Tag: growth

Whole.

Jessica BardLeave a comment

For the past four years, I have felt like there were two ‘me’s.’

–

There was the me that always was—

the one who was quiet but kind,

overthought everything I said,

craved time alone more than company.

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The one who held more space for others’ opinions

than for my own thoughts about who I was.

–

I lacked boundaries,

yet kept everyone at a distance—

never sure how to protect myself

without shutting the world out.

–

I was exhausted and anxious,

trying to always know better,

please everyone,

be everything I thought I should be.

–

But then I moved—

to a country where nobody knew this “me.”

–

Without the weight of old expectations,

I saw myself more clearly than ever before.

–

With no familiar voices telling me who I was, 

I finally began to listen to myself.

And slowly, a new “me” began to emerge.

–

The me who is brave and soft,

who speaks with intention rather than perfection.

The one who craves quality time with the people I love,

and leaves with a smile on my face.

The one who looks inward for guidance

and accepts that not everyone will like what I find there.

–

I no longer keep people at arm’s length.

I let them see me, the real me—because now, I see myself too.

–

I am still kind, and sometimes quiet,

but now with strength and purpose.

I surprise myself with my resilience.

I have found a greater love for myself,

and through this, a greater capacity for loving others, too.

–

I feel overwhelming joy—

when I do yoga in the sunshine,

cook dinner for my friends,

sip coffee with my roommates,

laugh as I practice a new language.

–

I feel deep sadness, too—

when I go through a breakup,

miss my family back home,

feel lonely, or overwhelmed,

and sometimes for reasons I do not know.

–

For a long time, I believed that only the old me could exist in New York,

and the new me belonged to Israel.

As if I had to choose between them,

as if I could only be whole in one place.

–

But I see now that both have always been within me.

It was never about where I was—

it was about standing strong in who I am.

And once I did, the new me could exist anywhere.

–

When I say I have learned to love myself, 

I mean all of it.

The joyful, the sad, the excited, the heartbroken,

the strong, the fearful, the passionate—me

–

It was only once I accepted this—

that to love myself fully means one part is not more “me” than the other—

that I stopped feeling like there are two of me.

–

Wherever I am, whoever I’m with, whatever I feel—

I am whole

Because I am me.

Written by Jessica Bard.

The fear of being happy.

Jessica BardLeave a comment

“It’s everything I’ve always wanted, and now I finally have it—but I’m afraid.”

With so many years—generations, even—between us, it’s hard to believe that the very thing I’ve been grappling with recently is exactly what my grandmother just said to me through the phone.

Things in my life were going well. Like, really well…almost too well. But as every piece of my life felt like it was falling into place, how did I feel? Terrified. I was utterly terrified of being so blissfully happy.

Was I really so scared of being happy, though?

No.

I was afraid of losing it.

I thought of the times I lost people, relationships, things that seemed “too good to be true.” I thought of the times I felt blindsided or empty when they were taken from me. I thought of how much it hurts to know what it’s like to feel pure joy, excitement, and love, only to lose it in the end.

So this time, my brain wanted to protect me. It came up with all the ways everything could blow up in my face. My brain told me to keep my guard up and close myself off from being too happy. All to prevent that pain from ever reaching me again.

By predicting any future pain I might feel, my brain might think it’s protecting me. Yet, in reality, all it’s doing is forcing me to live with pain that hasn’t even happened outside of my own mind.

And yet something far more destructive is happening when my brain does this, too. It’s preventing me from fully savoring all of the beautiful, joyful, loving moments that make life worth living. 

I like to think of my life sort of like a heartbeat. Picture the highs and lows of a line on a heartbeat monitor. It shoots up high, only to drop down low, only to go back up. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. 

This visual helps me understand that as long as we feel joy, love and excitement, we will also feel sadness, heartbreak, and disappointment. The truth is that the more you open yourself up to good, the more you also risk a similar magnitude of pain. It’s simply the balance of life.

But the more we listen to the part of our brain trying to prevent the lows, the more we prevent the highs, too. And if you do that enough?

You’ll get a flat line. 

I don’t want to live a flat-lined life. The type of life where nothing ever truly penetrates some armor I’ve built around my heart; where everything feels just a little more dull. No—I want to experience every bit of joy, love and excitement the universe has to offer me, even if that means I feel the lows more deeply, too. 

Instead of focusing on the pain that I will inevitably face, I have to actively choose to focus on the highs of life.

After all—if pain is inevitable, doesn’t that mean joy is too?

So what choice do we have when our brains are telling us to run away and hide so that we never have to feel true pain? For this answer I’ll turn to another quote from my grandmother:

“Run with the good, and deal with the bad.”

In other words, we will stretch that joy, love, and excitement as far as it will reach. We will feel it deeply. We will revel in it. We will remember it. 

And it’s because of these highs that we will also have the strength to get through any sadness, heartbreak, and disappointment that might follow. When it reaches us, we will deal with it. We will survive it. We will grow from it. 

And when things start to look up–when that joy, love and excitement inevitably find us again–you bet we’re gonna run with it.

Written by Jessica Bard.

What Can We Learn From Trees?

Jessica Bard1 Comment

Having patience when building this life for myself is no easy task. It requires acknowledging all the unknowns and waiting for my story to unfold, however it may.

When I moved to Israel, I knew I would have to practice patience. I knew it would take time to get a job, create a support system, develop routines–to feel somewhat stable here. Although I’m definitely feeling more settled two months later, I am nowhere close to having most of it figured out. I feel like all I’ve done so far is plant seeds, and I’m still waiting for the fruits of my labor to emerge. 

To practice patience in my aliyah process means more than just accepting the abnormally slow pace of Israeli bureaucracy. It means accepting that it’s okay if I don’t have my dream job quite yet. That I have some friends, but maybe not a core group. That I don’t have plans for every Friday night dinner. That I still have quite a bit left to figure out.

Being patient is difficult because it’s in those moments of in-between that messy feelings come up. The anxiety, the stress, the fear, the worry, the doubt. Am I doing the right thing? What’s taking so long? Did I do something wrong? Am I even worthy of…?

Coincidentally–or maybe not (is anything really a coincidence?)–the Jewish holiday of Tu B’shvat came around right as I’m having these thoughts. Tu B’shvat celebrates the birthday of trees, but on a deeper level, it’s all about spiritual and emotional growth.

It represents the potential that exists when you choose an environment, plant a seed, invest time and energy, and ultimately experience growth because of these choices.

Tu B’shvat lands in the middle of winter because it celebrates the potential; the unlimited ways in which this next year can unfold and deliver beauty. It teaches us that the darkness of winter is where growth happens; that light doesn’t just come after darkness–it exists within it. That this is where the most beautiful trees and gardens begin–with just a bunch of dirt and rain. The dirt, the rain, and a whole lot of love and patience, produce infinite possibilities for the future, and that is surely something to celebrate.

There are days when I get frustrated with the pace at which my life is moving. It’s slow, uncomfortable, and at times scary, and there’s no easy way out. I just have to live in it. I have to inch towards my future and keep watering my seeds. I have to stop comparing myself to people who started their gardens before I did or had different growing conditions. 

Slowly, slowly, roots will take hold and things will start to blossom. In the meantime, I will work on myself and my relationships. I will figure things out. My story will continue to unfold.

I just have to be patient. 

As the saying goes, good things take time. 

And maybe great things take a little bit longer 🙂

Written by Jessica Bard.

Who am I when I’m just myself?

Jessica Bard2 Comments

I like to think I enjoyed school throughout my life, but what I really liked was what school did for me. I know I was never the smartest student in the class, but my grades were good enough to get recognition. I used my academic accomplishments to validate that I was not just smart or successful, but that I was good and worthy. Year after year, I buried my insecurities and anxieties in A’s and academic excellence awards. 

It’s been over a year since I graduated from my university, and I still struggle with the loss of my academic identity. Academics always provided a great distraction from my insecurities. It gave me a certain amount of control over how people viewed me. I used my grades to prove my worthiness, my capability, and my intelligence; and I was pretty good at it. 

Upon graduation, however, that identity quickly slipped through my fingers. I finished school and decided not to pursue higher education (for now). Instead, I did something I never thought I would and moved across the world to get a part-time teaching job. In this role, I was average. 

I was average, and I was okay with it because I saw it as a gap year-–a break from proving myself. It didn’t matter what my job was because I had a different focus; living and learning about a new country and culture. It didn’t matter if my job was impressive because the simple fact that I was living here was. And it was only supposed to be temporary.

Now that I made aliyah, however, I’m searching for a “real job” in the “real world,” and those feelings of inadequacy and anxiety have started to resurface–but this time, I don’t have academics to hide behind. 

Instead, I’m facing these feelings head-on as I navigate my way into the Israeli workforce. 

It’s both frustrating and humbling looking for a job when I’m not fluent (or even intermediate) in Hebrew. My options are limited to mostly entry-level positions in specific fields where they want English speakers. It’s difficult to accept that the positions I thought I would go for post-college simply aren’t available to a non-Hebrew speaker here.

I feel my anxiety beginning to resurface, but this time it’s zeroing in on job titles instead of grades. I keep searching for a position that seems impressive and proves my intelligence to others. I’ve worked hard my entire life to build this identity, and clearly I’m having trouble letting it go. 

It’s hard to let go, but I’m working on it.

The first step is recognizing when these insecurities start to surface. Next, I try to really think about why a job title feels so important to me (and it usually has something to do with wanting recognition from others). At this point in my life, I know wanting recognition from others comes from the deep-rooted belief that I’m not good enough–or worthy enough–without it. I try to gently remind myself that I am good and worthy and smart no matter what title I hold, or what recognition I receive. I recognize that I am only trying to gain external validation to heal internal wounds. 

I’m also trying to focus on how losing my academic identity created space for something new. Maybe this rigid identity isn’t meant to be replaced by another temporary solution (like an impressive job title). Maybe it’s actually meant to simply be freedom–freedom to let myself wander and grow and experience life for what it is, rather than what I think it should be. I am trying to build a life for myself with meaning and fulfillment, and I have to accept that it just might not look like the conventional vision of success.

I’m trying to give myself some grace (and have some humility). I just moved to a foreign country where I don’t speak the language very well. I’m trying to accept that it’s going to take patience and hard work to find a job that brings meaning and joy to my life in the way that I’m looking for.

Until I get there though, I’m working on filling this space with more things that heal my heart. I’m going to keep writing, painting, watching the sunset, practicing Hebrew, reading, doing yoga, and developing my relationships with people that bring light and goodness into my life. It won’t magically fix all of my insecurities or fears, but I think slowly, piece by piece, it will show me who I am behind the grades and accolades. Who I am when I am just as good and worthy and intelligent as I was when I was a student. Who I am when I am just myself.

My hope is for this blog to become a place where we grow together–instead of me simply writing into a void. In order to create that community, I invite you to scroll to the bottom of this page and comment any reflections you have (commenting and liking on here helps my website grow and reach a wider audience, which is really cool!).

If you don’t feel comfortable sharing publicly, of course, you can also message me privately as usual.

So, in the comments, I’d love to hear more about what identity(s) you are holding on to. How might it be holding you back (or pushing you forward)?

Written by Jessica Bard.

I don’t know.

Jessica Bard3 Comments

I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I knew exactly how my life would play out, where I would live, what jobs I would have, if I would go back to school, and what kind of relationship I wanted. I thought I knew exactly what would make me happy and fulfilled for the rest of my life. 

Yes, I really thought I had it all figured out at 23 years old. 

Now most of you are probably laughing to yourself thinking, how could anyone possibly know what they want at 23? And you’re right. How could anyone possibly know? We only come to conclusions and make decisions based on what we already know, so, why did I think I had all the answers at such a young age?

Well, I was basing decisions and projections for my future on my first 23 years of life. 23 years (many of which were spent dealing with anxiety and perfectionism) of following a path (a path that was likely the result of aforementioned anxious and narrow-minded thinking). My anxiety made me think I didn’t have a choice. I had to have all the answers, or else my life would fall apart. Dramatic, I know. So I followed the path for as long as I could. Every time I was confronted with a new idea worth keeping, I would shuffle some things around in my brain and figure out how I could repave the path and still end up at the same destination and achieve the same goals.

Since coming back to New York in July, I have essentially questioned every belief I once held about my future. All at once. I have no clue where I want to live–so I had a nice little breakdown after getting accepted for Aliyah and signing a lease for an apartment in Tel Aviv. I have no clue what kind of job I want–yep, another breakdown while job-hunting on LinkedIn. I have no clue what I want in a relationship, or if I even want a relationship right now–yet another breakdown (and breakup).

My therapist says it’s good for me to admit that I don’t know what I want. Instead of chasing after this image I have for my future, admitting “I don’t know” actually allows me to question if I even want these things anymore. She says when I admit that I don’t know, I actually give myself the space to listen to my gut (or my “Knowing”, as Glennon Doyle would call it). 

When I admitted that I didn’t know how I felt about my relationship, I allowed myself to sit with the uncomfortable thought that maybe this wasn’t what I wanted. Maybe I don’t want to consider someone else while making these really big choices about my future. Maybe I don’t want to be dependent on another person or have someone dependent on me. Maybe the type of relationship he wanted was just too different from the type of relationship I wanted.

When I finally just admitted “I don’t know” and sat in the discomfort with my Knowing, it was crystal clear. I had to end things. Not because he did anything wrong (he didn’t), or because he was a bad person (he isn’t), but because I just didn’t want it. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t right–that he wasn’t right for me.

It’s not easy to admit that I don’t know. It’s not easy to admit it to myself, and it’s especially not easy to admit it to a really kind and thoughtful person with whom I started to imagine a future with. It’s not easy to tell people that I don’t have it all figured out. That, maybe, I changed my mind.

But, oh, what a relief it is. I don’t know, and it’s okay. The world isn’t falling apart. Life still carries on. I can still create an awesome future for myself, and maybe that future will be even more awesome than I originally thought possible. I don’t know. And. It’s. Okay.

I want to say I made a mistake (or many)–that if I could go back, I would do things differently–but I didn’t and I wouldn’t. Every choice I made was the right choice at the time, but with new experiences and new information, I started to feel differently. 

I wish I could have all the answers now; to know where I’m meant to be and when and with who. But that’s just not how life works. So, from now on, if you ask me a question about my future, don’t be surprised if all I can give you is “I don’t know”.

Written by Jessica Bard.