I feel like there are 2 types of people in the world -

• people who loove and are excited about their birthdays, and
• people who dread them and feel an immense amount of anxiety around them.

I fall into the latter 🥺

I used to LOOVE birthdays, a fact that you can gather from looking at my childhood photo albums - filled with me surrounded by my friends, laughing, rose-cheeked, happy.

But somewhere along the way, things changed…

We were growing up, we weren’t children anymore - and the opinions, perceptions and rules of our society and community started to shape us 💔

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Friendships started to fall apart, but the pressure of having a “picture perfect birthday” never did.

So every year I would dread that day.

Dread the attention it brought to me.

Dread everyone’s questions: “what are you doing for your birthday?” “who are you inviting?” “what did you get?”

When the answers for many years were “nothing” and “no one”.

So once I was an adult living for myself and not dependent on my parents’ ability to provide, I made it my mission to have lots of friends to celebrate my birthdays with, and to always make a big deal out of them.

And I did - all through my 20’s and early 30’s. I had lots of friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and I had many parties.

But no matter how many people I invited, how many parties I threw or how many presents I got, I never got that childhood excitement back - the hollow feeling in my heart and gut was never filled.

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Until a few years ago, deep into my healing journey, I realised that the hollow feeling will never be filled with anything outside of me.

It can only be filled by my own acceptance, self-love and compassion towards myself.

So for the past 2 years, I have listened to my heart instead of my head, and taken myself on an adventure on my birthday - this year I’m solo travelling in Europe, currently writing this to you from Paris 🗼

The hollowness is not fully gone yet, healing takes time, but every time I choose to do something for me, instead of abandoning my needs to please others based on what society deems “normal”, I see that lil girl in me looking up with her rosy cheeks and smiling - and that is enough for me 🥹

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To end this deeply personal letter to you (wasn’t expecting to write all this when I sat down today 🥹), I want to share 37 thoughts and lessons that I have collected over the 37 years in my phone notes and many, many diaries.

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1. Always put yourself first. If something doesn’t feel aligned, respect yourself enough to say NO.
2. Doing things just for others is a form of self-abandonment, and will lead to resentment.
3. Speak your truth as soon as possible. Don’t let things fester.
4. You can’t predict other people’s reactions, and it’s not your job to do so.
5. Trust your intuition. Every answer you seek is already within you, waiting to guide you on your true path.
6. Not all friendships are meant to last forever. Some people come into your life for a reason, but when their time is up, let them go gracefully.
7. Manifestation is always happening - not based on your conscious thoughts, but based on your unconscious beliefs.
8. Where your focus goes, energy flows. Whatever you give attention to, you create in your life.
9. Anything is possible. Let go of the need to control tomorrow. Trusting the unknown invites new, magical experiences into your life.
10. To co-create with the universe, you must release control, trust the process, and live one step at a time.
11. Take action even when you’re not ready. You will never be able to see the “whole picture”, just the next step ahead.
12. The love you’ve been searching for is your own. Self-love is the key to healing all wounds and creating healthy, real relationships.
13. Your trust in yourself is the foundation for everything.
14. You are only capable of accepting the level of love that you have for yourself.
15. Your outer relationships are always a mirror of your inner relationship with yourself.
16. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, comes down to your nervous system health.
17. You go through your whole life trying to prove yourself to others because you were not truly seen by your parents.
18. Just because you feel doubt doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Doubt often comes from stepping out of your comfort zone and into the unknown.
19. You are allowed to disappoint others in order to be kind to yourself.
20. Saying random affirmations doesn’t really rewire your beliefs or your nervous system.
21. Question everything that you hear in your mind. It’s trying to keep you safe, not encourage you to grow and expand.
22. Peace can feel uncomfortable when chaos was your normal for years.
23. Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget.
24. Rest is not something you earn.
25. Most overthinking is fear pretending to be problem solving.
26. You don’t need to heal every single part of yourself to deserve love. You are already loveable, just as you are.
27. Burnout is not a badge of honour.
28. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is slow down.
29. Your nervous system will always choose familiar over healthy until you teach it otherwise.
30. Boundaries are a form of self-respect.
31. You can outgrow people and still love them deeply.
32. Healing is not becoming someone new, it’s returning to yourself.
33. The way you speak to yourself matters more than you realise.
34. There is no timeline you need to follow in life.
35. You are not “too sensitive”. The world just taught you to disconnect from yourself.
36. Your dream life will never feel safe to your old identity.
37. Life becomes so much lighter when you stop trying to prove your worth and start allowing yourself to simply be.

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If you've been feeling the pull, I have 2 more spots open for May coaching, let’s chat ❤️

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With all my love,

Darja x

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