“My soul is my guide.”
Rumi
Life is a journey of learning how to live and survive, especially when faced with challenges that can feel overwhelming. We are shaped by the obstacles and failures we encounter. However, what we often overlook is how we respond to these lessons and how we move forward once we acknowledge them.
I’m grateful that I was taught to learn from my mistakes and to remember the experience so I wouldn’t have to repeat it. Honestly, it wasn’t always easy to grasp. There were times when I felt frustrated, unable to see how the pain and struggle could teach me anything.
As I grew older, things began to make sense. I learned how to reflect on my life experiences, but I also had to open my heart to embrace the lessons they offered fully. This process took time—it took years for me to understand how to reflect on painful situations with an open heart.
Once I was able to acknowledge the lessons and trust the process, I was able to break the cycle of learning the same lesson over and over again.
What seems to be one of my lifelong lessons is Self-love. I didn’t realize that I lacked the ability to love myself, which was hard to acknowledge. I still fight with lingering feelings of not being enough or worthy of something better. More specifically, when I go through tough situations that don’t get resolved quickly and easily.
How am I working through all this? A lot of work. I took some time, well, a lot of time to really dive into my soul and find what I truly had to do to get past this negative thought process. It is a hard habit to break when you constantly live in a place of judgment of yourself and others. But I took the first step in healing. I acknowledged.