They say that the more time you spend around women, the more likely it is that your periods sync up. Apparently, the same is true for endings. Like is it weird that most of my closest girlfriends all recently experienced their own version of an ending? And all of us are strong, independent, go-getter, career-oriented, dedicated, passionate women? I spoke to two of my best girls today about life and all three of us seem to be in the same sort of boat in that we all experienced a recent-ish ending and are being forced to reconnect with ourselves, rediscover ourselves, and get reacquainted with who we are, what we want, and where we want to go. And while that doesn’t in itself sound so bad because we all know that we are independent, brilliant, and beautiful superwomen who don’t need men to make us happy, it’s still super fucking sad. We all lost someone we love in the shuffle of these respective endings—whether that be our partners or ourselves.

The more I talk to my friends and family and the more I write, the more I realize that there are so many other people going through what I’m going through or feeling how I’m feeling. I mean, misery loves company, but there is something comforting about knowing that we’re never truly alone in how we feel and we’re not “crazy” or whatever tf to be feeling certain ways. Our feelings are always valid. Our wants and desires are never wrong. And no one can tell us otherwise. Why? Because it’s our life. We are in charge. Other people shouldn’t have a say in how we choose to live our lives, what we choose to believe in, how we want to represent ourselves to the world, and what we internally value. Others may not agree with our decisions and that’s fine; it’s not their decision to make. It’s ours. And we should own it. Just like how we should own who we are and how we should own our differences because that’s what makes us who we are. Our differences are what make us unique. Special. And consequently, our differences are what make us attractive to the right people, in our careers, partnerships, relationships, and friendships.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a loving household where I was free to be who I was, where I was encouraged to be the best at whatever I decided I to do, and where I was encouraged to independently make educated decisions about what to believe in. My parents believed in my siblings and I so much that they always did above what was necessary in order to provide my siblings and I any opportunity we wanted or thought we wanted. They taught us the value of hard work and instilled in us the ethic of responsibility for our own futures and always told us that we could do whatever we wanted as long as we were willing to work for it. While there were obviously times where I thought my parents were unfair with us, eventually, I found my voice and respectfully disagreed with them. In moments where I thought they weren’t listening to me, I very quickly and on my own realized that I could best express myself and my frustrations and feelings through writing. Writing, from an early age, became a sort of outlet for me. And it still is. I mean, obviously, this blog exists for that sole purpose, duh.

I say all of that because I think I’ve always had a strong sense of who I am and was always comfortable being alone because of how I was brought up. Same with my all my girlfriends who are experiencing their own versions of endings. We all have a strong sense of who we are and are all very aware of the possibility of losing ourselves in unhealthy relationships. For some of us, that happened in the past. For some of us, it’s happening now. And that’s okay. Because regardless of when it happens, all that really matters is that it happens. Sometimes we need to lose ourselves to find ourselves again.

I’ve spoken a little bit about my first big relationship, but to be honest, I don’t really remember it all that well because I don’t know who the fuck I was in that relationship. I completely lost who I was. My interests dissolved into his interests. My needs dissolved into serving his needs. My wants and desires were centered around his wants and desires. My plans for myself were contingent upon his approval. I don’t know who the fuck I was back then and if I could go back in time, I would shake that version of me until she woke the fuck up. Because thinking about it now is so gross to me. Like for example, when we were living in Vancouver, he developed an interest in hiking. I do not have an interest in hiking. At all. I think the view points are pretty and are very IG worthy and I enjoyed the beer we drank at the top of the mountain, but like, did I love the fact that there was a very real possibility that I could get attacked by a bear and eaten by a mountain lion and not be protected by my ex-boyfriend’s lack of basic survival skills and shitty pocket knife that served no purpose, whatsoever? No. I 10/10 did not love that. Did I love the fact that there was so much incline and just overall “up” along these “nature walks”? No. I’m 5’2 and my fucking legs got tired and my strides were not as big as his so he’d be halfway up the mountain, while I’d be sitting on a rock trying to catch my breath. Did I love the fact that I lost cell service in the forest, in the middle of nowhere, and would have no way of contacting anyone in the event something happened to either me, him, or our little dog? Fuckin’ no. Like, what was the point of climbing all this “up”, ruining my shoes, fighting off wildlife, and not being able to post a pretty picture the moment we reached the top and finally got to drink our beers? Which btw, were not cold at that point anymore because he refused to bring a fucking cooler, just sayin’. Either way, I pretended to like hiking because he liked hiking and I didn’t even realize how much I fucking hated it until like a year after we broke up. I don’t actually like getting bitten by mosquitos all over my body. I don’t actually like walking on an incline for hours—I fucking challenge you to look me in the eye and tell me you love that, don’t @ me. Yeah, and again, the views? 100% gorgeous, but also, 100% not worth it and would 100% rather just see a photo of the exact same scene, drinking a COLD beer, from the comfort of my own home. I do not know who I was in that relationship and if I were to see myself back then, I would not recognize her at all. I let him control every aspect of my life. I lost contact with all of my guy friends because he requested I did since he “was the only guy I ever needed in my life”. I stopped reaching and setting goals for myself because I feared he wouldn’t approve of them because they’d likely “make our future really difficult” and to be clear, he was my future and had every intention of putting a baby in my belly at age 26. lol. Ew. He took over me and what the fuck? That’s actually super fucking gross to even think about because how could I ever let something like that happen? And the answer is…easily.

Some people—the wrong people—enter your life and have this incredible hold over you for unexplainable reasons. You find yourself wanting to please them and are constantly searching for validation from them, as if they’re some authority figure over you, where you’re expected to acquiesce to everything they say. Because their word is law. Because their way is the only way. And you, as a person, actually don’t really matter to them—though, these manipulative assholes make you believe that you mean the world to them—it’s their power and control over you that is what actually matters to them. These people will judge you for wanting certain things, berate you for feeling certain ways, and will exercise control over you when you’re not behaving the way they want you to behave. These people, quite frankly, fucking suck. They’re dangerous. They’re not your people. They’re stunting your growth. They’re prohibiting you from reaching your potential. They’re preventing you from being authentically you. And they’re moulding you to be a version of yourself that you never fuckin’ wanted to be in the first place. They’re making you miserable. They’re toxic. And if these people are still in your life, then you need to let them go. They don’t want the best for you. They want the version of you they created in their own minds; they don’t want who you actually, authentically, and genuinely are, and that’s their fuckin’ problem. Not yours. I was in a relationship with that type of person for 3.5 years and it wasn’t until a solid year after he broke up with me, because he cheated on me, that I realized that he did me the biggest favour of my entire fucking life.

It took me a solid year after that breakup to just stop being sad, to stop hating myself, and to stop crying over some loser dude who didn’t love me at all. It took me another year to realize and remember who I was before the relationship happened and who I wanted to be now that it was done. During that year of self-discovery, I made some life-changing decisions for myself, including the decision to go to law school. For years, I would unsuccessfully try to force pieces of my puzzle together. And it wasn’t until 2016, a year after being so broken and sad and nearly destroyed by that breakup, that I took a step back and re-evaluated my puzzle of life (click on the link, it’s a really good read) to seriously assess what was working, what wasn’t working, what needed to go, what needed to stay, and where I wanted to go next. I put the pieces of my puzzle back into the box, shook it up, and lay everything about me and my life on the table and flipped all of the pieces of me right side up, so that, in the words of my wise parents, I “could see what exactly I was working with”. And slowly, I started to see clearer. I started to make real sense of my life. I began to trust myself and my intuition again. I had to say goodbye to a lot of people and dreams that I’ve held on to since I could speak to allow myself the opportunity to grow, explore, and create the space for better things. In doing so, I got rid of a lot of people, a lot of places, a lot of situations, and a lot of previously held thoughts and convictions that no longer served me, my purpose, or the woman I wanted to be. It was hard; but, it was necessary because not everything from your past deserves a place in your present—if they did, you’d still be living in the past. Moreover, these things I left and the relationships I severed definitely did not deserve to occupy any space in my future. I was ruthless. I became savage. I became so fiercely protective of my life and who I decided to let in that I ended up spending a lot of time alone. And guess what? I actually loved it. I started to get to know the person I was and wanted to become. I intentionally surrounded myself only by those who loved me, inspired me, encouraged me, and wanted the best for me and not the versions of me they had in their heads.

Shortly after I decided to change the direction of my life, I began decluttering my physical possessions. Having heard of that Mari Kondo book from Ali Wong’s Netflix special, I read it because I was intrigued. And then, I tried it. I put all of my clothes, shoes, purses, books, binders, pictures, letters, trinkets, basically, I put everything I owned on to the floor of my room, the hallway leading up to my room, and my shared washroom with my sister and literally picked up every single item and asked myself, “does this spark joy?” I threw out 50 garbage bags. No joke. My family must have thought I was going through some sort of baby-life crisis because of how ridiculous that scene must have looked to them. But, in doing so, I was forced to come to terms with how much shit I had, how much shit I allowed to remain hidden in my life, and how much of all of that was pure trash. By the time I was done, my room looked completely different. My closet was basically bare. I had minimal clothes. I had created a lot of space. In physically creating the space to make way for better things, I emotionally, mentally, and spiritually created the same space by decluttering my life and getting rid of everything that no longer served the person I wanted to become.

A few months after that perceived baby-life crisis, I had my first major surgery (which I was low-key excited about for no reason) and after recovering, I felt a little restless. Not lonely, not alone, but restless. I loved how much better I had felt when I had taken the weekend to declutter my room and wanted to do something more. So, after watching Jen Kirkman’s Netlfix special, I was inspired to try meditation out. And I also wanted to be a little more active and I hate running and I’m allergic to the gym so I knew those options were def not for me. So, I returned to yoga. And for some reason, at this point of where I was in my life, I really, really fell in love with the practice. I also came to fall in love with meditation.

People always talk about how great yoga and meditation can be for healing. I think that the times I had tried yoga prior to January 2017, I would arrive at my mat with the expectation that I would somehow be fixed. But, that’s not really how this works. Same with meditation. I thought that I would just close my eyes and breathe for a few minutes and feel better. But, that’s also not how that works. Because in both of these practices, and in life and love, you can’t have these expectations that these things will just automatically work. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes an investment in yourself. It requires commitment. It requires work.

So, that’s what I did. I took the greatest value my parents taught me—hard work—and my passion and my desire and my want to genuinely better myself to fuel my investment and my commitment to the practices of yoga and meditation. I wrote down one thing I was grateful for everyday and stuck it on my mirror. I set intentions for the year ahead and wrote them down on a sticky and stuck it on my little buddha, so that I could be reminded of why I was there and what I was working towards and what I wanted to manifest in my life. I can’t remember all of them, but one of them was “get into law school”. Nonetheless, I was there because I wanted to be there. I looked forward to being there. I used my mat time and my meditation time as opportunities to really treat myself how I wanted to be treated; how I deserved to be treated. Yoga and meditation were completely “me times”. I was there for me. I showed up for me. And in doing so, I showed myself how much I meant to myself and how committed to bettering myself, my attitude, and my overall well-being I was. In replacing whatever expectations I may have had about these practices with the focus of being mindful and present in each second, each pose, I let go of all of the feelings I once had about the ending of that big relationship. I let go of all of the dreams and visions of how I thought my life was supposed to be. I let go of the person who hurt me. I let go of all the people who hurt me and couldn't see me for who I was and who I was becoming. I let go of any attachments I had to my past. I just…completely let go of the person I used to be. And that was hard because it didn't happen overnight, it was a painful, but necessary process because so many beautiful and incredible things happened within months of my dedication to myself. For example, I got into law school. I had an idea, I did the work, I wrote down my intention, I positioned myself in a way that I was ready to receive it by clearing out physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual space, and manifested that dream into a reality. This happened because I forgave myself and because I let go of the person I was and in letting go of so much, I created the space within to receive so much more.

Coming back to the present, this morning, before I had spoken to my girlfriends, I had actually done something similar to what I did back in January 2017. I wrote down new intentions of where I wanted to be after articling, who I wanted to be after articling, where I wanted to live after articling, which direction I wanted my career to go after articling, and who I wanted to be with after articling. This year is going to be a challenging one, professionally and personally. But, I welcome the challenge because I know that after this year, I’ll be in a better position to receive everything I intend on manifesting into reality, through hard work, patience, investment, and independence.

To anyone reading this that is also going through an ending of sorts, know that you’re not alone. Your feelings are valid. You’re allowed to be selfish with your growth, with your time, and with your space. You should be ruthless and savage in selecting the people you want to keep or add or remove from your life so that you can fiercely protect the good and happiness that you’ve built and will build in your life on your own terms. No one should have the power to make you feel bad about what you want or tell you who you should be or tell you how to live your life. It’s your life, not theirs. Own your differences; that’s what makes you special. Stop giving a fuck about what others have to say about you; they’re just projecting their own insecurities on to you and you don’t have to listen to them because their opinion literally doesn’t fucking matter. Drop the dead weight that you carry—it could be emotions, feelings, people, your past identity, situations, relationships, literal shit—it’s baggage and you don’t need that where you’re going. Carry only what you need and keep only those that support, love, inspire, and encourage you as you go through this period of rediscovery, reconnection, and reacquaintance with yourself. Know that you’re dope; in fact, trust in your dopeness. Surround yourself with people you admire; there’s a reason you admire them—they have the things you will find buried within yourself. Ask for help and support when you need it; there is never any shame to vulnerability. In doing all of this, you will not only find who you are, what you want, and what you believe in, but you will also establish a strong sense of self-love, self-acceptance, self-worth, self-respect, self-confidence, and boundaries. So, together, let us all take my parents’ wisdom and do the required hard work, spend some time alone, set intentions, set goals, declutter our lives, create the space for better things, envision our future, and create our own little jar of happiness on our own, individual terms, because I promise you, it will pay off in ways we never dreamed it could. And hopefully, definitely, maybe manifest exactly into what we want. And more.