After five turbulent years marked by the challenges of COVID-19 and the long road to recovery from two years of isolation, 2025 feels like a breath of fresh air. It's a year marked by fresh starts, ambitious resolutions, vision boards and daily planners.
We are all ready for a fresh start, we are all ready for a ‘glow up’. Let's call it an internal revamp.
The world is obsessed with external transformation, the vision board, the aesthetic makeover, the perfect fitness routine. Social media is over flowing with before and after pictures, celebrating visual changes that promise new found confidence and happiness.
While external transformation plays a massive role in creating our identity, internal introspection goes even further in creating the glow-up we are all looking for. This is deeper than just changing our appearance and can set us up for sustainable transformation.
What if it’s about healing your relationship with yourself, connecting with the parts of you that have been neglected, and finding a sense of internal trust, confidence, and authenticity?
The hamster wheel of external change
Often we are stuck on the hamster wheel of success, prioritising external achievements year after year and wrapping the year up feeling the exact same as before.
We tick off the milestones, wondering why we are feeling less confident, secure and successful than the year before? Even though the external seems to be flourishing, we get the dream body and the impenetrable routine.
Is the bench mark constantly shifting or are we just losing our relationship with ourselves?
So many of us have been led to believe that if we look better or achieve more, we’ll finally feel better about ourselves, we will finally be “enough”.
A true glow-up is about stepping into your true self, connecting with your emotions, understanding what you value and creating a life rooted in self-connection, compassion, and inner confidence. The heart of true transformation doesn’t happen on the surface, it happens within. Exploring the intricate layers of your internal world, requires courage, curiosity, and a willingness to first meet yourself where you are.
What does it look like to be your True Self?
From an Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective your true self is the part of you that isn’t defined or ruled by your fears, insecurities, or protective parts.
Your true self is the calm, confident and courageous core within you. Your true self guides you to navigate life’s challenges with clarity and kindness.
When you connect with your true self, you’re able to approach all parts of yourself with curiosity and compassion, no longer letting perfectionism, fear or self-doubt take the lead.
How often have you made decisions out of fear, the desire to be perfect or unworthiness?
Meeting yourself with curiosity and compassion instead of fear and doubt, creates space to feel grounded and make choices that are aligned with your values. When you create this deeper relationship with yourself and your inner world, you feel a deeper sense of inner harmony and authenticity.
So now that we want this type of 2025 ‘glow up’, how do we achieve this?
Here’s what this journey can look like:
Becoming aware of and embracing your inner parts - You start to hold space for the different parts of you (the inner critic, perfectionist, people-pleaser, overachiever etc). You don’t view these parts as enemies, instead they are your protectors, and with compassion, you learn to listen, be curious and embrace them.
Feeling less controlled by the inner critic or perfectionist - These parts no longer take over or consume your thoughts or decision-making. Instead, you respond to their concerns, fears, and doubts from a calm and grounded place.
Setting boundaries without guilt - You begin to prioritise yourself, by honouring your needs and limits without feeling the weight of guilt or fear of disappointing others.
Feeling connected to your emotions without being overwhelmed by them - Emotions become messengers that need to be felt, rather than storms we try to avoid. You trust in your capacity to experience them fully, whilst staying anchored in a place of compassion.
Navigating relationships with more authenticity and confidence – Whether it’s friendships, family, or romantic relationships, you show up as an authentic version of you, expressing your thoughts and feelings with clarity and self-respect.This is about showing up and feeling empowered to let your true self be heard and seen by others and the world.
How to start building inner confidence and embracing your true self
1. Acknowledge Your Parts
This may feel like an unusual practice at first, but acknowledging your parts is the first step, to understanding your inner world. We are all made up of different parts, those parts we either love, or hate, and some that make us cringe.
Sometimes it can be hard to be with the parts we tend to label as bad….those parts that make up all our bad habits, our non ideal reactions, that time we reacted in an aggressive manner because our partner didn’t respond to our text in less than an hour.
It’s all about embracing these parts of us instead of constantly being at war with them. Instead of shaming them, ignoring them and pretending they don’t exist, try to notice their presence.
ask yourself:
what are these parts trying to tell me? what might they be protecting me from?
By acknowledging their existence, you create the foundation for building a compassionate and trusting relationship with them.
These darker parts of you are still YOU and they are still loveable.
Acknowledge them, let them sit there and don’t fight them.
2. Show Compassion
Once you’ve identified your inner parts, practice meeting them with curiosity and kindness instead of judgment.
Even the parts you struggle with, even the parts you resent the most.
Maybe its the part of you that escapes your feelings through shopping or binge scrolling….we have all been there. Maybe its the perfectionist part, that needs to constantly striving for flawlessness to ensure approval and self-worth.
These parts have a reason for being there and are working hard to get your NEEDS met. They are protecting you at all costs.
Treat them like a friend who’s trying to help but doesn’t always know the best way to do so.
A simple phrase like, “I hear you, and I’m here to help,” can begin to create a more compassionate relationship with these parts.
Instead of criticising these parts of yourself, speak to them with kindness, acknowledging that it is NORMAL to feel jealousy or doubt yourself around others.
First, remind yourself that jealousy doesn’t make you a bad person. Be kind to this part — you’re allowed to have these feelings while still being a good person.
Practice Self-Connection
Through this process of ‘glowing up’ and loving all the parts of ourselves, it is important to strengthen our connection with ourselves. To support ourselves on this journey.
Journaling is a way you can help you explore and express your thoughts and feelings, while mindfulness helps you turn within and observe them without judgment.
Self-reflection exercises, such as asking yourself, What I need right now? And how can I give this to myself?, can guide you toward a deeper sense of inner alignment.
These practices create a space to step back from a place of reactivity and create a sense of choice to respond to life with greater clarity and authenticity.
Support
Changing the way we interact with ourselves doesn’t have to occur in isolation, you don't have to do it alone, you can seek support and safety from others during this journey.
Therapy, particularly Internal Family Systems (IFS), provides a safe, secure, non-judgemental, and structured space to explore your inner world. An IFS therapist can help you identify your parts, foster compassion for them, and strengthen your self, so you can feel more confident, authentic and aligned.
Why does it feel so uncomfortable?
Healing can often feel incredibly messy. In the process of challenging our existing patterns and thought processes, we are essentially rewiring our brain and nervous system to operate in a new way.
This can feel incredibly uncomfortable and be a trial and error process.
There is no room for perfection here, but more so an unpredictable and uncomfortable, non-linear journey to radical self acceptance.
Progress often looks like taking small, meaningful steps, such as setting one boundary, facing one fear, or showing kindness to yourself on a tough day. These small shifts add up over time, creating the foundation for lasting change.
You are essentially, in small micro moments, rebuilding your identity and your relationship with YOURSELF.
When you identify, relate to and harmonise all the “parts” of yourself, you are
rewiring the narrative: breaking old patterns and stopping reactive parts that can often be triggered
building new pathways: when you engage a part compassionately, it reinforces pathways associated with calmness, connection and understanding.
Through IFS, your self-identity becomes more cohesive and aligned with your True Self. Your brain rewires to support healthier emotional regulation and thought patterns, and your self-talk becomes a tool for growth and connection instead of criticism or shame.
This is how we build confidence, and this is how we ‘glow up’ in 2025.
We learn how to reconnect with ourselves.
If this resonates with you and you’re curious to explore Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, we’re here to support you.
At True Self Space, we specialise in helping you reconnect with your authentic self, heal emotional wounds, and rewrite outdated narratives.
✨ Follow us on Instagram at @TrueSelfSpace for daily insights, inspiration, and tips on inner healing.
🌐 Visit our website at TrueSelfSpace.com.au to learn more about IFS therapy and our approach.
Ready to take the next step? Book a session today!
Let’s connect—you’ve got this! 💛
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