Choose balance and learn to love and trust yourself
Yes, today is my birthday. I am 24 years old. My name is Yildiz. I am an entrepreneur and a recipient of the EXIST Women scholarship. I am a writer. I work with the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. I am a student and almost finished with my undergraduate degree. This year, I started a business, I will move to Leipzig, I found new friends, and I let go of a toxic attachment. But what I truly am is human. And it took me 24 years to understand this. Just a few days ago, on Monday, I took several hours of meditating for the first time in my life. I needed this because the last two years were so traumatic for me. I was betrayed by friends, constantly sexually harassed, underappreciated at work, and mistreated and hurt. I went inward—something I did not dare do for a long time. During meditation, I saw myself under a waterfall. I didn’t know this had a deeper meaning until I googled it afterward to understand what was happening to me there. And meditation symbolism states that whoever sees a waterfall during meditation has reached a higher level of connection to themselves and their true self, and has dissolved blockages that were holding them back. And I can feel it, and I feel peace. Several lessons helped me along the way.
1) Let go, and it will be yours
The harder I chased or wished for something, the more energy I wasted looking at the goal instead of the path and steps ahead of me, and I started trembling. Just a few days ago, I learned that I have to slow down, trust, and do what feels right to me.
2) I want to be authentic instead of accepted, and a little arrogance can be good
Especially as an entrepreneur, it is very common for people to be very skeptical about your idea and have all sorts of their own ideas that they think, with their great experience, you should implement in your business, and that’s okay. They speak from their perspective, and usually, they just want to help or are just honest.
My first idea for a start-up was very good, I know this, but because of the influence of other people, I changed the idea, and it didn’t work out because the new concept was way harder and not my passion. For my new start-up that is now funded, I sensed tendencies of repeating the mistake of taking the criticism of others too seriously, but here’s the thing: it is okay to be biased towards yourself and be arrogant. Be arrogant! Some of you may disagree and say we should practice taking criticism and be critical of our perception, but it depends greatly on your personality. An extrovert might need some more alone time sometimes, but an introvert needs the exact opposite! As a former people-pleaser and someone who was always very critical and tried to be unbiased, I need a good dose of arrogance, and I can say now in good peace that I am proud to have achieved more arrogance.
Especially with my start-up, I experience that after I keep defending the idea and explaining why it works, people actually admit that they didn’t understand my idea or my motivation fully. Of course, they don’t because they don’t live in my head, they haven’t necessarily read what I read or spoken to the people I spoke to. There are always types of answers people are looking for when they ask you what you want to do or why your idea will work. I learned to be bold. If they say there is no market for it, then I will create the market because very often people need things and realize only much later that they needed it. Who thought we needed cars back in the 19th century? Of course, I learn and adjust, and improve where needed. But if you are not on your side, no matter what, with 100% backbone, then who shall ever be?
3) The way the Ego blockaded me
I used to ask myself, “What did I do wrong?” instead of saying “these people wronged me”. I used to say “I suck at this class” instead of saying “the professor made this exam too hard”. I used to say “I am not suited for this career branch” instead of saying “They didn’t use my strengths like they could have”. Again, if you struggle with being too self-sure about yourself, you need more “I may be the problem” but if you are like me and always asked yourself what is wrong with you, then you must allow yourself to consider the very painful possibility that you actually did nothing wrong and wrong was done to you, or things just didn’t work out because it was no good timing or the people were too biased to give you any real chance. Move on, change your way of thinking instead of “I…” think of “It/they/he…”. The willpower Chakra blockades with shame. So let go of the shame. Understand that everyone was in your shoes once, and the people who ridicule you most when you have a setback or make mistakes are usually the greatest losers in life, who are projecting their own shame and get nothing done because their Chakra is so blocked by shame.
4) Balance, love, and trust
After betrayal, I truly learned what trust is and how much one should appreciate and embrace trust. After hate, I truly understood love. After extremely living my life, I chose balance. No, I won’t study every day if that means I can’t go spend time with friends. No, I won’t plan my day with just work from morning to night to not do anything on my list because I am too stressed and blocked. Balance is the key. I choose not to go to events if I don’t have the energy. I let go of things that didn’t work out.
5) Forgive and love your family and friends
For a long time, my heart Chakra was blocked because of pain. I needed to learn to forgive, and nurturing the closeness I have to my family and friends is the most important thing.
