This year has been trying and testing. Writing about it is a vulnerable process. It's one thing to expose myself to myself, but to open myself for the world to see, is quite another. However, I've been trying to consciously decide to open myself every time I feel like contracting on the inside. For me, expansion means choosing honesty, compassion and self-forgiveness over the safety of contracting into silence, resentment or withdrawal. Self-expression is self-exposing, but if done with the right intention, it can be very healing. The right intention, for me, is to discover my truth. Sometimes just exposing myself to one single soul who's willing to listen without judgement, is enough for me to turn my self-sabotaging thoughts back to expansion again.
We've been conditioned to think that keeping quiet means keeping the peace. I do recognise that sometimes it is helpful to be silent instead of saying something that will escalate potential drama. However, sometimes it is also useful to say something in order to de-escalate potential drama at a later stage. To me, speaking up means that I honor myself and my truth. In my opinion, speaking up is an act of self love and always leading to the benefit for all parties involved. I also expect the people I engage in relationships with, whether friendships or romantic, to do the same for me. I’m not offended if you tell me what you think from the start and I can take into consideration your honest opinion or we can agree to disagree. I am offended, however, if you don’t tell me what you think because you assume I will be offended and attack you and then you choose to lie to me instead. That is offensive.
We've also been conditioned to believe that being vulnerable is a sign of weakness. That's why so many of us bottle up unsaid words leading to unprocessed emotions. We are human beings. We are supposed to feel emotions. That being said, I have to add that I am aware that there's a difference between being vulnerable and choosing to use my weaknesses to strengthen me and being vulnerable and allowing my weaknesses to crush me. In the former I am choosing to shift into the hero's mentality - a continuous upward spiral, despite the temporary dip. In the latter, I am choosing to stay in the familiar victim mentality - a downward spiral that I choose to identify with due to an emotional dip.
Embracing expansion hasn’t always been easy, as my recent experience has shown… I left Thailand end of 2023 (with the intention to return to Thailand) and came back to my home country to apply for my new passport. Unforeseen circumstances played out in a way that made my possibility to go back to Thailand obsolete; therefore, leaving me in Namibia without a plan and without my luxuries I have built up for myself there: a lovely little home, incredible friends and a safe community in paradise. I have been so resistant to coming back to Namibia that it is exactly what I got. But instead of treating it as a stumbling block, instead of contracting and resisting the change, I embraced the change and opened myself up to being back in my home country. I realised I have resented many of the people here for judging me for not conforming to their expectations of me. I realised that this is the exact reason I had to come back: to heal my relationships with my friends and family - the people who helped mold me into the person I am today. I also had to release the self-judgement I put on myself. Because of this self acceptance and self love, I now attract people who love, accept and support me equally to how much I do that for myself.
This "visit" also healed my outlook on Namibia as a society. By spending time with true Namibians, getting to know them again and really listening to them, I have so much more compassion for them than I used to. They are the most heart-felt, honest and warmest people I know. I also appreciate their authenticity. Of course there are exceptions but I think, in general, we are a pretty solid nation.
Before I go on another rant about how much I started to appreciate and adore Namibia (I'll leave that for another post) I want to add that this whole process around accepting my vulnerability has led me to understand this:
It takes a lot more strength to show myself than to hide myself, and that's why I'm choosing the former, because I choose expansion over limitation. I choose growth over stagnation. I choose self love over pleasing others. And there is no point in judging anyone at any time, because someone else's struggle (their vulnerability) might soon be the exact thing that I will experience too.
Another small way in which I consciously choose to open up instead of hiding, is to be subtly aware of the moment of contraction that happens as soon as I have said something that someone feels offended by or when someone has said something that I am offended by. In that moment, the easiest, safest option used to be to keep quiet and hope it resolves itself "under the rug". In some instances this is true. Sometimes leaving things unsaid can actually prevent an ant hill from turning into a mountain. However, if this has been something reoccurring, I can already feel this mountain growing under the rug and that is the moment that I choose to address it openly and honestly. That is the moment that I choose to hold space for whatever emotions, words or thoughts have been hiding to come to the surface to be acknowledged gracefully.
These subtle shifts from contraction to expansion has always resulted in a feeling of lightness and liberation on the inside. I am so grateful that the people in my life have the capacity to hold space for those uncomfortable conversations that help us turn the bag of heavy stones we were carrying into gold.
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