December 3rd 2022 marked the 5th year of me covering the Dubai Fitness Championships (formally known as the Dubai CrossFit Championships) and as I waited at home for my lift to the venue, I was left in a state of nerves and anxiety. On paper, I really shouldn’t be. I know what I’m doing, my team members have absolute faith in me and the organisers have been uncompromising in their trust in my ability.

So what gives?

I think it’s the space I’m forging for myself. This maturity of knowing that I’m on the right path but also knowing that what is known may never be known again.

Knowing that I have to at least on a mental level, allowed the space I occupied with my work to be vacated for someone else. But also knowing that my absence will go unnoticed. That I will be replaced by something better and realising that maybe I was never good enough.

Hello ego my old friend.

I know I’m on a path of abundance and gratitude. I also know that I’m scared. I’m scared of letting go of what I had for so long.

See you on the other side.

I am not saying goodbye to this job or any other job that I have had familiarity with. I’m saying goodbye with exactly that familiarity. That safety net. That also accepting that what I had intended to be did not come to plan.

If you want to make God laugh – plan!

Who I am is a much better person. I’m ecstatic about where I have come to and despite the scare, I am as excited about the future.

So as I head to my ride, I know I’m going to give it my best. I also know that I may fail my passion or my team at some point. But despite my nerves saying otherwise, I know that that is ok and everything will be exactly how it needs to be.

I’m not sure if I’m capable of really writing this so please bear with me.

Over the last 3 years I have come to realise that my unflinching loyalty towards my parents has been a very much one way street. The decisions I made based on their happiness led me to abandon some dreams and dare I say some principles.

My father would face struggles in his life and my help, advice or even acknowledgment went largely ignored.

By the middle of 2020 I had fully accepted this pain and the healing had begun. This hurt became a big part of the foundation of my therapy and subsequent healing. It helped me to understand boundaries, to being able to say no and most importantly – to let go.

Do I wish I had realised this earlier? Of course I do. But regrets and should haves would be a disservice to the life I led, leading and have already lived.

Late last year after hiding this pain from them, I finally came clean and told them as much as I could. It came in a spittle of tears and anger and it was not the articulated speech that I hoped it would be. The outcome was disappointingly as expected with their heads buried in the sand. That conversation, opening of my heart and vulnerability has on the face of it gone largely unchecked.

This isn’t the part that I’m struggling to write. This was the easy part. What comes next is about to leave me truly exposed.

During my healing and understanding just how much I was excluded, I also had an epiphany about how others in society must be thinking about me. That despite my father’s struggles, I, as his eldest son, is completely oblivious. And I realised how embarrassed and unworthy I felt. That whenever anyone asked me how my father is, I had to lie or feign ignorance. I was still unable to be authentic.

My most recent breakthrough came to me realising that the way my father treated me is the way I have treated others. I have unwittingly pushed away those closest to me when it came to expressing what I was going through. That I was unable to speak openly about not just my difficulties but also about my successes. And I know this has really had an impact on the people who love me.

Understanding this hurts because I am feeling this pain through the pain I am healing myself from.

To know that some of the people closest to me were ignored and being excluded has left me with a profound heaviness that now needs to be lifted and worked through.

Despite the struggle of writing this, I am also aware of the love that fills me everyday. This love is not only helping me understand this burden but to also work through it.

I know I can’t, nor do I want to change the past but I can now use this love to find the path that will lead me to a place of light and understanding about myself and those who fill the space in my heart. Allowing myself to be vulnerable and authentic will help me be me and not who I was subjected to.

This breakthrough has been hard.
Writing this has been difficult.

But, I do feel at ease. At one knowing that ultimately this is the true path to love ❤️

Egomaniac

Manic. Absolutely manic. Chasing dreams with ego as my passenger is like trying to drink water through a sieve. It’s never going to work and all you will do is watch it slip by. When I say you, I mean me. I said you because my ego stops me from saying me.

Me. The one who dreams but let’s my ego live rent free while taking me for all my worth.

Me. The one who talks about what should be done but only feels wanting when there is a fantasy attached to it.

Me. Writing words and not doing much.

Me. The one who thinks that everything that is meant to be will manifest without any effort.

I have this innate sense that I can reach out and grab the life I want but I’m equally holding on with my other hand to something else. Something familiar but in the distance of my past.

Let go I plead to my heart. Let go and grab on to what your ego is making you fear. The egomaniac has no place here.

So what am I so afraid of?

These past few months have had processes of letting go by reconnecting. By being true to my new self. Or the self that is looking to grow.

But this growth is being fought off by ego. My ego which I have realised has become a tool of my forced misunderstanding by the ones I loved and have opened up to.

In my vulnerability, I have opened and shared my own weaknesses and flaws. I am trying more and more to fix those because it leads to a greater path of self-love.

But there are those who, having seen my vulnerable side, taken the focus on my flaws as a sense that I am no better than my past.

My ego is the enemy. I am my own worst enemy.

And then there are those in my life that remind me of my flaws. My past. Holding me back in the quicksand of what was.

I am standardised against moments I have no control over. To be pushed down and then lifted out again. It’s exhausting.

There is truth that I am my own self accuser but I also know that one can choose a path of joy or pain. Even in those darkest of moments, we can be our own light.

I can read all the books.
Listen to all the podcasts
Connect with all my teachers.

But I am me.

A constant changing, pain feeling human that like the rest of us, is trying to change. Trying to grow and trying to be better.

My past is something I am not entirely proud of. But I am also equally proud of who that person was to make me who I am today.

I am absolutely fucking proud of who I am.

The hero side of me (another word for ego?) thinks that I may be scaring those who see that change. That the person who I was was more amicable or comfortable to deal with.

Maybe the new me is harder to deal with because as open as I am, I am going to guard my inner sanctuary with my life.

My vulnerability is my joy. My happiness. My love for myself.

202…?

It was 11.25 pm on December 31st and my eyes were closing and my body and mind was wondering why I was still keeping it awake. Dreams and REM beckoned and at 11.50pm they won their fight to fall into deep rest. There was an interlude at 12.15am on the 1st of January where I may or may not have been awakened by my neighbours fireworks but waking up 6 hours later was my introduction to 2023.

The day was spent wading through posts and articles about the new year. Friends posing with drinks and fireworks with the realisation of a year well spent.

Since 2019, the new year hasn’t really registered as an interlude as a point of recognition or as a place of reflection. My goals as it were have slimmed down and this year has only two major ones in focus:

• Making as much money as I can
• To run as much as I can

Yes, potentially not the most glamorous or ground breaking but my journey of self love has played a more important and significant role in my life.

Since 2019 I have been filling my cup of love and the idea of time has gone beyond the linear. There are times when my only reminder about where in the circle of the sun we are, is my calendar.

The dryness of what I have penned down is a mirror of the happiness and joy that I have stored and expelled within myself. What felt like a shield has now expanded to a ball of light within and outside of me.

This light, this love and this joy is what my journey has been on and one that that I will continue to travel on despite the goals I have promised myself.

I read somewhere that:

"Being positive doesn't mean that 
everything will be ok. 
It just means that no matter what happens, I'll be ok"

This feeling is what has and is being formed as my identity. Despite the comfort and heart pain that I have faced, I know that I’ll be ok. That the love that I choose to give will be the beacon to all that is meant for me.

Although I’m writing this at the start of the year, this journey and these aspirations have been with me beyond a place where time has played a role.

My hope is that wherever this journey takes us, is a journey that is fulfilling and full of love.

Am I Good Enough?

I woke up this morning. Your faces in my dream. So fleetingly close. Yet so painfully far away. It felt right to let go. But it still hurts. The worth you forgot to assign me has left me unarmoured and vulnerable.

You broke my heart. You left my soul withered and unnurtured. I felt lost. I feel lost. I feel cheated and I feel used.

Everytime I start a journey, I realise that I have boarded the wrong plane. But you know what I have come to realise? I am a plane. I am a ship. I am a journey. I am light. I am love. I am peace. I am joy. I am happiness.

For you have let go of me. But maybe you never had me. Was it because I was not good enough? Was the worth of my soul less valuable than the balance in my bank account? My god, this hurts to write and to read. It feels like having to cut off my finger to save my hand. Dramatic as that may sound, it is my self-rescue. My faith being born. Not a new faith but one that was kept hidden and suppressed for far too long. But I know how lucky I am that I get to finally see it, embrace it and feel its love.

There is anger at feeling life’s loss but I do not know who this anger is meant for. For me? For you? Is this even anger? You said it was so. You said it because maybe you didn’t have the courage to say I was not good enough. I will never be good enough for you.

Thank you for this lesson on worth. Thank you for inadvertently pushing me to be understanding that just because you do not see my worth, there is one person that always will. That person is me.

I want to now spend every waking second loving myself. Filling my cup. Never allow myself to forget this lesson. This lesson on love. On joy. On pain. On happiness.

I love you. I know I am not good enough for you but I am good enough for me. For that lesson I will always have gratitude and love for your distance.

It’s already over

It’s done. Even before you have started it, it is over. That promotion you wanted, the relationship you needed, the run you envisioned is all over. Even before you think about it, it is done.

Living for the moment to me is just that. Imagining something is over even before it begins. So if I am ever offered anything, I take it with all my love and attention because one day it will be gone. And when it does, I want it and myself to know that I gave it as much of me as I could. Without regret or remorse.

Harsh? Maybe. Liberating? Absolutely

Love is what you do with that you have and not what you want and need.

Pain. Beautiful pain.

It hits like a hammer. All expectations shattered. Disappointment ensnared in the moment of love. Despair at the words not heard.

A band aid that covered a wound that had now scabbed and fermented and festered was now ready to be opened. To be healed.

The love that kept my words at bay are now words that needed to be said because of love.

My heart is broken but it now has the space to grow and take me on a journey of newness and forgiveness.

I forgive you for breaking my heart. I love you still but I can no longer love you as endlessly as I did all my life.

I have hope that what has happened has had the means for goodness but I do keep my expectations tapered.

We are beings who need to fit and feel that what we do is always correct and always validated. There is no one solution that we seek. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand.

I am in pain. A pain I have not felt in a long time. But there is hope. There is always hope