3 lessons learned from my inner child

living with shame around beauty

I want to create beauty and coziness, says my inner child.

Three weeks ago, while sick in bed with a cold, I felt this intuitive need to sit with my inner child daily, and after that, a sudden desire to tend to the neglected corners of my home arose. The places I had tolerated. The things I wished were different but never bothered to change, because I thought good enough was enough, but it wasn’t for her.

Since I was a kid, I was obsessed with beauty and with making spaces feel warm, alive, and intentional. But in my childhood home, survival took priority. Beauty was treated as something unnecessary and irresponsible.

I learned to judge people who cared about it. Anyone who invested in more than the bare minimum was called shallow. I was taught that they were chasing attention.

So I judged them, and I judged myself even harsher. My deepest desire became my deepest shame. I felt embarrassed by how much I longed for beauty.

Children think in absolutes, and I grew up hearing a word in Farsi, طبل تو خالى, meaning empty on the inside and loud on the outside like a drum. I never wanted to be seen that way.

• I fully rejected that part of myself. I forced myself into minimalism to stay in control, pretending beauty didn’t matter to me, until it felt like there was no life left to live.

• I questioned my sanity for the hours spent rearranging furniture until the space finally felt like it could exhale.

• I questioned the rush of joy I got from discovering an old object in a charity shop and sensing the life it still carried.

And as an adult, the judgment got louder. The world is burning, I told myself. Why would I care for beauty?

This inner tension has followed me for years. The true self would peek here and there, but shame would dim it down.

This time, I let myself sense the tug of war between the conditioning and my deepest need for expression through beauty. And then I let my inner child walk me through my home and made a list of what she did not like, what she liked, and what she hoped each space could become. Then I began to make small shifts with intention.

Welcome to my home. This is where I write, meditate, and create. I’m writing to you from here today, on one of those rare sunny days in the North West of the UK.

And for the first time, I didn’t rush her and let her take however much time she needed. She got to stay up many nights in a row, and it’s been filled with unconditioning layers of old, dusty narratives.

Here are three things I am remembering:

1. My yearning for beauty and coziness is not shallow. It is the ground everything in my life grows from.

For years I kept that ground dry. These days I remember: In a world that profits from our pain, creating beauty and coziness is an act of resistance.

It resists numbing.
It resists scarcity.
It resists the lie that survival is all we deserve.
It interrupts the conditioning that taught us to ignore what makes us feel alive.

🕯️Reflection:
What parts of yourself have you hidden or dismissed because you thought they were not practical or important?

2. Beauty does not need justification.

We are taught that beauty belongs to those who can afford it, that money is its gatekeeper. Yet I know many people with money who do not care about beauty at all (look at the state of Mother Nature as proof). And the most beautiful shifts I have ever created cost nothing or very little.

They came from seeing potential in something forgotten.
From using things in unexpected ways.
From rearranging what was already there.
From trusting my own sense of what feels right.

We don’t lack objects, we lack the belief that beauty deserves our time and attention.

To create beauty is to imagine new life in something.
To adorn what already exists.
To receive the abundance that is already around us.
To give shape and meaning to our days.

🕯️Reflection:
Where in your life do you feel like you need permission to celebrate beauty, joy, or coziness?

I hung the rug that used to live in our bedroom behind the sofa. We inherited it from my late mother-in-law. Back home, ironically, she had been my favorite high school teacher, someone I admired for her fierce self-expression and wanted to be like her growing up. She loved handmade rugs, and now, when I look at it, I am brought back to my roots. I feel her presence in the space, lovingly holding us.

3. Making a space beautiful is different from making it look nice.

We have all been in places that were styled perfectly but felt empty. In a culture obsessed with speed, we want instant beauty. But true beauty is a relationship, it takes presence. It asks for care, your energy and your noticing.

A space that feels alive mirrors:
Who you are,
Where you come from
What you value, and the experiences that shaped you.

🕯️Reflection:
How might you show up differently to the spaces you inhabit, noticing what they need and responding with presence?

Pieces of the places we lived, the memories we created, and the people we love x

If you read this far, let me know how this lands for you. Writing this has felt more vulnerable than I expected because I rarely share this side of myself online. But in staying true to my own self-expression, I wanted to welcome you into my home.

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👁️ What your body has been trying to tell you?

The way we hold ourselves matters. Not just because of how it looks. But because it shapes how we live, how we relate, and what we’re capable of imagining. Let your body speak. Let it interrupt the collective war and offer you a new way of being entirely.

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Client’s Unconditioning ↓

If you feel called to re-pattern your body, regulate your nervous system, and reclaim your power, I invite you to book Body Check-in call with me: https://tidycal.com/hedishah/the-alignment-diagnostic

During this session, we’ll assess your body’s current state, uncover hidden imbalances, and create a personalized movement plan to help you shift from tension into alignment.

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Offerings↓ ↓

꩜ Embodied Monthly Reset (with new year theme)

Dec 31st . Wednesday . 3 pm GMT

Add to your calendar

These sessions are designed to release the stress you have been carrying, reconnect with your body’s wisdom, and step into the new month with clarity and intention. In the final week of each month, we will come together for:

• Nonlinear movement to shake off tension and emotional residue

• Guided reflection to integrate what the month brought

• Intentional planning to meet the next cycle grounded and resourced

This is about returning to your center, unconditioning yourself from systems built to keep you small, and living a sovereign life. Come as you are.

Leave lighter, clearer, and more connected.

Prepration:

- Wear comfy clothes

- Have plenty of space to move around

- Bring a pen and paper

Duration: 45-60 mins

Where: Insight Timer

Cost: Free or donation-based

Thank you for joining me on the path of unconditioning,

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Hedi Shah
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👁️ Bodyworker & Mindfulness Teacher
🐉 Nervous system regulation, breathwork, and posture-focused strength training to target the cause of what keeps you stuck and in pain, not just symptoms.

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