Tag: strong
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An Open Letter To My Bullies: Thank You For Making Me Strong
“The heart is like a garden: it can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” ~Jack Kornfield
Dear Bullies,
To be honest, I didn’t think I would ever write you a letter. As far as I was concerned, the amount of suffering I went through during my school years was enough to make me bitter.
I didn’t forgive you, and I most certainly wasn’t about to forget.
I remember those years like it was yesterday—the cruel name calling; the scrutinizing of how I looked, what I said, and what I did; the public humiliation and cornering on the bus rides home.
Wrong face. Wrong size. Wrong skin color. Wrong personality.
No matter how hard I tried to understand it all, it felt like the world was telling me that I didn’t belong, and I never would.
I remember the hours spent locked in my room crying after school, while my mother paced around the house anxiously. Back then I didn’t know how to communicate to her how I was feeling, and she felt at a loss how to help. I felt paralyzed and confused.
In the schoolyard I was the good girl who never spoke badly of anyone, the quiet student who worked hard and who hated getting into trouble.
I remember the laughter, my cheeks burning as I walked from class to class, wishing that the earth would just swallow me up.
Dear bullies, I really remember that laughter.
I remember the times you refused to sit next to me, “that thing” in the class photos, deeming me too ugly to sit next to, unworthy of sharing your personal space.
I felt crushed that day.
Or the times you used pens and sharp objects to write cruel nicknames over all of my school books and stationery while I was home sick.
And yet every time my family moved to a new city to follow my father’s job, I always held hope that somehow this next new school would be different, I would be different.
I would be finally accepted.
But that day never seemed to come, and it wasn’t long before flip top cell phones without color, instant messenger, and social media websites arrived, sending messages that made my insides squirm.
You were my so called “friends.” You were strangers who found an easy target in a girl who was too afraid to use her voice.
I remember it all.
When I finally escaped school in my teenage years, I thought I was free. Instead, a suffocating depression and crippling anxiety knocked heavily on my door, as I withdrew from the world, convinced that “you” would be everywhere.
I hastily took your critical voices and directed it inward. You became my internal radio station, one that I couldn’t quite figure out how to change or even switch off.
But this is not where my story ends.
By being forced to go within, I began to slowly gather puzzle pieces out of a dark and challenging place.
I explored every nook and corner, searching for long lost parts of me, parts that hadn’t been seen in quite some time.
I learned how to face myself without fear, but rather with a growing sense of maturity that helped me to look beyond my pain and start to become aware of yours.
You see, we humans are merely a reflection of one another.
For you to project words so broken and so laced with anger, you had to have been battling your very own storms within.
Genuinely happy people don’t pull others down, and for that, you have taught me the art of compassion.
You have taught me how to connect fully with others from all walks of life; I look around me, and I see beyond the superficial, the carefully put up walls, and I see something else:
I see that behind every face, behind every pair of eyes filled with experiences, there is a story to be told, if we just took more time to stop and listen.
And even though some of your stories are now forever linked with mine, they’re now the gritty, rough drafts that add to the chapters rather than take away from it.
Because, you see, despite the hurt, you truly did contribute to the biggest gift of all:
The gift of learning to genuinely love and accept the child that I was and the woman I am becoming.
And for that, I only have a few words for you:
Thank you for making me strong.
Kind regards,
Rachel
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Why Strong, Brave People Aren’t Afraid to Quit
“Some people think it’s holding on that makes one strong—sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown
Throughout my life I’ve quit many things.
I quit a reasonably ‘sexy’ job title and steady paycheck.
I quit a six-year relationship with an essentially giving and loving person.
I quit being a yoga teacher after investing heavily in getting qualified.
I’ve quit many courses halfway through like calligraphy (of all things), ‘life design map’ courses, and online courses for all sorts of random things.
I quit therapy once, before they told me we were ‘done.’
I’ve quit several crappy part-time jobs when I first started building my business.
Yep, I’m a quitter. Or at least, that’s the label I gave myself.
You see, for many years I was the queen of being mean to myself. She can still pipe up on some days, but I used to be so continually nasty to myself, it was exhausting.
“You never finish anything.”
“You just don’t have what it takes to go the distance.”
“You’re so pathetic, Nat.”
“Why can’t you just see things through? What the hell is wrong with you?”
The other day a client told me she had these same questions (which are really just nasty taunting statements) going around in her head, as she felt guilty for giving up on something that she’d known for a long time she didn’t want to continue.
“I feel like a quitter, Nat. Won’t walking away mean that I’m just quitting?”
And so we began to talk about the meaning of quitting.
What does it actually mean anyway?
To me, to quit means to leave, usually permanently, or to be rid of something, right? I mean, that’s what the dictionary definition tells us.
But what if all the times we labeled ourselves as quitters were actually times when we were following our very finely tuned but so often ignored gut instinct?
What if quitting was just a term we’ve become used to hearing from the people around us, from our parents, from anyone else that might have reminded us where we “should have stuck things out,” but holds absolutely no truth in relevance to the situation we supposedly decided to quit?
I mean, let’s take the end of my six-year relationship for instance, which some, including my ex, might view as me having ‘quit.’ Do the years prior to that, where I struggled with myself over what was working and what wasn’t, and where I held on and tried to keep things together for both of us, not count as me working hard to keep going?
If I casually had just walked out without a reason, that would have been quitting, but I didn’t; I stayed and fought for as long as I could, and I made a decision that I felt at the time was right for both of our long-term happiness.
And then maybe you could also say I quit being a yoga teacher, or at least my mum might have been worrying about that at the time. “But what about all that money you spent traveling over there and taking the course?”
And I could understand her worry, but I reached a point when I had to be honest with myself.
I had been putting pressure on myself to be a perfect and shiny and accomplished yoga teacher even though the entire reason I had gone on the training was to heal myself and my spine, tap into who I really was, figure out what I really wanted from life, and deepen my practice. It was never to be a teacher.
So yes, maybe I quit yoga teaching, but again, what I was actually doing was being true to myself.
And I want to encourage you to do the same.
Drop the struggle you might currently be experiencing with the quitter label. It’s never going to serve you, and you know it’s not who you really are.
If you know deep down that something doesn’t feel right—if you know you’re not meant to be with the person you’re with, in the job you’re in, or doing the work you’re doing—then walking away from it does not make you a quitter, my beautiful friend.
It makes you empowered.
It means you have guts.
It means you are strong enough and tuned-in enough to listen to yourself.
It means you’re following your intuition.
It means you know your time and energy are best spent doing something else.
It means you know you’re on the wrong path and you’re brave enough to take action to change direction.
It means you’re brave.
It means you’re strong.
And it means you’re taking responsibility of your happiness.
Does it mean you will quit everything in your life?
No, it most certainly does not. When you find what’s right, you’ll know, believe me.
But turning over several stones to find the one that shines instead of settling for the safety of the first thing you find is a journey few are prepared to walk.
So with that in mind, you’re pretty amazing for having chosen to be true to who you really are.
Finding what lights you up doesn’t come overnight; maybe for some it does, but for most, it requires a few more stones to be unturned.
So don’t be afraid to keep moving, don’t be afraid to throw in the towel, don’t be afraid to ‘quit.’ It means you’re taking decisive action around what you will and won’t stand for, what feels good and what doesn’t, and most importantly, what feels true for you and what just quite simply doesn’t.
We can’t live our most expressive, fulfilled, and empowered life trying to labor away at something that doesn’t light us up from the inside out, so stop wasting time trying to, and don’t be scared to do something different.
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Managing Chronic Pain: 5 Lessons from Being Hit by a Truck
“Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown
You know how people say, “It was like being hit by a truck”?
I know what they mean.
But the impact took over ten years.
It was a cold, snowy January, and I was in my car, singing along to the radio.
I was doing a steady, careful sixty miles per hour, in the middle lane of a busy British highway. I was on my way to deliver my first solo course for the company I’d joined a few months before. It was a good day.
Suddenly, my world shook. I saw a flash of yellow in the passenger side window, and two big bangs jerked me to a stop.
I went from cheerily singing to a terrified shaking in the front seat, car stopped dead at a lopsided angle in the fast lane.
My body, infused with adrenaline, struggled for air, and I felt paralyzed, knowing I needed to do something, move the car, get out, anything, but it was as if my brain was frozen. What the hell had just happened?
I’d been hit by a truck.
A foreign lorry (the driver on the opposite side of the cab to UK cars) had pulled into the middle lane without seeing it was already occupied. By me.
The side of his yellow truck hit the side of my car at sixty miles per hour, pushing it out of the way like a child knocking over toy soldiers.
I was shunted at speed into the fast lane, where I hit the back of another car. Instead of spinning out into the middle of the highway, I came to a stop after this second hit.
And then I wept as the adrenaline hit me and I realized what had just happened. And what could have happened. And was just grateful it was over.
I wonder what my reaction would have been if I could have seen the longer-term impact of that accident—the impact that would stretch ten years and more ahead of me.
Immediate Impact
At the time, I suffered mild whiplash, my car needed extensive work, and unsurprisingly, I didn’t deliver the course.
But after that, apart from some slight twinges in my shoulder and neck, I felt okay. Maybe a little quieter and more anxious than usual for a while, but okay.
There was some pain, but I saw an osteopath for a few sessions, and my body seemed to settle.
But after another couple of months, the pain returned. I saw the osteopath again, and after a few sessions it subsided.
Rinse and repeat.
This pattern happened again and again, and I started to expand my treatment options. Physio, acupuncture, Bowen, deep tissue massage—you name it, I probably tried it.
And although the treatment often did help, the intervals without pain became smaller and smaller until eventually, the pain was constant. I was diagnosed with chronic pain, something you need to manage, rather than acute pain, something you can cure.
Sometimes You Have to Learn Lessons the Hard Way
Fast forward another five years, and I’m no longer in London, working in a stressful job with long hours and high demands.
I spend most of my time in Thailand. Yoga is a big part of my life, as is writing, blogging, and sharing both my expertise as a psychologist and my experiences as someone who’s lived through great personal change and development myself.
So what lessons did I learn from all this that helped me to change my life so dramatically?
1. Think of your body as an integrated system and not unconnected parts.
When I started to see consultants, I would see “the shoulder consultant” or “the back consultant.” But our bodies don’t work like that. I had more than one issue, but struggled to get the back consultant to think about my neck, or the shoulder consultant to take into consideration my arm.
Since the accident, I’ve learned a huge amount about my own body. I understand more about the “flavor” of different kinds of sensation and pain. But most importantly, I know that my body is a complex system of many different parts working together, not a set of connected-but-separate pieces.
Doctors aren’t trained to think that way. But that doesn’t mean you can’t. Keep track of your symptoms, read up, and be open to seeing different practitioners who might be able to help you view your body as a whole.
2. Your body is both strong and fragile.
I used to have an arrogance around my body, my spirit, my independence. I used to say that I never wanted to be dependent on anything—food, coffee, pills, a person.
Now, I take a number of different medications every day. I’m no longer independent.
I wasn’t particularly fit, but I thought my strength of will was enough. I was wrong.
I learned that our bodies and minds have both infinite strength, but also fragility and vulnerability. And I’m slowly learning to embrace the vulnerability as well as the strength.
Where are you strong? Where are you vulnerable? Work on identifying and more importantly, accepting, both.
3. Be open to what can help you.
I was also very skeptical of any kind of alternative therapy. But when you’re in constant pain, you’ll try anything. I’ve seen many different practitioners now, and have tried to be as open as possible to each.
Unless I really feel uncomfortable or negative about them, I will give a practitioner three goes. And I’ll monitor the impact of their treatment.
Given that you can also end up spending quite a lot of time and money, if the impact isn’t enough—the cost-benefit isn’t high—then I won’t continue. Some treatments have surprised me in how much they helped; others have disappointed me.
I’m well aware of the placebo effect, but I’m okay with it. But I’m also cautious when the practitioner says something like “the effects are subtle.” Too subtle, and maybe I should be spending my time and money elsewhere.
What have you closed your mind to without further exploration? What could you experiment with if only you could put pride aside?
4. Manage your own “stuff” with boundaries and kindness.
Chronic pain is a challenging condition in many ways, as it’s invisible; it’s not like a broken arm, where your cast clearly shows others something’s wrong so they don’t bump into you.
To other people, I look no more or less healthy than them. When I have a bad pain day, it’s hard for others to know, and they are much more likely to “bump into me.”
We all have “stuff” like this—and it doesn’t have to be a health condition. Invisible stuff—a stressful day, a bad day, grief, loss, pain, rejection—the list goes on.
My relationship with my body has also changed over time. Before the accident, my connection with my body was functional; it did what I needed it to. After the accident, I was angry, and disconnected my mind and body. I even talked about it as another entity: “My body and I have a difficult relationship.”
It took me a long time—and work with mindfulness, yoga, and meditation—to learn to accept my body and just “be” with it.
And rebuilding the shattered relationship between body and mind has also meant learning how to be in my mind (remembering that the two aren’t distinct). Understanding what I need when I have a bad day. Being kind to myself. And also creating self-care boundaries; I don’t have endless energy, and so need to curate it carefully.
Do you know when you’re having a bad day? What do you do to protect yourself? Where are your boundaries? How are you kind to yourself?
5. Good things can come from bad.
I don’t believe that I had to be hit by a truck to change my life—that “everything happens for a reason.”
I try and flip it round—what good can I find in this tough situation? How can I, as the quote says, turn this pain into wisdom? It’s not easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. I’m a work-in-progress, just like everyone else. I get knocked down; I get up again.
Chronic pain was a critical factor in my decision to completely change my life, going from a workaholic management consultant in London to running my own business online, basing myself mainly in Thailand.
It’s helped me to learn (and re-learn!) the lesson of acceptance of “what is,” rather than constantly wishing the world was somehow different.
Because once you accept the now, you can build on that foundation and apply all the other lessons to the next stage of your life, or even just the next day.
Because every moment is a new moment. An opportunity for change. Another start.
Woman in pain image via Shutterstock
