Dear Hearts,
Welcome back to our conversation. I ask that you sit down beside me, take a deep breath, and allow yourself to look a little deeper inward before exhaling as you look outward. There are things I would like to talk about today that require an honesty with the self. And as we explore these feelings and come upon our own realisations, I ask that you brazenly allow the feelings you’ve long suppressed to come to the surface, so that we may heal and move onward together. Like two childhood friends skipping over a wet puddle on a spring morning.
I sit here, six months into relocating to a new country, and each day brings with it a new outlook and a new lesson. And yet, for a while now, I’ve been fighting off a deeply resounding feeling of tiredness that simply hasn’t been a part of my everyday routine. For a long time, I fostered a sense of productivity through exercise, social engagements, breakfasts and lunches with friends, and, of course, my work life ; an all-consuming 9–5, five days a week, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
But now, I’m back to living at home with my parents, working from home, and venturing out to see family over the weekend, with my previous routine having been hurled into the void as I crashed into this new life, in an entirely new country, with no fair warning and no seatbelt.
I picture it like something that is so beautiful to watch, or something that is so theoretically beautiful, that one cannot quite comprehend the collision of emotions taking place internally. It is almost like how we talk about the birth of a child being a wonderful thing, while expecting mothers to simply deal with the pain and, for the most part, breeze through this incredibly disruptive bodily occurrence. Like a fizzy beverage bottle that has been shaken and left on a kitchen counter, awaiting an unsuspecting consumer, the turmoil of our emotional selves is often overlooked in favour of a more superficially complacent form of existence, until there is a collision.
And that, dear hearts, is what we are addressing today: how to assess the issues we’ve been ignoring and how to begin addressing them, so that we are calmly and patiently driving down life’s path, rather than constantly veering off course.
In my instance, the big realisation came to me through a little whisper from the universe. One morning, as I was getting out of bed, still an hour later than my usual 5:00 AM wake-up time that I had fostered for many years, I realised something. I had been pitting myself against a formula for success that was no longer compatible with my new life. In my former life, I was up at 5:00 AM, managed to speak to a few friends locally and overseas, was at work an hour early, and was back in the calm of my pristine apartment by 6:00 PM. Now, I wake up by 7:00 AM, make sure I greet my parents, regulate my emotions so I don’t snap, put on a casual work-from-home outfit, and sit at my bedroom desk until 5:00 PM.
There has been a drastic shift in my life that I failed to truly recognise because, on paper, everything had worked out for me with this move. I hadn’t given myself the grace to acknowledge that I am allowed to start anew and to start measuring my productivity in ways that differ from my old self. Sure, I’m still an early riser. But maybe I can give myself the grace to get up an hour later in a totally different time zone. Sure, it can be a little chaotic having to interact with my family again, but maybe that’s because, for so long, I lived in a country that measures the worth of an expat through their job title. Perhaps I no longer need to feel guilty about everyday interactions with family.
And my friends? I feel like I’ve been dropping the ball with them. But they, too, will understand that moving to an entirely new country means I am allowed to find a new rhythm to things.
After six months of being in Australia, and a lifetime of living in Dubai, I finally realised that my tiredness or perhaps this spiritual weight I had been carrying, wasn’t my body adjusting to the time difference or the climate. It was my body trying to measure my day-to-day success by the same metric I had used in my former life. Newsflash, said the universe; you are no longer that person. You are allowed to change.
In fact, you have been given the blessing of changing into whatever it is you want this next adventure to be about. So today, I woke up a little lighter because I realised that I am allowed to rewrite this story. I am allowed to feel like I am feeding the version of me that this next chapter requires, in order to evolve into the best version of myself.
And that, dear hearts, is what happens when we are honest with ourselves. When we listen to our intuition and to the universe, we stop ignoring our feelings. Instead, we identify them, acknowledge them, and tackle them. I realise that, in my instance, it was this major life change. But perhaps for you, it is being a new parent, moving in with your partner, starting a fancy new job at a mega-corporation, or leaving behind an unhappy marriage. Whatever the case may be, please know that you are allowed to heal, mend, and succeed in your own time.
They say time waits for no man, but I would rather show up at the inevitable finish line we’re all headed towards as the best version of myself, than arrive having missed the joy of a life well lived.
I’m sending you all a warm hug today.
love always,
Avastavé by Dmitri Ruwan
Listen to the audio narration of this article here.
