2020 – A Downhill Slide or a Steep Mountain Ridge?
- Márta
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 9 hours ago
Every woman faces struggles in life.
Some smaller, some larger, depending partly on the package we arrive on Earth with:
budget, mid-range, or fully loaded.
You may have the fully loaded background and excellent packaging, but unfortunately that does not mean inner radiance comes as standard equipment.
In fact, I don't think a woman has ever been born on this planet who was one hundred percent satisfied with herself.
We carry trauma across years — perhaps even across lives and generations.
We pass it on too.
We inherit it.
Hide it.
Push it down.
Try to wave it away.
And we fill our lives with substitute behaviours while suppressing pain and emotion.
As women, we are expected to succeed in so many places at the same time that even writing the list feels exhausting.
What are those expectations?
Be attractive.
Well groomed.
Always put together.
Be informed and intelligent — but don't be a know-it-all because nobody likes that.
Be sensitive.
Kind.
Polite.
Obedient.
Domestic.
A woman's “job”, we are told, is to turn the home into a warm nest.
More and more contradictory expectations are placed on women today.
And yes, I know:
Not only on women.
Men and children carry them too.
2020 was supposed to be the year of change.
When I read that somewhere the previous year, I shrugged.
Of course, I thought.
Anyone can project an idea like that onto their own life.
Jobs change.
Relationships change.
Feelings change.
Everything changes.
Then 2020 actually arrived.
Whose life did not change?
Everyone's life shifted in some way.
For me, perhaps the most important change was beginning to let go of all the emotional rubbish I had been carrying.
Or rather:
Beginning the journey.
Weights carried for thousands of kilometres cannot be put down in a few minutes.
There is still a great deal of work ahead.
Perhaps I am already beyond one part of it.
There are still limits.
Still walls.
But I only realised how many after I had already begun moving.
What helped me?
Many things.
In many different ways I tried to loosen my own traumas and inner blocks.
There is still plenty of road ahead.
I have no idea when I will reach the end.
External validation always gives me an enormous push.
Perhaps the lack of it is still my most painful and sensitive point.
A carefully composed photograph can help a great deal in moments like that.
There is also a slightly more “floating”, sensitive side of me.
Sometimes it flies very high.
Sometimes it falls very, very deep.
When I am low, it feels good to look back at these photographs.
They remind me.
They bring me closer to myself.
To my real self.
The part that is only about me.
At first glance, that may sound selfish.
But think about it as a woman or as a mother:
How many things in your life are genuinely only about YOU?
Very few, right?
It is difficult to find what truly switches us off.
We do not always notice the small beautiful things in everyday life.
The little positive charges.
I also fall into the trap of believing that if something does not last at least a full day, it cannot really recharge me.
But that is self-deception.
There is no universal recipe.
There is no amount of time that works for everybody.
Opening myself to other people and opening my soul is an enormous challenge for me.
Other people see me as confident and perhaps slightly crazy.
The confidence is camouflage.
There are things I can put down easily.
From the outside I may look completely relaxed.
But I am not.
Why?
Because I cannot fully let go.
Trust does not come easily.
Fear of being hurt often sweeps away every other feeling.
That is the road I am on now.
I am learning.
Constantly.
I am developing.
I allow people and new knowledge to affect me.
I am no longer afraid of the unknown.
I enjoy new experiences.
I search for challenges.
And I let more and more things enter my life in different ways.
I allow myself experiences that are about nobody but me.
I am trying very, very hard to love myself.
And I continue on my road…
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