Albeit Einstein has been widely credited for defining crazy to us.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”

“You are a victim of the rules you live by” – Jenny Holzer.

Many years ago, as a young painstakingly industrious and zealous lady, I lost my hearing.

It was of those devastating things that you don’t wish on anyone, not even your worst enemy.

I was in my prime, got really ill, and ended up hospitalised for a good few days, just over a week. Prior to that I was self-employed and employed too, things were awesome, before they weren’t!

Business had gone through a rough patch. I had to shut it down, and had quit my job as well, for different reasons, the two incidents were not even remotely correlated, but they did happen closely together.

You must have heard of people having their worst year? That was mine.

There was even a robbery incident involving knives sandwiched somewhere in between the craze, but to cut the long story short we will concentrate on a different part of my journey. I would say I had my experience of what they say, “Bad things come in threes”

It takes a lot to kill my spirit.

Incidentally, after a lot of experimentation with my body, by the doctor, being in a semi-coma, and eventually going back home, that is when things started dawning on me.

I had to learn how to walk again, I also realised that I couldn’t hear too well either. I had lost my hearing from the antibiotics as some sort of a not-so-funny side effect. The sad thing is that I still never realised how bad it was, or how serious things were or even, that it could be permanent and in effect change my course.

My life had changed and would never be the same again and I just had no idea how much.

My mum, bless her heart, would wake me up in unholy hours of the morning for fresh air and exercises, grrrrr! 

God knows how much of a struggle it was for me, and for her, and how much I hated it.

Anyway, several weeks later I felt better. I felt ready to face the world, bring it on!!!

Embracing the lessons…

Ready! Set! Go! I decided to go and visit my sister, on my own. Happy bunny, back in to the real world where she belongs, hop! hop!

I crossed the road safely, somewhat managed to, got to the other end. And for some reason, I decided to look back, turned my head and was met by a very angry looking cyclist. He was busy swearing at me, at least what seemed like cussing, at the top of his voice, really mad and boiling, if words could kill, I wouldn’t be here.

Onwards and upwards, I got to my sister’s, narrated the story and we all laughed like crazy. We were still young you know. There is something about being young, whatever it is, we found the incident really funny. Indeed young can be carefree. When you are young you tend to laugh, a lot, at least we did, at everything. Everything just seemed hilarious for weird reasons.

Back to the story, so after some years, quite a few, of being in denial and refusing to get some hearing aids, I eventually carved in. Mmmh!

My audiologist gave me the news I had dreaded to hear.

“You have internal damage in your blah blah blah, meaning your hearing will never be restored blah blah blah it is permanent…’ Absolutely upsetting.

I would say for the first time it did actually really hit me. There I was disappointed, but I had no room and time for a pity party.

Are my hearing aids perfect? No! Absolutely not! Not even close, but they are something, and I know now, to be grateful.                                                                                         Was I always upbeat after going through all that? Definitely not, I would be lying if I said otherwise.                                                                                                                          Did I have the right to be mad? Probably, I got “robbed” of my prime, “robbed” of my potential life, of my dreams…

Today I see things differently. I understand that things happen the way they do for a reason, for a higher purpose. Hence my paradigm “Embrace the lessons”

Self-Improvement…

Spirituality and personal development has helped me a great deal. Especially in finding my lives purpose. I do love sharing my knowledge and my journey. Anyone has the potential to pick a side, to discover and embrace their lives purpose. I picked self-awareness, self-improvement, personal development, and a lot of life defining paths. Also, came to a realisation of how much of a control I have, of my circumstances and my outlook. Fell in love with my journey, I hope you do yours too.

Today, I wanted us to talk about cleaning up your act .

Clean up your act…

Stop mopping.

It is a waste of time, energy, and potential wondering why some traumas happened to you and not to others. Dust yourself, clean up your act. It is about time you cleaned up your insides as well as your outsides. What I mean by that is that, you need a clean mind because it influences your environment, and vice versa.

I always say everything matters and everything does indeed actually matter.

When you clean your environment it allows you to easily declutter your mind, and when you declutter your mind, say through meditation, it influences how your surroundings will look like, nice and tidy. The two work together and need each other.

“Time past and time future. What might have been and what has been. Point to one end, which is always the present”-T.S Elliot

• The present is all that counts and it is perfect. Life is a master teacher, don’t let the teacher catch you being unappreciative of what you have right now. If you think you don’t have enough of anything, e.g time, then that is all you will attract.

You will always be busy and never enough time for the things you love and/or for those      you love. This basically boils down to gratitude, be grateful for just being alive.

“Unbelievable as it may sound, you only have to experience a state of order once to be able to maintain it”-Marie Kondo.

• Declutter, be organised, and have a place for everything: A lot of the things we keep and save are totally unnecessary, you would be surprised at how much joy they could give to someone else.

So give, give, give away. Learn Marie Kondo’s techniques on the best tips on how to declutter she will absolutely change you life, forever.

• Simplify your life and environment: Less is more. For instance, there is a difference between being busy and being productive. Learn about minimalism and notice how much you will end up saving by just stopping to accumulate the never ending material possessions.

Something new and shiny is a trend that will never stop. Be in control of the accumulation. Do you know, how much a car loses its value as soon as it leaves the showroom? Simplify every area of your life, and feel immediate joy.

“Tell me your friends and I will tell you who you are”

                         -Not known

• Upgrade your network: You could brag about going for some expensive coffee as you like, but the bottomline is that they are people you invest your time with and others…well have a guess.
• Socio-gram: There is something called socio-gram a concept I learnt of recently. With socio-gram, the bigger and diverse your network is the better your chances for success.

If your circle of friends is repetitive (redundant), then you probably are not getting enough perspective on different aspects of your life and life in general. Same people, same view, same results.

Life is about learning from what it throws at us, just keep moving even if it is towards the wrong destiny it is far better than standing.

Goodluck.

©NicolleHanselmann 2020

Photo credit pexels