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A person wrote to me and asked me to tell them about myself.

Time is our teacher. One thing I am learning is that being asked to tell somebody about myself is one of the hardest things to do. It’s always been this way. When asked what my favorite color is, I usually say “rainbow” so as not to leave one out *laughs nervously*.

Feeling comfortable about telling someone my likes and dislikes hasn’t changed even after 37 years. I think it’s because I know that, in this world, differences are not always celebrated and they create separation.

I struggle with this, and as a kid, it did separate me from myself and others. All I want is for the world to remember that our differences are what make us who we are; they are not a competition between one another to prove what’s wrong and what’s right.

My likes and dislikes change with time, but what is even harder is when I say the wrong things in front of someone, and they suddenly start disliking me or disagreeing with me. I struggle with this energy as a highly sensitive person.

I know we can’t please everyone, and we must make ourselves happy, but we also have to be honest with what we struggle with and learn why we struggle with it so we can learn to grow.

In my family, children’s emotions were seen as a weakness (in that we were either silenced, walked away from, told to get our act together, or scolded for being irrational or emotional). I have also experienced this as an adult.

Personally, I cannot hide how I feel; my eyes tell it all.

I believe that likes and dislikes are usually attached to emotions and being expressive. I have also struggled with this immensely as all I want is for us to be empathetic toward one another and not aggressively defend or project our own issues on other people. Instead, we need to listen, observe, be heard, and respect each other with understanding, even when we share our differences.

What we have in common in this life is that we are all different and want to be loved for our differences.

We want to be heard.

I hope that, one day, we will truly be more kind in our differences, so we can all walk side by side with love and respect. Only time will tell, but I believe in the possibilities of better tomorrows and that, one day, there will be more grace in this area of humanness).

Finally…here is what I wrote.

Honestly, I am just a regular girl, just a human walking side by side with everyone else. I never know how to answer the questions that everyone thinks are simple, like my favorite song, color, clothes, food, where I want to be in the future, my goals, and so on. I often don’t know what I like and dislike before I’m even asked.

My preferences always change, and I tend not to try and hold on to them too much. Why? Because life keeps reminding me that the only constant is change. I try to be open to life and experiences.

Most importantly, I do not like judgment. Don’t come at me for not being a big fan of anchovies, for instance. I just wish the world was kinder to us all and hope that my voice can help others grow and feel loved.

I live in Switzerland and am Australian. I make lots of grammar mistakes, as reading and writing are difficult for me. I don’t know how to describe how I ended up here in Switzerland. I have been working abroad for 10 years and went where each opportunity took me and the wind blew me.

Eventually, I ended up here.

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I don’t like creating reasons and timelines in life. I think of it more as life just unravels, and I make the best of it as I can with who I am and what I have. I traveled the world broke, lived from under-the-table money, and had an illegal status in some countries for one year out of the 10. It was scary and out of character for me because I consider myself a goodie goodie. I never did anything majorly wrong as a kid because I was always scared to upset people.

As a baby, the first week I was home, I slept right through the night. Mom had prayed during her pregnancy that I would sleep and be an easy child as my brother was. At nine months, I walked to get out of my brother’s clumsy moves as he kept falling onto me.

After being raped, I lost the relationship I thought would last a lifetime, was abused, lost a friend who suddenly died at the age of 25, and struggled with PTSD.

In my mid-20s, I went through life numb and refusing to focus on what the world told me I should do. I tried to breathe so I wouldn’t kill myself. So I did a lot of things out of character; just surviving was the aim of the game.

Although there was always a smile on my face back then, the darkness suffocated me.

Ten years later, here I am, living abroad legally with a second language and breathing deeply with a smile and a sparkle in my eyes more often than not. The suffocating darkness is now working with my light to make me whole instead of overpowering me.

I don’t know what my future goals are, except hoping to help the world in more ways than one, give my daughter a good start in her life, and hope to spend some more time with my mom and dad as they are getting older—I am not sure when I will see them as they live in Australia.

I would love to hold retreats, teach more in person, and create more art. I would love to work in prisons and bring love to those who have never received it so they can learn to love and know that there is kindness. I would love to create a yoga community in low socioeconomic areas for free to help those with darkness breathe and know there is a safe place and that darkness and light together can bring us wholeness and purpose.

We do not need the darkness to go, we just need to create purpose from it so it could work with our light in harmony.

I wish I could do what Mother Teresa did or be a modern-day version of her actions, heart, and soul. She always inspires me with her good heart. There are no great things, only small things with great love.

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” ~ Mother Teresa

I love teaching, helping others make the rest of their life the best of their life, and creating soulful art and movements. It is my medicine, and it helps me breathe in the chaos of my inner world and outside world that often overwhelms me. My book is brave, beautiful, and open for everyone to read it.

Honestly, as I continually say, I am just a regular girl; people never truly see me in person. When they see me online, they often make up stories about me, which is unkind because they are too busy judging my looks and putting labels on me.

But all my heart wants to do is make the world more beautiful and experience each moment more deeply in this blessed, chaotic, beautiful existence called life. My heart wants to go upward in a spiral of kindness. It wants me to leave footprints in the sand for better tomorrows for my daughter.