The blossoming of the coach in me!

I have made many mistakes. Countless actually! But I had been too busy swimming in the ocean of life, to learn from them. Certain scenarios had kept recurring in my life and I would make the same mistake yet again. So one day I cried out aloud, the proverbial statement "Why does this keep happening to me only!?" I got no pleasing answers from my inner circle who gave me more feedback and a lot more criticism of my ways, which frustrated me even further. But then something strange happened. I started noticing a pattern. Until my practiced behavioural responses and subsequent feelings became a part of my character, while my internal demons of GUILT, WORRY, MISTRUST etc. kept growing. So what were these mistakes, you might ask?

1. I made choices without thinking things through, making poor bargains for myself
2. I listened to external opinions and suppressed my own instincts
3. I did not know how to maintain self-respecting boundaries — giving too much of myself into personal or professional relationships
4. I yearned external validation and tears were a good way to get attention to myself
5. I made judgments about people and mistrusted them, without knowing enough
6. I’d blame others easily & refuse to see any mistakes in me
7. I have occasionally hurt a few people when I spoke before thinking
8. I failed several times and indulged in self-pity and then I have given up the race
9. I’d say YES almost always — the people-pleasing marker must stay high, right!?
10. I’d come up with amazing ideas but fear to take them to fruition

One fine sunset evening almost by design, while deep-sea swimming furiously along in my usual “people-pleasing-but-feeling-frustrated-within” way with the millions of other fish in the sea of life, I had an epiphany. Life as of paused for me and I felt a void. What was I doing and towards what cause? The inner voice like in several previous instances promptly suppressed my feeble attempt for change saying, ‘Just so that you can pay the bills, just so that you don’t get blamed yet again that you can’t adjust with anyone!’ And I’d usually get on with life, but that evening my pause stayed and I stayed with it.

I’d lost my originality and I felt a vacancy, deep down in my heart … an absence of me. My internal demons had completely taken over my true being. I wasn’t there anymore. And I had become a sum of all the parts that I had allowed to have an influence on my life. There was no place for the real me, as my heart was cluttered with all my people-pleasing ducks in line, being happy with me, saying, ‘You are too good Priya’. That evening, the so-called short-sighted happiness I had been treasuring, seemed so superfluous and I realised that if I really wanted to be happy, I had to be happy within and with me, loving all of me.

That day was my meeting with my mentor coach for the first time. I was all of 50, and as the learning progressed through the day, I knew that finding, acknowledging and taming my internal demons was a necessary self-love exercise that I had to do in real-time. I needed to pause a lot more and watch what I was thinking and being while life played out for me.

Needless to say, it was an uphill task for me, because this required a paradigm shift in my perspective of myself and of the world. But I was committed. I took the responsibility for my life and I stopped being what the world thought I should be, I stopped explaining myself to people, and I got a hold of my purpose of being in this world.

The clouds soon started clearing as I became one with the real me loving the demons and devils within my alike.

I am happy that I have tamed all my demons and am filling my cup with self-love on each day! Of course I still make mistakes sometimes, but I'm now aware that its okay to err and I don't dwell on them with guilt like before. I learn and I move on. After all... its my life and I am willing to live it on my terms and deal with the consequences of my choices.

Today I'm a successful coach and I LOVE MYSELF THE MOST - I take time out for the things I love, I invest in myself and above all I trust myself to show up for ME!

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