Self-Making

“The rose does best as a rose.
Lilies make the best lilies.
And look! You —
the best you around!”
Rumi

When Learning Isn’t Enough

You’ve been working so hard to grow.
Not just ticking boxes, but earnestly trying.
And in many areas, you’ve made strides — you can learn. You do change.

But then… there are these stuck places.
Places where even your best efforts seem to bounce off.
Where you’re both the fixer and the fixed — and the loop becomes dizzying.

Alan Watts put it bluntly:
“The self that is trying to improve itself is the self that needs improving.”
Round and round we go.

You find yourself caught in an invisible gap:
between knowing and becoming.
Between trying and transformation.

Maybe you’ve asked yourself:
If I already understand the problem, why can’t I fix it?
If I’ve come this far, why am I still circling this same pain?

It’s baffling. Frustrating.
It’s not caused by a lack of effort. Or a lack of will.

We can get caught in an invisible gap:
between knowing and becoming.

So you begin to ask a different question.
Not “How can I try harder?”
But — What am I not seeing? What am I not letting happen?

What else is there?
If understanding isn’t enough, what is?

What you’re meeting now is not a problem to solve —
It’s a part of yourself asking to be welcomed.

Because some parts of you don’t need to be pushed.
They’re waiting to be listened to.

What else is there?
If understanding isn’t enough, what is?

Becoming: Even More of Yourself

Where learning may feel like following in someone else’s footsteps,
self-making is a different kind of path.
It doesn’t begin with effort — it begins with listening.
It doesn’t ask you to strive — it asks you to tune in.

Self-making is like an acorn growing into an oak.
Not copying another oak. Not hustling to deserve the sun.
But becoming what was already there — folded, waiting.

There’s something in you that already knows how to become itself.
The work is not to mould it, but to let it unfold.

And yes — that sounds poetic, maybe even implausible.
Especially when you’ve been taught to push, perfect, achieve.
But some truths live deeper than instructions.
Some transformations are more like remembering than improving.

You don’t need to earn your way into the next version of yourself.
You need to recognise it.
And then let it rise.

Confidence: What You Have Faith In

While we still hesitate, we call what's missing confidence.

Let's get under the skin of what confidence means.

Confidence, at its root, means with faith.

So when you're looking for a source of confidence, you could ask yourself:
"What do I have faith in, around this?"

Because confidence is not a monolith.
Nobody is “a confident person” in all contexts.
I might be a confident cook in my own kitchen —
and still feel like a mess behind the wheel of a car.

Confidence is contextual, relational, responsive.
It’s not a fixed trait — it is trust in how you tread.
And it grows, not from pushing, but from witnessing your own track record of showing up.

For me, it was this:
I noticed that whenever I gave a weak answer as a teacher,
I didn’t brush it off — I went away and found a better one.
I would reflect, research, invent, ask.
So my confidence didn’t come from always knowing —
It came from trusting that I would return.
I’d fly to the moon and back if that’s what it took.
And that’s what made me steady in the classroom.

This kind of confidence is not loud.
But it’s real.
And it’s yours.

Confidence grows from witnessing your own track record of showing up.

The Felt Sense of Becoming

There was a moment, after years of dating, when I thought:
“Maybe it’s just not on the cards for me.”
Not in a bitter way. Just a quiet settling.
A calm I hadn’t reached before.

In the past, that thought would have sent me running —
spurred me to try harder, reach further.
But this time, something different happened.
I accepted the possibility.
And with that, a new space opened up.
Soon after, a new relationship did too.

Sometimes, self-making begins where striving ends.

It’s not a decision. Not a declaration.
It’s a shift — a settling of sediment.
A clarity that arrives unforced.
You notice: Oh. I’m not trying to escape anymore.

When people start stepping into their deeper selves,
they stop flinching away from their life.
They stop circling the problem with their fists clenched.
They plant their feet in the solid ground of their own presence.

One client, newly single, said to me at such a moment:
“We can do hard things.”
Not as a battle cry, but as a quiet knowing.
She wasn’t overwhelmed anymore — she had found her centre of gravity.

There is a moment of recognition —
when the shape you’re stepping into fits.
It doesn’t puff you up, it grounds you.
Your breath drops into your ribs. Your shoulders uncoil.
There’s a peaceful smoothness inside.

And when you’re performing someone else’s idea of you?
There are cross-currents.
Like standing in a fast-moving stream,
feeling the water tug at your ankles, pulling you off-balance.
Something in you knows: this is not mine.

The Fear of What We Imagine Lurks Beneath

One of the deepest fears people carry is this:
If I stop pretending, performing – what will I find?

It’s the suspicion that your insides are full of monsters.
That beneath the socially acceptable veneer lies something
shameful, primitive, unworthy.
It’s Freud’s old ghost story:
your instincts are dangerous,
your nature is in need of taming.

But that fear — it’s not truth.

This is what I have faith in.
When you actually meet the parts of you that you usually keep at bay,
they will turn out to contain
a luminous spark of your larger spirit.

The parts of you that you suspect may harbour monsters carry a luminous spark of your larger spirit.

Your essence is not a beast to subdue.
It’s not wild in the way they warned you about.
It’s wild in the way forests are wild.
In the way the sea is wild.
Layered. Living. Full of love – even if it's a wild kind of love.

This is what self-making is:
not an act of perfection, but of embracing.
Not domination over self, but a reunion with self.

Your essence is not a beast to tame. It’s wild in the way forests are wild.

Inner Sovereignty

If you could invent yourself — what would you include?

Try this simple practice.
Three things you’d like to have.
Three things you’d like to do.
Three things you’d like to be.

It might seem simple — even superficial — but these three lists are a map of what wants to emerge.
They are invitations to your becoming.
It begins with noticing. Dreaming. Allowing.

Have–Do–Be is one way to meet yourself.
Not the perfected version — the tenderly alive one.

If you feel drawn to ritual:
try naming yourself the Captain of your ship.
Or placing a crown on your own head.
Not in arrogance — in recognition.
In self-coronation, you claim your place as Sovereign
of your inner realm.

This is not about ego.
It’s about authorship.

You are the artist, the creator of your own becoming.
This is the Self part of the learning.
The you who shapes how it all lands —
not just what you know, but what you get to live.

You are the artist, the creator of your own becoming.

When You Live from the Deeper Self

When you meet yourself — the one who’s been waiting —
you stop bracing.
You stop managing life like a problem to solve.
You begin to inhabit it. Author it.
And you start making different choices — not because you’ve “levelled up,”
but because you’re no longer negotiating with your own aliveness.

You’re not trying to be confident.
You’re grounded in something deeper: self-trust.
You’re no longer trying to get it right —
you’re in right relationship with yourself.

And this changes everything.

This changes everything.

Success begins to look different.
Not just what you can prove — but what you can feel.
Not only what you accomplish — but what you allow.
Not just external achievement — but internal resonance.

You start to notice:
Oh. I like who I’m becoming.
Not in every moment. Not in flawless execution.
But in the deep hum beneath the doing.

You know how to orient now — not by metrics,
but by meaning.
Not by applause,
but by aliveness.

And this isn’t a destination.
It’s a relationship.
Self-making is not something you finish.
It’s something you return to — again and again.
With grace. With presence. With love.

Returning to Yourself

“Your heart is the size of an ocean.
Go find yourself in its hidden depths.”
Rumi

I spent a long stretch of my life feeling like a Pawn.
Or like Cinderella, never far away from ashes.
Still waiting to get to the flourishing part of the story.

But then I remembered:
in chess, a Pawn can become a Queen
— not through magic, not by marriage —
but by making it all the way across the board.

That image stayed with me.
I played it out in my mind, again and again.
Not as a fantasy, but as a kind of soul rehearsal.
A way of feeling what it would mean to welcome myself
into my own becoming.

This is what self-making asks of us:
to walk ourselves across the board.
To say yes to the commitment of the crossing.
To reach the other side — not transformed by effort alone,
but by discovering your depths.

Self-making asks you to commit to discover your own depths.

And when you get there —
you don’t wait for someone else to crown you.
You do it yourself.
Not for show, but in deep, sovereign recognition:

I am the author.
I am the artist.
I am the one I was waiting for.

I am the author. I am the artist. I am the one I was waiting for.

Want support in crossing your own inner threshold?

A Nesting Call is a gentle, spacious place to bring what’s stirring in you. You don’t have to crown yourself alone. Come tell me where you are — and we’ll listen for what wants to unfold next.

👉 Book a Nesting Call

Who’s behind these words?

I’m Margarita — writer, coach, soul-companion. I work with people stepping into deeper authorship of their lives.

If you’re drawn to the sovereignty of self-making, come say hello.

👉 Read my story

Like what you’re reading?

I write for those who are living their becoming.

If you’d like to check out more pieces like this — poetic, grounded, soul-forward — you’re warmly invited to read on.

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