15th of September 2014 was the day that radically and irrevocably changed the course of my life. It was one of those days when a choice between the red pill and the blue pill had to be made. And it had to be made quickly.
It was the first day of my second year of university. I was 20 years old and a proud student of the legal department of King's College London.
We hadn't even started the lectures yet, but it was already expected of us to have read a hundred pages from the introduction to tort law.
Hey, if someone asked me what tort law was about, I literally had no clue.
I had been faring reasonably well in my first year, considering that I wasn't a native speaker and the English legal system was completely foreign to me.
I wasn't excellent, though. And that wasn't very pleasing to my ego.
I was used to being top of the class back home in my school in Romania. Instead of being the big fish in the small tank, all of a sudden I found myself to be a small fish in a big tank.
I was quite disappointed, but I didn't want to admit this to myself.
"Keep going, no matter what!" I would encourage myself during my sleepless nights of despair. "You'll make it in the end!"
The second year was rumoured to be exponentially more difficult than the first one. I was not very excited to delve into the study of some subjects I couldn't even understand the title of.
But there I was, stepping into the first seminar of the year. Something in the air felt very strange, yet I couldn't put my finger on what that was.
Everybody started introducing themselves. Some students were priding themselves on having completed summer internships at highly acclaimed law firms.
"Oops, I thought you couldn't do an internship between the first and the second year..."
My utter lack of interest was contrasted by my colleagues' readiness to sacrifice their summer holidays to gain hands-on experience and boost their CVs.
Funnily enough, my summer holidays were of a completely different nature.
I had fallen head over heels in love, travelled around and started investigating some alternative healing modalities such as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and Matrix Reimprinting.
A new universe had opened up for me when I met Alex right after my first year's exams, and I was enthusiastically exploring its expanding edges. Alex was one of my soulmates and I will introduce him in more detail in a few pages.
I found that with the aid of these techniques, I could heal my childhood wounds. That meant that the misperceptions from the past didn't have to affect my current behaviour anymore. My childhood ghosts weren't going to haunt me anymore!
I also learnt that I had the power to reprogram my mind.
By employing these techniques, I could transform my subconscious negative beliefs into positive ones. I could release the stuck energy that had been stored for years in my body, which was weighing me down and making me feel anxious, angry or confused. The baggage of past hurts, regrets and grudges could finally be dropped.
WOW!
Simply put, I could do something about being a selfish btch and a complaining brat. I could work on myself to become something more than an arrogant twat and an approval-seeking slt. I realised that being a self-critical masochist and an overly perfectionist little robot didn't have to define me any longer.
Yes, I didn't have to be the copycat of my exceedingly narcissistic and controlling mother!
I didn't have to live up to my family's expectations! I could disentangle myself from the clutches of the destructive emotional manipulation I had been subjected to as a child.
I didn't have to go through so much suffering anymore...
I could just be me. Oh, what a release..!
I realised that, by changing the lens through which I perceived reality, I could enjoy life more fully. By healing my traumas, I could feel safer to be who I really was. I didn't have to hold back from expressing my real thoughts for fear of what others might think or react.
I could feel freer, lighter, happier...
All these revelations were like missing pieces of a puzzle I had begun constructing a year or two previously.
I could finally see a practical application of all the spiritual knowledge I had been avidly consuming from books or spiritual teachers.
It was no longer just talk - the inner change seemed possible and quick with the aid of those tools!
It was probably for these reasons that a queer sense of alienation started washing over me as I was listening to my colleagues' memorable achievements.
I started feeling like I didn't belong to that place anymore.
It suddenly became very clear that I had to wear a mask in order to fit in, a mask that was getting more and more unbearable.
It dawned on me that I couldn't be who I truly was in that environment!
Having tasted what it felt like to be more of an authentic me that summer, it was awkward to pretend to be someone else again.
I honestly didn't care about their laws and regulations. I just cared about genuine human interaction. Unfortunately, such a thing was nowhere to be found in there.
While I was ruminating upon these rather important matters, I lost track of whose turn it was to answer the next question on our worksheet. Apparently it was my turn and, as I was reading the question out loud, I realised I had no idea how to respond.
I was embarrassed and excused myself for not knowing the answer. My colleagues were already well acquainted in tort and knew the answers reasonably well. I knew nothing.
"Oups, this is not very good..." I thought to myself.
Panic swelled up in my chest. Sweat started dripping down my temples. My hands started shaking and my feet went as cold as ice.
"What is the teacher going to think of me now?!"
The programming in my head announced that a first poor impression in front of a teacher was going to tarnish my reputation and diminish my chances of success.
And success was imperative. It was an intrinsic part of who I believed myself to be. Any sign of weakness or failure was not allowed in the perimeters of my awareness. My mother had taught me well...
So the overall feeling of discomfort and overwhelm was getting more and more oppressive, and that wasn't all.
In the meantime, my phone was incessantly bleeping with messages from Alex, who was in Spain visiting his mother. Madly in love with each other, we got involved in a massive argument via texts. He couldn't have chosen a more perfect moment to bombard me with his upsets and frustrations.
Decidedly, it was too much for me. I had to run away as fast as possible.
It was so hot that I couldn't breathe anymore. I excused myself from the seminar on the grounds that I was feeling sick. I dashed out of the classroom and collapsed at the top of the stairs, phone in hand, desperate and jittery.
"What am I going to do..? What am I going to do?!" I was asking myself, taking a sip of fresh water and catching my breath.
Leaving the university building behind, I started heading to the bus station. I didn't know where I was going, but I had to distance myself from that horrible place.
"I cannot be in two boats at the same times... Unless I fully devote myself to law, I better not do it..." At the same time, I knew that if I dropped out out, it would have been a massive disappointment to my family. After all, they had invested so much hope, time and money in my education.
"But I cannot go on like this anymore..." Something in me knew that the path I started walking would lead me to a lifelong deep unsatisfactoriness and a mechanical existence. Was I really going to be a rat in a race that was not mine?
Surprisingly enough, a plan was already forming in my head.
A voice was imperatively guiding me: "Now you're going to go home, speak to Phoenix and arrange to visit him. You can take a week off university and decide in the meantime what the next step is."
That voice was like an anchor grounding me to the floor of the ocean in the middle of a devastating hurricane.
And so I did exactly what it told me.
I contacted Phoenix, the closest friend I had at the time. At 7 pm I was on the train heading for his place in Suffolk, a region in Eastern England.
It was going to be a tough week, I knew it. But there seemed to be no other viable solution. I had to take a break from it all and have a real conversation with myself about what the heck I was doing with my life.
To be continued...
If you missed them, here are the links to the first and second episodes in the Diary of a Free Spirit series.
Diary Of A Free Spirit Ep. 1 - Introduction
Diary of A Free Spirit Ep. 2 - The Inner Voice
I started writing this diary last summer, half a year before knowing that Steemit exists. When I found out about it, I knew I had to publish everything I'd written here. It feels like this platform will receive my story and my message.
Thanks for taking the time to read this article. If you resonate, upvote, resteem and follow me for the next episodes of Diary of A Free Spirit.
I'm looking forward to sharing with you the struggles I encountered as I exited the conventional path and followed my heart into the unknown, with my intuition as my only reliable guide...
... how I healed some of my deepest wounds and taken leaps of faith way beyond my comfort zone...
... how I reinvented myself and survived the dark nights of my soul, emerging like a Phoenix from her ashes...
... how I reclaimed my power and broken the chains of attachment towards toxic people, situations and substances...
... and many other interesting things that will intrigue you, inspire you, and hopefully empower you to BE MORE OF WHO YOU TRULY ARE AND SHINE YOUR MAGNIFICENCE :)
From my heart to yours...
Be You, Be Wild, Be Free!
Bristena,
#DiaryOfaFreeSpirit
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