‘The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.’
-Coco Chanel
Life is beautiful with its flow – there will be ups and downs, which creates challenges or opportunities (depending on what sort of person you are – glass half-full or half-empty).
Following last month’s blog on ‘building a better relationship with you’ (read here if you haven’t), I was compelled to share my message in this blog.
Here’s a back story on what led me to share this with you.
One Sunday evening in February, I was ironing my children’s school uniform and was really inspired to lay out my clothes for work the next day (even though it’s COVID times and I work from home, I felt like dressing up). I was tired from the weekend activities and also the meal prep from earlier that day. I decided to sleep early, so I can be super productive the next day.
When I woke up on Monday morning, it was not the way I visualised it. I managed to pull myself out of bed because I knew I had school drop off. As I was sitting on the sofa, thinking about my to-do list, tears started rolling down my cheeks. I let it flow.
If it was the old me, I would have cried briefly, forced myself to brush away the tears and get going with life. But this particular day, I wanted to probe deep. There was this little voice inside my head that said ‘sit with the discomfort’. I talked back to this voice and said ‘don’t be silly, who has time for this? It’s Monday morning’. But the voice was louder and I decided to listen to it.
With my eyes still closed, I asked myself – ‘what caused the tears?’. My first response was that it’s closer to my monthly cycle, so it was natural to feel this way. This was partially true, but I still didn’t feel convinced, so I asked what else. Only after a few what else’s, did I get to the bottom of the true problem.
The real reason was that I hadn’t slept enough the past week because of the hot weather. However early I went to bed, I was not feeling rested the next day. Over the course of the week, tiredness had built up in my system causing the Monday morning showers (aka tears).
I wanted to take this one step further and probed. ‘How do I make this better?’. A couple of answers came to me and I decided to follow those. And by the end of the day, I was feeling much better.
If I had brushed the tears away or failed to acknowledge my emotions, that would have added to my pile of undealt emotions.
Whenever you go through something, have the courage to sit with it because I assure you, solutions will arise from the honest conversation you have with yourself. No one else can do this for you and you are totally worth it!
And, Happy International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is #choosetochallenge. Tying up with my article above, sometimes you may choose to ignore the unspoken issue that you as a woman might face – in your daily life. Choose to challenge and sit with the discomfort, for the true solution lies within you!
Take care
Photo by Free Old Photos on Unsplash
