A television show about my twenties would delve into the intricate life of what my parent described as a white elephant. The show would follow the life of a firstborn daughter who, seeking autonomy, is lost, literally and figuratively. There wouldn’t be a laugh track, to set the tone for the raw and unfiltered portrayal of her struggles amidst the colorful cocktails in aesthetically pleasing bistros, large friend groups and laughter. With no ability to cope with childhood and adult trauma, and no way to ask for help, the main character—me—is quietly spiraling. She makes a spectacular mess of her financial and mental wellness. A lot happens in the pilot. Towards her mid twenties, moves out of her childhood home after her first promotion into management and abandons everything and self-isolates, kind of. She has always wanted a fresh start.
It is a small miracle she survives this lengthy lonely and depressive period but as time progresses, she discovers a newfound strength in her independence.
Later, in her late twenties, she cuts off all contact with her family, her friends, or anyone who thought they knew her, and begins her healing journey. She has no money, no job, no plan, little support, but still, that doesn't stop her from venturing into the unknown. It is real drama.
The rest of that first season is equally dramatic. Before long, she finds a great job doing the one thing she’s qualified to do, a management position in an illustrious education institution. In the prestigious office setting, she sits in a beautiful corner office, supervising a staff of over a hundred people. She talks to people all day. She drinks mint and lemon water from her water bottle, sometimes snacks on her secret stash of white chocolate and toffee, and does Sudoku puzzles in between meetings.
It is so easy to talk to people. She loves the job, until she doesn’t. There is an interesting cast. Her coworkers are girls who are equally lost. They are different races, from different places, but all lost together. Towards the end of the work day, the girls get together and gossip, but exhausted, they hardly remember who said what.
The girls tell my character how lucky she is to be 'nepo' hire even though behind her back, they always point it out to others as a character flaw. Can you believe it?
Amidst the backdrop of office politics and personal reflections, the character faces both admiration and criticism for her recently acquired privileged background. It's all new to her but she eventually learns to stop taking offense to it because she knows from experience that it’s easy to resent the person that reminds us that sometimes, success starts with where you come from or who you know.
I'm in my early thirties now, and even though I’m a seasoned wellness coach with lots of loyal clients and readers, I still feel lost sometimes. I’m telling you this because I want to show you that nobody is immune to the insecurity of life's uncertainty. I’m just like you. What qualifies me to write about healing and wellness are all of the failures I have experienced to this day and the tools I have developed to handle them. Before, I would torture myself for days, getting angry at myself, thinking how unfair it was for me to fail. Now, to me failure is pretty much like water off a duck’s back. To some people failure is the worst thing in the world, while to others like myself, it’s exciting and even inspiring. One person doesn’t stop even for a second when they face obstacles or make mistakes, while another person immediately gives up, convinced that success is black or white: you either reach your goal or you don’t.
Every woman has a series of episodes about her twenties, her girlhood, and how she came out of it. In today's post I would like to share twenty interesting lessons I have learnt from some of those episodes. Rarely are those episodes neatly encapsulated as on an episode of, say, Friends, or a romantic comedy about boy meeting girl so they are random, yet incredibly valuable.
Want nothing but the best for your partner, friends and family because when they are happy and successful, it’s probably going to be easier for you to be happy and successful. And if you are having a rough season in your life while they are having the best year ever, you need to process your emotions about it, do it alone, with your therapist, or in your journal so that when you actually see your person, you can be happy for them.
No human being is without feelings. From a baby’s first cry to a dying person’s last look at friends and family, our primary response to the world around us is colored by emotion. Whether that world seems to us friendly or frightening, beautiful or ugly, pleasant or disagreeable, affects the way we approach others, and indeed influences everything we do. I do not believe that such feelings arise in us solely due to environmental conditions, or to genetic factors, however important these both may be. Members of the same family, placed in the same kinds of situations, react in very different ways. Our emotions are a conscious response to our experience, but they are self-generated and reveal something important about our character
Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses—pretty but designed to SLOW women down. This is not to say women aren’t bitches or toxic or competitive sometimes but rather to say that these are not defining characteristics of female friendship, especially as you get older. If you find that you are feeling bitchy, toxic, or competitive toward the women who are supposed to be your closest friends, look at why and figure out how to fix it and/or find someone who can help you fix it.
Life is a series of ups and downs, in which sometimes parents make the right decisions and sometimes they don’t. When you know they are wrong, don't follow them blindly to prove your love and loyalty. Instead, risk their disapproval to do the right thing for you because there are worse things in life than your parent's disapproval. Regret for example.
Sometimes, your friends will date or marry people you cannot stand. You can either be honest about your feelings or you can lie. There are good reasons for both. Sometimes you will be the person dating someone your friends cannot stand. Pay attention to their concern but make a decision that's in your best interest because only you will truly surfer the consequences.
Firstborn daughters have believed a myth that promises them that if they give up themselves and put others first, they will be loved and get their needs met. There is only one way to change this illogical, nonproductive Good Girl paradigm — putting themselves first. Making the decision to put the self first is the hardest part. Actually doing it is relatively easy. When the Good Girl puts herself first there is only one voice to consider — her own. Decisions are now made by one individual, rather than by a committee. She no longer has to mind read, predict, or try to please multiple voices with conflicting agendas. When putting herself first all the information she needs to make a decision is within her: "Is this what I want? Yes. Then that's what I'll do."
Everybody gossips, but avoid sharing false information, baring false witness or tearing other people down, because even if they’re not your friends, they are human beings and this is just as important. Plus, you won't always get away with it. This is not to say you cannot criticize other people, but understand the difference between criticizing constructively and tearing down cruelly.
Don’t be totally rude about truth telling, and consider how much truth is actually needed to get the job done. Finesse goes a long way.
When something is wrong and you need to talk to your friends and they ask you how you are, don’t say “Fine.” They know you’re lying and it irritates them and a lot of time is wasted with the back-and-forth of “Are you sure?” and “Yes?” and “Really?” and “I AM FINE.” Tell your friends the truth so you can talk it out and either sulk companionably or move on to other topics.
Someone I considered family once said to me, "when it comes to mental health, we will know the details at the funeral". It's the most cruel thing that has ever been said to me; a person who has a history of mental health struggles, but it's true for a lot of people. In a world that only cares about your productivity, most people suffer in silence because no one cares. That's where professional come in.
There is courage in seeking help. It is not easy to pick up the telephone and call for a therapeutic consultation. One feels embarrassed, anxious, and hesitant. The moment implies admission of weakness and vulnerability; one has failed to master something oneself. Child-like dependence often surfaces, with all its attendant hopes and anxieties. To tolerate all this and yet persist in the desire to seek help requires moral and intellectual courage. And you got it. Don't choose it suffer in silence. Beside, even if you choose to ignore your pain, it doesn't mean that the world is any better for it. It is strength to recognize areas in which help would benefit us and seek help. Sure, there is still stigma around talking about your negative feelings but to suffer in silence is not honorable either.
The notion that we need to 'suck it up' and that seeking outside help for mental health problems is for white people or those with a victim mindset, is the main contributing factor to what the WHO is calling a silent epidemic involving increasing cases of depression and people taking their own lives.
Romantic relationships are not an escape from life's suffering. The fact is that human beings are imperfect. You are imperfect. I am imperfect. Every individual and every organization consisting of individuals is imperfect. People make mistakes. They do wicked, senseless, brainless, foolish, and cruel things. This is the way the world is and has always been. To expect everything to be fine all the time is to court eternal frustration and doubt. And yet, unconsciously, many people go through life expecting that all will be well. Many people, while growing up, get the idea that the world is supposed to unfold in a particular way. If it does not, instead of adjusting and adapting, they become angry, frustrated, and determined either to impose their will on their world or make other people behave in a way more in harmony with what they have come to expect. This attitude is a major reason why people remain stuck in space where they are deeply unhappy .
Don't stay in the place of girlhood long after it’s productive for you because it’s easier to behave only in socially acceptable ways. So why do women stay in the place of girlhood long after it’s productive for them? One reason is because we have been taught that acting like a girl— even when we are grown up—isn’t such a bad thing. Girls get taken care of in ways boys don’t. Girls aren’t expected to fend for or take care of themselves—others do that for them. Sugar and spice and everything nice— that’s what little girls are made of. Who doesn’t want to be everything nice? Being a girl is certainly easier than being a woman. Girls don’t have to take responsibility for their destiny. Their choices are limited by a narrowly defined scope of expectations. And here’s another reason why we continue to exhibit the behaviors learned in childhood even when at some level we know they’re holding us back: We can’t see beyond the boundaries that have traditionally circumscribed the parameters of our influence. It’s dangerous to go out of bounds. When you do, you get accused of trying to act like a man or being “bitchy.” All in all, it’s easier to behave in socially acceptable ways. There’s only one problem. It's all false.
Anger is a natural and normal emotion. Babies get furious, express their fury and then it’s over. Many of us have learned that it’s not nice, or polite, or acceptable for us to be angry. We learn to swallow our angry feelings. They settle in our bodies, in the joints and muscles. They accumulate and become resentment. Layer upon layer of buried anger turned into resentment can contribute to dis-eases like arthritis, assorted pains, and even cancer. We need to acknowledge all our feelings, including anger, and find positive ways to express these feelings. We don’t have to hit people or dump on them, yet we can say simply and clearly, “This makes me angry.” Or “I am angry at what you did.” If it is not appropriate to say this, we still have many options: we can scream into a pillow. Beat the bed. Kick pillows. Run. Yell in the car with the windows rolled up. Play tennis. These are all healthy outlets.
It's okay to be wrong. Every single time you learn that you were wrong, you have the opportunity for growth. If you take it, you become more than you ever were before. Stronger, wiser, and all sorts of good things. But ... Being wrong can feel so threatening, can't it? I prefer to be right, of course! I try and make it my business to make right decisions and come to right conclusions and have right information and so on - because doing all those things right makes life much better and easier.
But I'm always open to the possibility that I'm wrong about stuff, and it doesn't hurt me when I learn that I am. I don't feel less-than because I was wrong. I am able to take off the wrong opinion/belief with as little trauma as removing an old worn-out pair of shoes, and putting on the new shiny shoes that I can admire and enjoy. Being wrong is something I do, not something I am. And therefore it does not reflect badly on me to be wrong, so it’s easy for me to own when I am wrong.
Stop seeing people as bad or good and instead see then as safe or unsafe for you.