Has your realisation helped you or hinder your growth?

What do you understand by realisation? For me, realisation is an action that is filled with self-awareness that promotes & support our growth - be it mentally or emotionally.

Throughout our life, there are many events that takes place. Every hour of the day, we are faced with many circumstances and situations that jogs our mental state and affect our emotional spirit. These affect our BEing one way or another; and most times we are not aware of these influences. We ride the days in auto-pilot mode allowing the people, the situations or the circumstances influence our thinking instead of wanting to be in better control of our presence.

In the recent months, I got to know of a mother and son duo who runs a gem stones store. Humble and down-to-earth, one look at them, one would think that they have started off easy. As they share their story with me, I admire them for their never giving up attitude and their relentless courage of trying new things, especially in today’s fast paced changing business world. They used to run restaurants, make delicacies during festivals to sell, work in the mining areas and now learning all about technology for their gemstone business. More so, they are willing to get their hands dirty in all situations to sustain their living and be better than who and what they were. Their success today relies a lot on their courage to always keep learning and growing in all situation.

As I make space for myself in between all I am doing and creating, I understood deeper and realised that one will always have another go at life in almost all situations. It never ends at just that.

I began my selfcare journey in 2017 under the wings of Hope. 2017 was the year that I lost my job, too. Few years before that, I lost the most important person in my life, my mom. Her passing left an enormous hole in my heart. She was my best friend that I would not exchange with anything else in this world.  When she passed, I thought I could fall back to my work to get my mind off the sorrow and sadness. But I was clearly wrong because as I used work as my coping mechanism, the closing my ex-company had me thought that not only my contribution or experience was no longer required, I lost the avenue to cope. With so much time in my hand, I realised perhaps it was time to face my grief face-to-face while I somewhat took over the duty to care for my dad who is now a widow. So, I began my personal journey of looking after myself. I read a lot of books, travelled, started venturing into LinkedIn platform through my writing, re-engaged with my hobbies and began slowing down in many things I do.

Many external life coaches from LinkedIn were trying to engage me as their client but with full respect to them, they weren’t giving me the sort of vibe I was looking for in a coach. I was looking for a more stoic energy. 😁

I needed to do it myself & chose the harder way. Self-coaching. My self-coaching allowed me to learn to make space for myself, discover my true BEing and learned to BE, declutter my material possessions (I realised I had way too many pairs of heels, clothes, bags and cosmetics) and reassessed some of my friendships and connections. I stripped myself down to a minimalist and almost like a loner. I understood that to make ourself better, we must remove what no longer serves us.

When Covid hit, I explored on meditation. I have learned from many Buddhist monks what true meditation was all about – it is far from what we read in the mainstream. Not that it is wrong, just a different approach and mindset engaging in this stillness activity. From it, I began to understand from a mindful perspective that meditation was not about sitting cross-legged and having our eyes closed but retaining peace and stillness during challenging times. While many people may have also lost their loved ones and could move on so quickly, I questioned myself, why was I slow in this grieving process – pause - because she was my confidante, my pillar of strength, my cheerleader and my greatest support system. And so I started being kind to mysekf and tended to my emotions as I took every step to open myself again. This also got me to be more compassionate with others who have lost their closest person.

In this month of July, the sage moments I had, made me realised that every event that happened, every experience I gained, every person I meet, every triumph and defeat I faced were my greatest teacher.

I also realised that I was never empty because my family and a handful of friends did stand by me throughout – be it when I was wearing heels in corporate or when I turned to just casual sneakers now. I was never empty then and not empty now.

My self care journey taught me so much about self-awareness of our own emotional wellbeing and mindfulness of our mental state. We can be a smarty-pants, perhaps knowing all the answers to the questions on an exam paper, but we may not necessarily be a wise person.

My realisation has led to my spiritual growth which is not an obvious achievement because it was all internal work. As the famous Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, reminded us, “The Way Out Is In” – the work from within is spectacular.  It has helped me look at the world differently and be comfortable riding my own journey at my pace. I have always believe that, everyone has their own time to shine, there is no need to overly race or compete with everyone and everything. Days are always better when we choose to keep going.

Through my realisation, I believe that we can always start again at any point in our life so long as we believe in ourselves. Mistakes we will still make, unpleasant days will still appear and bad relationships may just cropped up; but we get better in navigating them in retaining the peace within us. 

This, my friend and everyone listening in is just a tiny fraction of my self-care journey. I’ll leave you with these words,

“Realise that our BEing is never alone,

Realise that our joy and sadness are part of our BEing,

Realise that our BEing is our ownership,

Realise that Balance is the anchor to our true BEing.”

Stay blessed and always take good care of yourself. It matters before you care for others. 🪷