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You have and hold the power to navigate your emotional responses. Nest would share homework assignments or allow someone to give out invitations to their birthday party. I always felt like I was different from the other girls and something was wrong with me. Fitting in was something I tried to do but never felt like I could. I had a different accent from the other children since we moved from New Zealand to Australia when I was five. This was a talking point for the kids to say that I sounded weird and posh. Emily would like to share her birthday party invitations now, said Mrs. I was so eager to feel chosen. The embarrassment of the previous week was still with me as a nervous presence. The whole class pointed their fingers and laughed at me, and I blushed like a beetroot. And I still didn’t end up getting an invitation. Apparently, it was a fabulous event with miniature horses, epic goodie bags, and princess dresses for everyone to take home that they could keep. 
Heart To Heart
I was weighing up the odds in my mind. I had a better chance of being invited to this party because Emily’s parents were patrons of my dad’s artwork. Emily held the small stack of pink envelopes in her hands. There were over twenty girls in the classroom and only around fifteen invitations to be given out. It was inadvertently shaping belief systems of unworthiness that could potentially be carried for a lifetime. I didn’t really like Emily anyway, with her high side ponytail hoisting up her hairline with a navy scrunchie. It had only been a few weeks since she had said to me in the playground, You’re so lucky to know me. Her tone intimated that I was less important and influential than she was. Sadly, part of me agreed with her statement. Their parents drove Range Rovers, and the kids had more toys, had bigger homes, and went on fancy trips to exotic locations. After my dad signed a bad business deal the very next year, we lost all our money and had to move. But for now, my world was hinged on the high hopes of being invited to this party. Don't Interrupt The Sorrow
I held my breath with anticipation. Time felt like it slowed down, and then when I least expected it, Emily called my name! Sarah Prout, you get to come to my party! I jumped up, not caring about flashing my undies, and grabbed the invitation from her hand. To the children who didn’t get an invitation, there was no comfort from the teacher. This doesn’t surprise me, since she allowed this kind of ceremony to occur quite frequently. I so desperately wanted to belong, to feel chosen, to feel accepted. I said yes because I wanted to feel chosen. I should have listened to my heart. I did this to illustrate the cycle of seeking safety and approval, so you’ll definitely see how this pattern was mapped out in my life thus far as a lesson. But sadly, sometimes we can hand over our magic and our personal power just for the sake of feeling like we belong together. When it comes to early child development, it’s often said that the most crucial and critical milestones in a child’s life occur by the age of seven. Apparently, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man. The reality for many of us is that the ride from zero to seven years old might not have been ideal, but we begin to rewire and rewrite our experiences by examining our beliefs. Time To Move On
These dangerous ripples of seeking approval were still with me into early adulthood, and I had no idea of the toll they were taking on me. When I was in my early twenties, my ex and I visited the seaside village of Burton Bradstock, in Dorset, England. It’s positioned on what’s called the Jurassic Coast because the site spans 185 million years of geological history. The cliffs are spectacular and look like ancient cathedral walls, holding wisdom and knowledge of the ages in each naturally etched piece of rock. As we drove along the coast, there were derelict houses that were clearly about to fall into the ocean. They looked like wobbly teeth about to fall out of a child’s mouth. These homes were perched with such fragility on the rock face, unable to maintain the foundations on which they were built. Just like coastal erosion where the cliffs experience the repetitive impact from waves, currents, tides, ice, storms, and the persistent nature of time, I realized how I had lost connection with my true self for many years before I could identify that it had happened. At some point, I forgot my power and lost control of the reins completely in body, mind, and spirit. I made my happiness dependent on the external world and the actions of others around me. It was 2002 or thereabouts. I was sitting on the floor with my legs crossed, drinking a cup of green tea and reading a magazine. I was wearing shorts, and for the first time ever in my young adult life, I could feel dimpled skin on my thighs when I would run my hand over my leg. I’d never noticed it before, and then it was just like an alarm of awareness was activated and set off in my mind. But nowhere was stating how to just love it, embrace it, and accept it because it’s normal and almost 98 percent of women have it. I was shaping my beliefs of who I was in the world based on what the media and advertising campaigns were guiding me to assume. This was a pattern for me, holding my value in the opinions of others. I felt broken and not worthy, and I was definitely going to throw out every single pair of shorts that I owned.