Day 20 — What Actually Moves Me

I have always been someone who wants to know more, do more, be more. It’s in my DNA. I don’t really know how to exist any other way.

Long before I began any formal self-development journey around 2014, before I realized I didn’t actually like myself in certain ways, I was already someone who pushed to improve. But it didn’t feel like shame then. It felt like curiosity. It felt like integrity.

In sports, I practiced harder than anyone. I wanted to understand every position, not just the one I played. I wanted to improve every practice, every game. When it came to learning, I was the same way. I love knowledge. I could memorize almost anything, but more than that, I genuinely wanted to understand. School was easy not just because I was capable, but because I cared.

There was a time when striving didn’t feel like punishment. It felt like alignment.

Then life complicated things.

As I approached college and moved through those early years, I started learning harder lessons. Mostly around love. Around intimacy. Around betrayal. I made choices I’m not proud of. I reacted in ways that didn’t align with who I wanted to be.

In my first serious relationship, when I was cheated on, I went out of my way to be a version of myself I didn’t respect. I hurt back. I reacted. I tried to reclaim power in ways that ultimately didn’t feel good to live inside.

But something shifted after that.

When I entered another relationship, I knew I didn’t want to be that person anymore. So I wasn’t. Almost every relationship since then has ended in betrayal, but I never responded the same way again. I had self-respect. I didn’t abandon myself in the process.

That kind of change didn’t come from shame. It came from an internal knowing. It came from alignment.

The same was true with my body before everything spiraled. When I was smaller and gained five or ten pounds over the holidays or in a safe relationship, I didn’t attack myself. I didn’t spiral. I just thought, I want to wear that skirt again. Let me take care of that. There was no moral judgment. No commentary about my worth. Just care.

That’s the place I’m trying to remember.

I’m not trying to become someone new. I’m trying to return to the version of me who moved from self-worth instead of trying to earn it.

Because here’s what I see now. The five years of forcing myself to lose weight didn’t just fail physically. They rewired something internally. Trying became synonymous with self-attack. Effort became dangerous. If I try and fail, I might stop loving myself again. And that’s a risk I haven’t been willing to take.

So I stopped trying.

Not because I don’t want change. I do. I want to feel strong. I want to feel comfortable in my body. I want to feel aligned with myself again.

But right now, I’m in this in-between space where I know the only way forward is through self-respect, not self-rejection. And I’m still rebuilding that foundation.

What actually moves me isn’t pressure. It isn’t shame. It isn’t urgency.

It’s the quiet internal shift of, I deserve to show up differently.

I’ve lived from that place before. I know what it feels like. I just haven’t fully found my way back to it yet.

And maybe that’s okay.

Today’s prompt:
Am I trying to prove my worth, or honor it?

I’m not trying to resolve that immediately.
I’m just learning to notice the difference.