tears brimmed my tired eyes, white knuckled grip on the steering wheel- just another metaphor for holding on too tightly to a life that was slipping trough my fingers.
Traveling the max speed limit in the middle lane on a highway I knew like the back of my hand.
A highway I saw one too many lives taken on.
A highway I ultimately imagined letting take my own life.
‘If I just let go of the wheel, and keep my foot on the gas then perhaps I can just make it look like an accident, none would be the wiser’.
Up until the few months leading up to that day, suicide was taboo to me.
But there I was, a few short years after my first experience losing someone to suicide, driving in my car, imagining the once unimaginable.
Glancing in the rear view mirror I’m snapped out of my morbid thoughts by the trusting face of my soul saviour- my dog. I remember the promise I made, I remember she needs me and I know she doesn’t deserve any part of this.. and I carry on.
These thoughts felt shameful, awful, scary and unacceptable. But that didn’t make them any less prominent. That didn’t make them disappear. It just suppressed them.. until the next time and each time that face in the rear view would snap me out of my daze.
I visited a doctor. They asked if I had thoughts of harming myself “not really”. Because the truth is, they weren’t the typical thoughts that show up on those questionnaires about the signs of serious depression.
My problem was not that I was sad, although I was.
It was that I felt trapped. I felt powerless.
Living in a basement apartment that felt like a dungeon, sleeping beside someone every night who I felt completely alone next to. My anxiety ran rampant. I could barely make it out of bed to go to school and when I did all I wanted was to leave. Until I eventually I did and became a college drop out.
Everything was falling apart.
My relationship. My finances. My education. I had a great job but even that was sucking the life out of me. I called in sick so often it’s a wonder they kept me for another 6 years.
I had no plan. I had no structure. I had no clue where I was going what I was doing or who I even was.
I was so lost in trying to figure it all out that it was driving me insane.
It started to become a pattern.
I would make changes, or have them made for me.
I would break down, fall apart and then rise again, stronger even, and the cycle would continue.
The moment I had no plan, the moment someone did something that hurt me, the moment I could not make someone listen to me or love me or trust me, I fell apart.
My thoughts returned to ending my life. It became ritual.
There is a saying “the lesson won’t go away until it teaches us what we need to know”.
What I knew for certain is that I had purpose here, I wanted more for my life. The issue was not that I wanted to die, it was that I had no idea how to live. I felt out of control, too many options and yet none at all and so the only thing that often felt feasible was to take matters into my own hands, not by rising, but in initiating my permanent demise.
I started to get sick of myself. Sick of this pattern. Sick of thinking and never doing. Sick of knowing I didn’t have it in me to commit such an act and yet it was all I could think about. I had enough of myself.
So I started to read some self help books. I started to do things that felt good to me.
It would take me many years to break the cycle, to realize the one thing that I had been craving and always missing was my power.
So this is my lesson, my a-ha moment and my dose of inspiration.
Never were my suicidal thoughts something that appeared in depths of great sadness. They appeared when my life felt powerless. When I would go through a break up, when money was low, when I hated my job and felt there was no way out.
In wanting to take my own life I learned that all I truly wanted was some sort of control. In knowing this I had to learn the only control I truly had was of my own thoughts and my own choices.
I stopped letting other people hurt me
It’s not that I never got hurt, it’s that I stopped blaming other people when I did. Because I was responsible for how I felt, no one else.
I stopped letting my job define me.
I saw it as a way to make money until I could find and step into what truly lit my soul up.
I stopped thinking the world owed me something because of what happened in my past and started to acknowledge what happened, feel what I had once refused to feel and committed to healing it.
I started to make choices that felt right for me and not for anyone else.
I started to follow my heart and doing what I truly loved instead of what I thought I should do.
I can say without a doubt that the cycle has been broken, but it does not mean that every once in awhile I am not reminded of it.
Scars don’t heal. Scars remain.
We are human and we are spirit and we are magical beings with so much potential and so much capabilities.
We have purpose and passion and so so much power.
But we have these minds that are so complex
Minds that can literally drive us insane. Sometimes by our own doing and sometimes by a chemical concoction that fucks us up from the start.
So what I am saying is not that I feel it is okay to want to, and ultimately take our own lives.
I wish that no one ever even had the thought cross their mind
But I know how heavy it can get. I know how convoluted the mind can be.
I can’t promise you its all going to be better one day.
I can only promise you that it can feel better, day by day.
I can promise you that you can feel better than you feel right now, without the pressure of reaching for a destination of healing.
Maybe for you right now all that matters is learning to live in and enjoy the moments that you have breath in our lungs and a beat in your heart.
Maybe right now you just focus less on where you want to be a year from now if tomorrow itself looks bleak.
Maybe right now you just admit that this is all really fucking messy and scary and being brave is a really fun concept but its really effing exhausting, and you take a little break.
Even the people who advocate for healing.
Who advocate for empowerment and who share their truth so daringly,
They are not immune to the mindfuck that this life can be
They are not immune to the scars that get buried so deep
I don’t want to pretend life is lollipops and butterflies, rainbows and bright skies.
We’re always searching for and striving for the next better day that it feels so wrong and awful and scary to just sit in the bad ones
I am strong because I let my self visit the dark corners of my mind
The places people don’t want to go, because its not holy or socially acceptable or because it’s really scary
We have to visit our darkness
Its in the moment that we ignore it, resist it, fight it, that we ultimately succumb to it
I lovingly challenge you, if your thoughts have ever ventured to the realm of ending your own life, to question this. To ask yourself by taking control this way, where do you feel you are lacking control in other areas of your life.
Each one of us has an equal amount of divine power in the core of our beings. Knowing this and owning it can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.
You have the power to choose the life you desire, I promise.
If you are feeling powerless to your circumstances. If you feel there are no options for you and you’re feeling out of control then I invite you to have a call with me, on me, to chat about how to take the power back over your own life, and how I can help you do that:
https://www.janineaf.com/talktome/
<3
[Disclaimer: this is a personal and experiential opinion and is not meant to downplay the serious side effects of clinical depression and mental illness. If you are having suicidal or self-harming thoughts I encourage you to reach out to your family doctor or national crisis centre. There is help on many levels for anyone who feels this life is too overwhelming to keep living in. I am aware that hormonal and chemical imbalances can play a part in depression and suicide and that medication may be necessary for survival.I love you and I want you to live]
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