keep reminding oneself of who one is, and pause long enough to see what one's life is looking like, where it has got derailed, how it can be restored, and what it can become.
Willy-nilly we get into the rut of routine, and unless we force ourselves out of it, it is likely to swamp us and beat us down.
It is very important to take reality-checks of ourselves every so often. Reality-checks have to be honest. Having said that, it is only right to say that they can be painful because besides the zillion times all kinds of hurts - big and small - are inflicted on us, knowingly and unknowingly, it is only when we take a hard look at ourselves that we will be able to figure out where we are going wrong....Why wrong? Because anything that takes away our peace of mind, shakes our equilibrium, disturbs us emotionally, stresses us out, causes our insides to knot up, makes us think we are small, cannot be right for us.
Some of us can snap out and get back onto our chosen paths on our own. Some, like me, need to reach out...we cannot do this on our own. We need someone who's hand we can hold (metaphorically)...
And so in situations like this, I run to Maya Angelou's words of wisdom. As a lady who lived life to the fullest, was totally and completely unafraid of anything, overcame the rotten deals that life threw at her, and most of all, was so intensely HUMAN, she is my choice of the ideal person... Here are some nuggets:
'I will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody's racism or sexism or ageism.' (Or any -ism for that matter).
This one really helps me. When people slowly demolish you, by being nice one minute and rude/bad/hurtful the next and then again be nice and again rude/bad/hurtful.....and again and again till you feel your very foundation shaking, she says, 'Stop them in their tracks. And if they say, 'What, you can't take a joke?' say, 'No - I can't. You just stop right there.' People try to demean others because they want to dominate. Angelou says, 'The minute I hear someone trying to demean me, I know that person means to have my life. And I will NOT give it to them.' Broken, dented, scratched, patched up, lines redrawn, spaces recoloured, your life is still yours....We cannot let anyone else have it...
'Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.'
And I love this:
'A wise woman wishes to be noone's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim.'
It is becoming a victim that we need to guard ourselves from. And we have to do this strongly and again and again till it becomes a part of us.