Bravo your Life!

03/07/2007

One of the few signs I could read when I arrived in this Asian city was “Bravo your Life!” because it was in English. Someone told me it was a life insurance company’s advertisement. As I battled with expectations that didn’t dovetail, loneliness, displacement, homesicknes – ask any expat! – I would see that ad regularly. The logo is a cute animation-style creature in blue and pink under the arch of the words, “Bravo your Life!”

I have now been here five years and there have been times when I felt I had no life, or that others were driving it, or that it wasn’t worth having, or that I just didn’t understand it. Sometimes I felt nothing; I was numb, in shock, culture shock. The truth was I was facing more than culture shock because I was dealing with old issues which had been invisible back home. They were part of the familiar setting there, and went unchallenged.

My life coach and I battled on, working through all these problems, finding methods of survival for me. Then suddenly one day I saw that sign again and realized that it might as well have become my mantra, a message from the universe to me, “Bravo your Life!” It’s my life, I’m alive, I thought, and wanted to laugh and cry at once. And what’s more, I’m living it; I’m in the driver’s seat and it feels good.

Of course, it didn’t really happen “suddenly one day,” but that’s how it felt at that moment of revelation. The progress I’d made getting into my own life in a crucial way was the result of hours and hours of emotional work, advice, courageous (if I have to say so myself!) new beginnings and steady honesty. Insights had sometimes come suddenly, that was true.

If you are reading this, then you are probably also a survivor. Be steadlily kind to yourself, but unremitting in your efforts towards your wonderful celebration, “Bravo your Life!”

Submitted by Melanie Steyn, author, educator & friend.