Writing From The Heart

Writing From The Heart

It had been almost a year that I had made that conscious choice to stop writing for a while.  All these years, every word written for my blog was done out of my hope to share a point of view that I felt strongly about.

Increasingly, I found this difficult to do as I tried very hard to juggle writing about what was truly authentic to me, with managing the sensitivities of others.  “Was that post about me?”, seemed to be the  frequent text message I woke up to in the morning.

I even had my husband once told me to “take down that blog post because while you don’t have to deal with them, I do.”  That became the cause of our regular rows where he maintained that I needed to have more tact while I insisted that the world needed to be aware of the difference between what was true and the pre-engineered fizzy koolaid that they had been sold.  My father had always taught me to be true to myself under any circumstance, and he brought me up in an environment where he encouraged me to fully express myself.  I found it hard to come to terms with having my voice stifled because I had to be mindful of what others thought.

When I had to start thinking about being sensitive to the feelings of others, taking into account the ramifications my writing might potentially cause with every word I wrote in my blog, and every post I published across my social media platforms, I decided that I could no longer pen another word in my blog.  I also decided to veer towards neutral topics across my social media platforms, sticking to the regular fitness and food posts.  But I became more disillusioned as months and days passed by, simply because I lost my sense of self.  I was no longer writing or speaking from my heart.

When I cut out the writing out of my life for a while, and made myself devoid of that only channel for self-expression that I was most familiar with, I was forced to deal with my emotions on my own by internalizing them.  I  withdrew into myself and walked through an introspective journey for a year.

The past year had been a year of deep learning for me about myself.  I learnt to accept my vulnerability – it was okay to feel that deep sense of hurt and disappointment, nurse it, then move on.  I learnt the importance of drawing the line between interpersonal relationships – friends, colleagues, staff, clients, family, and acquaintances, each of them had a role to play in my life and I should not be setting almost equal expectations on them.  I learnt that no matter how much I could do to pull family members, a team, a situation, a crisis, together and lead from the front, the honest truth, was that I had to stop being the school principal all the time, trying to get everyone to play on equal footing at the playground.  I learnt that when someone has a problem, it was not my problem.  I could not keep taking on that responsibility to try to solve it for him or her.   I learnt to make peace with my inner child – a traumatic past in my childhood need no longer bind me in fear, anger and hatred.  I learnt the value of forgiveness – more than anything else, letting go of hurt and anger was not about acknowledging that a dishonest, hurtful situation did not take place.  It was just my way of giving myself peace of mind.

So if I had to fill the pages of my blog with every incident that described this path of learning, I would not have enough pages left.   I was determined not to let my hurt and disappointment experienced, cast a shadow of doubt on the people I had invested time and energy over the years as  I tried to lift and inspire them with positivity. 

I felt that if I could no longer fill the pages of my blog with authenticity, then I could no longer write that blog. 

This point of view also took a toll on my passion for freelance writing for sports events.    I was disillusioned when I was delivered key messages about athletes during interviews, that had been “massaged” by their PR teams, painting them to be “inspirers of community with a personality governed by humility and a great work ethic..” then see a couple of them behave like depraved thugs.  How could I bring myself to share an article with the public with the objective of convincing them about how wonderful an athlete might be when he clearly was not?  Strangely enough, the current environment was one where many took a dig at fake news.   I was not going to be a perpetrator of fake news.

The start of my recuperation from all of last year’s “bullshit” came in the form of a family trip back to the UK.  I stopped writing.  I just took lots of photos.  Writing could hide my disillusionment. Photos could not. When I had to be present to my family for 3 weeks in the UK, I spent less time on emails as well as reading through all the social media news.  I just made time for self and I had meaningful conversations with my family.  I had no contact with drama, toxicity, inauthenticity and anything that drained me.  And most importantly, I came out of that trip making a pact with myself, that I would always choose to walk away from any form of drama and never allow anyone or anything to invade my peace. I would never allow anyone to feed me with untruths and expect me to sell otherwise.  I would never allow anyone to tell me to stop writing or saying something, just because it would “open a can of worms” and not aligned to what was written on that label pasted on that pre-engineered fizzy koolaid. If I was forced to do anything, or say anything  outside of my values, I would rather not have anything to do with it. 

I am starting to write again.  Slowly just getting back into it. I remain adamant about walking in the light of what is true, never writing or saying something unless it came from the heart.

 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  She is a passionate observer of life bent on inspiring others to live life positively through her writing by combing through moments worth celebrating every day.   Due to her ardent love for sports especially boxing and MMA, she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing articles to several sports media when time permits.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She enjoys Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

Straight Talking

Straight Answers
 
I am not sure if culture has got something to do with this but in Asia, I find it hard to get straight answers, honest comments, and genuine opinions, unless, of course the answers, comments, and opinions were offered via social media, hidden behind the safety of a computer.   I thought it was an Asian thing to protect one’s face by not being too opened with opinions.  Brutal honesty was frowned upon as being crass and un-classy.  Mom just simply describes it as,”You ah! No filter between your brain and your mouth.”

Would it not be easier to resolve issues when people could discuss things in an upfront and straightforward manner?
 
Decipher These
 
As a recruiter, it was usual for David to ask potential candidates why they were looking out for a new job.  Here are a prized collection of some of the responses that often left him baffled.  If they were looking out for a new job because of some existing organizational restructure that did not favor them, they would tell David that they were in the midst of a “career re-alignment”.  If they did not get the promotion that they wanted, it would be a situation where they were considering a “salary re-engagement”.  If they were retrenched, it would be a case of managing “mid-career dismantling”.  If they were hoping for a career switch, they were “looking outside their career remit”.  

How difficult would it be for one to just be upfront and say,” I am looking for a new job because a) my boss and I do not see eye to eye on most things, b) I no longer am able to add value to the company, or c) I got retrenched 3 months ago.
 
I had my own fair share of experience with those who dished “wishy-washiness” at me.  When a colleague kept postponing a meeting with the excuse that he had been “putting out fires” or “still realigning plans”, more likely than not, he was avoiding having to face a difficult discussion with me.   

I would have preferred a simple, “Sorry I would not be able to meet you now because I have no answers to why that situation had happened and is causing you the deep agony of preparing responses to media queries.”
 
If I was asked to “re-gig the numbers”.  It usually meant that my budget was cut and we could not afford to execute one of my brilliant but crazy plans that I had spent months dreaming up.  

Pokemonitis  

 To my annoyance, my son has gotten into the bad habit as well.  Singapore got swept into a trend similar to a zombie holocaust when Pokemon Go landed on our shores.  Joel was not spared.  The good thing that came out of it was that he has gotten his sedentary ass moving and his frequent trips out of the house on a hunt for pokemons, had been carefully messaged as, “I am walking the dogs Mom.”  For the first time, the dogs got walked a record 8 times a day on his day off.  Another innovative excuse for getting out of the house was, “I went to get a loaf of bread from 7-11.  After coming home with it, I realized we ran out of peanut butter, so I went back to 7-11 to buy some.”    When I asked Joel what was driving that obsession with the game, the most straight-forward response he gave me was, “You have been nagging me to get fitter haven’t you? You kept complaining that I have been shirking my responsibilities over the chores like walking the dogs, haven’t you?  You have been urging me to take less cabs and walk or use public transport more, haven’t you?” 

Yes I have.  However I was expecting him to tell me he wanted to surpass his friends by reaching level 25 on the game and maybe own a couple of gyms.
 
Gymnitis  

So I thought, maybe I should join the lot with my own version of undecipherable responses.  When my strength and conditioning coach gave me a pep talk about my inconsistent presence at the gym lately, I replied, “I need to have some space to recalibrate my body, mind and spirit.” When deciphered, that meant, “See you in a couple of weeks, dude.”
 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.