Your resilience is a force

This blog was originally called 'Loneliest yet happiest I've ever been'. I was thinking of a new name because I no longer feel so lonely and I don't think I'm at my happiest. If that's not a reminder that all of our feelings and emotions are temporary I don't know what is!

Before we kick this one off I'll just explain that I've found this in my blog drafts from back in January. I didn't know what was to come, I didn't know Coronavirus was wending its way here and I didn't know and even now, who knows what's going to happen next. But as I read through this from 9 months ago, it seemed like a nice little checkpoint to remember that we're still going. You're still moving and whether you believe it of yourself or not, your unstoppable resilience is phenomenal.

I've said to myself I'm going to write one a month (already aware I've missed January, thanks). I started this last year and managed to write 11 but I wasn't anywhere near consistent. James Clear and all that, even if you just try and better yourself by 1% every day, you're improving.

With a move to a new place comes some interesting challenges, changes, and adventures that are all, for differing reasons, imperatively important to experience. So, imagine someone told me this before I decided to move away:

'Okay Julia, you'll have fewer friends than you've ever had before, you won't be able to communicate in the way you would like to with strangers (which will result in you being unable to be the change you ultimately would like to be), you'll be earning less money than you were when you were just out of university and you might well fail to get a job after the first three months and have to come back to the UK and start from the beginning all over again.'

I might have had some reservations, I might have been apprehensive and I might have second-guessed myself. And you know what, to a certain extent, all of the above is true and yet...

I feel pretty bloody content y'know! So, let's break it down now ya'll.

1. You'll have fewer friends. Yep, absolutely. I've spent more time on my own than I have for a long time. I don't have many friends here (yet) for a few reasons, language (I'll come to that next), personal choice - part of me moving was to connect with different people so I have tried to avoid connecting with too many British people. I have also found that I'm a bit out of sync with my friends from the UK, that doesn't mean they are any less important, we're just in different spaces at the moment, both physically and mentally and we realign when we feel unconnected and that is wonderful. The relationships we have are not reliant on constant contact but respect and understanding that we are there.

2. You won't be able to communicate with strangers. This one was a bit of a tough one to get my head around and I still have a wobble everyone now and then but ultimately...I am in control of learning the language. It is not going to miraculously happen. It is also not going to happen by me practicing really hard for a week. It takes constant, dedicated commitment over a prolonged period of time. The only barrier to progress is the level of dedication I give to it and that weight is purely on me to do something about. Every time I feel like I want to complain or get frustrated with myself I ask myself the question, is this helping me progress with the goal? If it's not, it's a waste of both my time and energy to go through the process of building myself up to be annoyed, reaching a peak of frustration, having to manage that frustration, recover from it and then begin again. If I catch myself before that feeling builds, I can turn it into a positive action which is far more beneficial.

3. Unable to be the change you ultimately want to be. Another difficult one to negotiate but, the fact that a large proportion of our communication is based on our body language helps with this nicely. I can still be the change based on how I react, a smile, giving energy of openness, a simple kind gesture all enable me to have authentic connections with people, whether or not we speak the same language.

4. You'll be earning less money. Yep. A lack of money makes me anxious and that's not because I want a lot of money but I want to not have to worry about it. I will have enough money to pay for my rent, pay for my food, and the odd coffee here and there. Being comfortable with what I do have has been so helpful. And bar the essentials, I would far rather use my money to enable someone else to do something, giving away what you don't need is a powerful tool for an appreciation of what you have and a helpful nudge to begin to empathise with those who have less than you.

5. You might well not be able to find a job. This didn't end up happening but it came pretty close to and, with Brexit, who knows what will happen at the end of the year but for now, things are working out. I think the other point I got to during my search where I wasn't having much luck was that whatever happened was going to be okay. If I had done everything in my power to make it work and it still didn't work, I couldn't have done anything about it, so dwelling on something I had no control over was not an option for me.

In short. All of those things that could have potentially been scary or challenging have turned out to be difficult but important experiences to go through. I am learning and understanding that to fear challenge is not healthy. Challenge keeps us adapting and developing which is exactly what we were made to do. Look at where our species started and look at where we are now. You adapt and you survive. If you don't adapt you lose the very thing that keeps you going. Your resilience, your fight, and your ability to keep moving. You're still there, hang on in there.