Self Discovery!
Learning to Let Go!
This year (2017) I have been on a self discovery journey. A journey which came unexpectedly causing so many challenges to be thrown visciously my way. Learning to deal with a multitude of problems and physical disability due to a back injury from deadlifting heavy without support at the gym over 2 years ago recurring after a period of overworking, has had it's own baggage complications.
When you are so used to taking care of everything and everyone around you and yet you end up being the one in need of taking care of, it brings along such emotional turmoil, mental stress and hopelessness, not to mention anxiety. A deep anxious and panicky feeling which takes over everything you feel inside and follows you no matter where you go and what you do.
One thing I may add that didn't help, is the fact that I have been running my own holistic therapy business for 2 years 10 months now and this year I felt hurt! Hurt so deeply due to my physical limitations and due to that all too real realisation that I am human too and in need of looking after with no one to really look after me except for my angel of a mum, who bless her I wouldn't have got this far without.
As a woman, there is so much that is expected of me. To be so much to so many, yet who is anything to me?
A question I have felt unanswered in many ways and still see that as a woman, things will never be easy.
The burden is heavy and we women have an amazing ability to keep shining and smiling when we are at our lowest. We have to keep pushing on, not just for ourselves, but for those of our loved ones around us and for our dreams and voices to be heard above the competition and jealousy and noise and just to be visible in this world of hatred. Many times, there is no one, no - not even our significant others who understand our pain or who even are willing to be there and support us through it without taking a dig at our flaws, which are many, along with our strengths.
The hurt of feeling alone even within a stable and solid partnership can take it's toll and learning to let go of that too, has been tough. It isn't easy having no one you feel you can turn to and just ask to be held, especially when you feel raw and tender inside. The difficulty lies in acknowledging the other's strength, that it can be tough to find the balance in being gentle or caring in action and word; so as to not mistake this as a show of weakness. In actual fact, it is a defense mechanism.
Let it go!
They don't know how to act because nobody has really shown them. No one has shown them the strength of a woman who is hard, yet super soft and feminine and weathered and tough and a bit of a diamond in the rough having braved and survived such turbulences a body should not have to survive.
And that I have learned is okay!
Being Okay with Being Alone!
Born to Stand Out!
Learning to depend on oneself and God above has been my saving grace! I have had many experiences with friends in my time, so friends coming and going has never been an issue.
A loner most of my life, because I am different and admit willingly that I was never born to follow, but I was born to lead and stand out I do!
I always have. From primary school where I was bullied to high school, where I was laughed at due to having a strict African mother with a tight curfew and tv schedule in the evenings after school.
Ridicule and jumping over hurdles has been a regular and normal part of my life, so lonliness is something I have learned to deal with and at times embrace with open arms. Over the past year plus two, since going into business really, I find I have battled the deepest within to keep my sanity, my happiness, my faith, my life and health and my deepest emotions together.
Loving and dealing with love has it's own ups and downs and becomes even harder coupled with the fact that you both live over 200 miles apart.
Finding the strength to let go of holding onto dreams that no longer served their purpose because they were so rigid in structure, there was no room to grow!
Well, I have learned to let go! It wasn't easy at first, but I decided that I had gotten to the bottom of my energy supply that I gave up all my will and surrendered to whatever plan and path the Lord intended me to undertake.
Now with all that said, being a stubborn and very extremely strong willed being, it hurt to let it all go. My hopes, dreams, desires, love, business, happiness and wants - when I learned to let go...I began to feel content.
So content and grateful that I have come so far!
I carry battlewounds that used to run so deep they showed, but now the surface is all that carries a faint tarnish in my packaging.
This new decision has been brewing for a while, in thought and mindset, but my body wasn't quite yet ready to let go because in a way, pain and discomfort become comfortable.
I know that sounds ridiculous to grasp, however when that is what you know, it becomes the norm!
Growth Mindset