I’ve been sitting with this question - how do we define success? What does success look and feel like to you?
I’ve been studying on the practitioner course which culminated with the final theory exam in July. I get nervous before exams and was thinking, the things I put myself through to follow my passions & dreams ha! I used some Kinesiology techniques to stay present and positive yet finished my final exam feeling really low and downhearted as I was sure I’d failed. All that work, study & revision down the pan. It weighed heavy on me and knew it’d be a long painful wait til the results were issued.
When I confided in a friend that I truly thought I’d failed my finals, they gifted me this incredible insight, I was so caught up in the eye of the storm I just didn’t see it….
“You’ve passed with flying colours, if you zoom out of your life a little bit to see that the exam is the exam, but the bigger test is how you coped with months of extreme stress and study. All those things you would have burnt yourself out for previously and you would have reached that point and be ill. So, the pass or fail of the exam would be irrelevant, because you had failed your body.
But this time you passed, you passed with flying colours. Yes, there will be tiredness and a need for restoration and amazing self care but you haven’t irreparably harmed yourself in the process so when the results do come through, they won’t matter because you’ll be in bed with deep deep fatigue”
Boom. Light bulb moment. I saw that me passing the exam was an outer success like buying a home, getting the dream job or a new car.
There are inner successes, that aren’t necessarily seen but felt. The success of changing our habits of the mind, the success of healing from childhood wounds and stories, the success of learning, creating and holding boundaries for yourself and with others. Sometimes these successes are felt after a dark night of the soul work, needing courage, consistency and sometimes take years. So many life lessons to relearn, knocked down 6 times get up 7…..right?
Now I know and feel I have truly learned this life lesson, I feel unstoppable, as I know I will always listen to my body rather than ignore and push and force my way through, as was my previous method of life. So, this is my measure of success. A balanced, loved and well-tended body, mind and soul. I’m sharing this for anyone who like me strives for perfection, who tends to force themselves forward regardless of how their mind or body feels to achieve their goal or task. There is a different way, a kinder approach and radical self care shows the way.
So to all of you who have been doing the work, or thinking about it, keep going. I hear you and I see you. I celebrate you and all the small victories.
You are stronger than you can ever believe, you’re doing better than you think. You are the most perfect work in progress. Sometimes it’s good to zoom out a little bit from our lives to savour a very different scene.
Oh….and I passed.
Much love Jo x