The Teachers

I used to think the concepts of reincarnation and soul contracts were a load of horseshit, in so many words. But the more I reflect on everything and everyone I’ve encountered throughout my life, I can’t help but embrace the idea of past lives and sense of a higher purpose.

I’ve been tripping on stairs a lot lately, both figuratively and literally, and it very much feels like I’m just going in circles, as though life has got me chasing my own tail. So after a gentle nudging from my father who threw a chair across our living room as he shouted, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?” I’ve been thinking a lot about what the hell it is I’m doing – and what the hell it is I’m meant to be doing.

The eternal question springs up again: What is the purpose of life? I don’t know, but let’s assume (we’ll be asses together) that we are all here to learn. From my understanding, we each have one primary life lesson and several secondary life lessons. Thankfully, we don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what our deeply personal life lesson is. The universe has a pretty sick sense of humour and what I’ve observed is that whenever there’s something to be learnt, something that needs working on, the same situation will relentlessly present itself until I either learn my lesson or at least find a healthy way of dealing with the issue.

We seem to naturally attract and choose experiences that help us to grow. Truth: Our primary life lesson affects the events that show up during the course of our lifetime. The universe doesn’t ask us to head out in search of lessons. All it really asks of us is to tune out the white noise and be still, be alert, be open.

Borrowing the words of Chuck Palahniuk, “what we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher.” Paying heed to our feelings and trusting our intuition is essential to the process of identifying our patterns, which eventually lead us to our lessons. Whether it's a lesson in humility or a lesson in gratitude, it definitely helps to be aware of what our lesson is because it is only in knowing, can we consciously bring more of that energy into what we do and how we behave, which will subsequently make living our life easier.

Even though this goes against what I was brought up to believe, I think our soul decides which weakness it is ready to work on, which negative pattern it is ready to transform and then chooses the circumstances to be born into in order to learn that. And before we incarnate, we make agreements with other souls to meet in this lifetime to help and support each other on our journey.

“Cya at Nando's for dinner tonight,” said his soul to mine. Whether it’s pure luck or mere coincidence – or in recent times, good ol’ Internet algorithms – that brings you to me/me to you, I’ve likened this phenomenon to the ancient saying that goes ‘when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’

Sometimes people are sent into our life to help us manifest our own intentions, bringing with them information, resources, and support. Or to simply be a match for our intentions themselves, which inspires and influences us, provides us an example and role model to follow, ultimately revealing another layer of ourselves to us, helping us to grow.

Other times our paths cross because we have unfinished business with each other to tend to. Upon first meeting, the person will seem familiar, as though we’ve known them all our life – chances are we have known them all our life, in a previous life. These karmic relationships are usually fraught with complexities because of the baggage we carry, and often push us through what we previously perceived to be our limits. They test our extremes so we are compelled to search for our true meaning and purpose.

It could be about healing past issues and then building something in this present lifetime together, or about healing and then moving on and finally letting this person go. But once we complete our cycle of karmic connections, we stop attracting repetitive lessons and gain an awareness and a profound sense of what it is we want and need in our life.

The thing about soul contracts is that they are neither our destiny nor our fate. They are simply our past being presented to us over and over again until we learn what it is that we need to learn and are willing to make the right decisions for a balanced, healthy and meaningful future.

2016 was going to be the year I finally erected that wall around myself, which I’ve witnessed so many others put up in the name of self-preservation. This was going to be the year I knew better. But as luck would have it, just as it was decided that those foolish days of letting people in heedlessly – without hesitation, without question, without defenses – were over, my paths crossed with a man who’d gone through his life keeping all but a couple of people at arm’s length. And almost at once I knew that I wasn’t going to be breaking any patterns or learning any lessons by shrinking my heart two sizes smaller.

Still, I found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. As it happens, it’s nearly impossible to have a worthwhile relationship with someone who guards his or her heart like the gold in Fort Knox and puts you down in subtle, creepy ways. And perhaps the worst thing about it is honestly believing that you can change them.

So this is my pattern – running into unavailable people. Since we’re working on the presumption that people are our mirrors, wherein what we see in others is a reflection of ourselves, that could only mean one thing. Yup, you guessed it.

There’s been a remarkable amount of self-awareness on display over the last couple of months, especially so from two seemingly unavailable people. But it occurred to us that if we had any kind of shot of making this a purposeful endeavor, we really had to confront our issues.

Watching each other unpack these little tidbits of truth about ourselves has been pretty real. What initially began as an intimate and possibly lustful union has now evolved into a rollercoaster ride with confusion, twists, resentment, frustration, running, hiding, chasing, bewilderment, intensity, contradiction, and depth. But also a promise of healing for us both if we are willing to stay the course and see this through.

Not every one of our close encounters with people will end in happily ever after, and that's ok. Some relationships are just crucial stepping-stones to reach the next stage. But what makes them just as important and worthy of our time, attention, love, and respect is simply the willingness to ask hard questions, to sift through harder answers, to have long conversations, to accept not always knowing the answers, and to ensure that our intentions, actions, emotions are aligned.

At the end of the day, no one really knows why anybody is here anyway. But still, no one belongs here more than you.

The Powerful People

There’s a part of me that feels I shouldn’t be seeing anyone right now, that I’ve lost the capacity and privilege to love and to be loved. But there’s another part of me that thinks the first part of me is really fucking stupid. So here I am once again, memorizing his favourite foods and learning his quirks, while simultaneously uncovering my deepest fears and beliefs about life and growing my awareness about who I am and the barriers that hold me back. Because even after seeing a therapist and doing all the self work I could possibly do on my own person, nothing brings my deep-seated issues to the surface more than being in a relationship and seeing myself through someone else’s eyes.

To my own surprise, I’ve thus far been able to approach this with a clean slate and the vulnerability that every love deserves. And interestingly the thing that sets this experience apart from the others is that the person “who takes what is given, puts it on a fucking pedestal and then worships it for way longer than is necessary or sane” is gone now. After a decade of dating, it’s finally dawned on me that I’ve been really fucking stupid. And by that I mean too fucking generous.

So instead of waiting for someone to put me on a pedestal, I just went and did it myself over the last couple of months. And what I’m beginning to realize is that everyone is slightly taken aback and nobody knows quite what to do with a girl who stands atop a pedestal she’s built with her very own tiny hands. Because in a society that profits from our self-doubt, loving ourselves, praising ourselves, being kind to ourselves, are seen as radical acts of rebellion.

This is especially true for women, who have for centuries downplayed their strengths and successes so as to stick to the status quo, but are now killing it in all aspects of the modern world like never before. The moment we start owning our unconventional beauty, our vehement power and our praiseworthy triumphs, is the moment we start owning ourselves.

And so, without further ado, may I present the modern woman: she doesn’t bother with false modesty, she dares to challenge the boys in charge, she can have sex with the same frivolity as men, she can run a business, she can date other women, she can travel the world, she can raise children while thriving in her career. She doesn’t need anyone’s help or permission crafting her personality. She’s climbed her way up to a glorious point of high self-esteem. She values herself and rightly asks for what she deserves.

This can be intimidating because society knows it can't knock a girl off a pedestal she's built herself. And even if we somehow do, she has the means to build herself a new one. Women who own themselves, who don’t need saving, who know their place should be a win for everyone, but some of us (men particularly) still think of this as a hella threatening zero-sum game. And from my observations, it appears that the more women are able to do for themselves, the less men know what to do with themselves – not their balls though, no confusion there.

While the definition of power remains highly subjective, in my unbiased opinion, I’d finally morphed into a powerful person. To me, knowing who you are and being comfortable with the person you are, is what makes a “powerful person.” This is the kind of power that can’t be taken away from you, because it’s not defined by your looks, your square footage, your fame, or your bank account. People who possess this power know that they have the authority to choose what they want rather than let their lives be dictated by society or some irrational fear. A powerful person can be anybody – a Subway sandwich artist, a stay-at-home mum, a CEO, even someone with the upper body strength of a hamster such as myself. Power certainly doesn’t look the same on everyone, but people can always tell when it’s there.

I wish I’d harnessed this power sooner, especially since I seem to gravitate towards pompous misogynists, but then again I may have very well abused it had I not suffered at its mercy during my earlier days. If anything, this newfound power reassured me that my days of being chewed up and spat out were over. But when I discovered that his witty, self-deprecating humor was just a shtick masking a slew of insecurities, I looked to the heavens and shrieked “FOR FUCK SAKE, WHY GIVE ME THIS POWER AND THEN PUT ME IN A SITUATION WHERE I WON’T BE NEEDING IT?”

Sweet, sweet irony stirkes again.