Introducing — The Mess With A Message
Neha Sonney is the author of the #1 bestselling book Wired For Self-Love: 11 Strategies To Free Yourself From Your Past, Embrace Your True Identity & Build Unshakeable Confidence.
Hello and Namaste to all the writers at Illumination. Thank you Dr Mehmet Yildiz for the invitation to write my bio and introduce myself.
I’m a chai-sipping dream catcher-making channel for endless ideas per day, more than a person can handle in one life time. I’m looking to clone myself. Anyone willing to volunteer here? :)
I’m Neha. I’m a happy person who loves seeing others happy and I’m happy for you.
That wasn’t always the case. In fact, if I told you I was bitter, angry upset, negative and critical, you wouldn’t believe me. But that’s was me in a past life.
Your eyes are very easy to trick. I wish I had a before “fat” and after “fit” picture for you to see the difference. But sadly I was never fat either. Lol. Sorry, I got no photos for you.
My fitness was not a problem. On the outside, I looked exactly as I do now.
But I was a sad human. And all I brought in my life was sadness. I was sad because I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life — work, relationships, friendships. Nothing worked for me.
You know why? Because emotionally, I was in a lot of pain for which I didn’t want to take responsibility. So I was unconsciously taking the easy route.
The Blame Train…
that took me nowhere. It kept going in circles. I was stuck in the same situation…
For a decade! 10 years!. That’s 3650 days! 87,600 hours.
What a waste of precious time, right? But that was not enough to shake me out of my slumber.
What shook me was catching myself messing up a brand new life. And I remember I had promised myself I wouldn’t do that. I promised myself I’d be a different mom. A moment in the summer of 2008 changed the trajectory of my life. I had to change from an abusive mother to a kind, loving and caring one. I didn’t know how I was going to do that. I don’t give myself a plan B — It’s do or die. I was determined.
That day I got off the blame train. I got into the driver’s seat of my life. I drove through the rockiest of life’s paths and endless dark tunnels for 13 years. I reparented myself, resolved to meditate and be a better mother.
You know what? Even though there was no one by my side, I felt my presence as my quiet strength, whispering to me “You can do this. You got this. I believe in you!”
That’s was the fuel in my life to keep pushing through when it got lonely.
I’m here to tell you this. If you’re reading these words, take this as a message from your higher self.
You have it in you to choose your happiness. You can decide what happiness and success mean to you. The key is to make that decision everyday. Everyday in your life is a commitment to show up to a better you that awaits you.
Your commitment to yourself is the biggest promise you can make!
That’s how I make promises. When you promise others, and you break your promise, it hurts them.
When you promise yourself and you don’t keep that promise, you hurt yourself. No one want to hurt themselves.
Keeping your promise to yourself is going to hold you, and only you, accountable for the results in your life.
You decide everyday.
What am I doing on Illumination (and Medium, and in Life)?
Dropping truth-bombs from my insightful pen that can cause to blow the mind.
Why do I love doing this?
Because during the explosion, which I like to call a brain-freeze moment, magic happens. Insights drop like pennies from an open sky. That moment changes you forever…(just like that moment in the summer of 2008)
I live for these moments. I capture them in my notepad so I can write stories that touch your heart, make you smile, inspire you or somehow leave you a better human than you were at the beginning of this page.
Sometimes they become poems. I must confess I’m a little obsessed with rhyming words in poems. I seem to enjoy them more. Here’s one I wrote titled Transformation.
I’ve been writing blogs since January 2016, and I haven’t looked back since. I write a column titled Matters Of The Heart for a local magazine that caters to the African diaspora settled in Hong Kong. Besides that, I serve clients looking to find a relationship or improve the one with themselves but feel lost as to where they can begin their self-love journey.
Through writing and speaking, I aspire to reach a wider audience being an advocate for self-love.
Where I come from
My mother tongue is Sindhi, which originated by the Sindhu (Indus) river in Western Indian sub-continent (which dates back to the 2nd century). It has a rich culture, vast folklore and extensive literature. Sindhi food is a mouth-watering experience. I’m a proud Sindhi. Sindh is famous for the enormous number of saints and mystics who lived there and preached peace and brotherhood.
So I thought, why not continue what my ancestors did.
I went to an Indian school in Bahrain where I also learned English and Hindi. I credit any and all my English language expertise to Mrs. Sequeira, my English teacher, because she was the irrevocable grammar (and discipline) queen at my school. Her presence commanded respect everywhere she walked.
I never met my grandparents from either side of the family
I think children who experience having grandparents are the luckiest. They get pampered. Most of what I remember receiving in my childhood was angry words from a narcissistic mom, no hugs or show of affection. I got food, but sometimes when she was upset, I was at the receiving end of her wrath.
Despite the trauma, I consider myself lucky to be alive, having fixed my messed-up relationship with myself and finding the most beautiful secure relationship where I felt loved and accepted for the first time in my life and continue to everyday. I’m grateful waking up besides my husband every morning.
Words matter — Your story matters
The words you hear over and over become your destiny. Angry words destroy relationships. Loving words mend and heal them. I use the power of the written word. When I discovered storytelling, it changed my life. Meditation and storytelling healed my messed-up relationship with myself. I became conscious to myself. And in the process, I was embracing my mess.
What matters is not my story, but the impact it has on the lives it touches. I am here because I want to help people believe in themselves. Without learning how to love myself, I wouldn’t be here writing these words.
I feel successful in life for being a better, kinder, loving mother to my son, my improved and peaceful relationship with myself in the present and finding the love of my life, my husband. I feel blessed if I can help and serve others through sharing my life experiences, wisdom and lessons.
Writing my book was a step in the self-love journey
Practicing meditation, storytelling and writing have had a huge impact in my life, as well as that of my clients. I would say each practice led me to the next. I’ve shared my journey as well as strategies to self-love in my book Wired For Self-Love.
Writing, especially writing by hand, as per this article in Forbes.com positively impacts the brain in the most powerful ways. Similar to meditation, it slows down the speed of thoughts. Cultivating this ability is priceless because being able to catch yourself in your thought process can help you identify the emotions that arise within you and then untangle ourselves from the possible emotional mess to look at the emotions objectively.
I believe the world will be a better place when each person takes up responsibility for their emotions and feelings, which would reduce blame, bullying, reactions, anger, manipulation and possibly wars. Communication in relationships would improve because people will be more at peace within themselves.
That’s what I want. For people to live in peace before dying and resting in peace.
From the messenger of peace, with all my love —
Considering joining Medium as a member? Use my referral link. I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, and you get to read all the stories from your favorite writers while supporting what they do.