Happy (Re)birth-day

Today, 42 years ago I was born in a refugee camp in Malaysia, I was the only girl and youngest out of six children.

Even though it was through highly traumatic circumstances, my parents finally got their longed for daughter.

We arrived in Sweden when I was six months old as refugees and I grew up in a small town with many other Vietnamese refugees.

At 12 years old I was sent to Los Angeles to live with my paternal grandparents whom I had met once before. I did not want to go but had no choice and after living there for a year I came home again.

When I turned 18 I moved to London, without any plans. I had no job, no where to live and didn’t know anyone.

The only thing I knew was that I had to go, I had to leave.

It is hard trying to explain to your family why you are moving to another country where you don’t have anything.

How can you tell your parents that you wanted to get away from them, away from their expectations.

I knew I needed freedom, freedom to be myself. Not that I knew who I was at 18, but I definitely knew that I did not want to be who my parents wanted me to be.

My drive for authenticity was stronger than my need for attachment and so their youngest and only daughter left.

The coming years of adulthood brought me conflicting feelings of freedom, guilt, happiness, anger and everything in between.

The only constant in my life were the changing emotions and a longing for something I could not name.

I have spent most of my life being angry with my parents for not giving me what I needed as a child.

I have spent most of my life feeling guilty for leaving them thus causing so much worry and hurt.

I have spent most of my life feeling ashamed of who I am because I felt so broken.

I have spent most of my marriage being resentful to my husband because he couldn’t save me.

I have spent most of my life acting out all the beliefs I made up about myself and others.

I have spent most of my life thinking that something outside of myself could fill the void within me.

I have spent most of my life looking externally for something that would ease the discomfort that was being me.

I was so identified with these stories that I started to believe them, the stains of time made them so real and the circumstances and experiences that shaped me, became my identity.

This USED to be my story…then life happened…and I had to surrender.

When I finally surrendered, I started a process of letting go…

The first thing I let go of was my husband, I finally left a marriage that was incompatible and that I had been wanting to leave for a long time.

I let go of the anger when I understood that my parents could only do their best to their abilities at the time.

I let go of the guilt when I knew that leaving my family was the only way for me to get to where I am today.

I let go of the shame when I no longer perceived myself as damaged.

I let go of the resentment when I realised that only I can save myself.

I let go of all the beliefs when I realised I had made them all up as a small wounded child.

I stopped seeking externally when I finally found my own powers.

I have been peeling off layer after layer of beliefs, adaptations, defence mechanisms and protections that didn’t serve me anymore as an adult, on the contrary they were actually causing me harm and keeping me stuck in ego.

When I finally shed all the layers to the core, there… I finally found what I have been looking for my whole life.

I found my Self… without the stories.

It was not uncomfortable being me here, there was no need to prove or defend myself and there was no lack or void.

This was a place of complete safety and of being held in a way that I had never experienced before.

This was a space of just being… I knew I had arrived home.

And the day came 

when the risk to remain tight

 in a bud

 was more painful 

than the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin