Looking for peace

It has been a long time since I wrote my last blog. It has occurred to me a couple of times to write something new, but I was busy with getting myself back to my zen.

The last three months were surprisingly challenging. I had a fantastic trip with new friends, followed by a series of friendship becoming unwanted romance problems. I broke my hand. Some nasty people around are still nasty. All of these contributed to my breakdown, and here is how I recovered from it.

  1. Stop. I took a stop from all social events and decided to have some time with myself. I went to the library and studied for the whole day. Stopping engaging with people that I have problems with and starting talking to strangers in Thai makes me feel my effort of learning Thai is paying off, and that makes me feel better.

  2. Be clear about what I think. There is one case about the friendship problem where I have to call it out harshly that I feel it becomes harassment. Luckily, it stopped and I didn’t have to escalate it even further. When being friendly doesn’t work, we must show our strength.

  3. Take care of myself. I had to visit hospital nearly twice a week to cure my tenosynovitis. Going to hospital in a country where you don’t speak their primary language very much is scary, at least to me. I am glad it didn’t scare me off. When I am unwell, I just go. Trusting the professional, I believe, is better than trying to go through it by oneself.

  4. Resuming exercise once I can. I went back to play Muay Thai and played even harder. When I paused, I gradually started realising my shoulder got stiffed. This is common for office workers, but I didn’t feel it in Thailand and I have almost forgotten such things exist. Going back to exercise helped me clear these uncomfort away and brought more comfort to me. Because I am going more regularly and starting to get how Muay Thai works, the trainers started complimenting me more often. This little achievement cheered me up day by day.

I am also glad that compared to ten years ago, I am more tolerant to the nasty people around me. In the past, I got annoyed by the bad things malicious people did on me. I understood being mad only ruins my own day, but I couldn’t help resenting it. I am surprised and glad to find out I only ignore those people, without even thinking about it. It only came to my realisation when such a person “humourously” insulted me recently. It was so bad that my backfire was just about to go out of my mouth, and I thought his word is not polite to women, I don’t need to follow him to say something like that. If I do, I will become the same person as him. Then I chose to be silent. I said nothing, but I was proud. That was a very busy day. When I was on my way back home, I thought this through again, I acknowledged I have grown into a better person.

For all the good and bad, they are just phases. 生命必须有裂缝，阳光才照得进来。