Her Unique Glow

It feels so surreal to me that I’ve sat down to write the lessons I’ve learnt over the past 10 years, when turning 20 feels like it happened yesterday – but here we are!

Thirty, flirty and (yes, 100%, completely and utterly) thriving!

1. YOUR BODY IS PRECIOUS

I spent way too many years being at war with my body. I didn’t like the shape, the size, how it made me feel and I could have probably listed off over 100 things I’d have liked to have changed.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that our bodies are precious. They are divine, wondrous treasures that need to be cherished, honoured and cared for. Without that tender loving care, we feel more disconnected from ourselves and further away from living in alignment with who we are. Our bodies are the temples that house our being and essence to carry us through this lifetime. They are fragile yet resilient, sensitive yet strong and incredibly intelligent.

This is the only body you have been gifted with. No matter how much you’d like to change yourself – hair colour, contacts, eyelashes, lips, boobs – there’s only so much you can do before realising that this is the only body you’ll ever have. So it’s your choice: You can either be at war with yourself or be accepting and love yourself unconditionally.

Loving yourself unconditionally means you’ll show even more love to your body and it will serve you in the best possible way in return.

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2. YOU TEACH OTHERS HOW TO TREAT YOU

When you can really and truly love yourself unconditionally, you open the doors for others to treat you the same. You pave the way to show others how to treat you. If you want more love in your life, then share that love with others. Share that love with yourself. When you treat yourself with respect, love and honour your values, you teach others to respect and honour your values too. Setting boundaries in your life that honour who you are, will show everyone else that those boundaries need to be respected and they’ll treat you with the same compassion and love.

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3. KNOW YOUR WORTH

If there is one thing I wish every woman would know, it’s this – that you are SO worthy. Your worth is priceless, it’s limitless and it’s abundant. You add so much worth and value into this world and it’s time that you believe it with every single cell in your body.

Don’t know where to start?

That’s ok!

Understanding your worth and upping your self-worth game can feel uncomfortable – in fact, I found this one of the hardest journeys to work through personally. I’d spent so long being at war with myself that my self-worth scale was at an all-time low. But here are some tips to help raise your standing on the self-worth scale.

• Honour your values. Establish your values and make sure you live in alignment with them every day.
• Make time for yourself. Learn what turns you on and off – make sure you do more of what turns you on to fill your cup up.
• Surround yourself with people that add value to your life. The more you align yourself with those that lift you up, the more they’ll support and encourage you to do the same for yourself.

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4. IT’S OK TO CHANGE YOUR MIND

In fact, it’s ok to say ‘no’ full stop.

I hated the feeling like I’d failed at something. I’d keep doing something even if I knew it wouldn’t serve me. I’d continue with something even though I knew it no longer aligned with who I was. I’d say ‘yes’ even when my gut was telling me to say ‘no’. I was a people pleaser and struggled to let go of something even though I knew I wasn’t living or speaking my truth.

It’s ok to change your mind.
It’s ok to change it again.
It’s ok to keep changing your mind until you find what works for you.

Our life’s journey is a rollercoaster and it’s not an easy ride. Just as we grow, change and adapt, so do our likes, dislikes, passions and interests. So of course, what serves us one minute may not serve us the next. Tune into yourself regularly and always question – be the investigator of your life and make sure that every action you take is in alignment with who you are.

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5. AGE IS A PRIVILEGE NOT MANY ARE OFFERED

I used to be terrified of growing older. I hated celebrating my birthday and would spend the day in tears feeling nostalgia and sentiment for my younger years. I still feel the same way now sometimes – that feeling of wanting to be a child again, not have the adulting worries that life brings when we leave home and of wanting my mum to cuddle me and take all my problems away. Not only was I terrified at the thought of getting older and losing my youth, but I was so scared of ageing – scared of getting wrinkles, saggy boobs, pigmented skin.

Since becoming a mother I’ve learnt the fragility of life. Birthing a child into this world is scary, it’s challenging and it’s eye-opening. I’ve never felt more scared or grateful for a life before. I’m constantly flitting between being terrified of my baby hurting himself to being in awe at his enthusiasm for life. I’ve realised that ageing is a privilege not many are offered. Life can be taken away from us so cruelly that it seems unfair. So many would love to age, the opportunity to grow older, to get wrinkles, yet they’re not offered that opportunity.

Rather than fighting getting older, I am choosing to embrace it. To call my crows feet 'wisdom lines' instead of wrinkles, to love my saggy boobs for their ability to feed, grow and sustain my baby and to thank my eyes and ears for tiring themselves while gifting me the privilege to hear and see.

Ageing may not be comfortable, but it’s a privilege of life nonetheless. It’s time to lean into it and embrace it.

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6. WHAT WOULD 80-YEAR-OLD ZENNY THINK?

This is a question that has shaped many of my thought processes and influenced a lot of my decision making over the last 10 years. Having suffered with anxiety for years, I really know that all too common feeling of being consumed by worries and overwhelm about the ‘right’ decision, choice, action etc. Being a people pleaser and not always listening to my truth has meant that I’ve sacrificed a lot of myself in the process. I found that I worried unnecessarily, that overwhelm almost paralysed me to a point that I reached a state of burn-out more times than I care to admit.

When I do reach these points; when the ‘right’ choice seems too challenging to make or when I replay scenarios over and over in my head; I ask myself ‘What would 80 year old Zenny think?’ – What would she have wanted for me? Would this particular situation have really mattered to her or altered her life in some huge meaningful way? Or would she think that looking back it wasn’t such a big deal after all?

Thinking ahead to this version of myself allows me to take myself out of the present moment and offers a bit of perspective to the situation at hand. Not only that, but it also allows me the opportunity to tap into what it is I wish for myself, what I would like to achieve in this lifetime and what truly matters to me deep down. It’s quite surprising how often what seemed so big to begin with, doesn’t actually matter to me that much.

So next time you’re struggling with something, perhaps ask yourself that same question – ‘What would 80 year old YOU do?’

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7. RE-DEFINE SUCCESS

I grew up in an academic environment. Our school was grade-driven, university inspired and not only did my peer group excel in every academic, creative and sport-related subject, but so did my sisters. The entire environment around me was driven by success – or perhaps, their projected opinion of what success was. I grew up believing that success correlated with flashy possessions, the latest fashion items, keeping up with the trends, having a ‘skinny’ body with beautifully thick, luscious hair, glowing skin, perfect makeup, a fabulous jet-setting career and school/university grades that rivalled even the most genius of human beings. Sheesh…even writing this is exhausting me. Can you imagine the pressure my teenage-self felt? In fact, this pressure seeped well into my 20’s as well.

It took me YEARS to let go of this belief and to re-define what success is to me. What society and culture fails to educate us on, is that we all have our own unique internal blueprint and therefore although other’s beliefs may be projected onto us, that doesn’t mean those beliefs are what align with us at our core. I was taught that success meant monetary wealth and physical beauty, but I have (more recently) realised that success to me is far from that:

• Success to me is waking up happy every morning, full of love, gratitude and purpose.
• Success to me is being able to move my body freely and fluidly without resistance.
• Success to me is being able to nourish my body with foods it thrives off.
• Success to me is being able to make my son, husband, sisters, parents laugh every day and feel completely 100% loved.
• Success to me is being able to cartwheel with my son and hopefully my grandchildren.

If you’re feeling a lot of pressure, then perhaps come back to what success looks like to you. What would make you feel successful. Perhaps your own internal blueprint of what success means to you is different to what you’ve been taught. Remember, it’s ok to change your mind.

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8. STOP THE COMPARISONS

Oh wow – if there was one thing I WISH with all my heart every single person was taught at school it’s this – STOP the comparisons!

There is a reason they say comparison is the thief of joy. It’s soul destroying and takes us further away from living our truth. We are all wonderfully unique and are all living our own individual lives. What works for one person may not work for another, yet we are all so connected nowadays that we think we have the inside scoop to anyone’s life at any given moment in time. This is great – of course it is! But it also comes with its challenges; one of those being that we believe what we see to be true when it’s only a snap shot of a curated moment in someone’s life. We show the highlight reels of our lives and even the darker moments are curated to come across a particular way. After all, we will never really know what someone else is thinking or feeling, we can only go off what they choose to share.

Yet, we still compare.

We compare work, appearances, size, food, diet, exercise routines, fashion choices, family – you name it, if it exists then we will probably compare it at some point or another.

If we aren’t completely full in our self-worth and self-love bank, then it opens the door for our inner mean girl to run riot and tell us everything she thinks is wrong with us. Maybe she begins to criticise our appearance, that we haven’t found our passion or that we aren’t earning enough. We all have the ability to let our inner mean girl run the show, but the magic happens when we can catch her and stop her in her tracks. That doesn’t mean ignoring what she’s trying to tell us – far from it! It’s about understanding where she’s coming from, giving her the biggest hug and knowing that we are enough.

No matter how much you compare, you’ll still be YOU. YOU are perfect just as you are because you are YOU. No one can do you better than you. So stop trying to be someone else or live another’s life.

Embrace the opportunities you’ve been given, love the body you’ve been gifted with and make sure you keep your inner mean girl (or boy) in check. Let go of the comparisons and stop looking outside of yourself for happiness. Pure contentment comes from within and knowing that you are whole just as you are.

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9. NOW MAY NOT BE THE RIGHT TIME

This one was a tough lesson for me to learn. With a type A personality and a ‘go go go’ attitude, I never let myself have a break. I push and push, set (sometimes) unrealistic expectations and place so much self-made pressure on myself that burn-out used to be one of my most frequent visitors. I have always felt like life is too short and that there’s no time to rest; if something needs to be done…it needs to be done NOW. Gosh – that mentality has exhausted me and I’m not going to lie, I occasionally catch myself experiencing that same mental attitude or feeling that same pressure to get things done with immediate effect.

I suppose one of my biggest lessons over the last 10 years was learning that I do have time. That there is time.

It’s ok to slow down, to create more white space in my day, to live in the here and now without worrying about the future or not being at a certain place in life at a particular age. I spent most of my 20’s feeling like I should have x, y, z and set so many expectations for where I thought my life should be that I neglected to focus on what was already in front of me. Rather than waking up every day feeling grateful, I was worried that I was wasting time because I hadn’t achieved what I thought I should have done.

Here’s one of the biggest life lessons:

Things are unfolding perfectly for you, just as they should be.

We all live in our own unique time-zones and just as the sun may set later in one country than it does in another, doesn’t mean the moon won’t come up eventually. It will. It just needs a little bit more time to get there. It doesn’t make the moon any less beautiful, it doesn’t dim the brightness of it – it’s just as wonderful and magical, it perhaps needed an extra hour or so to really show it’s brilliance. The same can be said for our lives. Although you may have hoped your life would be a certain way by now, doesn’t mean it won’t happen for you. It might do…or maybe something even more magical will present itself to you and you’ll live a life far better than you could have dreamed of!

Let go of the pressure. Know that not everything has to be done right now. Now may not necessarily be the right time.

Lean into your own unique time-zone – let go of the comparisons and expectations. Allow your life to unfold just as it’s meant to and know that everything is going perfectly for YOU.

Take your time, slow down, be present and you’ll see the beauty of it all.

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10. FOCUS ON ABUNDANCE

The meaning is what you make it.
What you look for you will find.
When you focus on abundance over what you lack, more abundance will flow your way.

Yet, it can be all too easy to fixate on what you don’t have. You inner mean girl can draw you deep into self-pity central where everything is dark, gloomy and full of ‘woe is me’. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been there many a time myself! But it’s never served me well and I can honestly say, hand on heart, I’ve never left pity party central feeling any better – in fact, I felt worse, with a heavier heart and full of misery.

Even when things aren’t seemingly going right, learning to flip the switch, find the positive and focus on abundance is something I’ve really learned to rely on. When you focus on what you do have and practice gratitude, it opens the door to even more abundance in your life. By doing the opposite and only looking at what you lack, you’re closing the door to more love, light and possibilities.

Waking up every day with an abundance mind-set will set your soul on fire. You’ll notice more love, more light, more opportunities and you’ll find yourself moving further and further away from focusing on what you don’t have. That simple mind-set shift will be your number one game-changer to living a more fulfilled, purpose driven life.

The meaning is what you make it.
Want something different?
Change the meaning.

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