Tag: personal growth

Yelly Writes

In(ter)dependence

Yelly

You were whole before they arrived, and you are whole now that they are gone. — Unknown

Building a life together doesn’t mean codependency. The goal is to be interdependent — to blend your lives together to form a unit, a team, but with two distinct, independent parts. You’re not expected to solve your other half’s problems for them, you’re supposed to be there to support them through the journey to the solutions. You’re not expected to TAKE CARE of the other person, you’re expected to CARE FOR the other person.

Learning to blend your lives together takes time, in the same way you learn geography, language, and maths. You both learn to map out your boundaries and territories while learning to share space. You learn each other’s languages and understand unspoken cues so that you’re able to communicate with each other in a way that is meaningful and understandable to the other person so that needs, wants, and feelings are shared. You learn to divide the effort it takes to make the relationship work, to know when to add your skills, your personality, to turn your life into one that is uniquely both yours, so you’re both parts of your shared narrative. At the same time, you learn to subtract yourself from the story so that your individuality isn’t compromised. Learning to bring two lives together takes work, takes time, a lot of patience, a lot of trust, self-awareness and the willingness to be open to communicate and receive communication. It can be scary because negotiating and discovering boundaries are delicate considerations. You just need to make sure you’re guided by love, kindness and constant awareness that this is a journey you’re taking with someone else.

It is worth it, though. Because you enter into a partnership. You gain someone; you don’t lose yourself.

@yellywelly
Yelly Writes

The blurred lines of grief

Yelly

Healing is not linear — and neither are boundaries. — Unknown

A few weeks after my return from my mother’s memorial service, I met up with a few friends. I thought it would be a good experience to be around people. But one person kept asking me what happened on my trip, how I was feeling, if I was okay now, and if I could move on now. Up until that point, I thought I would be okay being around people. I wasn’t. I wanted to scream at this person, and I wanted to run away and cry.

I didn’t, of course. I am thankful I bit my tongue and prayed for my tongue to stick to the roof of my mouth so I wouldn’t say anything I couldn’t take back. I knew this person did not have the capacity to understand the depth and heft of my grief, because they hadn’t experienced the death of a parent, and really, because we all deal with situations differently. They were approaching me and my experience in the way they would if they were in the same situation. I behaved differently around this person after that. I didn’t feel like we were occupying the same spaces anymore. I know I may have judged too harshly after that experience, but I had to step away. I was too hurt. I don’t think they realised that they had wounded me so deeply. At the time, I didn’t have the capacity to explain what I was going through (that’s on me completely), but I knew that if I had opened my mouth, I would be caustic and say things I couldn’t take back.

Grieving and healing are both processes that involve ebbs and flows, with twists and turns. I think boundaries are the same. They shift and stretch depending on a person’s growth and capacity

Everything is a work in progress.

Yelly Writes

Beautiful disasters

Yelly
@yellycups

We are all beautiful disasters. We are all unique and complex. Perfectly imperfect, extraordinarily ordinary but all magically marvellous. We need to embrace the totality of who we are: the spaghetti bowl of tangled emotions, the missteps that need redirections, the weaknesses, our strengths, our passions and our hearts.

We need to forgive ourselves for being human and for not knowing things right away, for not knowing how to cope with new situations. We are here to learn, to develop, to grow and to evolve. We need to firmly, but gently, remind ourselves of this everyday.

We need to remember that every single day, we are enough, we have enough, and what we do need, we will acquire when the time is right. The universe evens everything out and will conspire in our favour.

Yelly Writes

Shifting Seasons of Loss: Grief, Waves and Personal Growth

Yelly
@yellywelly

Some days carry grief quietly. Tonight, let it speak, then let it rest. — Unknown

I’ve put off dealing with a lot of things – the inevitable grief that comes from losing both parents whom I love very dearly in a span of 4 years, the end of relationships that I thought would stand the test of time and personal growth, accepting burnout, and the need to step back from toxic environments. But my body and my mind had other plans. They both demanded that I stop and step back.

The Universe also conspired to give me the time to actually start dealing with everything. Things fell into place, and I had the time and space. Also, it was deal with things or basically unravel. I was deathly afraid of unravelling in public, and there were times when it was touch and go. I had to deal with what was going on in my head, my heart, my body, and my soul, or else I really would lose it in a way that I would find it hard to recover from.

One of the things I had to sit down and deal with was the unexpressed grief I’d been carrying with me for so long. It was eating away at me. I needed to sit down, open that box, and look inside.

Grief is never linear, and the process is not straightforward. There are peaks and troughs in the rhythms of grief. There are days when it hums quietly, almost unnoticeable in the background. There are days when it feels like it’s a loud, thundering wildebeest stampede, coming to trample you. Everyone’s experience of grief is different because we move through life differently. We weave through the stages of grief according to our own capacity and capability. And however we do that is okay. It is our individual journey.

Sometimes it will feel like you’re moving back and forth — rebuilding might mean you’re moving in reverse, like you’re facing an identity crisis before you reach a point of understanding. Sometimes you need a wave to crash over you and completely destabilise you so that you can reach a point where you’re stabilised and grounded, because you have a deeper understanding of yourself and what you’re going through.

It’s okay to wail and rail and to let out your grief. That’s part of it. Let it out. Let it shout. Express it. Then let yourself rest and recover.