Last night, the universe has definitely conspired to have me view two separate TEDx talks that seemed to be speaking directly to me. Alexie O'Brien is the General Manager of lululemon athletica Australia/NZ and an inspiring woman who I had the pleasure to spend time with when I worked with lululemon. She recently spoke at a TEDx event in Victoria and her message about being fully committed to your life is one which is spot on. The second TEDx video by Jim Sorensen, appealed to me because of his thoughts on reality, context and hard work.
What struck me the most when I watched both of these videos was how much I have come to a new level of acceptance and understanding about the journey I have been on over the past few years. This time last year, I was not in a place to take on board messages like these (As I'm sure Alexie can atest!). Intellectually and logically, I knew they rang true and I had once been a living, breathing example of putting them into practice, having discovered them for myself over the 2-3 years prior. And it frustrated me to no end that I couldn't just hear messages such as these and slip back into that way of being. I made it mean there was something inherently wrong with me - that I hadn't evolved as a person like I thought I had. That I wasn't inspiring and never would be again. That I'd lost the 'old' Bel and now I was this person that no-one would like and who I didn't like. But in hindsight, my context was way out of wack and the expectations I was placing on myself were crazy. I was trying to view myself or make myself live through someone else's reality and I wasn't giving myself the permission to live via my own reality, which was that of a 33 year old woman who was living through the breakdown of a 7 year marriage to the father of my child, to a man I had been in a relationship with through my whole adult life, that started when I was really a child myself. I was negotiating the seriously hard road of being a single parent trying to help my son adjust whilst trying to keep my head above water financially and dealing with all my and my husbands emotions etc etc. To expect myself to be a beacon of light and happiness, of shining inspiration and a woman with all my shit together at that time was utterly ridiculous. And it took me a long while and a twisted journey over the past year to finally give myself the permission to just be in the place that I was in and not make myself wrong for it. To take as long as I needed to transition out of this phase and into a new one (which was extremely hard when it seemed for most of this year that the anxiety, fear and sadness would never pass and true joy would never return). But it has passed and the new dawn is coming. There's still a way to go but it's closer than ever and I can see the sun shining through again. And I only got to this point by being able to accept and allow myself to go through what I needed to go through - in my own way and nobody else's. To take a step back because I needed to. To lie low, re-group and recover. (And I want to emphasise that this is very different to giving up or not taking responsibility for our lives. Sometimes we have to take the pressure off and stop trying to push forward at 100 miles an hour or force ourselves through something in a given time frame. What takes one person 1 year to go through may take another 2 or 3 years, and that's ok. But there is a distinct difference between evolving through something and completely giving up and abandoning your life, which isn't healthy).
Anyway, the fact that I can view talks such as these and hear the messages and be inspired again gives me hope that I've come out the other side of this challenge but also a sense of being at peace with the past year and my own journey. I know that some days, weeks, months or years, I will shine and be strong and others I will struggle and get knocked down. But I'm okay with that because its the cycle of life. The cycle of my life and my journey and no one else's. That's how it's supposed to be and that's ok...
What struck me the most when I watched both of these videos was how much I have come to a new level of acceptance and understanding about the journey I have been on over the past few years. This time last year, I was not in a place to take on board messages like these (As I'm sure Alexie can atest!). Intellectually and logically, I knew they rang true and I had once been a living, breathing example of putting them into practice, having discovered them for myself over the 2-3 years prior. And it frustrated me to no end that I couldn't just hear messages such as these and slip back into that way of being. I made it mean there was something inherently wrong with me - that I hadn't evolved as a person like I thought I had. That I wasn't inspiring and never would be again. That I'd lost the 'old' Bel and now I was this person that no-one would like and who I didn't like. But in hindsight, my context was way out of wack and the expectations I was placing on myself were crazy. I was trying to view myself or make myself live through someone else's reality and I wasn't giving myself the permission to live via my own reality, which was that of a 33 year old woman who was living through the breakdown of a 7 year marriage to the father of my child, to a man I had been in a relationship with through my whole adult life, that started when I was really a child myself. I was negotiating the seriously hard road of being a single parent trying to help my son adjust whilst trying to keep my head above water financially and dealing with all my and my husbands emotions etc etc. To expect myself to be a beacon of light and happiness, of shining inspiration and a woman with all my shit together at that time was utterly ridiculous. And it took me a long while and a twisted journey over the past year to finally give myself the permission to just be in the place that I was in and not make myself wrong for it. To take as long as I needed to transition out of this phase and into a new one (which was extremely hard when it seemed for most of this year that the anxiety, fear and sadness would never pass and true joy would never return). But it has passed and the new dawn is coming. There's still a way to go but it's closer than ever and I can see the sun shining through again. And I only got to this point by being able to accept and allow myself to go through what I needed to go through - in my own way and nobody else's. To take a step back because I needed to. To lie low, re-group and recover. (And I want to emphasise that this is very different to giving up or not taking responsibility for our lives. Sometimes we have to take the pressure off and stop trying to push forward at 100 miles an hour or force ourselves through something in a given time frame. What takes one person 1 year to go through may take another 2 or 3 years, and that's ok. But there is a distinct difference between evolving through something and completely giving up and abandoning your life, which isn't healthy).
Anyway, the fact that I can view talks such as these and hear the messages and be inspired again gives me hope that I've come out the other side of this challenge but also a sense of being at peace with the past year and my own journey. I know that some days, weeks, months or years, I will shine and be strong and others I will struggle and get knocked down. But I'm okay with that because its the cycle of life. The cycle of my life and my journey and no one else's. That's how it's supposed to be and that's ok...
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