Let’s take a moment to reflect

Facing your past is not an easy task. It requires intense reflection and a sound mind. The saying “everyone has a past” is absolutely true, because everyone does. You cannot and should not be judged by your past and if you are, the people that judge you are possibly judging you based on what they heard about you. Looking back, I have come to so many self realisations that I actually feel appreciation for my journey thus far. I still get PTSD when I see certain people or places and I have to go through that emotion and face the emotion instead of ignoring it or ignoring the triggers that surround it. Avoidance is not the answer.

Learning the hard lessons of life involves falling really hard and learning how to dust yourself off and get back ok track again. If only it was that easy. The uphill battle of finding your way in life after a life altering occurrence is not talked about enough. Everyone heard about your struggle, but nobody is noticing your rise and the amount of power that entails. Everyone knows what you did but they don’t know the mountain you had to climb to resurface into the world.

One of the many difficult lessons I had to learn was that trust and empathy is something many people lack. Nowadays, emotional intelligence is almost non existent and there is always a power struggle or a competition of being better than the next person. I don’t believe in being better than you or anyone else, I genuinely care about being a better version of who I was yesterday. I don’t want to make the same mistakes I have in the past and I most certainly don’t want to be naive about the things I overlooked.

In this current era that we live in, compassion and kindness is rare – also a lesson I had to learn. It’s always the same nonsense of people trying to look good to impress others or doing whatever it takes to get to the top of the ladder, irrespective of who you may hurt along the way. Being kind costs you nothing. Stopping to ask someone “Are you okay?” costs you nothing. You have absolutely no idea what the person sitting next to you is going through – be it financial, family or just psychologically.

In retrospect, there are many things I wish I could do differently and there are many things I wish I had done sooner, however, you cannot live in the past and all you can do is take those very hard lessons and move forward with them in your life. It’s important to learn how to let go of things and people that no longer serve you or have relevance in this new transition that you are in. It’s important to forgive yourself and those that hurt you so that you can move forward and live your absolute best life.

You only get one shot at life – when someone reveals their true identity, believe them the first time. Don’t be a sucker for punishment and then complain about the toxicity they brought to your relationship. Take a moment to think about the top five people you communicate with on a daily basis. Look at your what’s app and ask yourself – “Do these people on my contact list have a place in my transformation or not?”

Life lessons get harder as you get older. The lessons become harder, it becomes more and more difficult to work through because of it’s nature and you will have moments of weakness. I have them very often. I always ask myself the same question, which is – “Did I make the right decision with this scenario?” and you will constantly doubt yourself until one day, you come to the self realisation, that everything on this earth happens for a reason. Every lesson you learn is for a reason. Sometimes you may have to face those lessons alone and you will have to go through your storm by yourself and that’s ok too because the storm doesn’t last forever. The storm cannot and will not last forever.

Don’t trust easily. Don’t expect much from anyone that’s not your family and most importantly, always remember that learning a lesson is better than being ignorant about a situation or a person. Those are my suggestions on how to live a life free of unwanted suffering and most importantly, a life of peace.