Each stage of life is different and life can challenge us at all stages but obviously there are rougher times. Shall I resume my last decade, the words that come to my mind are “slow, tiring change” and “prolonged battle phase”. This decade proved to be the busiest, toughest and most challenging period of my life. My fears and insecurities have come to the surface and seemed to overwhelm me, more members of my family have passed and I have also experienced some minor health issues. I have felt more difficult to love myself and to accept my limits. I have felt stuck, emotionally and physically, and I have felt ashamed of this.

That challenging time isn’t over yet, however I have now got the hopeful feeling that this oppressive and overwhelming phase is slowly fading away and I am regaining courage to open up to life. 

Would I be in the position to give some advice about how to pass through difficult times? I can say that I have learnt that almost often growth happen in silence and in the small, annoying difficulties that we experience in everyday life. These kinds of hardships, repeated in time, will make us endure over time. During these past years, accepting myself for who I am and accepting to surrender to slowness has been hard, especially for my overachiever, rebellious side who wants to reach an idealistic image of myself that doesn’t exist. Accepting hard times or situations is difficult, but it is also dealing with those inner parts of ourselves that we perceive as weak or faulty.

I have allowed myself to find some peace of mind and to focus on my needs by acting, giving myself new projects. We cannot really change our nature but, if we are mindful, we can work on it, we can smooth it. Hope and will are meaningful motivational factors.

Dark times are the true “teachers” in our life, and that every person we meet or every event that we face have a meaning in our journey. Even in my darkest moments I have always been aware that there was a joyful sparkle in me, this little something was pushing me forward. There is beauty in a bad life chapter as this prepares us to something positive that will come next. And finally I pushed myself and took part in a Marketing webinar for photographers 🙂 Happy new year folks!