Istanbul, March 11th, 2024

Greetings from Istanbul. After having spent 5 weeks in the middle of nowhere, close to the sea and being sun kissed every day, I have returned to “civilization”. For the next 4 weeks, I’ll be indulging in food and beauty, and spending time with friends who are flying in.  

I’m in Istanbul to celebrate the end of an era and to start a new one (hope you can appreciate the pics :)). But before I talk about the future, I want to share some nuggets. Insights I have picked-up along the way on my journey from burned-out corporate drop-out to starting an online business as a clinical psychologist while travelling the world.

Choosing to build a business from scratch is not for everybody. You need to be willing to face many things alone, sit with discomfort and be willing to take full responsibility for your actions and decisions. In other words, building a business is all about self development. And the ones who truly understand this, are the ones that are building businesses in a healthy way.

I'm learning it's about trusting yourself enough so that you can take risks without being reckless. It's about learning to lead with compassion and to forgive yourself. Learning when to quit and walk away. Learning that in the end, it will work out because you choose to show-up consistently. And learning to let go of self imposed timelines.

But the most challenging thing is to learn to deal with uncertainty and the emotional waves it brings with it. A topic that is very relevant these days since all of us face uncertainty. Whether it is in the job market, in our relationships, in our finances … It’s part of life. And how we deal with it, how we choose to let it impact us will determine our decisions and thus the course of our lives.

So what do we need in order to deal with those waves brought to us by uncertainty? There are many things, which I will share in the upcoming weeks, but today I want to talk about a strategy that has helped me a lot. So here is my first nugget:

DARE TO STAND IN AUTHENTICITY.

So how do you hold and trust yourself in a society that pushes you to be like everybody else? This is the question I have been wrestling with. And not just me, many of my clients as well.

Many of us live in total disconnection from ourselves. In a way we are trained that way. There is not a lot of room within our current society for creativity and self-reflection.

Many of us are looking for deeper meaning, but we are looking in the wrong places. We listen more to other people's opinions instead of truly sitting with ourselves and making space for ourselves.

But when faced with adversity, this is where your journey should start … conversations with your Self. It’s learning to manage those voices that tell us what we should do or shouldn't do. And understanding which ones are yours and which ones are not.  

It will be uncomfortable at first, but once you understand yourself on a deeper level, you will feel unstoppable. At least, that’s what worked for me. And today I want to share a strategy that has helped me get there.

Soon after I started my business, I realized I was getting in my own way. Something that many struggle with but are not always aware of. So I took myself to therapy to figure out why I feel so blocked. Obviously we had to go back to my childhood, and this is what I learned …

From a very early age, I have been perceived as “too much”. I would be referred to as “too loud”, “the difficult one”, “the one always wanting to know it better”. And before I knew it, those voices became my own.

To avoid the discomfort that comes with being perceived like that, I made myself small. I started to believe that my “being” was “hurting others”. And thus I dimmed my light, I started to conform, played the good girl, the high achiever, the perfectionist. Until the day I could no longer sustain that. Burn-out helped me break free.

I realized that if I wanted to succeed with my business, I needed to go back and get my younger self involved. It has been the most uncomfortable experience of my life! I had to learn to get comfortable with the version of me that is loud, or perceived as so. The version that triggers people because she shows-up in an authentic way.

But I also have learned that she is the version of me that can speak to people's souls. She is the version of me that is not afraid to share how she feels, knowing it could inspire others to take action.

That version of me has been brought back and we have built a solid foundation so that, no matter what happens, she can feel safe with herself. Because I made a promise to never abandon her again. And that is how I learned to stand my ground, to stay true to myself, all of me, and to lead with authenticity.

When we face uncertainty, our anxiety kicks-in. And rightfully so, because our brain is designed to protect us. So it doesn’t do well with surprises and not knowing. When we find ourselves in a state of fear, the survival mechanism is activated and makes us default back to the survival strategies. But those strategies don’t work long term.

But once you understand yourself and can sit with yourself through those moments, they become shorter. Once you feel deeply connected with yourself, you will learn to navigate fear that comes with uncertainty. And once you do, you will make different decisions. And that, to me, is true leadership.

So my invitation to you, is to reconnect with your younger self. If you truly want to live an authentic life, you will have to come-out of hiding. You will have to expose yourself, feel vulnerable, fragile even. Because it’s the only way to truly invite life.

You will have to start listening to yourself and find ways to access that knowledge. Because everything we need to know in order to take our next steps, we have within us. Start with reconnecting with your younger self, because your inner voice is never negative. And the younger version of you knows that.

There is not one way to deal with uncertainty. But there is always your way. Start acknowledging that and put in the work to make that a safe space. And once you do, uncertainty will be less scary because you learned to trust yourself.

I hope this nugget will help you take those first steps. And in case you need a plan or some extra guidance, I'm here.

That's it for this week. Thank you for reading! And as always, I’m curious to read your thoughts.

Speak soon,

Ines.

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