Mar 30, 20214 min read

The Surprising Things I Wish I Knew About Being 30 Something

Do you ever have those moments where you just stop and breathe? Become aware of your self-talk? Your constant working? Working towards the perfect relationship, a perfect body, more money, more things, more followers, more success?

I’m sitting here on a Sunday morning, in my yoga room, alone, single, no kids, no house (that I own), no yoga studio.

I don’t have 100k followers or millions in my bank and my life really isn’t what a yearned it would be by the time I was thirty something.

I have given myself such a hard time growing up and I spent so much of that time, fearing of the things that I wouldn’t have. Fearing I would be here, as I am. I didn’t spend much of my time being or living in the moment. Constantly chasing the dream, searching, looking ahead at how and when I would finally get my happy ever after, that was the priority.

I’m laughing as I write this, it’s amusing to me, in the same way it is when someone tells you the answer to a riddle and you suddenly become aware of how very simple it was, yet you couldn’t see it.

As amusing as a part of me might find it, my ego is a little annoyed, and a little sad at all the time wasted. If only I had lived in the moment, looked around and stopped rushing. Not let my heart get broken so many times, not get upset when people were unkind, not wasted time feeling shame, not enough or unworthy. If only I had awareness sooner, this moment of clarity.

I can say this now of course because I’m in that moment.

A moment of remembering, unfolding, consciousness. In this moment, ego aside, I can connect with the knowing that it really doesn’t matter, none of it does. That in reality time wasn’t wasted, time is a human construct, it isn’t running out and once we acknowledge this, life starts becoming a lot more about fully living.

I think that as children we begin to pile on the layers of the ego. We look, listen and learn from the humans around us, how it is to be human and what we should strive for. I did that, I watched my parents and how much they relied on each other and learnt that I needed to find a partner, that I wasn’t enough alone. I watched as adults made their life about working, paying bills and acquiring objects, houses, cars and being ‘happy’ when they did so. I watched how they would feel sad, disappointed and shameful when they didn’t acquire new things, impress others, do what was expected in their chosen roles or the ones that had been chosen for them. How we should live for those two magical days at the end of each week, for they were the only ones that gave us happiness or how we would work for 50 weeks of the year just to have enough money to cross the oceans and rest for two. I watched as they judged each other, claiming others don’t do it as good as them or felt anger, resentment and embarrassment because they didn’t feel as good as others. I learnt to do all this and feel the same.

I remember I had moments as a child, where I stopped, observed and questioned.

Something about the way the world worked, the way we were expected to grow and live to pay bills, just didn’t feel right but these were fleeting moments.

The need to feel safe, belong, accepted and survive were stronger than my need to explore this ‘knowing’. So I strived for the same things everyone else did, to find a partner, to buy a house, to have children and have a successful career. I was gifted with drive, enthusiasm and confidence so of course if that’s what everyone in this life wants and is meant to get, well than I wanted it all! Because why not? Apparently, all that stuff makes you happy and that’s what we’re here for right?

The trying to fit a square peg into a round hole comes to mind when I think of my journey to do this. Maybe I had too many sleepless nights contemplating, asked too many questions, dug too deep or the universe had other plans for me because every time I try to live a life for my ego, it just doesn’t fit or flow, it just doesn’t feel in alignment.

I have been given space, enough that allows me to see clear, to be in the stillness.

There is no lack where I thought there was, there is only abundance.

An abundance of beauty, an abundance of energy, light and love. It is the mind, the ego which creates time, limits and this constant striving for more. Of course, if I did get all the things that I thought I needed, I may not have had the space or the ‘time’ to come to this awareness.

In light of this, what a beautiful gift it is to sit here alone, a thirty something woman, with the knowing that in actual fact, in having none of what I thought I needed, I gained the space and therefore awareness that I have it all, we all do, always have.

My life may not be what a young human trying to fit in and survive yearned for but it is what an all-knowing old soul knew it to be.