Today is 21 years since my family immigrated from South Africa to the United States. Many of you know that I worked as a nurse for 15 years. Some of you might not know that the reason for that was because I needed a green card. You see there was a huge nursing shortage in the early 2000s, and becoming a nurse seemed like a sure-fire way for me to be able to stay in the country. So I did. I loved living in California, moving back to South Africa wasn’t an option I wanted to choose. I spent four years getting a nursing degree. Then one year working as a nurse in a hospital in San Francisco on a one-year work visa I got after getting my degree. After all of that I wasn’t able to get my green card through nursing after all. It’s a long and complicated, and personal story to how I did end up becoming a US citizen. And for a long time, I would repeat the story, of the hardships, the challenges and the let downs. I used it as an excuse for why I was working in a career that majorly stressed me out. I used it as an excuse for why I hadn’t traveled and seen the world. Or use it as an excuse for not living a truly fulfilling life. Until one day I chose to turn the story around. I learned about alignment and the law of attraction and started to really apply to my life and knew that I had to change my story. Now I can see all the gifts and lessons that came out of that experience. I’m able to be so incredibly grateful for my journey and see how it led me to where I am today. I allowed myself to let go of the scarcity and being in constant survival mode. I decided to choose to consistently align my energy with the life I wanted to live. I’m so incredibly grateful that I got to spend the first 19 years of my life in South Africa. I’m so grateful that I spent 12 years in this country becoming a citizen, and I’m proud of myself for all that I’ve created over the last 10 years of being a US citizen. We get to tell our stories with whatever perspective we choose. I’m choosing one that has me feeling motivated, hopeful, and grateful. What perspective shifts could you give to the stories that you repeat, so that they motivate you, instead of holding you back.
