This is not another blog to depict my feel-good routines, my happy marriage, my healthy diet, my entrepreneurial ventures and supposedly perfect lifestyle. Here’s what this blog is about and what you can expect:
It’s about sharing the real, raw, everyday thoughts and struggles that make us human.
It’s about about sharing my journey and learnings in a raw, real and authentic way.
It’s about sharing my battles with low self-esteem and a physical and mental burnout, forcing me to re-evaluate who I was and finding the confidence to be myself.
It’s about sharing how I’m still battling against a constant feeling of not being enough – not good enough, not disciplined enough, not smart enough, not feminine enough… All those « mental programs » which led me to plunge head-on into prestigious studies followed by a brilliant 9-year career in corporate communications.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very proud of my achievements (and actually still can’t get my head around how far I pushed myself along a path that wasn’t mine!!). But I’ve done it all for the wrong reasons, based on what I thought I ought to do rather than what I really wanted. And let me tell you: that’s a subtle, but huge difference.
To cut it short, two weeks after I turned 30 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. That’s when my seemingly perfect world collapsed. I realised I wasn’t in control of everything in life. And that… hurt like hell. I realised life could be over any moment, and the people we love the most can disappear from the face of this earth in the blink of an eye. I realised I was climbing up the wrong career ladder all along because I wanted to make my parents proud. What I forgot though, was that they can leave anytime and that I’ve got my own life to live!
All of those factors combined resulted in me ending up with regular panic attacks, strong everyday anxiety and basically completely burnt out. One evening, after coming home from giving a dance class (yes, dancing is my second love after Andy ;)) I ended up at the hospital with heart arrhythmia. The diagnose? « Stress ». Other than that, I was « perfectly healthy ». Pardon me…? Clearly, I needed to make a change. But instead, the heard-headed, persevering, disciplined good little girl that I was returned to work the day after (!), holding on to her paycheck-job another year (yep, 12 full and seemingly endless months) before finally getting the message: LET GO of negative influences in your life. They weigh you down, and end up being destructive in the long run.
In a nutshell, these are my main (cheesy but true!) learnings along my journey:
Life is about becoming the best version of yourself. It’s about becoming the person you want to be. Today I am growing through the challenge of expressing my personal power as a woman. A woman running a business, a woman in a loving relationship, but also a woman who is working on falling in love with herself. Because I realise it is never too late to become your own best friend.
I have learned the power of being grateful for all the “bad” experiences, for they are gifts. They might come in an extremely ugly wrapping, but they are gifts nonetheless. Without them we wouldn’t grow to become who we truly are. Each of those gifts forces us to wash off yet another layer of dirt (e.g. fears, old thought mechanisms, masks we put on to ‘fit in’….). It makes us dig deeper into our consciousness and heart’s longings.
I have learned the power of practicing kindness and compassion with my body, for it is my temple, my sole vehicle to life.
I have learned to decipher the mechanisms of my mind, in order to resurface my heart, giving it its voice back.
I have learned to stop watching others, and start taking action for the advancement of my own dreams.
I have learned that everything is perfect this very moment. We are exactly where we need to be