Ah! Nanda

Ah! Nanda

Do you struggle with identifying with what you truly need?

Do you feel like when people around you don’t show you love or appreciation, you don’t feel so good, or maybe you even feel a bit sad?

Maybe you are depending too much on others to make you happy? Like you depend too much on the validation of others, the comfort of others, the company of others?

Do you sometimes find it hard to stay in the moment? Do you worry too much about the future?

Do you feel like something is missing in your life, and that a person may be the solution, like finding the man or the woman of your life?

I’m pretty sure you’ll identify with at least one of these questions.

How do they make you feel?

If you think these are behaviors that may need a change in your life, I’m with you. And I’ll tell you why.

I used to be a lot like ALL that. But with hard work, self-love, and patience, I’m not there anymore.

I’m pretty sure you will identify with some of my past experiences. Like, for example:

-->depending on the approval of others to feel worthy; like been totally attached to compliments on the way I look. May sound silly, but I was so into the way my body looked, and how I “presented” my image to the world, chastising myself for not looking “perfect”.

--> constantly pushing to achieve perfection and being hard on myself for not achieving it, like this time I was living in France, doing a master’s degree, and on my second year I signed up for a double diploma, and I failed on the final thesis, so I didn’t get the double degree. I was literally doing two careers at the time, and one of them was something quite alien to me; I was working different jobs to make a living, and even if it was a miracle that I was able to handle ALL of that at the same time, I felt like a total failure for not getting two diplomas.

-->anxious for not being able to control things around me, like when I moved to NYC and was getting these very itchy and super ugly looking rushes all over my body because I was looking for a job, totally new in town and I was clueless about what my new life in the Big Apple would be like.

-->continuously worrying about the future, like this one time I was doing therapy in NYC, psychoanalysis –very NY style ;)— and I had this image of me ending up homeless on the streets. Life wasn’t easy in NY, but I was far from being in that reality. The chances of me ending up on the streets at the time were virtually zero, and yet, there I was building in my head all these worries about an almost dystopic future that completely unrealistic.

BASICALLY, always worrying too much about everything!

As a result, I was an insecure, anxious, and melancholic person underneath a façade of strength and happiness.

And the mask worked just fine: I used to fool everyone around me. Not on purpose, but I was good at faking it.

¡Hola! My name is Nanda Abella. I’m 41 years old, originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’m an international affairs specialist and consultant, translator, and editor; I’m an actress and a theater assistant director. I’m also a yoga teacher. But to be honest, that only represent a part of me. And most importantly, what I want to share with you is not what I do, but why my inner journey started, and where that took me.

My journey starts 6 years ago, one morning when my husband walks out of the door. After 10 years he decides that “it’s over”, and he breaks up the relationship. It didn’t happen in a void, of course, but I was NOT expecting that outcome. At the time it was a big shock for me. I remember thinking that life had lost its meaning without being able to share it with the most important person of my life.

Why? Why? Why? I kept asking myself.

I couldn’t stop asking myself. I blamed myself for not being good enough. I felt literally worthless.

I remember the first therapist I went to in Madrid. After telling him about my breakup, he thought I was wasting my time. He said, “Nanda, if you don’t let go, time flies and you’ll end up wasting 6 years of your life trying to fix something that is over. Move on with your life.”

But that was mission impossible; I didn’t have the tools or the strength to follow his advice. How could I move on with my life when, at the time, I was convinced all my happiness was deeply dependent on that person being next to me?

I felt I was at the bottom of a very dark and deep hole. I was lost. But I remember there was something inside me that kept me going, pushed me to go thru all that sadness until I could find a beam of light.

Coz I had to be lost to be found.

But found by whom?

I travelled to India. Sounds cliché, I know, but it was the next step of my inner journey. I needed a new perspective. I needed a motivation. A reason. An excuse maybe.... In India I did a Yoga Teacher’s Training and travelled around. I had lots of time to be with myself. Alone. It wasn’t easy to listen to the voices within me…the noise…the pain, the anxiety.

I came back home a yoga teacher, but most importantly, I came back with a simple yet useful road map that helped me reconnect with myself, having explored the importance of breathing and meditating, inhabiting my body with awareness and patience.

My second therapist in Madrid, Gema, said to me once: “Nanda, stop trying to figure out why your ex took that decision. That’s his process, not yours. Your process is about connecting with how YOU feel because of what happened.”

That hit me.
It seems so obvious now, saying it out loud, but I’m telling you, that was a discovery.
I was so focused on the OTHER, that I wasn´t truly connecting with how I felt. The more time I spent trying to figure out how the other behaved using my own way of seeing things, the more time I was wasting in a futile exercise, and I was fooling myself on top of that. Coz that was not the perspective I needed. The authentic road I had to take was the one leading inside me: how I felt, how I saw things, how I acted or reacted, how I made myself responsible for my life.

I was putting all the responsibility outside
I was leaving the solution outside

I rendered myself powerless.

So I decided to reclaim my power. To stop depending entirely on others to make me happy. I continued learning and teaching yoga; I started mediating every day; I trained as a Reiki healer; started practicing martial arts (Maha Kuk sool, Tai Chi, Qi Gong), writing, reading from different spiritual sources, teachers, and life stories; and spending a lot of time with myself. In silence.

And in the process, I’ve been learning some lessons that are helping me live a fuller more meaningful life. And I realized that every time I share some of my discoveries, my experiences, they also seem to be very useful for the people I shared them with.

I learnt that happiness –or something along those lines— lies first and foremost within ME:
• The more I know myself
• The more respect I have towards myself
• The more self-compassionate I am
• The more I live in MY present moment
• The more grounded I am
• The more I open my eyes and ears to see and listen carefully all that is inside and around me
• The more time I spend in silence

The better I become.

Because, funny enough, the more patient and loving I am toward myself, the better person I am regarding others. Coz, how can I express love, show respect, be patient, compassionate, understanding toward other people if I don’t practice it towards myself first?

The road is long, and the path is what matters. It’s about enjoying the ride, making mistakes, and growing as a person to become day by day, a better version of oneself.

I invite you to walk the road together. Each of us have our own unique path but sharing our experiences along the way can help us grow. I don´t believe in others giving us the answers. I believe in the inner process of finding the answers ourselves. However, I also believe that sharing is key to expanding our horizons, to bring a fresh perspective to our life. So, I invite you to be part of project Ah! Nanda: I’ll bring ideas, questions, stories, and resources that may help you find the answers you need. But I want to build with you a space for sharing, a sort of “give and take” where you can also share your experiences, so what may have worked for you, may work for someone else. Let´s create a community of people with the courage to ask today’s necessary questions and the curiosity to look for different types of answers to the challenges we face in the journey of becoming a better version of ourselves.

I honestly feel it is time to connect and grow together, as a community of people who care about others, about the planet we’re living in and about working towards a better future for all.

Let’s hit the road.

This is, after all, a story about finding the love of your life.

The real YOU.