5 major life lessons from my 20s

Life will suck sometimes. Be like jello and bounce back.

A major theme in my twenties was finding myself through trial and error, and through extreme occurrences completely out of my control. I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing everything from anxiety, depression, eating disorders, family illness, navigating negative power dynamics, losing friends to suicide, learning to set boundaries, borderline abuse relationships, loneliness, professional and creative burnout…

To be so, completely honest, sometimes it got really, REALLY hard. I’ve always been the type to have a positive outlook on life, but there were many times I wondered if I’d ever bounce back to my “normal” self.

I’ve also been lucky enough to have powerful friendships, platonic and romantic love, and incredible amounts of patience to get me through the hardest times. Through the vast kindness of friends and strangers, I’ve learned to hold pure gratitude for the power of community. Much to my surprise, turns out life is co-op game… not a solo RPG.

The good news is that I have bounced back every single time with a 100% success rate, and I’m confident I have the audacity to bounce back from anything life throws at me. As Bruce Lee once said, “be like jello” (he definitely did not say this).

Accept that control is an illusion

When I was 29, I went through one last crazy thing as a cherry on top of my twenties. I won’t get into the weeds (because at the end of the day, we’re all gonna go through crazy shit and the exact details stop mattering at a certain point). Instead of fighting and succumbing to the triggers, I started examining the nature of the ego and diving head first into shadow work for the first time.

This process taught me what it meant to surrender completely to the universe, and I realized how much mental power I was wasting on maintaining the illusion of control over my life. Joke’s on me - there is no such thing as control! I just am, and let be.

People don’t exist to be changed or fixed. Respect others exactly as they are.

Everyone lives and thinks differently, and by design. How boring would life be if everybody was exactly the same?! This applies to ourselves - what makes us individually unique is our superpower. Let go, love your weird self, and let yourself shine!

I’ve been very guilty of this in the past, and spent years dulling my own light by “monitoring” myself from a 3rd person point of view. Releasing this habit was a gradual process, but extremely freeing and rewarding for personal expression. It’s manifested itself in small ways like adding more color into my life, to big (expressing my emotions to people in my life instead of being stifled by embarrassment, feeling extremely secure in myself, etc). and I’ve noticed that giving myself unconditional love was a fast pass to letting go of judgment for others as well.

Yes, the inner critic will always be there, but it doesn’t mean its opinion needs to weigh the heaviest. Make room for all parts of you by acknowledging it and letting it go.

Holding expectations bind us to limiting beliefs (a little tip on manifestation)

Here’s what I mean by this. Limiting beliefs stem from negative core beliefs about yourself that have been instilled by trauma (AKA other people). So not only are these negative core beliefs are creating your limiting beliefs, they also color the limitations you place on your own goals, expectations, or manifestations in life.

Latching onto expectations and the stories we tell ourselves can block us from receiving abundance outside of the story of the reality we tell ourselves.

This means that our expectations can work against us as they are created from the context of our lived experiences, wounds, ancestral and familial traumas, and limiting beliefs. Instead of fixating on what’s realistic to the current you in your current reality, open yourself up to success beyond your wildest dreams.

All the way through college, my limiting beliefs told me to stay small and out of the spotlight. It’s pretty common in east Asian culture to keep your head down and work hard; drawing attention to yourself is often shameful and extremely embarrassing. Fear of being perceived, fear of shame, and my slew of limiting beliefs permeated my perspective by making me overly realistic and logical, and pessimistic of my own potential by the universe’s standards. Because I wasn’t in touch with my intuition, I was always stuck trying to make the most logical decision based on past experiences and what I could see.

And this ultimately translated to the goals I set for myself - I never let myself dream big (certainly never beyond my wildest dreams) and protected my ego by never asking for more. Without realizing, I’d boxed myself into the limited reality I created for myself, blocking me from the truth I couldn’t grasp - that anything is truly possible.

In your journey of surrender, trust that letting go of expectations - what, how, when - (even in the simplest circumstances) opens you up to ease and infinite possibilities. I’ve found that things tend to work out in magical, illogical ways… so let it!

Make decisions from a place of self love

Quitting my job during the pandemic was my first conscious act of radical self love. It was so, incredibly painful and frankly illogical from an outside point of view, but the job was killing my mental health and I knew it was time to put myself first. Emphasis on me, first! Not my job, not my income, not my sense of stability, and not the fake projected future I had in my head of where this job could take me.

After the initial tears, letting go was exhilarating. Quitting ended up being one of the best things I did for myself, and releasing that energy made room for more abundance to enter my life, better aligned to this new version of me.

Past me had no idea of the journey in store for her, but she did her best and I’m thankful for her love!!

As a thought experiment, consider for a moment who I would be, had I instead operated from fear and self preservation. I would have held onto that job until it forcibly ejected me. Perhaps the outcome would’ve been the same (not having that job), and maybe I would’ve learned the same lessons, but the experience would’ve been more painful and drawn out.

Acts of radical self love can sometimes feel as illogical as manifestation, but trust the process and just love yourself! It’s all that’s required of you.