When There’s a Hole in Your Heart, It Can Only Be Filled By You

I have spent most of my adult life searching for meaning and fulfillment.  It’s only been in the last five or so years that I have found it. By usual standards, I was very successful. Still, each accomplishment, recognition, award, or kudo never seemed to fill me with pride or fulfillment. It was just “what I do.” I was driven to succeed from a deep place of need but was unaware of that need, and it was a deep hole that was always impossible to fill.     

In the drive to fill this unknown deep need by doing it all, I was worn down by deep exhaustion, burnt out, and had several hospitalizations for stress-related mental breakdowns, just to be returned to my life to do it all again. After the first hospitalization, I visited a psychiatrist and was given meds for anxiety and depression.  I felt better after a while and stopped taking them but the stress and anxiety eventually returned – I had only put a band-aid on it.  After the third trip to the hospital, I decided enough was enough and I really needed to do something about this, whatever it was.  

Mastering Your Mind as a Path to Healing and Wholeness

In my research on what causes stress and how to manage it, I discovered there was a strong link between our thought patterns and how our body responds to them with emotions and physical reactions that become destructive to our body when in a prolonged stress state.  I started to pay attention to what was going on in my mind and taught myself how to school my thoughts with mindfulness practices. I noticed patterns of negativity that were creating a drive to perfectionism and fatalistic outcomes and used subliminal programming to reprogram them.  I noticed that I spent a great deal of mental energy churning over things. I learned how to quiet my mind and release the churn. I discovered meditation and found it very hard at first. I used guided visualizations to take my mind into new territory that was more creative, positive, and affirming. I learned how to focus my attention on a single thing and to notice my thoughts instead of churning on them, using very detailed coloring book pages.  I learned somatic practices like breathwork and yoga to release the tension in my body and make it feel safer.  I learned about the emotional freedom technique and how it helps to release and repattern the undesired energy patterns stored in our body and replace them with more life-affirming ones.  

With years of practice, I mastered my mind and learned how to pay attention to my emotional and physical body and what it was telling me. I was (finally) able to release the stress, the anxiety, the depression, the PTSD, and find relaxation and peace in body and mind.  And yet, the lack of fulfillment remained.    

Overcoming Buried Beliefs Causing Your Struggle

I have since discovered how hugely prevalent and deeply entrenched this condition is across society – I was not alone. It wasn’t until I started studying energy healing and later, “parts work” as part of my coaching training that I finally discovered and healed the underlying energy that was driving both the over-achievement and the stress-causing mental churn and anxiety. It is the hidden underlying energy of our belief constructs that drive our behaviors and responses to life circumstances.

I learned I had a buried belief that I AM NOT ENOUGH and it had a twin: I DO NOT MATTER.  This destructive duo was at the root of all the issues and was causing the lack of fulfillment in my life despite outward success.  When I was able to identify and heal these wounds and then shift these beliefs, everything changed for me:  

• I was no longer in need of external validation that I mattered – I had nothing to prove to myself or others.  My hard push to prove my competence settled into I AM COMPETENT – a state of being instead of a state of proving it. My mental churn and self-doubt were gone. I gained self-confidence. I was able to acknowledge and celebrate my successes big and small. I was comfortable in my skin and could look at myself in the mirror without judgment and loathing.  
• I was able to create and hold boundaries – I mattered enough to myself to do so. I do not need to compare myself to others and I am not inclined to people-pleasing or seeking approval.  
• I now have a state of inner peace that is non-negotiable. I am able to discern what is good for me and what is not. In difficult situations, I hold onto what I DO want.  
• I developed a sense of Self that was grounded in enoughness – I no longer needed to show myself or others that I can do it, I can be it, I must have it. I did not feel the need to have to “keep up with the Joneses” and make “prestige purchases” that were beyond my financial ability and created debt that reaffirmed my not-enoughness in my finances.  
• I no longer look outside of myself for what I need. Everything I need is already within me. I am WHOLE and COMPLETE and enjoying the ongoing journey of deepening my Self-awareness and connection to my Spirit Team.  
• My self-loathing turned into self-acceptance and eventually self-love, with the support of my Angel Guides and an intervention by the Divine Mother and Mary Magdalene.  I have unwavering confidence in my ability and know I am supported by my Spirit Team.   

Accelerate Your Journey to Wholeness, Increase Your Success and Fulfillment

I had a hole in my heart that could only be filled by me. It was a long journey over more than 20 years of developing self-awareness and “doing the work” of inner healing. I can’t help but wonder what a different life I might have had if I had gained this self-awareness sooner and been able to fill that hole much earlier in my experience. Today I am filled with gratitude and inner peace, and enjoy the magic of living an ordinary life in magical Divinely Guided ways.  

My long journey and current peace-filled state of being is why I do what I do guiding others in their healing journey – so they can reach their joyful life experience much faster than it took me! I hope my story inspires others to take their own inner healing journey to release their personal version of NOT ENOUGHNESS – you are so worth it!    

TAKE ACTION: Find out how to release the underlying beliefs and patterns that are impeding your success and fulfillment by contacting Shelli at www.joyfultransformation.life.