At the beginning of the year, I quit my 'safe' job to live in Mexico for six months. That was the best gift I could have given myself. Mexico has brought me so much and I still have not been able to integrate all of it.... Life is sometimes so fast... and we need more time to understand it, which unfortunately we do not take. Why not? 

 

In Mexico I lived in the middle of the jungle. The energy there is different, the food has a different frequency, the people around you are more loving and move slower. The question - ‘how do I actually want to live?’, has played a very big role since then... I do not have an answer to that. Not yet. I am just giving myself permission to find out. 

 

What is my life about? As many people as there are in the world, there are as many ways as possible to go. At the moment I am in the complete cycle of finding myself, getting to know myself and trying everything out. My best friend says I am no longer socially acceptable just for fun ... what can I say, she is right 🙂 I do not want to be in the company I'm in anymore. It no longer suits me. I draw new boundaries to protect myself. 

 

That is where self-love starts for me. If I want to give, then I must first protect myself and give myself love, in everyday life, in terms of relationships, friendships and communication. This often makes me seem selfish to others, but before I can be fully there for others, I first give myself permission to withdraw, so that I can then be there with full power. I do not want to be only half there. 

 

Ultimately, for me it's about loving; about looking at situations with love and compassion and with neutrality. And I am learning this through experience because that's what it's all about, having experiences, learning from them, laughing about them and also crying. To feel emotions that perhaps weren't there before. 

 

I have learned to stop holding my emotions in, to communicate my needs clearly and to let go of my past. To forgive people who did not treat me well because they did not know any better at the time. We are all here for the first time and experiencing things; this includes loving, laughing, being angry, transforming and changing perspectives to see situations more clearly. 

 

In the end, everything always happens for us; it is a game. Are you already playing along or are you still reading your instructions? 

 

Since I have been looking at everything with more ‘real’ love, a lot of things have become easier for me, some of them not at all. And that is okay. We can stop being so hard on ourselves. We were given the moment, every day new. I am grateful for that. I have a healthy body and that’s such a big gift. Because of this physical body I can do all kinds of things that means I am ALIVE.