Have you ever had to take a step back in your life to prepare for a bigger jump later on?
Have you ever had to move back to a place where you already outgrew long time ago and struggled fitting yourself into that small place again?
This can seriously cause physical and emotional damage if you don't have a strong mind, a real plan to deal with this big life event/trauma...
"Amazing things are not easy, and easy things are not amazing"
I wasn't born wanting to choose difficult things to do because I wanna be unique or wanna be cool.
I was born having this infinite inner energy and desire to seek authentic happiness that comes from me being able to be the person I wanna be, to be wherever I wanna to be, doing whatever I want to do.
I was born almost at the bottom of society, at a negative number, and I've been on the journey of setting myself free from a cage that I call "typical thinking, typical doing, typical living" - and then typical... dying... ?
So you know... the work, the efforts to put in here, they are miserably uncountable.
But who cares... if you ever tasted a small piece of pineapple cake for free, and you liked it, it's something you never tried before, then I know you definitely want to do the real work this time to earn more pineapple cake!
Doesn't matter weather you give up later or keep going, now you've known the taste of freedom, you've known the taste of real authentic happiness of being out there into the world, now you want to fight to keep up with it!
Those moments of seeing and learning new things everyday, melting for an epic mountain view, or a little puppy on the street; feeling your heart expanding in your chest as the wind blowing in your face with some lost rain drops. You feel alive. And if you did so much work to be here feeling those rain drops, it's not only "feeling alive" - you're really "living".
I think, without any efforts put into this life, if everything was easy, we won't call it "us living", we obviously call "us being alive".
For how free it is out there, how beautiful and lively little simple things out there are, I'm unbearably broken right now going through a big life trauma at the moment.
I'm sharing it here because I believe it happens to most of us. Even though I'm struggling myself right now, I still wish for others to do better than me.
I literally just escaped from a comfort zone - it's a safe sweet cage that killed me slowly - but then - not to be free!
To take a step back and get into ANOTHER CAGE!
How miserable!
Right now, I just left my 2 years 2 months apartment - my first own home ever - 500 miles away from family, a single life with my dog as family member. Leaving this home felt so emotional and relieved at the same time. This home was where I found out who I am and what I want in my life, but it was becoming a comfort zone again!
Everything in my life has been falling apart lately: work, many relationships, physical health and mental health. Almost everything I tried out this year didn't work out as I expected.
Everything around me has been changing too quickly this year. It paralyzed me and got my emotions confused and exhausted.
I got so sick of staying in a cage watching things changing and repeating the same pattern.
My career, physically and mental health had been going in circle for a long time. I tried to stick there to "water my land" so the grass will get greener. I stubbornly didn't want to give up. But in fact, sometimes it's not our fault to not water the grass where we are, it's probably the land is already poor/not meant for our kind of grass to grow! That just means we have to cross that deep river/high mountain, move away and find a new land!
Some "theories" are not always true, it depends on the circumstances as well, right?
Blindly believing in something and doing same thing which is not bringing us what we want - is obviously being ridiculously dumb (I said this to myself, seriously).
So.. one day, I told myself: Alright! What comes next will come next. I don't give a sht anymore! Instead of staying at one place trying to fix things and putting things back together, it's time for a BREAKDOWN before a BREAKTHROUGH!*
I stood up, walked out of my bedroom, opened the door, started to send/throw stuff away, went talk to people, arranged things and delt with some issues before I moved, and during this process, I literally LET THINGS FALL APART FREELY!
Bird can't fly in a cage!
When you feel scared to jump, that's when you jump!
I'm having almost no support in everyway, financially or emotionally, but I still decided to break the cage (I'll write more about this later).
As I said, everything fell apart, and I'm drained out in everyway, that's why instead of leaving that comfort cage to fly away, to be wherever I wanna be (I wanted to travel to South Thailand and start blogging there), I now had to take a step back to move home to my parents in a countryside down South Viet Nam.
I had to stay in random hotel rooms in Da Nang for almost a week before I could get a ticket for me and my dog to go home. Those were the most terrific days this year. I felt stuck in the middle of nowhere, I felt loneliest than ever, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially hurt and exhausted. I thought I was dying and I had to see a mental therapist.
I thought I escaped to fly, but in fact I escaped to take a step back.
I knew I wasn't going to be happy being back to the countryside where I have to cut off most of my hobbies/favorite things to do, where I can't see new things, meet new people and constantly expand my mind and and heart. I knew I would be culture-shocked, lifestyle-shocked, energy shocked again to be back in a place I had outgrown years ago... I'm not a typical Vietnamese girl anymore.
A few days ago, my mental therapist she gave me a beautiful word, she said: "Eclectic! That's you!"
Eclectic! You are all unique! You learn things, collect things, do things your own way. You connect with life and express yourself your own way. You have your own stories and struggles, but you have you own strength as well! That's why you're special, that's why you're beautiful. That's why people remember you! And you bring big impact on people's lives as well - without you knowing!
So, always remember that!
Here I am now, back to family... where I had lots of childhood trauma (I only healed after I moved away from home); no matter how good my mom is feeding me, how much I love my family, but my mind and heart are already across the oceans and continents. These sleepless nights, after having family meals, I literally sit alone at a corner outside the yard myself, looking up on the sky craving to fly again. I have no words to explain to anyone my situation.
A bird that already flew across the ocean and saw the wonder out there can't convince the birds in the cage how big and amazing the world out there is. This bird can only swallow its own sorrows and heal itself to recover, get strong, and one day fly up to the big sky again!
Cause "Bird can't fly in a cage"!
If you're in this situation now, taking a step back and been suffering, know that you can share it here. You have me, you have the community.
Everyone has their own definition of "happiness". To me, happiness is the deep self-awareness, knowing who we are, what we want, what we need, what makes us truly happy, go for it, fight for it, be ambitious but celebrate little simple achievement, while respect and support other's as well!
This is my journey of breaking the cage (the second time in my life, and will keep going if I need to) to set myself free in everyway.
And my mantra is, for my life, I want this:
Flexibility in geography, and stability in emotion - means I want to go on adventures forever, but at the same time, I'll maintain my pure, loving and faithful heart for myself and the people I love 💖
Things right now are falling apart before I can re-arrange them, adding something better into this, to eventually putting everything together again for a better version of myself and life!
Let's do this! 😊
Little Beatle 🎶
(I'm so sick now, physically and emotionally miserable. But look, this post I want to say thank to a talented and sweet Hive member of Viet Nam, who sent me a private text to check with me and cheer me up, who wrote a whole post here about me, and reminded me that everyone is fighting their own battles too. We have each other, and most of all, we are all ONE OF A KIND, and this world definitely needs more people like us!
Don't give up! 💖
Sword from the stone - Passenger
Here's a song I randomly heard today ❤️🩹
Wow, that was a very intense read. I hope you will overcome your struggles and will be able again to live the life(style) you picked for yourself. Hang in there, Little (but very strong and courageous) Beatle :)
It will be my pleasure to share your story with my followers in the next round of my upvote giveaway. Keep up the good work. Hugs and greetings from Prague!
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Have you ever think about applying for working and holiday visa in other countries where you can do some work and travel at the same time? That's what I did to escape my cage. Let me know if you would like to have a chat and want to learn more about it. Happy to share my experiences with you
Hello, chị! Sorry I didn't see your comment until now! 😱
Yessss! That's what I'm planning to do next year! I need that and want that. I didn't think of that until I talked to chị Trang. I'll be happy to get some experience from everyone 😍
Awesome. Lets chat over Discord