Part 1: Blooming Into Yourself- Let's Start Now.

The inner work- not a typical wellness guide. I'm in the middle of this too... Join me if you're done waiting to start.

Hello Bloomies!

This piece is a bit of a different one than I think you may be used to but I hope you love it just as much because as much as I love writing opinionated pieces and shining a light on important topics, I also want this to be a space for blooming and for growth. Not into someone else but into ourselves fully, a version of ourselves that we can be proud of, that we take care of, that we love and not hate, that we embody to achieve the goals we deserve to achieve.

The aim of this piece is not to be a generic wellness guide where you transform yourself in one week and glow up.

This is going to be a real piece that helps us do the inner work.

Everything in this piece is something that I am also working through. It’s not a piece where I am going to portray a picture that I have everything figured out or that I am doing everything perfectly. It’s an honest piece that follows from my last piece… it’s about holding myself accountable and about being in that messy phase of actively figuring it out. Much like many of you!

Pinterest Photo Credit “She Posh”

So don’t worry, this is not a space where you have to have everything figured out or where you will be judged for being in a space you aren’t as proud but actually a space where I hope to uplift you, empower you, encourage you and make you feel less alone because this is what I am doing for myself too! So wherever you are in life at the moment, whether it looks a mess or you are doing amazing, I am equally proud of you and I hope that something in this piece may either help you, remind you or encourage you. Thank you so much for being here with me and on this journey! I’m so grateful to have this small space of the internet, it make’s me a little emotional to have you all here.

---

A sweet surprise to share with you all before we continue!

---

I have announced on a note before that very recently I have commenced the training to become a Pilates instructor for both reformer and mat! I am super excited and proud of myself for taking this leap.

A little background about myself is that I work in a law firm, have an undergraduate Bachelor's degree in Law with Criminology and a post graduate diploma in Law (achieved it this year 2026!). So I know you may be thinking… “girl so how did you decide you wanted to also become a Pilates instructor?” Well! I have an A* in A Level Sport Science and I have always played sports growing up. It’s where I often found comfort and joy, I loved the purpose that sport gave me and the thrill of going onto the football pitch or the basketball court for games. Becoming an adult slowly sports got left behind, time got shorter, responsibilities grew and then next thing you know quietly… sport slowly disappeared in my life. I went from loving to move my body to finding it hard to get up and go to the gym or wanting to do something productive to keep my body healthy and able. I suppose that happens a lot to adults with all the stress that comes with adulting you slowly become the least important thing in your life. You are no longer the main character of your world, no longer the protagonist but just a passerby. Sometimes you are physically there but you’re no longer really there, your enthusiasm is gone, ambitions get put on the back burner and before you realise it, you question what happened?

Is this what life is meant to be?

Or

Maybe this is just what happens when you get older.

You have to decide whether you want to give up on yourself, you are the one who can change the trajectory of your life, you decide whether you are important. So do not let yourself become the shadow in your own story, you deserve to shine, to not only survive but live.

Live fully and unapologetically.

So as this became slowly more apparent to me after being in a rut for about six months despite me doing well, hitting milestones and being happy. Somewhere along the way, I let myself become a shadow in my own life by neglecting myself, by listening to others opinions on myself and they started to hold more weight than my own.

Well- NO MORE!

So here I am. A 24 year old woman who works in a law firm who is also finally expressing her creativity here on substack and relearning anatomy, the body and training to be able to help other women move their body with love. I signed up to pilates on a random day, I went by myself, I knew no one there, I was nervous, I had never tried it and now I am training to become an instructor! That day I challenged myself not just physically or mentally but I challenged my nerves. I did not let them overtake my chance to try and love something new and honestly, I’m so glad I didn’t.

I believe that we should never stop.

Never stop learning.

Never stop trying new things.

Never stop challenging yourself.

Even if your life is already full, keep exploring and learning. It’s one of the beauty’s of life that we can keep doing over and over again.

So this piece is about choosing yourself, doing the inner work so that we can do the outer work, holding ourselves accountable and being kind to ourselves in this journey. It’s important to remember that this is a journey, it is not a quick fix and should not be treated as such. I think we have been sold that these huge changes happen over night and that we are a failure if we don’t become “perfect” and “productive” quickly. Which can leave us feeling like maybe we just aren’t good enough or capable to achieve the dreams we want and that it’s too farfetched… This stops here.

We are capable.

We can achieve our goals and dreams.

It is within our reach.

There is nothing we cannot do.

So we are going to get serious with our goals not with the idea that we can build and improve everything overnight and then become overstimulated and burnt out but, with the initiative to build something sustainable.

---

Our favourite word “discipline”.

---

Discipline was always a bit of a scary word to me, it always made me think of restrictions or punishment.

I have been working to reframe what discipline actually means and it seems to be quite the opposite. Discipline and punishment are not mutually exclusive, actually real discipline is one of the kindest and most loving things that you could do for yourself. Think of it less as some harsh and oppressive mechanism that we have to do and more from the perspective that your future self deserves the choices you make today. Discipline not only helps you in present day but even more in the future, it’s almost giving your future self a head start. Allowing you to get closer to achieving your goals and dreams just by showing up a little more each day and building that consistency.

Let’s think of it as something that aids our life, something that's expands and helps us live life more fufillingly rather than a life full of restriction. Some people believe (like myself since I was younger) that discipline is a life in a cell, full of restrictions, being told what to do and what not to do. This can often happen when you grow up with lots of restrictions and unrealistic expectations, some may be reasonable but often times some were very unreasonable. So when we think “I’m an adult now, I can do what I want and no one can tell me nothing”, it can often slip into thinking that freedom from discipline is what you are seeking . It may feel nice for a while but eventually we slip into unhealthy routines, slowly care less for ourselves, over indulge often, spend our days working for 8-12 hours and then sleeping. This then becomes a habit and then a routine which is extremely hard to get out of because we have become comfortable even if that means we aren’t achieving our goals or living life the way we dreamed. We will keep moving the start day to tomorrow and the version of you waiting to be watered and tended to remains in the dark, slowly being forgotten and eventually shrinking.

Therefore, we must reframe and comprehend that discipline is not about sacrificing happiness, enduring ridged joyless routines or throwing away the very autonomy we fought to achieve. It means not allowing us to become a slave to every change of mood, emotion, impulse or feeling but rather we become in control and not it in control of us.

This is what real discipline is about.

---

Don’t let your thoughts consume you. You are not your thoughts.

---

This is something which is so hard to learn and me telling you this does not mean I have mastered it but rather that I hope it can also help you to remember that you are not your thoughts. Sometimes we let our thoughts have so much control and hold over how we move in life and how we treat ourselves. Sometimes they become so extreme that we miss out on opportunities, we miss out on creating memories or doing something we love.

Pinterest Photo Credit @karlinnemz2

Our emotions fluctuate and we shouldn’t berate ourselves for it, it is completely normal and very much part of being a human. However, something I have been paying more attention to is that just because we feel something does not mean we always have to act on it.

That I think is the key difference between allowing ourselves to be controlled by our emotions and simply feeling them. Not to suppress our emotions but to develop one of the most underrated skills: emotional regulation. As someone who didn’t really grow up will healthy emotional regulation, I am having to do the work as an adult and I am currently in the mess of it but I guess that’s the beauty of life. It’s never too late to develop and learn skills even if the journey isn’t always pink and fluffy. When you develop emotional regulation you learn to sit in your feelings, without fear and letting yourself feel without letting those feelings make decisions for you.

There are many ways to do this and I think it differs from person to person because we are all different. For me, my outlet has become writing here on Substack (clearly LOL) and I have also started journalling my thoughts, feelings and ideas. For you it could be the same or therapy, a friend who holds a non judgemental space without trying to fix everything, the gym, sitting by water, going for a walk. Pick one or more that you think will help you, matter of fact even feel free to trial some before you decide fully which one resonates most with you. It is important that your emotions and feelings have a healthy and safe place for them to go otherwise they can often find themselves popping up in unhealthy forms. Remember, there is no right or wrong way of doing this!

It is important that we can feel our emotions without guilt and judgement. They too deserve a safe place for them to arrive to, work with them and not against them. When you harbour them instead of sitting with them they more often than not affect you negatively. Emotions are not the enemy but what we do with them and how we process them, that's what changes everything.

---

Let me tell you about motivation…

---

This may seem silly to some but I didn’t realise that motivation is very much an emotion. Which now that I have pointed that out to myself it makes so much sense as to why we cannot and should not rely on motivation itself. Motivation comes and goes, we have times where we feel super motivated and then just as quickly we can become unmotivated. When we read or watch videos about motivation we are often sold an idea that if we find motivation we can accomplish anything we desire.

That once we find motivation we can change our entire lives just like that.

Well I have come to realise that it doesn’t really work like that. Motivation has no loyalty to our goals, it is simply a fleeting feeling.Whether that feeling lasts a week, a month or a year it eventually fades. It feels so good when you get that boost of motivation and you start planning at 3am how you are going to change your entire life the next day. That tomorrow it will be the day you finally start doing what you said you would do. Then what tends to happen is that by the morning or a week later or a month later you feel tired, unmotivated and burnout. Then we start to berate ourselves that we just aren’t a motivated person, that we can’t do it or that it’s just not meant for us. We begin overthinking and we end up in the same cycle of waiting for that spike of motivation to come so that we can make a change.

This isn’t something you should feel bad about it’s normal to not always be motivated and understanding that can help us achieve our goals. Like anything else we shouldn’t rely on our emotions to solely make important decisions for us and the same should be applied to motivation. The sooner we understand that the sooner we can begin committing to our goals and start living.

You might be thinking “so if motivation isn’t the answer to all our problems, then what is?” and the answer to that is:

“Consistency.”

I know this sounds like an obvious answer but often motivation and consistency end up being mixed up and we think that to be consistent we need to be motivated. This isn’t true. We can be consistent when we aren’t motivated and that is exactly what we should be doing. Usually when consistency is brought up people tend to stop listening because it’s not the quick fix answer that we as humans yearn for but consistency is the reality. People who you admire or look up to are most likely than not showing up as much as they can for themselves, they are being consistent with the tasks that will help them achieve the goals they want to. Often (me included), we are scared of the word consistency because we think it means that you have to be perfect, have no off days or this army rigid style of living, taking away the fun.

I’m slowly learning that being consistency does not mean perfection but it does mean showing up for yourself. It does not mean that if you have an off day, off week or off meal that you have failed at being consistent. We need to think of consistency as a form of showing up for ourselves, keeping promises to ourselves and giving ourselves the same love, time and dedication that we often quickly offer others. We spend most of our lives cheating ourselves out of seeing our goals, ambitions and dreams come true all because we cannot keep promises to ourselves.

Consistency is coming back the next day and trying again.

Consistency is not perfection but showing up even when you least feel like it.

Consistency is giving yourself the love, time and dedication you deserve.

So please don’t think that being consistent is perfection. We are humans, we have days which are harder, things change and sometimes times get tough but you having the strength to come back, trying again, figuring out what is working and what isn’t. That is what real consistency is! Start asking yourself “what would the most consistent version of me do right now?” Check in with this question every week instead of what would the perfect version of you do because there are days where perfect you might not be able to show up but a consistent you definitely can!

---

You are already the person you aspire to be!

---

We often wait to show up as the “future us” once we have reached our goals but I think it’s important we start showing up as the “future you”… NOW! Not later or once you have perfected everything, the time is now. Think of who you aspire to be with the same energy as younger you did when you were deciding who you would become.

Start moving, entering rooms, taking up space and speaking as if you are already them.

If one of your goals like me is to become a morning person, we are going to start saying that “we are a morning person”. Then we are going to ask why, what is the reason that you would like to become a morning person. For me it would allow me to get more out of my day to for example do my gym workout in the morning before my 9-5, have a slower morning to get ready and then free up my evenings to work on either my Substack, read, work on my business ideas, pilates course or simply watch an episode of my favourite cartoon. These are the clear benefits of becoming that morning person. This can be applied to almost all of your goals.

1. Name your goal.

2. Ask why.

3. Break it down & then take one step towards organising that system & start it now.

Then once you identify those goals and break it down, don’t wait until Monday or a new month or a new year to start implementing these goals (guilty as charged, I have waited for so many Mondays!!).

Future you is waiting for you to just start, to take that step. Even if present you does not feel ready future you is and they are rooting for you.

---

You feel lost?

---

You are not alone. I think there are many times throughout life where we can feel a little lost or even extremely lost. I just wanted to say that, it’s okay to feel lost and that it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you or that you're doing something wrong. We often begin to panic, overthink and question ourselves… critique our every move and speak negatively.

What if I ask you to shift your perspective on feeling lost from fear to growth?

I know that might sound scary at first but feeling lost could be the first sign of your body, mind and soul desiring more. Sometimes wanting more gets perceived as ungrateful or greedy but that’s not always the case! You can be in a good position, be grateful and desire more. Both can be true at the same time. Feeling lost could mean that you know deep down that you have a calling for something bigger, something greater. That you are capable of so much more than what you are doing right now.

Reframing it this way makes it seem like less of a problem and more like a sign.

The feeling can at times feel uncomfortable but growth can also feel uncomfortable. It’s okay to sit with this feeling, process it and acknowledge it. Don’t push it to the side or dismiss it. Once you have allowed yourself to sit with this feeling, ask yourself “why am I feeling this way?", “am I settling in life at the moment”?, “ what is no longer serving me and who is no longer serving me?”. These are important questions to ask yourself when you start to feel that lost feeling as well as “has something happened recently or over the years that I haven’t addressed”, this can also contribute to you feeling lost.

You shouldn’t fear feeling lost, it means that you are not willing to settle. You are not willing to accept what no longer aligns. You strive for your ambitions, goals and dreams.

Change is inevitable, we grow and we learn but change is not always the enemy… Change can be redirection.

Having that desire to grow, to do more, to achieve more, to change your direction. That is powerful and brave. So never feel that you are alone, always remember to not be harsh on yourself, and do not belittle yourself.

---

Thank you for reading! Take what resonates, remember what lifts you and release what doesn’t serve you.

I hope you enjoyed and I just wanted to mention a few things: this was the inner work, the things that we need to acknowledge before delving in deeper. Part 2 of this piece will be following this one in due course and here is what it will be covering:

1. Goal audit- we will be honestly reviewing our goals. Where are we right now, what have we achieved and what no longer aligns with us.

2. Importance of boundaries- how we are going to start implementing our boundaries, why they are not optional, how this will help your confidence and your discipline.

3. Why do you keep putting yourself last and how do we make changes to this.

4. Being comfortable with people being uncomfortable and recognising that not everyone will be happy that you are striving for more and doing more.

5. Taking action! We are starting it not just thinking it.

6. A challenge to Bloom. We are going to start a challenge that will help us maximise the rest of the year and going forward. This is about a journey and not an easy fix, this will help us build a lifestyle that is sustainable and successful. I will be joining in too!

Part 2 is going to be for paid Bloomies but because I want everyone to benefit from this piece, I will be giving out a one time free pass so all Bloomies can enjoy!!!

Please subscribe and follow :) Also always grateful if you want to support me by paying for a coffee, no pressure at all but any amount is really appreciated and helps me follow my dream as a paid writer and creator!

• My latest article if you haven’t had a read?

Gained Weight And The Ability To Tell You To Fuck off.

Villainisation of Voodoo- Princess Tiana & The Frog Lens

Obedience raises victims and people pleasers.

I don't care that men can't cry...

Fuck your comfort. Be loud.

Thank you for your support and kindness. Your generosity helps me keep creating meaningful pieces. Each contribution gets me a little closer to my dreams and I’m so grateful to have you here! Thank you from the bottom of my heart! 💕

If you are thinking why should I upgrade to paid? 🌸

Paid Subscription (£6/month — NOW £3 ON OFFER) 💕

Welcome to the inner garden, here’s what’s waiting for you inside:

Deeper & Personal Writing

• Exclusive paid articles that go further, get more vulnerable and more personal than anything on the free tier.

• Deep dive series exploring topics across multiple pieces.

• A monthly Letter from the Garden - an intimate note from me to you, what’s on my mind, what I’m feeling, what’s growing

Our Community

• Private group chat with your fellow Bloomies

• A space to share, support and grow alongside each other

• First access to everything new I create and release

Fitness & Lifestyle

• Real and honest updates on my gym journey : no filters, no unrealistic expectations

• Workout guides, progress updates and genuine health insights

Travel Diaries

• Behind the scenes of my travels - photos, videos and the unfiltered moments that don’t make the main post

The Bloom Garden (Extras)

• Early access to any products, journals or resources I create

• Exclusive discounts for paid Bloomies

• Podcast bonus episodes and extended content

This isn’t just a subscription. It’s a seat in our wonderland 🦋✨

Love Yara 🌸

Hi, I’m Yara 🌸✨

Welcome to the garden! I’m so glad you found your way through the gate. Come in. The flowers are for you

This is Yara in Bloom. A little corner of the internet that I built to feel like somewhere else entirely. Somewhere the rules are different. Somewhere the air is softer. Somewhere you’re allowed to arrive exactly as you are messy, magical, still figuring it out and be completely welcome. A wonderland for the women who never quite stopped believing in one.

Think of this as your garden. A living, breathing space where we plant seeds together: tiny little thoughts, honest conversations, brave realisations and we water them. We tend to them. We watch each other grow in real time. Nothing forced. Nothing rushed. Just roots going deeper and bloomies finding their way to the light. Finding themselves and being more confident in themselves and their dreams.

Here we talk about everything. Women and the world we navigate. Society and all its opinions about who we should be and how loudly we’re allowed to exist. Self growth that actually looks like growth and not just pretty words but real shifting, real unlearning, real becoming. Gym and health content that’s honest and human. Books. Anime. Cartoons. Languages. Travel. Culture. The parts of ourselves we were told to outgrow and quietly never did. All of it lives here. All of it is welcome here.

This garden was built for the woman (or anyone) who is somewhere between who she was and who she’s becoming. For the ones who are loud and soft in the same breath. For the ones who still believe in fairy tales and also have very strong opinions about the world. For the ones learning to use their voice or finally done apologising for already using it. For the dreamers who also do the work. For the fairies who also go to the gym.

You are allowed to be everything here. Plant your seeds. Water your dreams. Tend to yourself the way you tend to the people you love. Bloom at your own pace…there is no timeline in this garden, only growth.

No performance. No filtering. No shrinking.

Just us. In the wonderland we built together.

The gate is always open, the flowers are always blooming and there will always always be a place here for you 🌸✨

Welcome home, Bloomie.

Love Yara 🦋