I lost my little, furry soul mate 6 weeks ago.

I believe my beautiful Paddy came here to show me how to love myself unconditionally. He was my never-ending source of love, nurture, support, laughter and joy and mirror to show me how to love myself unconditionally; how to come home to myself.

I felt so safe and loved with him and the pain of losing him sometimes feels unbearable.

But I know, of course, that emotion is energy-in-motion and when we allow ourselves to feel it, it can be released. When we resist or avoid feeling it, it gets stuck and stops our mind, body and spirit being in a state of flow where it can heal itself and express the true nature of who we are.

When we avoid feeling something we’ve labelled as too overwhelming or too embarrassing or uncomfortable, we start to tell ourselves stories which perpetuate that avoidance. Avoidance strategies can be really subtle – over-thinking, over-working and excessive talking can all be unconscious strategies to avoid sitting with ourselves and listening to how we actually feel about something. But when we avoid feeling, we stop ourselves being in an optimal state of health and we stop others connecting with the true essence of who we are.

We might tell ourselves “I’m not very sociable” or “I have to be the one that always helps others otherwise things won’t get done”. It can be really subtle, but is often a well-practised story to avoid feeling the actual truth; to avoid accepting that we find it hard to feel significant in a group of people or that we won’t feel loved if we don’t sort out everyone’s else problems for them.

Those stories aren’t true! And the only way, in my experience, to prove that to yourself, is to love your whole self. To love all the parts of yourself you are avoiding by telling yourself those stories.

When we tell ourselves those sorts of stories, it just perpetuates the ‘avoidance of self’. We end up continuing to push away or disown parts of ourselves we’ve unconsciously learnt aren’t acceptable to others, aren’t good enough or aren’t worthy.

Paddy was my safe space. He was my healer. And like a true healer, he came here to show me how to love my whole self. He came here to help me recognise that the answers are never outside of ourselves. The answers are always within and all the tools we need to love ourselves unconditionally are within us. And that is true freedom as I see it.

I desperately miss my boy, but my commitment to him is to embody what he showed me. To show myself I am safe and loved every single day; by listening to how I feel and what I need to feel safe. And to make sure I laugh every single day, just like he made me do.

I am creating a legacy for him. He felt he fulfilled his purpose and I’m going to make sure that it wasn’t in vain.

My book about my healing journey is in the editing stages. It’s taken 4 years to write but is creeping it’s way towards being published in some shape or form! If you’d like to know more about it or keep updated with it’s progress, click the link below:

Choose life

With love as always

Sarah xx