Angela Clarke 

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When I realised the truth, that I wasn’t broken beyond repair and that I could actually recreate myself, I set about getting the right tools to make this happen. Instead of continually doubting myself and my abilities I began to practice confident and empowering states of being. Sounds easy doesn’t it...trust me it wasn’t.

 

The biggest mistake I made, and I see my clients make today, is trying to change their ‘outer’ world first – their relationships, financial status, careers, body – without changing their ‘inner world’, and this is where your thoughts and feelings are buried deep and it is how you think that determines how you feel.

 

‘A sneak peek into my before self!’

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Looking back now, I suppose that I had always had a desire to help people from an early age and this was probably borne out of the fact that I had experienced quite a difficult childhood that resulted in me giving birth to my first child on an aeroplane at a young age. My coping mechanism throughout my childhood was to keep silent whilst at the same time trying to fix everyone and everything else, not realising that I had introjected so much negativity that impacted on my ‘inner world’ - my thoughts and feelings about myself worth and my abilities.

 

My mental before would think things like:

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I’m not good enough, I’ll never have enough money, I’ll never find a good man, I’m not a good mother, I hate my body, I’ll always struggle with my weight, I have no control over my future.

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As a result of the above I woke up each day with anxiety and dread, dressed as if I had given up on life, let myself down day after day, avoid looking at the balance of my bank account and tried to control everyone around me to feel better. I even selected partners that did not bring out my best.

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I remember reading a poem by Derek Walcott entitled Love – After – Love and it goes like this: -

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The time will come when, with elation

You will greet yourself arriving

At your own front door, in your own mirror,

And each will smile at the other’s welcome

And say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself,

To the stranger who has loved you all your life,

Whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes,

Peel your own image from the mirror

Sit. Feast on your life.

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