I don’t believe that if I gather the right ingredients, or spend the right amount of time praying, or send out enough good vibes into the universe that I can sway the energies of the world in my favour.

I do believe the rituals that I have adopted have helped me build a strong sense of self and help me recognize spaces and people who are safe spaces – the latter I just discovered recently.

My prayer time is private and I do not share my prayers or prayer space with anyone. In this time, I honor the passing of time, the growth of self, and my authentic self. This time and space is just for me, and I share everything mundane or life-changing with myself sincerely, genuinely, and honestly. Over time, I’ve learned when it was safe to let go of my walls, how it feels when those walls are down, and the gratitude I feel to have space for that. I thought that it was just during these prayer times that I would feel this sense of safety and freedom.

It turns out that I am lucky to have another space.

I think if I hadn’t take the time for this kind of mediation, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize other spaces of freedom and safety. Lately, I have been able to release my guard and let someone see my authentic self. Well, actually, I think he always saw me as my authentic self, but I couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge that.

You see, believe it or not, I am a very guarded person – a survivor mechanism from events in my life that molded me into who I am today, so I could function better – more effectively and efficiently in a world that had such expectations of me to do so. I have encountered people who have allowed me to show vulnerable parts of myself – my angry self, my vengeful self, my destructive self, but just glimpses. They were just short encounters to may be see that I was still human, but not enough to build an understanding of the authentic me. Even I didn’t fully understand who I was until I started my path of discovery over the past years. Even still, I kept everyone at a distance.

I hadn’t come to love who I was, and so, I was not ready to open up to let anyone see that. Then I found my way back to a special someone who loves me, and in turn, he has helped me to love myself. It sounds so utterly sappy, but I don’t think there is anything stronger than understanding oneself and finding love in that. To have an equal love for all the beautiful and valuable things and for all the ugly and weak things in myself is a powerful motivation to continue to live life. It’s an even more beautiful thing to share that appreciation with someone else and to grow together, journey together to experience life in the light of joy, gratitude, and excitement. Life can be so beautiful when the world isn’t veiled in darkness and when you’re not alone.