Progress not perfection is something I don’t believe we remind ourselves of. We can easily look at a person and admire them, witness their strengths and weaknesses, and feel we can’t ever be like them.
I want to remind you, that’s not true! Your story is someone else’s survival guide.

The voice in our head can be the worst inner critic. We feel stuck, we feel unworthy and not good enough. We feel these things but have we ever stopped and asked ourselves why?

Where did this come from? We can say it’s from us, but it’s not. It’s a sign we’ve been conditioned through the opinions of others and it’s a lie. A limiting belief. Basically, our mind creates these beliefs, and they can be lies that we tell ourselves. From this belief comes all the negative self-talk thoughts and these thoughts still up emotions. We feel sadness, we’re unmotivated, and the action from this is NOTHING. We do nothing because our emotions are the catalyst to our actions.

What is we turned that voice in our head into our best friend? Wouldn’t that voice pump us up, make us feel seen and heard and give us the validation that we are wanting? Now, with that, what happens next? We start moving and shaking and we go out and dominate because we’re feeling good. We feel powerful and we can accomplish anything.

Life happens and sometimes we get the short end of the stick but what if we started to think that there are no mistakes and only lessons. We learn from that, we now know to not allow that to happen again and what happens if it does. Do we shame ourselves? No, we come up with another way to go about things because as long as we come up with different systems, we will have different outcomes. It’s only when we keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is when insanity takes place.
We can create crazy making situations, that doesn’t mean we’re crazy.

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We can create crazy-making situations, but that doesn’t mean we’re crazy. It means we’re human—responding to familiar patterns with familiar reactions. But healing invites us to pause, reflect, and choose again.

The beauty of progress—not perfection—is that it honors your human-ness. It says, “I don’t have to get it right every time. I just have to get back up, learn, and take the next aligned step.” Perfection is a prison. Progress? That’s freedom. That’s breath. That’s forward motion.

And you deserve to move forward.

We often talk about self-sabotage as if it’s something broken in us. But what if it’s actually a brilliant—though outdated—protection strategy? Your fear of failure may actually be your inner child afraid of rejection. Your procrastination might be a trauma response disguised as laziness. Your overachieving might be your nervous system trying to earn love. These aren’t flaws. These are flags—asking for compassion, not condemnation.

So today, remind yourself: the goal isn’t to be flawless. The goal is to be real. To be accountable. To be curious about the parts of you that act out not because they want to ruin your life—but because they don’t know another way to be safe.

That’s where the work comes in. That’s where healing happens.

And when you heal, you don’t just set yourself free—you give others permission to do the same. You lead by example. You become the evidence that it’s possible to rise without pretending you never fell.

That’s what I teach. That’s what I live. And that’s what I invite you into.

If this resonated with you, you’re not alone. Join us in Anchored Connections, my safe and supportive WhatsApp community, or show up to our weekly Shadow Work Zoom Room, where we unpack, unlearn, and rebuild—together. Because you don’t have to do it alone, and you were never meant to.

Remember: the version of you that you’re becoming doesn’t need to be perfect.

She just needs you to keep going.

✨ Progress, not perfection. That’s the real glow-up.

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💻 www.healingmyfeelings.com
📬 Info@healingmyfeelings.com
🧠 Blog: www.stullerAM.blog

Your story matters. Keep writing it. 🖤

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• Thought Box