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33 Hugs
“Courage means going into the unknown in spite of all the fears. Courage does not mean fearlessness. Fearlessness happens if you go on being courageous and more courageous. That is the ultimate experience of courage – fearlessness.” – Courage, Osho
My birthday was on Friday 30th May. Honestly, it wasn’t the best start to the day. I received some unsettling news and went into the weekend feeling quite heavy.
The unknown was patiently waiting for me once again.
As a child I wouldn’t have fathomed the idea that a birthday could be anything other than exciting. I wonder how the adults around me truly felt about their birthdays whilst I was bursting with anticipation waiting to find out what presents I’d receive…
As my birthday was approaching this year I found myself wanting to put to rest all the versions of me that have walked this planet so far. There have been many. The feeling of a blank canvas. A fresh start. A new beginning.
I intended to write something last week, but as Sunday drew closer, I felt the pressure to share, even though I wasn’t ready. So I let myself off the hook. I created space simply because I needed it. No justification necessary. It just felt like too much.
What is 33 supposed to feel like?
There isn’t a handbook teaching you how to live. You learn as you go, only to realise that learning is the reason we’re here. To embrace learning is to embrace life.
Initially, I wanted to call this piece 33 Cremations. But the more I wrote, the more I realised that burning my old selves felt too harsh. Being harsh with myself feels comfortable. What came through instead was 33 Hugs. Because what all those past versions of me really needed... was a hug. A deep, warm, nurturing hug. Not from anyone else, but from the present me to the past me’s.
Cremation is sacred, yes, but it also feels like rejection. And while it’s true that many versions of me have died and been reborn from the ashes, this journey isn’t really about death. It’s about radical self-acceptance. That’s something no one teaches you about growing up, maybe because everyone, in some way, is living from a place of rejection.
What is waiting to emerge beneath the idea you’re still holding on to? What would unfold if you let go of how you think things should be?
People carry stories, beliefs, entire perspectives attached to their bodies. They hold a whirlwind of emotions inside. I write to honour mine. To acknowledge all the selves I’ve been. I think of Russian dolls. Each one nestled inside the next. Every version of me still lives within. We may look different now, but they’re all still here.
I think about all the fragments of me that live inside someone’s head and heart out there in the world. What parts of me are they carrying? What impressions have I left out in the world since the very beginning?
Life and death merge into one.
Death isn’t some final, distant thing. It’s intimately woven into life — so closely, we can’t separate the two. The moment you’re born, you begin dying. Each breath is a birth and a death, all at once. They’re roots of the same tree.
Death is one of my great teachers.
She’s taught me how to embrace change, how to let go: of identities, of stories, of relationships. Ultimately, she’s taught me to release my grip on the known and lean into the unknown.
To exist in the present where change is constant. To play this game with joy, but without attachment. To understand that everything is transitory. Even this body I live in — it’s not mine. It’s on rent. My time on this planet is on rent.
So how do I choose to pay this rent? Through how I live.
What do I offer as payment for the privilege of time?
To me, nothing feels more peaceful, more sufficient, than service.
How can I make someone else’s experience here a little more pleasant?
How can I radiate the qualities I wish to see more of in the world?
Compassion. Kindness. Empathy. Faith. Integrity. Courage.
So, what have I learned this past year?
Truthfully, I want to write something clever. Something profound. My ego wants to talk about some breakthrough, some shiny new piece of wisdom. But there isn’t anything new (that I can think of). I’m sitting here with my laptop, listening to an instrumental and I have no idea where this piece is going to end up.
More than anything, this year has been about self-acceptance.
Honouring myself through all the changes in my mind, body, soul. Not judging the choices I made and make.
I am learning to shed inherited beliefs. The ones passed down by parents, culture, society about what happiness means. For them it lives in the big milestones.
Get married by X time.
Have a noble career.
Have a baby.
Start a side hustle.
Have a passion.
Get promoted.
Buy a house
Drive a nice car.
And I’m slowly realising it doesn’t live in any of those things but in the quiet daily moments of joy.
There’s so much noise — YouTube, podcasts, social media — no wonder we feel lost. When we suspend inherited beliefs there will be a void. It feels uncomfortable to have nothing, numbness, an emptiness, because we’re so full and stimulated all the time. But in that void, listen closely, listen again and again.
What does your voice say?
I’m choosing to believe I deserve the best in life. Maybe for the first time, I can say that with more confidence than ever before because I’ve gone through most of my life feeling like I should be grateful for the crumbs.
I’ve taken people off pedestals. I no longer think anyone is more special or deserving than me. Everyone is a human with a story. That realisation lets me walk through life with a quiet confidence — the kind I never had growing up. I try to respectfully disregard job titles and accomplishments and focus on the person in front of me being a human with a story, like any of us.
A healthy relationship isn’t one with no conflict. It’s one where conflict is resolved, not avoided. Conflict is natural. It’s what happens when two people, with two different worlds, come together. Friction is inevitable. Harmony is possible. Healthy communication is a real skill. It’s not something we’re taught and it’s something I’m learning to cultivate every day.
Cutting the threads of the past is an ongoing practice. Grieving those who are no longer close. Or maybe they never really were and I just couldn’t see it.
I don’t have a clear dream, not one that blooms all at once anyway. It isn’t a finished crystal clear picture. I’m finding out who I am as life presents itself to me. I look at my relationship and see how much I’ve softened. How much I’ve opened. Because I feel safe. It’s a lifelong journey—this emotional regulation, this curiosity, this choosing to date each other again and again. Small pockets of intimacy, that’s what it is. Kissing each other. Gazing. Squeezing each other’s hands three times to say I love you while watching TV or sitting quietly on the train. Asking each other new questions.
Loving myself means using my voice. Setting boundaries. Choosing not to step into places I don’t wish to be because I value myself enough not to.
And so here I am again, in the unknown. A new age. A new chapter. But even age — that’s just an illusion. A milestone we created to keep life neat and linear.
Letting go of the grip age has on us frees us to just be.
To be who we are in this moment. Without the whispers
“I should be married by now.”
“I should have a house.”
“I should be further along.”
I watch friends making choices. Some that free them, some that trap them. Every choice either expands us into more of who we truly are or contracts us into someone we no longer recognise. Unfortunately I see some of them become more and more disconnected from who they are.
We grasp for control: routines, disciplines, habits.
They seem helpful — but often they’re just quieter forms of self-punishment.
They keep us from asking the bigger questions.
Because the bigger questions would mean confronting the lies we’ve been told — by family, by society.
Noticing the new struggles that weren’t there with previous birthdays.
And so, at 33, the only thing I’m really sure of is:
I don’t know anything. Not really.
I think I’ll always have more questions than answers.
Just as I finish writing this sentence my brother walks in and shares a story of how he met someone at the clothes store who stayed at Osho’s ashram and studied with him back in the day.
Funny.
I started this piece with a quote from Osho a number of weeks ago and now it’s ending with an unexpected story from Osho. I guess one thing I have been paying attention to a lot more this past year is small synchronicities like that.
Little nudges from life that say “you’re on the right path”.
With love,
V
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Yes, paying attention to the synchronicities. And to slow down enough to even notice them in the first place. Loved this piece.