Holding the Mirror Up to Be Honest with Myself

Special article following the first BE HER retreats in Barcelona.

“You seem to be getting it right.”

I’m hearing this a lot lately.

Whether it’s chatting with clients or potential clients or catching up with colleagues in the Global Mobility industry - I’m hearing this perception that I am achieving a sort of balance in my life.

Balance in our lives can mean different things, but I’m getting the gist that people see me as managing my priorities and boundaries, with the challenges of the ‘inner narrative’ to just be myself.

Feeling like ‘myself’ has only taken about 39 years (!) but I’m starting to feel it more and more.

Having recently just co-led the first BE HER retreats, my focus in this time is on others. Supporting their personal journeys to becoming HER – that true and best version of themselves that means taking down the masks and being truly vulnerable.

Vulnerability is the essence of honesty.

Vulnerability guides our integrity.

Being vulnerable means behaving in a way that aligns to our inner core values of who we want to be; still ‘doing’ it even though there is fear present; emotionally exposed and following through without any certainty of the outcome.

And so it must be that The Power of Courage is needed to be vulnerable. This is why I talk so much about how courage facilitates change in our lives – it’s not confidence. Courage will never leave you. It’s the reliable trusted value that you have inside of you at any moment.

Confidence is that rollercoaster value that is at the end of the road of courage and vulnerability. Once we gain a sense of our self-trust, our strength in decision-making and our belief to follow through – that’s when we can build some inner confidence.

So if courage supports vulnerability, that means we need some courage to be honest with ourselves.

This for me is where I know my journey to being ‘more like me’ started. I’ve always been courageous in certain ways - but I haven’t always been courageous enough to ask myself some really meaningful questions.

The questions that change your life forever.

I know that once I unlocked these questions within me, that’s when I could start to shift things in my life, face some tough decisions and let go of the exhausting behaviour that was draining my energy.

Some of the most important questions:

Who do I really want to be?

What is driving my self-sabotaging behaviours and my ridiculous standard of perfectionism?

I was only honest with myself when I had felt like I had lost everything and I couldn’t find the thing that I was so desperate for – someone who loved me. A loving partner.

I had lost my joy, my sense of adventure, my ability to be thankful, my capacity to love myself, my sense of being present, my husband, my home, my ‘perfect’ career path…

Had I lost things?

Or was I just lost?

My mission to find a loving partner was misguided.

My real mission was to find love, respect and appreciation with the person that mattered the most.

Me.

No standard of perfect would ever fill the emptiness of that cup.

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I had sought answers to ‘fix me’. When you feel hollow inside like I was feeling – you desperately seek some sort of fix. Fast. Easy. Now.

So, I started seeing healers. Astrologers. Mediums. Astrological mediums!

Yes… my journey was taking me to the unknown realm of that stuff.

I still don’t know what I was expecting. Would I see someone and be ‘fixed’? Could the excruciating pain and suffering I was experiencing every day just float away leaving me renewed to be discovered by him. The loving partner. The one who is supposed to find me.

How wrong I was.

My real personal journey started the moment I landed in Barcelona 2020.

I can’t pinpoint one exact thing.

It’s not just joy that did it. I wasn’t just suddenly happy from one day to the next.

But I had realised something I was missing in my life until this point.

Hope.

Without hope, we are truly lost.

I was lost because I felt no hope. I didn’t believe I could be happy and if I’m being truly honest with myself – I didn’t feel that I deserved it. Any kind of happy.

I hated myself.

If I was to rewind the clock now and ask 35-year-old Mehibe who had landed in Barcelona what she loved or even just liked about herself; I believe I’d be facing a blank expression.

Holding the mirror up to be honest with myself meant asking myself a very tough question, one that fills me with tears. “What do you like about yourself and your life?”

Of course I loved my friends. I had a beautiful home. I was making a very good salary that I had choices in my life that others did not. But I soon realised I didn’t like anything about my daily life. My habits. My rituals. My small joys.

Missing.

Lost.

I soon realised that the reason I was in a place of self-loathing was because I was being someone else. This other person. She wasn’t me. She was the sum of everything I thought I had to be.

I started practicing mindfulness to connect to who I wanted to be.

Hours of breathwork.

Slowing down.

Long mornings walking along the beach.

I mindfully practiced my decision-making. I didn’t jump into decisions like I usually would. I took time to weigh up my options.

I asked for perspectives and support from my family – namely my father. Someone who had been very ‘missing’ in my life. We lived in the same house, but my dad was never present when it mattered to me. Until this moment.

Perhaps it was 3 months living together during Covid that my dad could finally see how empty I was. Being vulnerable with him and being honest about how I felt was the truest moment we have shared together. I’ve never had that moment again, but I’m grateful that I could be honest with him and myself and share my vulnerability with the one person who always thought I was the strongest.

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My journey to the now-perception of ‘getting it right’ or ‘having it all figured out’ is not something that happened overnight and it’s definitely not a whim. And I have to add – I am, along with every human, still figuring things out and my journey never ends. It’s just easier when you can have compassion and self-kindness along the way.

And that’s what has supported me dealing the results of the metaphorical holding-the-mirror-up. The work isn’t just seeing what reflects back but working on acceptance and forgiveness to give yourself permission to move forward. Integration and implementation is key to feeling progress. That's meaningful change.

That’s a type of deserving that only comes from within us. No one, no matter how much we respect or admire them can hand us the permission to be true to who we want to be.

I’ve done a lot of work on myself, and I’ve spent time deep in my fears. Accepting all sides of my ‘uglies’ has not been easy.

Me and the 'ole uglies still grapple in rounds in the boxing ring from time to time.

I’ve stopped worrying about what everyone thinks about me. It’s not that I don’t care. Of course, I do – I’m human and a perfectionist in nature! However, I have realised that prioritising my identity is the most important thing. If I compromise my identity, who I am and what I stand for – then I am someone else.

She is exhausting.

She is damaging.

She is not me.

So the checklists have been scrapped. The comparisons have been removed. The dreams of others de-prioritised. To make way for me.

What do I like about myself and my life now?

I like the Mehibe now who has created energy and space for herself, whilst still cultivating a lot of this for others. I like her self-compassion, empathy and kindness. I like that this Mehibe who has more fun! She takes things less seriously and is way more smiley! She doesn’t need external validation to feel a shot of love anymore. It’s great when it happens, but it’s not the ultimate goal.

I like that checklists have been replaced with memories and a story that belongs with me.

What advice would I give to Mehibe who is lost, sat on the floor crying in desperation for someone more? Stand up, look in the mirror – see who you are now and who you want to be and do everything you can to change with the support of people around you.

If you need a professional, compassionate and empathetic pillar in your journey to becoming your real and truest self without masks and checklists - I am here to empower you.

Contact me, [email protected].

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