I never thought it would be an issue until recently. I was trying to wake up earlier in order to have a mindful morning routine. As long as I remember, the last time I felt having a mindful morning was in 2015. I was a 21 years old, woke up at 5AM easily, went straight to the gym, and sat on my intern seat as early as at 8AM. No biggie. I woke up like a warrior every morning and I was busy absorbing new information and learning from everyone. I was full of energy, my body was in a good shape, and I could eat everything I wanted. I was ALIVE (yes, with all capital letters!).

And… Somehow… Getting back to the ability of waking up at 5AM without feeling like a shit is so HARD! I read on numerous articles saying that it is the “time” when people in their 30s are having less energy. We are tired easily, needing more time to cocoon in our beds, and no longer party like when we were in our 20s. Blame it all on the slower metabolism and our aging body. Oh boy… What are we? Dinosaurs?

I understand the effects of body aging, yet I just don’t understand why the act of waking up early is a problem for me. There are things that I want to incorporate in my life and I need my body to cooperate with me. Alas, it has its own way of doing things. My body and my brain are tugged in different directions, making me feel bad about not getting it done. I’m doing things in my career that I’m proud of… but how about my other parts of life? Like my health, hobbies, and relationships? I seemed like not having enough energy and time to incorporate them all in one day. I think I know why God let me stay single longer than my friends now :)

Jokes aside, I tried to sit down in silence and closed my eyes, listening to what my body said to me. I went to full meditation mode in one weekend and muted all of work-related things. I wanted my body to tell me WHY and HOW I can expand my routines to achieve the life that I aim to.

Here’s what I thought it said to me in a clear voice from within, “I woke up in the morning and felt afraid to be late because of real and direct consequences were being disciplined and humiliated at school. I woke up in the morning under strong presence of fear. Fear of getting on parents’ and teachers’ nerves, fear of being a failure, fear of not performing at school, fear of losing important things, fear of not achieving dreams that was written on my wardrobe.”

There, I stunned by what my body told me. For 20 years of my life, my ability to wake up early was driven by negative emotions and discontentment.

10 years later in my 20s, when I needed to cast the fear away and be brave of my personal decisions, I found out that there are nothing else to fear about as long as I kept working on what I believe in. I started to focus on the results of my work and I was not necessary expected to wake up at 5AM anymore. The motivation was gone, so as the routine.

Now, I’m stepping in my 30s and expanding my life beyond work. I decided to wake up earlier to achieve my goals for next decade. So, I need to set the right intentions for waking up early. It has a huge history which I need to switch from negative to positive.

I think… here’s what I’ll say to my body before I sleep tonight.

“I’ll wake up at 5AM tomorrow to nourish and open more opportunities. I’ll wake up feeling good, healthy, and without snoozing it.”

Let’s bring the routine back with grace and beauty. It’s the art of waking up early.

It wasn’t a norm in my family to spend birthday away from them and skip family prayers night. This year, I decided to stay in town and I spent the time with a close friend that is much like a sister. On top of that, I was doing a big project. Spoiler: the project was a success :)

I ended the night at 11 P.M. I tucked myself in bed (fresh, clean, and moisturized) after watching 1 episode of Sex and The City — with a memorable line from Samantha, “ I don’t understand why women are so obsessed with getting married. I mean, married people just want to be single again. If you’re single the world is your smorgasbord.”

Why women are so obsessed with getting married?

And, just like how every girls were taught by their mothers and grown ups around them, I was told that I need to be married to a good guy — the timeline is BEFORE 30 years old. I’ll be an old maiden by the time I hit 30 years old and (trigger warning) nobody is interested in having an old woman as a wife. This is a strong statement that was a reminder from everyone around me, especially when I landed to 25 years old age. And it got even harder to sit in family functions with persistent questions from the elders and constant reminders of how undesirable I would be when I hit 30 years old.

Here I am. A 30 years old woman. Unmarried. No boyfriend. No kids. Living in a rented apartment. Mostly eating from restaurant takeouts.

I wondered if there is only single perspective to honor woman. Will her value go down if she “failed” to be a wife and mother by 30 years old? Are women really not having options to value herself more than her domestic responsibilities?

How if she has a perspective where women are allowed to choose which side they are comfortable with? Not all woman are comfortable with cleaning houses and cooking in the kitchen. It is the same as not all woman are down for working in a corporate job and having meetings with their colleagues. It is just a matter of how she wants to use her time — and her life. None of these sides are higher than the others because it is a calling and a personal choice to be made.

Sometimes, social pressures really ate women’s decision making process. There were times when my mother and I bickered about how she wanted me to get married soon because every daughter's in her neighborhood starts to have babies and her friends asked her questions about when would be her time be.

There is one thing that I can agree on with my mother aside from her constant push and reminders about getting married soon. She shared to me about how she had dreams opening her own costume-rent store. She loved tailoring beautiful dresses, yet she got married to my father in a very young age and I was born soon after. Her hands were full for the next 22 years with 2 more kids and 3 times of house moving… she finally had her dream came true when she was 45 years old. She believed in her dreams and took chances on it. She said, “Dream big and chase it. You will get there, but you need to work hard along the way.”

And I did following her authentic advice to work hard along the way. By the time I’m 30 years old, I have not tied the knot and have babies on my lap yet, but I’m getting closer to where I want to be.

A woman that is confident and enjoying her life to the fullest.

In my vision, I wanted to be an influential figure where people see me as a role model that is perfect in every possible way. I channeled this desire through posting nice pictures in my Instagram and writing “motivational” quotes. I snapped pictures laughing with my friends and mastered the art of “fake laughs”. I knew my best angle and I posted regularly in my feed. I used Path (iykyk) to tell my friends where I went and posted magical sunset pictures. At that time, I thought it was perfect. I always portrayed myself as an empowered woman who pays her own bills and has a good time with her friends. I seemed to be on top my merry little world, yet I secretly always felt that I did not deserve all of this. I felt like a fraud.

I silently criticized everything about myself. My skin, my hair, my fat belly, my achievements, my family, and my choices. I did not know when it was started, but I really doubted myself. There was one constant thought that I had every night: I did not deserve to be happy and successful. I did not know where it came from, it just kept appearing in my head at that time. It felt like floating day by day, waiting for the time when I finally messed up and buried myself under the shame.

One night, I could not carry the weights anymore and declared in my Instagram that I would stop posting and deleting my profile. I wrote that I did not feel good enough and I felt really sad without knowing what happened to me. Some of my friends had commented in the post, saying that I was dramatic, ungrateful, attention-seeker, and other things that made me feel even worse. My only wish was, someone would help me understand what was happening to me without judging me and my thoughts. It made my heart broken when I saw the responses… I thought this is it. I would start my walk of shame soon and manifest the cruel thoughts that I had in my mind for so long: I did not deserve to be happy and successful.

Little did I know, this is a condition called Imposter Syndrome which is defined by the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications. This issue is largely affected high performing women for decades compared to men, yet the new researches show that it may affect anyone who who isn’t able to internalize and own their successes (read here). Apparently, I’m not alone in this world and it is quite common. Even famous women — from Hollywood superstars such as Charlize Theron and Viola Davis to business leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and even former First Lady Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor — have confessed to experiencing it. A Google search yields more than 5 million results and shows solutions ranging from attending conferences to reading books to reciting one’s accomplishments in front of a mirror (read here).

Back at that time, confronting Impostor Syndrome was a hard time for me. I was clueless, yet I knew I was not someone whom my commentators said about myself. So, I logged out from all social media and focused on my work. I felt real hunger to prove that I deserve to be truly happy and successful in real life, not only based on my social media. It was a massive inner-work and it did not feel good at first. I had to consciously remove some people from my circle and train my brain to pause before absorbing triggering information. I learned to meditate and acknowledge that I have flaws as a human. In the end of the day, I realized that I always can control my responses, no matter what happened around or within me.

Six years after battling this, I still have moments of doubt whenever I’m about to start new journey. Do I deserve this? — This is a basic question that will pop in my head whenever I’m aiming for something bigger than my position now. Here is how I speak to myself to answer this question with new perspective.

I deserve this if I’m genuinely interested to learn and bring positive impact to whatever I’m setting my eyes onto.

Thank you for reading!