Me, Myself & Life: Revelations of a Naked Self

By Sally Abou Ouf

In her forties, Sally Abou Ouf suddenly found herself at a critical crossroads in her life. An unexpected announcement of corporate restructuring confronted her with a number of serious questions. Would she: Continue her 20-year successful corporate career or choose a different path? Remain abroad or return home? Set up her independent life or stay with her parents? While being forced to think and act on these major decisions, she felt a heavy baggage from her past experiences weighing her down and limiting the way she was looking at herself and the world at large. She was made aware of this baggage only now because for the first time, she was standing confused as to which route she should take at this crossroads. To be able to move forward, she acknowledged her right to pause, look inside, and clean up the mess before looking outside and choosing the path. She embraced her nakedness along the process, stripping herself of all the crippling thoughts and convictions that were causing her to take decisions based on conditioned right or wrong rather than her own free thinking. Me, Myself & Life: Revelations of a Naked Self is a book about the outcome of the soul searching, self-discovery, and healing journey that Sally needed to take in order to free herself. It is a collection of her thoughts, feelings and the lessons life taught her about different topics related to Self-Acceptance, Appreciating Others, Relationships, Happiness and Moving On. Deciding to share this personal healing journey was meant in the hope that readers could find their own voice while reading and thinking about these topics. Sally also decided to follow this book with Me, Myself & Life sequels, sharing people's authentic stories along their unique journeys with life. Her ultimate wish is to make people feel they are not alone and to rekindle their inspiration to keep moving forward, knowing that others have gone through similar experiences and are willing to lend support through the sharing of their own story and revelations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098310035

Book preview

©2020 Sally Abou Ouf. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-09831-002-8 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-09831-003-5 (ebook)

To those who came into our life and whose impact never left us…

Everlasting Life Lesson

The toughest of all confrontations is that with one’s own self.

Contents

Introduction

Gate One; On Self-Appreciation and Acceptance

Topic One: When Blending In Means Losing Out

Topic Two: Just a Woman

Topic Three: Who We Proudly Are…

Topic Four: That Body We Own

Topic Five: The Naked Self

Gate Two; On Appreciating and Accepting Others

Topic One: Black and White

Topic Two: A Voice To Be Heard

Topic Three: Not a Saint

Topic Four: By the Book

Gate Three; On Family and Relationships

Topic One: Unconditional Raw Love

Topic Two: Just the Way They Are

Topic Three: Have It Perfectly Brewed

Topic Four: Let Them Be

Topic Five: Neither a Victim Nor a Villain

Topic Six: At the Background

Topic Seven: The Center of the Universe

Topic Eight: The Unrealistic Promise

Gate Four; On the Quest for Happiness

Topic One: A Book and a Cup of Coffee

Topic Two: It’s OK to Be OK

Topic Three: The Next Big Thing

Topic Four: It Only Takes a Smile

Topic Five: I Will Be There. And Ready

Topic Six: The Spontaneity of the Heart

Gate Five; On Moving Forward and New Beginnings

Topic One: A Prisoner of the Past

Topic Two: Dancing with Reality

Topic Three: The Inner Compass

Topic Four: Surrender and Let Go

Topic Five: The Time to Bite the Bullet

Topic Six: Chasing Phantoms

Topic Seven: Never Say Never

Few Final Words. For Now…

Acknowledgments

Introduction

On a rainy, stormy day in March 2016, in a large office cafeteria, the regional president of the company in which I was working announced the restructure of our region. This included the elimination of an entire layer of central roles, mine included, and the move of our head office to another country, far from my current base and further away from my home country where my aging parents resided. In less than 30 minutes, what started off as another normal office day in my work country turned into a day to mark—not just in my career but in my personal life as well.

Like a ball sliding downhill at full speed, elements in my life—once stable and predictable—turned shaky and called for my immediate attention to redefine. In a matter of weeks, I had to make radical decisions with significant ramifications across different aspects of my life. So that’s exactly what I did.

Between what was expected to happen and what I actually did, my personal priorities and courage guided me and fueled my march forward against all odds. The announcement on that March day was a call to look into my next steps and decide on what was important to me at that stage of my life. Defying the norm, I packed my belongings and headed back to my home country. I put an end to my corporate path and pursued a completely different one. I set up my own house and officially marked the beginning of my fully independent life on my own terms. I knew it could potentially be a roller coaster, successes, and letdowns. Yet, my eyes were set on what I believed, and that was enough.

Choosing writing as my path was not just because I had the skill and passion. It was my way of paying forward how it significantly influenced me to as many people as I can possibly reach. Throughout my life, I—like many of us—was exposed to major dramatic events, some of which were heart-warming and soul-fulfilling, while others were significantly overwhelming, given my age and experience level at the time of their occurrence. In the midst of those emotionally charged and mind-confusing periods, words had always been my reprieve, a way to center myself back and provide the clarity of thoughts and feelings I needed to regain my balance. Those words were not just self-written; they also belonged to others who were brave enough to share their experiences, so we could read them and pick what can be to our benefit.

The events that led to decisive crossroads through my journey, like that in March 2016, and the way they contributed to my own evolution made me realize that we are the manifestation of our experiences. Sometimes, even without conscious awareness, those encounters are of such impact that they cast their influence on our core beliefs and overall outlook on life. Due to their significance, sharing those stories and insights can become a powerful way to comfort people with the implicit message that they are not alone. Out there, someone, somewhere crossed the same path, experienced the same feelings, and was haunted by the same thoughts.

Sending this message is not only reassuring to the self but also healing to the soul. Knowing that we are not an anomaly in what we are going through helps us see how others have dealt with their life twists and what they have to tell us about them. It helps us move forward and beyond the stage of why and how this could happen, to what we can take out of it and move on. Sharing stories is a message of hope that we can. I am one of those people who was able to pick herself up from life’s critical twists and confusing crossroads through the sharing of words.

To acknowledge the significant impact of sharing experiences, I decided to write a series of books under the master title of Me, Myself & Life. Each book will tackle a major life twist that created a decisive crossroads in people’s journey and reflect their stories of how they made it through and what insights and revelations they were able to draw from their challenging, yet victorious, soul-searching navigation.