Naturally Me
With Lunar New Year still upon us, I find myself revisiting a tradition my mother started: obsessing over our annual horoscopes.
Will this year bring good fortune? Will it warn of catastrophes? Will any of this actually happen!?!
Horoscopes are not known for their clarity, so why bother reading them?
“When I focused my attention away from the predictions and started to notice how I reacted, it became an introductory tool to my story. ”
I would ask myself: What did this prediction bring up in me? Am I relieved? Do I feel seen? Am I disgusted or distraught that this could be a part of me?
As a person born in the year of the Rabbit, I noticed:
I have taken some of my traits for granted (compassionate, intuitive, creative)
I have rejected and resisted other traits (gentle, romantic, sensitive, timid)
I have put a few traits on a pedestal (polite, responsible, calm)
These reflections also helped me realize that I walked through life showing up as a reaction to how others see me. If someone saw me as a timid Asian woman, I made certain they knew I was good at boxing. If someone saw me as sensitive, I would stand and suffer through their harsh feedback. If someone dismissed me because of my calm and politeness, I would pridefully get calmer and more polite.
Sometimes my reaction was resistance and sometimes it reinforced what others saw, but they were always that: a reaction.
This left me feeling afloat, never knowing who I am until I knew who was across from me. I yearned to be grounded, to know myself no matter where I showed up, and one way I did this was to intimately relearn my story.
Now, I can tell you that I am a Rabbit because:
I choose to be compassionate in a world where judgment moves faster than the speed of light
I choose to be polite, gentle, and calm because those are the gifts I bring to build bridges between opposing opinions
I choose to be creative because it lights me up with joy
I choose to favor intuition over timidness because saying what needs to be said allows me to be courageously authentic
💬 SO I WANT TO ASK YOU
What traits come naturally to you? What traits are you shying away from?
If you’re not sure, let’s figure it out together.
