10 things I have learned this year
Tomorrow is my birthday. I do not make “New Year’s Goals” lists (I’m not a fan), but I usually think about the previous year, around my birthday. And since both are in December, these two often coincide. Today I’m sharing some of my main takeaways.
Health is everything
I started this year with one foot on the other side. It was the first and the only time in my life when I heard “You may not make it out alive”. I was alone, in a city, to which I had never been to before (but to which I decided to move), having just spent 2 days in (mostly in bed). Thousands of kilometers away from my family and friends. I saw my whole life in the glitch of a few seconds and I thought: ‘How is it possible? I’ve always been eating healthy, have been working out, trying to take care of myself as much as I could… and it’s me?’, ‘I’m not even 30’, ‘If it ends now, what are the things I am proud of being and doing in my life?’ ‘What is the purpose of this whole thing?’… and many more. I still do not have answers to some of these questions, but I have to one. Everything that seemed (very) important to me before, disappeared in an instant. I only knew I really wanted to live, to love, to drink coffee with my family and friends. This is all I wanted. Fast forward to now, I can do all the things that I valued at that time, I enjoy some of them, and I usually barely notice most of them. Health is everything, but only once you lose it, you realize life really consists of a few simple things. I challenge you to remember five you enjoyed and savored today.
Your resistance is the fraction
We go about life thinking we have “problems”, which are fractions to our otherwise good or nice life. Well, surprise, the fraction is you. Life serves you a Swedish buffet and you just happen to dislike the olives, not eat diary (but you know, only temporarily), drink coffee but only a latte with oat milk, and want the omelette, but only with egg whites, cause the yolks are already passé. The thing is, it was a Swedish buffet and now you have made it an a la carte for an allergic millennial and you go around saying you have “problems”. The oat milk latte is your choice. I am not saying no one has real problems. But a lot of the time, the fraction is your perception of what you think “should” happen in your life. If you loosen the grip and drink some regular refill, you may find out, it actually tastes fine, too. Life just is and our resistance to what is creates the fraction.
We do not always get to choose all the options, but what we get to choose is how we respond and what we consider as ‘problems’.
Let yourself be impacted
Many of us course through life as if we had at least three more chances at it. We don’t. This is it, at least in this form and as we know it. This heartbreak, this grief, this trip, this course, this time you see your parents. This is it. Life is all of it - joy, grief, all-encompassing sadness, sometimes, in the lucky times, days-long strings of, what we tend to call, happiness. Sometimes, we fool ourselves that we would let ourselves be impacted by joy, but will try to skip the sadness. You can’t deeply feel only what you want to feel. If it was that easy we all would be doing that. So let yourself be impacted. I know it’s easier said than done, but you’re here already, you know? So at least take what you already have on your plate. You do not know what’s on the other side. And most of the time, on the other side of impact is not what we think. Because, to be honest, we can’t foresee that far. We can only fear that far.
Relationships are a huge part of our happiness
Relationships are essential for our happiness. Simple, easy, non-revolutionary truth. Based on more studies that I could count or quote, supportive relationships are the strongest predictors of mental health and successful mental health treatments. Not to mention that apparently around 70% of therapeutic success is due to the therapeutic relationship. This year has showed me that relationships are also way more important for my happiness than I’d thought before. And trust me when I tell you I’ve talked about the importance of relationships countless times in my ten-year long therapy. But it is in this immigration (and life) chapter that I have let myself notice and express a great need for community. There are a many of reasons for that, but, this time, I’m trying to do is stray away from the analysis and simply follow my inner compass. Again, easier said than done.
Commitment is a choice
My biggest commitment this year has been the one to move to a new country (again), but this time ACTUALLY stay because I want to, not because I have to. This almost ‘no matter what’ commitment and giving myself a real chance at life, which is not in between the airports, countries, and two-year plans has been really hard on me. Harder than I had imagined. It has cost me continuous arguments with myself, logical explanations, energetic math equations, deep loneliness, but most importantly, commitment to myself and taking myself seriously. The commitment to not avoid parts of myself and not run away when things get boring or hard have played with my mind more than any toxic relationship I had ever had. This is not a “But now it’s all changed” story. Oh no, I’m still in the thick of it. But all I can say is that I have learned that it is a choice. And the unfamiliar choices, even if good for us, feel do not feel good. They can’t become comfortable just because we want them to. But I keep choosing and I believe that’s what counts.
Believe people’s actions
I have a habit of excusing people. A habit that many people have, especially when it comes to excusing those who we love, value, or have the highest hopes for. This year, especially after the health issue, I’ve looked closer at my relationships - at their quality, depth, and reliability. Most friendships I have are years-long connections, but even among those, there were some who I had to swallow a big disappointment pill about. I decided to do it, while laying in the hospital and an airbnb bed, for weeks, when some of my “friends” did not even bother to reach out. I decided to believe people’s actions towards me. Both their care, a warm word or a prayer, as well as their ignorance or shallowness. It set me free.
Giving yourself space may do more than you (and I) think
I am a hot-headed person. By nature, I figure things out, I am more about doing and it takes a lot of work for me to be more and do less. I like to have the answers immediately. And as you may assume or perhaps you may know by your own experience - creating pressure to know actually creates more distance and stress.
This year, I have realized that allowing myself to be in the in between without all the answers and without creating the pressure to find out immediately is healing in itself.
It is an action of compassionate surrender and self-love, perhaps even more than arriving at the ‘Aha!’ moment.
More time in the clouds
This is more of an old insight that I did not apply enough this year. One that nowadays is screaming for my attention. In one of his recent podcast episodes (linked below) , Steven Bartlett says that there are clouds and trenches. Trenches are the “go” and “do” things, the meeting, the investments, the decisions, the zoom calls, all the stuff we know all to well. The clouds is the time for your soul. It is creative development, writing, reading, staring into nothingness on the hill, meditative practice. It is when you can actually tune into the power of your intuition. Most of us live at least 90% of our lives in the trenches. I spent probably more than 95% of this year in them and I feel my soul screaming for space, for art, for silence, for time that I “don’t have”. It is the time in the clouds that has brought me the best ideas and decisions in my life, so far, and yet I have spent the vast majority of this year space-deprived. More time in the clouds.
Responsibility is essential for freedom
At the end of last year, I started integrating an unbelievably beautiful and all-encompassing feeling of freedom I felt (in that way) for the first time in my life. Soon enough, I understood that responsibility is key to hold myself responsible. To create my life in the way that feels good to me. To live it meaningfully.
Freedom without responsibility is recklessness, elusive, momentary.
This year has been groundbreaking for me in many ways and it is the responsibility and presence in freedom that were essential for me to ground them in my everyday actions. Being truly free is a huge responsibility to yourself and to the World.
Life will not go as you want to and it’s ok.
We always imagine our lives a certain way. We think that once we have the “right partner”, enough money, a great house, etc. we will be feeling a certain way. We imagine success a certain way and more often than not, in a very capitalistic way. But even if we have all the above assets or we become “successful” in a way that you want to, life will throw things at us. We may achieve our very high standard, but life will still be as it is, not as we’d hoped or thought it would be, because our minds can only see as far. And it’s ok. Life is in the here and now. It’s in the way it is, not in the way we had imagined it. The faster we accept it, the more access to life we have. The more access to life we have, the more we can get out of our own way and actually live it.
I’m sending you a warm December hug.
Emilia
This month’s podcast recommendations:
The above-mentioned episode of the Diary of the CEO, where Steven is reading his diary. It’s deep, it’s thoughtful, it’s touching.
A full-on 3-hour analysis of everything that’s wrong and how everything still (apparently) can be right. A holistic, hopeful, and well-rounded interview with Paul Chek.
Simon Sinek talking about what makes a good friend.