Happy Valentine’s Day!
On this day, I’d like to share a very important message with you.
Which is you DESERVE to be successful and have the best life!
Even if you believed you’d done something before that had made you feel guilty.
Even if you believed you’d done something that had hurt someone you love.
You are still worthy, and you still deserve to have the best life ever!
This concept is very easy to throw around, but it takes a lot of time to process. It takes a lot of compassion and acceptance to process.
Because logically, we know that whatever we’d done, it’s in the past.
But in our body, the guilt, the hurt, the pain had been embedded deep into our body. And it takes time for those things to heal.
To give you an example, when I was dating my now husband, my parents were extremely against it.
We fought A LOT. The energy in the house was toxic.
It went on for a few years, to the point where my mom got extremely sick because of it.
She developed chest problems, she had full on anxiety attack, and at the end she developed breast cancer.
I remembered one night, she screamed and cried so much, that she fainted in front of me. And my dad and brother were also yelling at me, saying that, if you love mom, you should let it go.
The hurt, the guilt, the pain, the shame, it penetrated my body, my psyche, and it lived in my body for these 10 years.
And I seriously believed that I was not a good daughter.
After I got married and moved out, I tried to build various business, and I jumped from one to another.
And each time, when it was about to take off, I shut it down.
I thought it was because I lost passion, or that it wasn’t meant for me.
But after processing all of my emotions this past week, I realized how much pain, hurt and guilt had resided inside my body.
I was desperately trying to prove myself.
I wanted to prove my worthiness.
But when things were about to get better, my guilt shot everything down.
I believed that because I had hurt my mom, I wasn’t a good daughter, and I didn’t deserve success.
I didn’t deserve happiness.
That I was supposed to stay here in the very spot, to be blamed, and to suffer, over and over and over again.
But that is not true.
I do deserve it all.
I love my mom. And I know she loves me.
She was meant to oppose me, because I was meant to stand up for what I believe.
And I didn’t hurt my mom. She still love me the way that I am.
Here's the thing, whatever you want to work on, the moment you want to work on it, an "obstacle", or a learning opportunity will come at you.
I needed to stand up for my own voice. That's why the people in my life were stopping me, because they were offering me these learning opportunities.
I have to learn to process all my emotions, so that I can stand up stronger.
I have to learn to understand what exactly I want for myself, and not be led by how other people want me to live my life.
I get to decide what I want, and it is okay to feel guilty.
I felt guilty, not because my mom got sick.
I felt guilty, because I believed that I wasn’t a good daughter (which is just a thought)
That is NOT true.
I can only be the best daughter I can be by standing up for what I want.
So I’d like to challenge you to think of a time when you felt guilty for doing something.
Did you stand up and say no to someone, and feel really guilty afterwards?
Maybe you believed you’d hurt someone.
Maybe you believed that you’re not a good daughter, wife, mom, aunt, cousin, neighbour, employee.
But I want you to know that you still deserve to be happy, to have all the success in the world.
You are doing it to learn to be a better version of yourself.
You are worthy it, and you deserve it!
Happy Valentines Day.
You know what's funny? For the longest time, I don't know what I want. After doing so much work, I realize that I'm here to help people figure out what they want.
And it is such a tricky question! I was thinking about this, and came across this post by @nakedpastor
We are raised to deny our wants since we were young. Whatever we wanted, they were rejected, frowned upon.
I mean I can share the simplest story with you.
My son kept saying, "He doesn't want to go to school."
And deep down, I know he really doesn't want to go to school, not the fact that it's not fun for him, or anything bad is happening at school. But he just prefers not to go (like myself, as I always prefer to stay at home instead of going out).
But I had to make him to go school.
His want, denied.
Or let's say we go to the store and he wants to get a toy. Or he wants to play with something at home at a time that doesn't work.
You know what happens? His requests get rejected.
And so many times, he had expressed how angry he is with us, "because we keep saying no" to him.
These are really simple and basic things that he wants, and they get denied.
Then there are bigger things along the way.
What do we want to do with our lives? Are our actions "appropriate"?
What if we don't want to visit a relative but we're "forced" to?
What if we don't want to study a subject, but we're "supposed" to?
What if we don't want to do this for a living, but we're "made" to?
Our decisions get judged.
For so long, we've been guilted into doing things that go against what we really want.
We've been made to feel wrong when we choose not to do something.
We've been made to feel bad when we decide to do something.
So when I ask you this question: What do you want? I understand that it's not an easy question to answer.
And I'm going to tell you one thing: deep down, I believe you still know what you want.
It's just that you aren't able to trust it because you haven't worked on this for the longest time.
And maybe you're even afraid to verbally say it out loud, because when you do, you feel that you'll be judged for being too greedy, or selfish, or childish.
They are not! If that's what you really want. They are not greedy, they are not selfish, and they are not childish. They don't have to contribute to society. They don't have to do any good to anyone. As a matter of fact, you don't need to explain anything to anyone.
And if you feel strongly about it, you are allowed to go after it!
You may say.. but I still don't know what it is I want! Well, if you really want to find out what it is you want in life, there is a way.
We need to do a little more work to uncover it.
Not only that, we have to give you that space, so you can feel safe first and foremost!
We can't judge it. We have to allow for you to explore, discover, and accept whatever comes up. It is not a straightforward answer, but it will be truly worthwhile!
What is your view about going after what you want? What do you think is holding you back from going after it?
You'd been doing many things for others, and you can't seem to be able to say no to others!
1. You think it’s because it’s your obligation.
You feel that you are expected to do them because they're part of your "expectations."
But It’s really because you believe you only deserve to be loved if you do what they want. You've attached your worth to making sure other people are taken care of.
2. You think you’re being a good person when you do things for others.
You feel that you're only being a good person, because you don't want to be labelled as "defiant" or "uncoporative".
But it’s really because you’re afraid that other people will reject you if you say no. They're going to shun you, because you're not playing team.
What can you do?
The first step to getting out of this, is to fully understand that you are 100% loveable, AND you have to learn how to love yourself!
That way, you won’t need to depend on other people’s love.
When other people don't love you, no problem! Your worth is not attached to it, because you can love yourself!
You can take full responsibility for yourself, so when other people reject you, you will be able to stand tall.
You don't need them to approve of you, by setting the boundary for yourself, you respect yourself, and other people will respect you.
Would you be willing to do that for yourself?
You don’t have to do more to prove that you’re more worthy.
Or there isn’t anything you’ve done that made you less worthy.
Who you are is enough. You just have to be.
That’s why we’re called human beings. Not human doings.
And here is the fun part!
After knowing that you are enough as you are.
And knowing that you’re loved no matter what,
What do you want for yourself?
Is there anything that you WANT because it’s fun?
This is where the “doing” comes.
You’re doing it because YOU WANT TO!
Because you can! And You have the potential!
People want to do things because they want to challenge themselves, Not to prove themselves
So my question to you is
What do you want to do just for fun?
How do you want to challenge yourself just for fun?
What area do you want to see yourself grow just for fun?
I'd like to ask you this question, because it took me a lot of work to have fun without feeling guilty.
I was brought up in a household that everything was immaculate, spotless, cleaned, everything had its place, meals were prepped.
And everything “needs” to be done first before you can relax.
I grew up the rebel, who didn’t really care much about any of that while I was living at home, and obviously I was nagged non-stop.
After I got married, part of me still carry that belief, that I need to do more to take care of things.
So when I decided to play video games over the Christmas holidays, (and I played heavily), the guilt set in.
I had thoughts like,
“I should be doing more things, for my business, for the family.” Or,
“I wasted all this time on this game.”
It took me a long time to work through detaching myself from this guilt.
To the point where, now when I planned to play, or decide to play, I don’t feel guilty anymore.
And it is so ingrained in my belief, that I wanted to share this with you.
Because it is something that I’m sure we all have.
As a society that is constantly “doing” things, it seems like we always think there is a more “productive” way to do things.
Clean the house while listening to a podcast.
Or watch tv while exercising.
Otherwise it would be a waste of time.
Or we have this mentality where we think, omg, I just wasted all this time binge watching the entire season of this show.
So they are like 2 extremes of guilt.
What if just doing something fun is ok for once?
And we don’t feel guilty about it?
How would that feel like for you?
So today, I'd like to seriously grant you this approval. You are ALLOWED to have fun WITHOUT feeling guilty!
Go and have fun!!! Just for yourself 🙂
With this being the year of the tiger, I hope you have more courage!
More courage to try new things!
More courage to speak up!
More courage to express yourself!
More courage to fail!
More courage to do something scary!
More courage to go after what you want!
More courage to find out who you really are!
More courage to let go of who you were!
More courage to let go of the expectations.
More courage to be who you are!
More courage to say F off more often!
More courage to say, this is not my responsibility!
More courage to say No.
More courage to not let things bother you.
More courage to take time for yourself!
More courage to love yourself!
More courage to say yes to what matters to you!
More courage to just do the shit you’d wanted to do for the longest time!
More courage to let go of relationships that don’t serve you.
More courage to build stronger relationships in areas that supports you.
More courage to accept help.
More courage to admit you need help.
More courage to accept the dark side of yourself.
More courage to love those parts of you that you reject.
More courage to be compassionate with yourself.
More courage to love you as who you really are.
And when you are ready to take the leap. Know that you are well supported.
You are loved.
You are whole.
One thing that I tend to do a lot is I put a lot of pressure on myself.
I always wonder if I'm doing something right. Is this action worthwhile? Am I making a mistake? How will this turn out?
This ends up being super exhausting.
So one of the things I'd been working on is to let go.
Let go of this pressure, to question whether what I'm doing is correct. Whether I've made the right decision. I just pick one thing and go.
Because what if all roads lead to Rome?
You just have to pick it, and commit to it, and go.
The rest of it is just wasted energy.
And if it doesn't? Then try again! Try something different!
We'd been so "groomed" to have to get the right answer.
But in real life, there is no such thing as a right answer.
There is just trial and error.
And what if it fails? As long as we don't die, we can always try again.
It makes things so much less daunting.
Maybe I'll find fun along the way.
And that's it! Finding fun along the way, instead of finding the correct way.
Breathe, Let go, Live.
