I was a media professional. In my twenties and early thirties my career defined me, and then I got married and became a wife. Then I moved countries and became an expat wife. I experienced the miracle of life and became a mother. As the kids started growing up, when I was asked what I did, I used to say, 'I'm 'just a stay-at-home mum' and now my kids are not at home quite so much, so who am I??
As children, our parents tell us how we should behave, they tell us right from wrong, as they should. (And by the way, "should" is a guilt word!). We go to school our teachers tell us how we "should" be (that guilt world again!) and society tells us we "should" find a good job and "should" settle down. And then we "should" have kids. Should! Should! Should!!
Somewhere down the line we stop questioning and keep doing what we "should" do. We build good lives for ourselves, nice homes, collect beautiful things and still, somewhere inside, we feel something is missing. Then we carry on looking outside of us to make us happy as we "should" be. Often in our lives we are so busy being what we "should" be that we lose our authentic selves. We stop being our own friend. So today I'm speaking to men and women, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters whose entire lives revolve around doing and having, that we have forgotten to Just Be. Not long ago, my husband pointed out that I had my children's picture as my profile in FB, whatsapp and other social media. He was quoting something he had read of mothers losing their identity. It was then that I realized I didn't know who I was anymore. I was either Mrs Sanjay or Anaya and Aaron's mother. I had no idea who I was... I was so busy doing things and having things, that I had forgotten how to be the authentic me.
I lacked motivation and the burning desire to do something but I put it down to first world problems. There was no problem in my life. I led a pretty good expat life, I had a loving family and friends, so really, was I just bored? It was only when I started studying NLP that I started to look inside of me. I started looking for my purpose. Asking myself how would I like to be remembered? What is my contribution to this planet? I realised that it's so easy to fall into a mediocre life. Instead of having more, I needed to be more. I needed to raise my standards and take my life to its highest level and I had to do it now. I needed to get into the driver's seat of my life. The first step was to have a goal, an intention, then focus my attention to getting there. And today I feel fired up and alive knowing what I want to do with my life. I still want to be a 'good' wife and mother and I also want to be the best ME!!
'Yesterday I was so clever that I wanted to change the world, Today I am wise and so I'm changing myself' - Rumi
And as someone wisely said, A change is as good as a holiday :-)