What 2025 Taught Me About Loving Myself Again

I stopped working out.

I cried in silence.

I stopped meditating.

I stopped living. 

I thought that I had the whole self-love thing under control. I had figured that out in 2014 and was more than ten years into that journey, and so I forgot how easy it could be to slide backwards. 

It started like it usually does. 

With a small thought. A thought that I wouldn’t have even noticed because, after all, I was an expert at self-love. 

A few days later, that same thought would come back. That single thought brought on a barrage of other thoughts. Moments where I questioned if I was good enough. And soon, I was doubting everything about myself.

My parenting.

My skills at work.

My business.

My blogging.

My writing. 

I began to spiral, BUT I was sooo good at hiding it that most of those around me didn’t notice. They didn’t see the turmoil that I was feeling. Turmoil that I am still working through. I couldn’t be the strong one if they saw me crumble.

And so I continued falling apart while the seams barely held me together. 

And then one day, I noticed the silence. Not the peaceful kind. The hollow kind. The kind that creeps in when you’ve abandoned yourself so slowly you don’t even remember the moment you left.

I hadn’t fallen all at once. I had drifted.

Away from my body.

Away from the rituals that once anchored me to myself.

I told myself I was just tired. That this season was just heavy. That I would come back to myself soon. But soon kept moving. I kept giving myself due dates as if that would make me come back to myself. When all that it did was remind me of how I was failing in so many different ways.

Even after all of the time that I poured into myself, there was a new learning curve. A new understanding that I needed to discover through the pain and the anguish.

Self-love isn’t a destination you arrive at and unpack forever. It’s a practice. A return to oneself day in and day out. A choice that you make again and again, especially when it feels the hardest. This isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who you are and who you want to be when you let those voices try to convince you otherwise.

In the moments when you don’t want to love yourself. When the old stories come knocking, dressed up as truths. 

“You should be further along.”

“You should have this figured out by now.”

“Strong people don’t fall apart like this.”

But strength, I’m learning, isn’t in never falling. It is in the noticing. It is in pausing long enough to tell yourself that something isn’t right here. It’s the quiet courage of turning back toward yourself instead of pushing yourself further away.

I didn’t restart everything at once.

I didn’t suddenly become disciplined or motivated or healed.

I started small and am still working on coming back to myself. Standing in fear and doing it anyway. Realizing that what didn’t work for me in 2025 will still not work for me in 2026. 

One honest breath.

One fitness class at a time.

One page of writing that wasn’t for content or productivity, but survival.

And slowly, I began stitching myself back together. Not into who I used to be, but into someone softer. More honest. More aware of how easily we lose ourselves when we forget to listen.

I let myself be human again. I made a promise to myself. A promise that to change my life, to truly make positive impacts, I need to do things differently. I need to show up for myself differently. Show up for my business differently. Show up for my family differently.

I don’t always know how I need to show up. I don’t always make the right decisions, but what I do know is that when things don’t go as planned, when that little voice becomes stronger in my head, the world isn’t ending. Instead, I am being given a chance to grow, to expand, to become the next version of Samantha that I need. That my family needs. That my clients need. That the world needs. 

If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself, know this:

You haven’t failed. You haven’t undone your growth. You haven’t lost your way forever.

You’re just being invited back.

Back to your body. 

Back to your breath. 

Back to the life that’s still waiting for you. Patiently, gently, without judgment.

You don’t need to do it all today.

You just need to begin.

And if all you can do right now is whisper, I’m still here. I’m still trying.

Then that’s enough.

Sometimes the bravest thing we do is stay. Stay in the hurt. Stay in the doubt. Stay in pain. Stay long enough to hear ourselves again. Staying is how we return to our power.