Part II: The Hidden Bargain Beneath Achievement
The Velvet Pouch
At the end of my closet purge, I found the one journal I never throw away.
It held every goal I’d written since 2008.
I had categories like family, health, love, friends, career, finances, personal development.
I wrote down things like train as a yoga teacher, become debt free, daily affirmations like ‘life is easy’, India 2012.
One day, probably around 2011, I was lying on my osteopath’s bed, and he was asking me how my plans to India were coming.
Initially, I was confused.
Then I laughed and said, “I got so busy, I forgot all about my hopes and dreams.”
I still haven’t gone. Or become a yoga teacher.
At the time, it felt funny.
Looking back, it feels more revealing.
The truth was, I’d prioritized the goals that were easier to justify:
Earning money.
Getting promotions.
Going back to university for an MBA.
The dreams that nourished me were always waiting patiently for “someday.”
At the back of the journal, I found a small velvet pouch with a folded piece of paper and a picture of my maternal grandmother.
It listed my values: joy, spirited, ease, abundance, freedom, health, love, authenticity, honesty, integrity, creativity.
It defined success as: affluent through my creative endeavors and doing my inspired work and being recognized as one of the respected leaders in my field.
Even my dreams were organized around safety.
And then there was the picture of grandma.
Inherited Rules
The picture of my grandma with my version of success felt meaningful.
Even though it wasn’t intentional or conscious, I think we store things together that matter.
My grandma represented safety. A way of being.
Strong.
Resilient.
Independent.
I always admired how she rescued my mom and her siblings, overcoming so much in the process.
Maybe I had unconsciously linked safety with self-reliance. Worth with hard work. Respect with perseverance.
It’s ironic that the values in the velvet pouch weren’t independence and achievement.
They were joy. Freedom.
My grandma got me.
As a shy, quiet kid, not having to explain myself was magic.
She gave me that gift.
She passed away when I was fourteen. We didn’t see each other often because she lived in California, but we wrote letters.
And her presence has stayed with me to this day.
As I got older, I learned more about her story. Her perseverance. Her resilience. Her toughness.
For a long time, I thought that’s what defined strength.
A part of me wanted to be like my grandma, but my soul was pointing a different way.
I remember being in my twenties and calling my mom after a yoga class, “am I like her?”
Yes, you’re strong like her.
She didn’t have an easy life. I doubt she had the privilege of sitting down and making a vision board.
She was busy surviving.
I don’t think it was a coincidence her face appeared beside my definition of success.
Work hard.
Persevere.
Be respected.
That doesn’t make me feel trapped.
It’s information.
It tells me where some of my old rules came from. And that makes them workable. Changeable.
It gives me a choice point.
Freedom.
Next: how those inherited rules became perfectionism