Giving up

This was the title of a few pieces I wrote but I always managed to pick myself up and change the title to something more hopeful. But I am learning that it’s OK not to be OK. More importantly I am learning to express it.

I am closing Rays of Sunshine next week. No, I am not OK. I’ve been pretending I was because I always want to be that positive person who can keep it together no matter what. A part of me has made peace with ending the project and that’s the part that accepted the financial loss. But Rays of Sunshine is also a tribute to Mya, it was my way of showing her that I can channel the pain I feel from her leaving into something that can help others. Instead, I had to fight so many obstacles and my own healing took a hundred steps back.

I arrived in Beirut last July stronger, full of hope and rested. Over 7-8 months, a revolution, a fullon economic collapse and a pandemic crushed the hope, awakened my anxiety and left me more tired than ever. I still have my Yoga. My personal practice and teaching. I find peace in both. But sadly, it’s not enough at this stage. I worked very hard for more than 12 years to be independent and support myself financially. Feeling dependent is crushing me even more.

For about seven years now, each year has brought tougher and more painful challenges. For seven years, I have been fighting, trying to figure out ways to overcome them. For seven years I have been told how strong I am. For seven years all my efforts have failed. Mya left and my tribute to her is leaving too.

I think it’s time to lay low. I don’t have to make big efforts anymore. I will stop testing my luck and stop fighting my pain. When Mya left, it felt like everything changed. I had to pick up so many little pieces of who I was, how I lived and what I believed in. You never end up the same after that. Some pieces are still there but most of me has been reshaped. But as I look into full time job options, I find myself needing to go back to an old routine I thought I left behind. I will do that, I will get used to it and I will go on without a fight.

With everything that happened, I don’t regret for a second moving back to Lebanon. I am surrounded with so much love that at times makes me forget my pain. And that I am grateful for. I wrote a piece on Kindness once and stand by it even stronger now. But we should also remember to be kind to ourselves. I was talking with a friend a few months ago about our healing and I felt that maybe we never fully heal from deep wounds and traumas. Wounds might not always turn into scars and fade. When they're so deep, the stitches keep opening, sometimes making the wound even worse. Our healing mechanisms have to become a way of life and as long as we can keep the routine, the wounds don't burn as much. But life is not that predictable and it's almost impossible to keep a perfect routine. So instead of healing us, our 'healing mechanisms' give us the energy we need to get back on our feet when life throws another punch at us. It might take a while to get back up but we have to keep believing that we will.

Today, I am trying to remind myself to believe, but it might take a while this time.

Love

Sabine