BATTLES

The toughest battles are fought within yourself. The past months were some of the toughest and most emotional for me because it was a huge career test and I was fighting through insecurities. All that I was certain of before were cast into a seat of doubts and confusion. There were so many new unexplored territories working in new cities, adapting to a new role and my hardest challenge was convincing myself that I can handle all the changes. Instagram quotes are good reminders but fighting the fight is always hard.

"When it rains, it pours" they say and that was how it was for me as figuratively speaking, punches upon punches landed on me and I was just struggling to find the right defense. Critics were everywhere and although I know that God is always there for me to protect me from unfairness and be my vindicator, it was still a huge test. 

Everything do happen for a reason and after this week, I'm armored with new knowledge and hopefully, wisdom. I realized that my greatest strength in life is not myself; but the people God had placed around me - my media friends whom I had the pleasure of meeting, who made this week easier on me as they were forgiving of my flaws with their encouragement and kind words, my colleagues who were always supportive at work and most importantly, my close friends and family who is my backbone. My dad always say that when your family is strong, nobody can mess with you. When it was the hardest, I always knew where I can go and fall back on. With this knowledge, I am truly blessed because no one can bring me down easy. 

I work for a company that encourages great values and around me are world class athletes and some of them truly inspire me with their strength, tenacity and humility. When I watch the ONE Women Strawweight World Champion, Xiong Jing Nan, in the cage last Sunday night, surviving an arm-bar  submission for more than a minute, I felt like it was a message to me that sometimes, we just need to push through the adversity just for a bit longer, and then victory is ours. You don't need to prove to the world, but just to yourself and make it your testimony that, if you survived all these uncertainties, mistakes and doubts, you've won the battle and you've leveled up.