Short Inspirational Stories Archives

how to find self-love when you feel lost

by Joanna Peters | Feb 11, 2020 | Healing Tools, Short Inspirational Stories

Years ago, I had heard conversations about ‘loving your authentic self’, and thought it sounded self-indulgent and frankly, weird.

At the time I was wounded and lost. I had walked through some hard things, and as is typical, I had lost connection to myself in the process. Truthfully, I had not just lost connection with myself – I didn’t like myself.

So sad looking back because I was surely loved, and was very accomplished in life. So what was missing?

Why did my life seem to look great on the outside, yet I was filled with anxiety and self-doubt?

In an embodiment class, years ago, the exercise was seemingly simple – I had to tell people what I wanted out of my life.

I remember trying to complete the exercise where the person opposite me would just listen and be a sounding board and repeat the same question to stimulate brainstorming.

The question – ““what do you want?” The rules were to think of things you wanted, not for your family or others.

“What do you want, what do you want..”… over and over the question was repeated lovingly for one minute.

The large room was buzzing with noisy excitement, and that filled me with even more panic because I had no answer. The exercise seemed to go on for an eternity. I did not know what I wanted.

I hadn’t considered that question for a long time. How could that be?

For me, I had spent decades focusing on what I ‘should’ do, based on what I thought others wanted or needed of me. I very sadly had not considered in a long while, what I wanted for MY life.

Even more so since becoming a Mom, I had categorized anything that I liked to do as selfish or not important.

I love to walk others through this journey of sacred feminine restoration now, using embodiment tools, intuitive coaching, and energy healing. I get truly get chills each time a sister rediscovers her worth and straightens her crown!

The things that make us uniquely us, our likes, our dreams, our pet peeves, and quirks, I believe are a road map to lead us to where we are supposed to be in life.

If we live authentically and listen carefully, our wants and desires will lead us to the right friends and partners, how we are supposed to contribute to the world, and to whom we are supposed to support.

The impact we are to have in this world cannot be found if we are not listening to our authentic selves, or if we are wearing masks to impress or please others.

The first step if you are feeling lost, is to get to know yourself again — your authentic self before hard things happened to you, and then to focus on treating her very well – to honor her, because she deserves it!

Much like any relationship, self-love is a process of mutual respect, understanding, and tenderness.

Take a moment today, get ridiculously selfish for a moment…. create the space….. Who are you and what do you want??

How are you going to show yourself that you matter and that you are loved and appreciated by YOURSELF today?

If any of this feels familiar, if it’s been a while since you focused on yourself enough to know what you want, check out my Exhaustion Archetype Quiz below.

In 2-minutes you will receive a free personal report of which inner traits are blocking you from self-love and living in flow with the universe. I created it from years of coaching women through hard things, it will get you pointed back in the right direction 🙂

Sending so much love to you!

Joanna Peters, Coach & Author: Guiding soul weary women to heal from their painful pasts, shed shame and finally live with the peace and self-love they deserve.

Ready to get to know yourself better?

Take this quiz to reveal which inner traits add to your exhaustion and block self-love.

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My Personal Story of Letting Go

by Joanna Peters | Feb 11, 2020 | Short Inspirational Stories

I’m done! This is so hard!! I’m exhausted! Overwhelm stinks, but what if you are creating that feeling yourself?

I don’t know about you but I’m kinda stubborn. Surrendering anything is super hard for me. Control in parenting, choice of paint color, anything. The curse of the recovering perfectionist.

In addition to that personality trait, my childhood experience had me toughen up and take responsibility for things I shouldn’t have at an early age, which can be a hard habit to shake.

That type of experience also tends to have us put up some protection walls somewhere, that makes words like “vulnerability” or “surrender” be less desirable than ‘strong’ and ‘powerful”.

It feels strong and powerful to resist ‘what is’ and put up a fight. But then we feel exhausted and overwhelmed. What if there is another way…?

It’s a little funny how I came to the ‘surrender realization’ I am talking about.

I was not raised to be particularly spiritual. I was invited to a church in my 20s by a friend, and when I went, I felt alone and sad.

There were people there with joy in their eyes, with peace and genuinely hugging each other hello. I knew I didn’t have what they had and I didn’t know how to get it.

During the worship that day, my mind was wandering. I was so bored, they were singing the same verse of a song over and over again.

I was not entertained, so my mind was wandering on how I can get to the level of peace and joy that I had witnessed.

What was I missing? What did I need to do? The boring song was repeating that same verse over and over again.. “I sur-render. All to you. All to you”

“ I I I sur-render. All to you. All to you”…. “

As soon as it connected in my brain that I was being given my answer in the song, I opened a teeny weeny gap in my armor and spirit flooded into my body.

Physical feeling going through my veins, head spinning and my heart pumped with loving energy and support instantly.

Tears were coming to my eyes, although like the warrior I was, I was trying to swallow them down so no one saw or knew I was crying.

In that moment I knew it was true. There is a loving force, I am not alone. I skipped home smiling randomly at strangers because I loved them all.

I feel that powerful loving energy when any faith is praying, my Jewish and Muslim friends access the same energy. We are so loved.

I know this to the core of my being, yet there are days I feel overwhelmed and throw a tantrum. Why?

Because I am human and this surrendering thing is super hard!

We have to do it daily and our ego hates it.

If we want to BE in control (which ego does, because we feel it is in our best interests and protects us), we wind up FEELING in control and responsible – that is – to have the weight of the universe on our shoulders.

I like to call that process ‘promoting myself to managing director of the universe’. I feel responsible for the outcome of all the things around me, and get overwhelmed.

Then my thoughts escalate to things like “how am I going to get this done? Will it be good enough? Will I fail?

I continue to add more thoughts to this ever growing overwhelm, increasing my anxiety, until I remember – finally – that I am not actually the managing director of the universe. (phew!)

My job is to take my little action step, then surrender and trust.

Trust that He is better at this than me.

Trust that since He created the entire universe, He can probably handle my situation.

Trust that his way will work out even better than the version I am trying to ‘strong arm’ into existence.

Trust in His timing (my personal worst struggle, I’m so impatient).

Breathe and trust. That’s how this whole thing works best for everyone. Especially when things on earth here are super hard, we need to do our part, then let go.

So when I remember, here is what I know to be true, and its the opposite to the way my brain is naturally wired –

=>The hardest thing possible for a human to do is to trust something, or someone enough to surrender our ego’s will.

=> Faith therefore takes tremendous continuous strength, not weakness.

The challenge, daily, is to quit the self appointed position of being the managing director of the universe, in exchange for being divinely loved and supported instead.

Doesn’t seem so bad a trade when I remember.

If any of this resonated with you, please consider joining me in restore – a FREE 5-Day ‘at your pace’ experience where we work together to restore ourselves through intuitive guidance, energy clearing, and mindset tools.

It would be my honor to be able to support you.

Much love,

Joanna

There once Was A Girl….

by Joanna Peters | Jan 17, 2020 | Short Inspirational Stories

There once was a girl who so loved the world, she wanted to make everyone happy in it… she loved her dolls, animals, and family whenever she could. She also had a wild and free spirit and loved to play hard with her brother and friends.

She was intuitive, so when she knew her parents weren’t happy, she often wanted to make things easier for them. She tuned into what that might be and listened carefully to their “Good girl!” praise and conditioning. She was naturally helpful and thoughtful, so would do small things to help her family, which was met of course with praise and compliments.

Whenever she had a moment where she didn’t feel like helping and was thinking of her own comfort or needs, she was quickly corrected “Don’t be so selfish!”. Her parent’s tone made her understand that she should feel some shame around being selfish.

She would visit her grandma on weekends. Her older brother didn’t have to go as often because he didn’t want to, and everyone understood he had plans with his friends.

The little girl learned once again that the plans she had been yearning for didn’t matter, that being loyal and selfless was the better way to be. He was being selfish but it was somehow different for him. Regardless, the little girl understood, her life was about pleasing others, and being selfish was not okay.

Later in life the little girl for all her good deeds and good intentions, found herself struggling with depression and exhausted from decades of trying to please all the people.

She had trained her husband, kids, and pets that she was their go-to and loved them so much she would take care of everything. She had so wanted to be a “good” wife, Mom, sister, daughter, friend, and pet owner and ran on the praise of hearing so. If anyone was ever unhappy though, she felt like a failure, and of course, someone was always unhappy about something.

One day, the little girl woke up exhausted and had a revelation.

Perhaps it wasn’t her job to take care of all the people or to make others happy. Perhaps they had some responsibility too.

Maybe, just maybe, what she wanted for her life mattered too. And in her head, she told everyone to ‘eff off’. She gave herself permission to rediscover that wild and free spirit. She googled the word “fun”.

She repeated at least 4 times a day for months after that, “No!” … and ..”…because I matter too!”.

To her surprise – everyone quickly readjusted to her new self-loving boundaries.

The world kept spinning.

At that moment she realized that she had always been enough, and the need to chase perfection or please others softened.

She smiled to herself, as she snuggled deeper into the comfort of her own skin.

And EVERYONE lived even more happily ever after.

By Joanna Peters

Sink deeper into what it means to fully choose yourself, in A Woman’s word by Joanna:

“Beautiful souls, our time to rise is now. But first we need to stop believing the lie that every other woman has it all together except us”.

Bombarded with unrealistic societal messages about what being successful as a woman looks like, A Woman’s Word is a compelling and refreshing confirmation that we all doubt ourselves, break down in tears, struggle with comparison and wonder if we are ‘enough’ at times.

Joanna Peters has had the honor of standing beside some seriously remarkable warriors on their healing journeys. Leveling the ‘secret shame’ playing field with no topic off-limits, she shares her first-hand account of nine women’s heartwarming, emotional, and empowering healing stories and their brave journeys from darkness to light. She shares their courageous and complicated stories in support of all women, so we can see ourselves in their struggle and find a way forward in our lives.

Too often, our journey to peace is compromised by trying to hide the fact that we are a human with flaws. Darkness is a part of everyone’s journey that needs a light shined through it to heal.

Follow Rosa’s heart-wrenching journey through teen addiction and homelessness, Sophia’s relatable struggle with perfectionism and anxiety in corporate while battling secret shame, or cry with Brenda as she fumbles through motherhood battling depression and devastating grief.

A Woman’s Word shares the raw and empowering true stories of nine brave women healing from the darkness of trauma that beckons and inspires healing, acceptance and self-love in us all.

www.joannapeters.com/books