Revealing my 2010: The Changes, Pain, Suffering, Happiness & Love
by Therese Miu on 29/12/10 at 9:07 am
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Photography by Firman Hananda Boedihardjo
“For the time being the highest peak, for the time being the deepest ocean; for the time being a crazy mind, for the time being a Buddha body; for the time being a Zen Master, for the time being an ordinary person; for the time being earth and sky… Since there is nothing but this moment, ‘for the time being’ is all the time there is.” ~Dogen Zen Master
There is common themes happening to people’s lives right now and it is truly evident. The number 1 thing we all have in common is that we are ALL GOING THROUGH HUGE CHANGES in our lives now.
I feel very passionate being true to you as a reader and being transparent about my own life so I will outline how 2010 has been like for me.
I realized there are two things that nourish my being which are relationships and connection to my higher self.
IT STARTED….
We moved out of our condo of four years. I was very emotional when we left because this is where my son Jeroen grew up.
Photography by Jason Fung
In every area of the room I can almost taste every memory: Jeroen’s first step, his first bobo by the stairs, where he threw up, his favorite place to sleep, where I entertained my family/friends when they came over, where I meditated and prayed most, where I did my work and where Jeff and I would have our conversations from midnight to daylight
The memories are endless
Most of all, it was the first home Jeff and I had together as a couple. We have been together nearly 10 years and the condo was the first one we purchased together as a couple.
All of a sudden it was no longer about defining our move as an experience, form or by any memory.
My consciousness and heart went towards from my head to my heart to a deeper level of understanding. As human beings we have the need to remain attach to a place, job, and even attachment to people or certain circumstances. However the only way a person can truly learn is through growth.
And this period of our time was exactly that. It was a period of growth that we needed to go through as a family, as a couple, as an entity, and as a unit.
It is important to notice the subtle changes in life because it happens to us all the time any of the following losses from an illness, the death of a family, job loss, or moving away to a new place— may disconnect us from our true purpose and fruitfulness in living life fully. We must make a conscious decision to accept everything with an opportunity for growth, openness in our hearts, and vast in understanding.
In the silence of my heart, I asked God one thing which was to guide me through my different emotions. To accept with an open arms and bless our journey.
After shortly moving to our new place which I named ‘harmony’ because that’s the word I use whenever I am in between transitions in my life.
SAD NEWS BREAKS OUR HEART
About 2 months later my husband Jeff lost his best friend. I received the news while I was having a meeting with my two girlfriends. We were having a meeting about a possibility of opening up a T-shirt company. As we discuss everything on the table from marketing, finances, art design, etc.
I could sense in the air that something was not right
You know that feeling where the energy is so thick in the air; somehow you have that feeling that joy have left the room and roamed around elsewhere. It was one those feelings.
There was no flow.
In a way, my body went numb. I looked at my friends with no expression in my face except a bewildered look. Suddenly my energy gravitated to my husband Jeff energy and as soon as I got up and went close to him, I literally had goose bumps all over my body. I felt a sense of sadness run over me. I wrapped him around my arms as he sat there silently, literally in tears.
For the first time in my life I felt so useless. I had mastered making people feel good about themselves through kind words, smiles, spontaneous text of happiness. Yet at this very moment I had no clue how to comfort my own husband. Two things happened, he told me what had happened that his best friend got into a car accident, and another thing happened I just sat there listening. I could not utter one word. I continued to wrap him around my arms. This time very tightly. On the while my friends had resumed to the patio still discussing about our t-shirt business plan. I, no longer, wanted to talk about anything except to be close to my husband at this moment even if I had nothing to say.
Nothing else was more important to me than being there for him.
I want to go onto details about Jeff just for a bit, he is not like me when it comes to the subject around friendships. He doesn’t have 10 best friends (I always think I have one in each state or country lol) he has a few friends that he counts on. He has but a few inner circles that he genuinely loves and cares for. His best friend meant the whole world to him. I always admired their friendship. It was true and genuine.
Photography by Firman Hananda Boedihardjo
At this phase of our marriage this experienced proved to me the most difficult in both counterpart. He re-immerses himself in a healing process by listening to songs, not working, and booking the next flight out to NYC to attend the funeral. I know deep inside my heart that he took it harder than anyone I know. They have been friends since grade school. I can still remember photos of them when they were just 12 years old. They did everything together. I handled the situation a bit different because I still have to be a ‘mom’ you know the whole yards; cook for the family, clean the house, and tend to Jeroen’s emotional and physical needs.
Jeff left to nyc with our son Jeroen while I stayed behind handling the day to day matters of our everyday life. I had a lot of time to ponder, reflect, review, and slowly came to a place of deeper acceptance with everything that was taken place. I also took a break from blogging as many of you know.
INTIMATE ACCEPTANCE
I spent some time alone. As fast as sadness came, openness came inside my heart and stayed there for quite a while. I had the shining awareness that everything in life is ‘impermanent’. Therefore I nourish myself every day with the wonderful things that life has to offer. I nourish myself in the present moment. This is how I handled our loss, our grief, and our sadness.
Adyashanti said in his book Emptiness Dancing that the
“the quickest access to Truth, and also to beauty, is when you are totally intimate with all of experience, the inner and outer, even if the experience isn’t “good.” When you are being intimate with the whole of experience, the divided mind has to let go of whatever its project is at the moment. In this intimacy, one becomes very open and discovers vastness.”
MISUNDERSTOOD
On the while I was going through this emotional experience with myself and my family, my outer life was also in complete chaos. Both worlds slowly crumbling. I was working for 5 months at a company doing their social media initiatives and online marketing. I love writing, blogging, and social media so needless to say this position was a perfect fit for me. I was enjoying myself.
I would say 3 months into the job my boss started to literally harass me emotionally & verbally. Out of respect I will not go into details of what had happened. I will share with you the reason why I did stay at the company for quite a while. The position allowed me to innovate, network, and be creative. However, I’ll be completely honest with you.
I was miserable
Have you heard of “don’t do “dog years?” Don’t live one year while aging seven. I have been self-employed for a very long time that I have literally forgotten the harshness of corporate world. I want to make a point that I know it’s not like that everywhere but this is where I found myself during this 5 month duration. I did not want to push, pull, and fight to be in the corporate world. It was simply not worth it.
Sometimes, even in the middle of a busy and crowded life, we are pierced by intense choices that force us to question our reality. We long to feel fulfilled, to feel a deep sense of accomplishment yet not realizing all along if what we are currently doing is bringing us happiness or true freedom.
I felt my spirituality hanging by a thread every moment of my life. On top of that I would come home at 7pm at night just in time to eat dinner and give my son Jeroen a shower and that was it. That was my day.
INNER DESPERATE CHANGE
I had to overcome tremendous deficits and move past seemingly insurmountable obstacle to finally realize that I didn’t want to do this anymore. I wanted to let go. I wanted to release my defenses. I was reminded by Julia Cameron’s words, “In times of adversity, we must expand, not contract. We must open, not close. We must open our hand to receive aid rather clutch tightly to what we have remaining….rather than harden my heart against further blows, I soften it to receive new beginnings.”
I know to some of you reading this you might be living this life now and your reading this and thinking to yourself ‘so what? I do that every day. I encourage you to take a closer look at what you want your legacy to be every day. I encourage to take a firm action on what your heart truly desire.
I want to live a life of abundance where I don’t sacrifice my time with my family for the sake of making money. I see the importance of work but I also see the important of living vibrant healthy and fulfilled life. Leaving a legacy of a ‘good life’ cherishing the small things which we often forget to do, because we are so busy hustling and bustling.
My twin sister once asked me why I didn’t tell her anything that was going on. She wanted me to confide in her especially during these most turbulent times. I know that the rapids and eddies of our day’s events may pull at us harshly. It is easy to judge every situation and dismiss it or label it as something ‘negative.’ I think it is often difficult to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
FOLLOWING MY HEART
So during these times, instead I listened to my higher self and found myself talking to God at night about my everyday life. I asked for guidance. It is to this rhythm that I gave my soul such satisfaction. I open myself to the guidance of higher forces. Because you and I both know that in deeper love and acceptance, everything happens for a reason.
I allowed myself to find the tempo most attuned to my personal unfolding. I trust that there was peace, relief, and creativity beginning to grow in my own best interest.
Photography by Firman Hananda Boedihardjo
LIVING CONSCIOUSLY
I started pondering what living life to the fullest is really mean for those people who are living in the day to day grind. I realized something that following your calling and highest mission in life and living life to the fullest is an ART. This is the reason why I became passionate about blogging and being an entrepreneur to share the very message that’s contained within my heart.
When Jeff came back from NYC 1 week into his return we conceive our second child. I was not fully aware of the situation at hand. My mind was still caught up with working out details if I should leave my position. Everyday I walked in to my job; I imagined quitting a thousand times. I’m sure you have been there before. I know I’m not alone.
Our lives always meet at changing seasons and I was beginning to feel that this year has been winter for me all year long.
BLISSFUL ECSTASY & OUR LITTLE SUPRISE
Until the day I found out I was pregnant.
Photography by Gintaras Korsakas
The season went from winter to summer in that quick instant. A surge of happiness filled my entire being. I will never forget that day. It was a day of pure beauty and ecstasy. My day was filled with raindrops on roses and the sun shining literally in my soul. I felt a light surrounding my very essence and a higher power above me telling me “that everything will be okay.” I was warmed and illuminated by my baby’s sweet light. When the nurse told me I was pregnant. I closed my eyes. I inhaled love, beauty, and purity.
And I exhaled anything that did not serve me anymore.
I dropped every worry, I forgave my boss, and I exhaled everything that I did not want to feel anymore. I did not want my baby’s first month experience in my belly to be about worry, doubt, fear, and negativity. As you may already know a fetus can sense everything. I mean EVERYTHING that the mother is going through.
So as I close my eyes for one of those tiny seconds. I was breathing in the complete totality of love for the new being that’s inside me. I began to quite my mind and breathe in self-healing, glorious, relaxing, and love-filled of ecstasy. I felt a deep understanding that everyday becomes a day of re-birth when you begin to live life consciously emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally. I knew more than anything that I wanted to nourish her entire being as she continues to grow in my womb. I wanted to honor her as she evolves to all stages of growth.
She was loved from the start.
Shortly after the news of my pregnancy I decided to finally quit my job. It was not a perfect picture as you all may imagine. My heart has never felt more satisfied and ALIVE! I wanted to cherish being pregnant. I treated myself with complete love and respect as I went through all the emotional and physical changes these past few months.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
I have finally arrived to feelings of complete wholeness mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I have connected to my internal source of wisdom and joy. I felt that God has surrounded me with unconditional love.
As I choose to think and act generously and kindly to myself and to others, I found a more generous world.
Everything in life is definitely a mirror of your own self-worth. My husband Jeff was back to his normal self. He was very happy to find out about my pregnancy.
I soaked in Julia Cameron’s wonderful advice, “we do not interact at random. We are in each other’s lives for spiritual reasons. We have “business” with one another. By consciously choosing to focus on why I have met someone, on how I can best serve and expand another, I bring to each encounter a heightened awareness.”
On every situation we can choose to be open or close. I began to choose a welcoming heart, I brought to my world a place where dynamic and healing interactions can occur in all phases of my changes this year.
Photography by Jason Fung
WELCOMING HEART
I chose consciously to align myself to the highest good asking always to be guided and empowered. I remember my good friend Crystal Mackay reminded me that with every person that’s trying to hurt us is “almost always, and often at great expense to themselves in terms of discomfort… these individuals try to teach us something about ourselves and encourage soul to move toward healing.”
As a great mentor Satyen Raja once said in his blog, “Please, Please realize that all the changes that are in our face are there for us to embrace them. Breathe them in – Know and Feel all these roller coasters as Life evolving us. Include all in as pure nourishment for being. It’s all good, even the not so good stuff! When we breathe all circumstances in totally -when we let all the avoidable in without holding them out, we eventually will realize that all and any circumstance is there for our Growth and there are NO EXCEPTIONS. This is not just quick feel good, superficial remedy or new age fix. It’s not that “The Universe is on Purpose” or “There is a hidden meaning in this”. It’s not that there is meaning in things that we can`t see – which is the typical new age romantic notion of some all pervading good. To me it is more like whatever comes my way, I`m going to inject and infuse the meaning into the circumstance that brings me the most potential for growth and transformation. I`m going to actively use what comes my way, rather than be chewed up and made victim by life circumstances. Now this WarriorSage principle of Making Meaning rather than “secret unveiled meaning to be released” is far more responsible, far more alive, far more Fun. So get back in the saddle if you`ve fallen off.”
MY PARTING WORDS ABOUT MY 2010
So with everything that happened to me this year in 2010 I will leave with the mindset and opening heart that everything is a true blessing. Life moves on and moves us with it. I am a work in progress and awakening to the truth of my own being. Only as I surrender can I truly embrace change and attain harmony within my mind, body, and soul. I am open to the fierce flow of life despite how unsteady it can be in each season. I have begun to accept that no matter what is going on in the world out there. I can choose to be happy. I can choose to accept that life is truly beautiful. I can focus on gratitude. I can choose to accept all my relationships. I can choose to honor my beauty, my strength and my uniqueness. I can choose to live life well. I choose to follow my inner guidance. I focus to love myself in complete totality. As I raise my head to heaven above I can’t help but be thankful for every moment given to me.
This freedom has allowed me to live and breathe truth, ignite my passion, and love passionately with an open heart while genuinely being committed to give the gift of myself fully to the world.
Thank You God for all the gifts you bring to me each new day and for filling my life with a love that knows no bounds.
Photography by Gintaras Korsakas
So what’s next for me…
- Jeff, Jeroen, and I moved to NYC–I haven’t written much about this because we are still in transition.
- My well-being is my top priority. I am experiencing life right now in the simplest way possible with ease, elegance, and joy.
- I am FULLY enjoying my time being pregnant and yes it is a girl
)) - Thérèse Cator & I are starting our own social media company called Sugar Crush Bakeshop
- After our baby girl is born I will also launch the T-shirt company with Erlina Sinaga & Sandy Flores-Winston
- I will continue to blog here at therese miu dot com
I thank You for reading my post today. I know I shared many intimate moments in my life. I hope that the messages here guides you to living life in freedom, following your heart, live in happiness, and ultimately follow your own calling.
May Love, Happiness, and abundance be YOURS this 2011 and throughout the coming years,
ps. Please share with me below how you would sum your 2010. Did you go through changes? How did you handle it? Please share it with me in the comment box below.
Andre Sumara
