I struggled throughout adolescence and adulthood not knowing that I needed to heal from upsetting events throughout my life.
I bulldozed through life, chasing after my dreams and goals with the hopes that it would make me be someone that I’m proud to be.
That was my mistake.
I needed to heal from abuse, heal from the fact that I neglected myself while caring for sick elderlies throughout my adulthood and for caring about hundreds of others and not myself.
I was taught that the more we give the better we would feel and the more useful we become in society.
I realise that that comes with a precondition. You need to be ready mind, body and soul. No one taught me how I should be ready or how I should care for myself.
Then, the idea of caring for myself was simply about having more money for myself and being successful in life. To study well, to be a good Muslim, to get a decent job, buy a house, look after the kids well and so on.
Not many know that the secret to true happiness does not lie in success as defined by society. I discovered for myself that that is an illusion of success.
True happiness is independent of what I have or did not have. It lies within myself. Success does not guarantee you happiness but happiness can guarantee you success.
Before one could even realise what it means to be truly happy, one needs to identify if they needed to heal.
Here are some guidelines to know whether or not you need to heal:
1) You tend to blame others for your unhappiness the majority of the time.
2) You find faults in others more than you find faults in yourself. We all make mistakes and spend more time focusing on yours.
3) You can’t get along with a lot of people because you feel the need to distance yourself to prevent yourself from being hurt all over again.
4) You struggle to understand your sadness or outburst of anger. You are easily upset by a lot of things and you just can’t figure out why?
5) You do things that sabotage your health, relationships and finance. You do substance abuse, cheat, drink alcohol, party all night and argue and quarrel or be aggressive towards people around you, etc.
and more.
It’s confronting to acknowledge if you needed to heal base on the guidelines above because no one would want to think that there’s something wrong with themselves and I was one of them.
The truth is there is nothing wrong with you. You just needed to heal. That is all. You’ve had an open wound and you simply didn’t find the time or resources to allow it to heal naturally.
It’s OK to acknowledge our weaknesses and that we are still learning and growing. It takes courage to look within ourselves to begin unlocking their true happiness.
In summary, you need to:
- Let go of expectations of yourself, others and your situation. (especially if they made you feel worst about yourself, others and about your life.)
- Let go of people’s opinions.
- Let go of the notion that you don’t deserve to be happy.
