Life Lessons At 25 Years Old

Hey Glow Gang,

Today I turn 25🎉 I am overwhelmed with gratitude. Grateful to see a new year in my life and for being healthy in mind, body and soul.

In this past quarter-century, certain experiences and situations within and around me have provided me with great wisdom. I would love to share with you ten life lessons that I truly believe are gems of insight and are guiding me to grow into the best version of myself.

This is my first ever post of the Inner Glow series! I look forward to sharing more with you on self-love, personal development and spirituality.

Self-Love is Essential

Self-love has been a buzz word in spirituality and personal development circles, and with good reason. I believe self-love is an acknowledgement of our own value and worth. It’s also the ability to accept ourselves fully, both our light and shadow as well as our entire being – inside and out.

My self-love journey has enabled me to be aware of previously hidden aspects of myself as well as to learn how to accept myself fully. It’s also been a great tool in helping me heal past emotional wounds.

We can only truly love others if we embrace ourselves first.

Boundaries support your Inner Peace

Personal boundaries are guidelines that we create to express what we are comfortable or uncomfortable with from those around us. They symbolise both emotional and physical limits that we would like to have respected, by ourselves and others.

I am constantly learning the need to create and communicate boundaries. I personally believe that they are a form of self-care as they are created to look after and/or protect our needs, desires and general wellbeing.

Putting in place boundaries may be tricky, but I believe it’s essential. It can be as simple as saying a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ to certain situations. They can also require us to stay away or close to certain spaces or individuals.

I am here for boundaries!

Trust your Intuition

I have recently completed reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. It’s a wonderful story with the message, ‘Follow your Heart’, being a dominant theme in the book.

I have always been a dreamer, and have come to grow aware of my intuition – the little voice in our hearts or that ‘gut feeling’. It’s such a unique feeling for every individual, no one can really tell you what your intuition is communicating. Over the course of my life, I have chosen to either listen to or ignore my intuition and the consequences thereafter reflected my decision.

I have come to learn that to listen to this ‘little whisper’ within ourselves, we need to first tune into it. That is, slow down and find some quiet time to ourselves. The more still I am, the clearer my intuitive voice is.

I am confident that our intuition was placed within us to guide us in the right direction.

Walk your own Path

This is a lesson I am still grasping. We are raised to give in to several societal pressures in order to be ‘accepted’. As human beings, we have the desire to feel a sense of belonging. However, the pressure to ‘belong’ can lead us to make decisions that are inauthentic to ourselves.

I am entering a season of ‘running my own race’. I am working on tuning into myself and making moves that are in alignment with my true desires. It’s perfectly fine to be a ‘Late Bloomer’; go through life at your own pace. It’s okay to dive into a new career path past 40 years of age, choose not to have children and to invest in life experiences over luxury possessions.

Savour the Journey

We’re all in the process of working to achieve something – a deep spiritual connection with a higher being, a successful business, a healthy romantic relationship and much more. At times, I find myself wishing I could jump from point A to Z! Oh, if only it were that easy.

However, I am learning to fall in love with the process of building something meaningful. A seed does not just magically sprout into a tree, it needs lots of nutrients, moisture and sunshine. We can find joy in the period between the ‘planting’ and the ‘harvest’. At the end of the day, it’s during the journey that growth truly happens.

Healing requires Forgiveness

This is one lesson that I resisted for a long time! To be whole, we need to heal the broken parts of ourselves. Whether these ‘cracks’ were our own doing or caused by others, we need to recognize them, accept them, pick up the pieces and seal them.

Forgiveness is a process, challenging but very liberating!

Invest in your Spiritual Growth

We all love to look our best, but do we prioritize feeling good as well? Spirituality involves going deeper into ourselves and discovering more about ourselves and our environment beyond the material world.

As I continued to dive deeper into my spirituality, I have come to appreciate the light within myself and others. I have also realized that there’s beauty beyond what meets the eye.

Abundance is Achievable

Greed has been such a sore spot in our way of life. I strongly believe that it’s fuelled by the narcissistic idea that ‘I deserve more than others’. I view it as a ‘Scarcity Mindset’.

We don’t have to take away to gain or to climb up by breaking others down. The achievements of other people do not in any way affect my ambitions. We can all thrive. There’s enough for us all, we just need to respect and deem worthy other people’s lives and realize that if they lose, we all lose and if they win, we can win too.

Be Present

Wueh! This is one lesson I will never stop learning. I catch myself pondering about past mistakes that I can’t change or worrying about future situations I have no control over. This mind activity can be really exhausting and gets me nowhere, it only takes away from the now.

Presence births peace and appreciation for life’s simplest moments. I have been practising living in and loving the now.

Inspiration can thrive in Imperfection

For a while now, it’s been a desire of mine to launch the Inner Glow series. I recently checked with myself to figure out why I had been pushing away the idea. I realized that I felt the need to have everything figured out (emotionally and spiritually) before I can share my two-cents. I had been struggling with perfectionism, which as the author, Elizbeth Gilbert, refers to as ‘fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it’s just terrified’.

I am learning that I can still be a work in progress and inspire others at the same time💖

Alioko ulimwenguni hajaisha kuumbwa. 

[A person who is here in the world has not yet been totally created.]

~A person goes on learning until death.~

I would love to know what life lessons you have learnt, feel free to share with me in the comments section.

Mapenzi Tele,

Maya.