Meghan Markle's Thoughts on Turning 33

May 21, 2018 in Writing

There is no fairytale without a real story....

Borrowed from the thetigarchive. The Tig is Megan's former blog site were she shared her travels, fashion, love of food, and interviews with influencers.

Meghan's birthday post is a great reminder that what it means "to arrive" in this world is first coming to terms with yourself.

Birthday post from Meghan
In 2014, she wrote:
I am 33 years old today. And I am happy. And I say that so plainly because, well...it
takes time. To be happy. To figure out how to be kind to yourself. To not just choose that
happiness, but to feel it. My 20s were brutal – a constant battle with myself, judging my
weight, my style, my desire to be as cool/as hip/as smart/as “whatever” as everyone
else. My teens were even worse – grappling with how to fit in, and what that even meant.
My high school had cliques: the black girls and white girls, the Filipino and the Latina
girls. Being biracial, I fell somewhere in between. So everyday during lunch, I busied
myself with meetings – French club, student body, whatever one could possibly do
between noon and 1pm- I was there. Not so that I was more involved, but so that I
wouldn’t have to eat alone.
I must have been about 24 when a casting director looked at me during an audition and
said “You need to know that you’re enough. Less makeup, more Meghan.”
You need to know that you’re enough. A mantra that has now engrained itself so deeply
within me that not a day goes by without hearing it chime in my head. That five pounds
lost won’t make you happier, that more makeup won’t make you prettier, that the now
iconic saying from Jerry Maguire -”You complete me” – frankly, isn’t true. You are
complete with or without a partner. You are enough just as you are.
So for my birthday, here’s what I would like as a gift: I want you to be kind to yourself. I
want you to challenge yourself. I want you to stop gossiping, to try a food that scares
you, to buy a coffee for someone just because, to tell someone you love them...and then
to tell yourself right back. I want you to find your happiness.
I did. And it’s never felt so good.
I am enough.

How To Get Less of What You Don’t Want

March 26, 2018 in Writing

Inversion is a way of thinking, in which you consider the opposite of what you want.

The Stoics, a group of philosophers who lived centuries ago, had a way of reimaging their lives through a principle called inversion. They considered the opposite. To apply the technique, Instead of focusing on only success and great outcomes you invert or turn over, weighing the opposite to determine where your pitfalls, missteps, and obstacles lie.

The philosophers believed that by imagining the worst case scenario ahead of time, they could overcome their fears of negative experiences and make plans to prevent them.

Most of the time when I think about my future, I think about a remarkable encounter where my present-self meets my future-self in all her glory. The daydream is always me on a couch discussing big ideas with Larry King or Oprah. It ends the same way, “You’ve written a brilliant book here that has the potential to shift minds.” I nod graciously, button my Hugo Boss custom blazer, jump in a black SUV to my next interview.

And scene.

I never get around to reversing that picture. My mom raised my sisters and me on the idea, “as a man thinketh, than so he is,” so I saw no reason to imagine a counter to my well-planned out future.

But the Stoics may be onto to something. What do I think about when I think about failure? How do I react? How do I perceive failure? How do I prevent failure from happening by thinking of it ahead of time? Now, I’ve experienced my fair share of disappointment, jobs that did not work out as planned, relationships that went bad, and my first and even second book were not exactly New York Times bestsellers. If I had imagined each of this situations at the beginning with a possible adverse outcome, I could have rebounded faster or responded differently.

Today, when I imagine my goals, I consider all sides and remember just because I can perceive my demise it does not mean I have to let it scare me from proceeding forward anyway.

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The Startling Power of Fear

January 02, 2018 in Writing

“While I was fearing it, it came,
But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it dear.
There is a fitting a dismay,
A fitting a despair.
’T is harder knowing it is due,
Than knowing it is here.
The trying on the utmost,
The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.”

— Emily Dickerson, 1830-1886

Let's face it. The end could come tomorrow. Yes, the real end. The mind-numbing, debilitating, I-knew-this-day-would-come end and you and I would accept it just as we accept the rising sun.

What would happen if you made your worse fears a possibility today and embraced them? You would swallow every ounce of that fear and sleep like a baby tonight because you have come to grips with that fear as a possible reality and now there is nothing else to do but go to sleep.

A few years ago, after accepting a job in New York, I had a lot of unknown fear feelings. I had never lived in the another state before, I had never lead a team of people before, I had never managed before, and I was leaving a man I just met (who turned out to be my husband) uncertain if the new relationship would survive. These facts created an uneasy feeling of "oh, crap" what the heck am I doing? But in the midst of the downward spiral, I took a few breaths and remembered this was of my choosing. I was choosing to become a person who enjoyed the unknown, challenges, and the mystery that unfolds when you just roll with life's plan.

Why? Because it all works out in the end.

The fear reminded me of the risk I was taking and how choosing to live could work out in my favor. The fear prepared me for the unknown; it coaxed me to be alert, aware of my new surrounds, and purposeful in my dealings. Today, I look back on my experience in New York with pride, everything did not go as expected but I had the time of my life.

The startling power of fear is the awareness it brings to a situation, your muscles tighten, throat dries, fingers tingle, heart speeds up, and you remember what it feels like to be alive.