The Stories We Tell Ourselves

"I'm terrible at relaxing."

"I can't switch off."

"I'm just one of those people who can never slow down."

Most women say these things so casually, so automatically, that they barely register as anything worth examining.

Just a quick observation. A passing comment. A bit of self-deprecating humour over coffee.

But here's what I've been thinking about lately.

Words matter - not in a "positive thinking fixes everything" kind of way, and not because every difficult thought needs analysing. But because the stories we repeat often enough can quietly shape the way we experience ourselves. Especially when they've been reinforced over years. Sometimes decades.

Often these stories didn't appear out of nowhere.

Many women grew up absorbing invisible messages about what it meant to be good. Be helpful. Be capable. Don't be difficult. Don't rest too much. Don't take up too much space. Keep going. Keep coping. Keep everyone else happy.

Over time, these ideas become so normalised that women stop questioning them altogether - even when they're exhausted, even when their body is asking for something gentler, even when life starts feeling more like constant management than actual living.

It's as though the nervous system quietly learns… you're safest when you're useful.

I believe for many women, usefulness slowly becomes tangled up with identity and self-worth without them ever consciously agreeing to it.

I think that's why summer can feel strangely emotional for some women. Because underneath the longer evenings and the slower pace is often a quiet longing for life to feel just a little different.

Not perfect. Not transformed overnight. Just – lighter.

One of the most compassionate things we can do is begin noticing the language we use about ourselves with a little more gentleness. Not judging it. Not forcing ourselves into relentless positivity. Just becoming curious.

Is this actually true - or is this a story I've repeated for so long it now feels like fact?

Because sometimes the stories we tell most often about ourselves are simply the ones we've heard the longest. And perhaps healing begins not by becoming someone completely new, but by loosening the grip of the stories that were never fully ours to begin with.

Tiny moments of noticing. But those tiny moments matter. Especially to your heart.

Breathe & Believe 💫
Lorraine