Month: February 2017

A huge THANK YOU to each and everyone of you who has taken part in #ROCKloveSG, our self-love contest. You can view some of the entries here.

Congratulations to the winners:

(in no particular order)

Siti Syafawati (@itsredsummer)

Self love to me is being silly and happy without thinking too much of what others might think. Self love to me is doing the things that makes me feel good and not because I am force to. Self love to me is forgiving myself for making mistakes because, for real, no one really has their shit together. Self love to me is loving the way I look even if others don’t agree. My mind and body belongs to me if I don’t love myself than who will?

Siti wins the styling session with Drea Chong at adidas Originals.

Germaine Lim (@gerpig)

Words cut like a blade. When the past starts coming back to haunt then one will realise how secure or insecure one is. For me, it was insecurity.

Today my long walk was for me to calm my thoughts and breathe in some air of positivity. I finally found some inspiration to pen my thoughts down so here is my submission for #rocklovesg @rockthenakedtruthsg

What is self love to me?

It is a conscious decision every moment every day to treat yourself with dignity, respect amd tender loving care. Some days are easier than others but this is more so impt on days when u feel like u dont deserve to do sth u enjoy or eat the food u like just because.

Sometimes all it takes is that 1 negative comment to break us and feel like we dont deseve to be treated well. When monsters start screaming in your head its not easy to get rid or silence them but “No one can make make u feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt

More often than not, we are our harshest critics. Even if there are ppl that see the beauty in us and really loves us it is useless if we dont see the beauty in ourself. Only when we start to treat ourself with the love, gentleness and respect we deserve will we then slowly come to discover the beauty within us and to love ourselves and accept us for who we are.

Be more patient, forgiving and gentle with yourself. Less hate more love

Germaine wins the hair makeover with Angeline Tan at FDP Prestige Hair Care.

Serene Gabrielle (@warriorprincessgabby)

This email has been sitting in draft for awhile upon seeing the the campaign on instagram. I wasn’t sure whether I am prepared to share my journey but if it can help inspire/ motivate another to hang on and be strong, why not especially when I have been so inspired by Cheryl.

It all started with one sentence ‘Your ass is too big to haul yourself up the canoe’. I was just 17 and those words came from a guy that I kinda had a crush on. I have always been heavy-bottomed and I never felt conscious about it till that faithful day which turned my life upside down for 7 years. I battled with eating disorder from one spectrum of anorexia to the other end of binge eating. I remember the times that I just because I ate a piece of apple. It came to a point that I hated myself so much that I didn’t want to look into the mirror and attempted to end my life as it was just too tiring.

Thankfully I found God and it helped me to pick myself up and it was the first step to know what it means to love myself as God loves me for who I am. However, despite being discharged from my eating disorder and feeling better about myself. I was still conscious of how I look and I was constantly insecure and it didn’t help that I was in love with who man who was emotionally unavailable. Managed to get out of the toxic relationship and I met someone whom I was with for 9 year. I thought I found finally happy and I thought that I finally found someone who loves me for who I am.

But everything crashed down on me… a year ago found that he has been having an affair. And his words stabbed me really hard ‘I am no longer attracted to you.’ I think that’s the harshest words that a wife can get from her husband. I started to doubt myself, started to hate myself for who I am, I started to question my self -worth. The darkest period was when he decided to proceed with the divorce and leave me.

Its been 4 months since the divorce finalised. Am still healing but through this process I have learnt that life is so unpredictable, and there are people who loves you to bits. Taking my time to find back myself especially when I have spent 9 years devoting my life to another person. Starting to do the things that I love such as working out, running, cycling and hanging out with family and friends. Alot of times when we get through our lives, we lose focus on ourselves as we are so caught up meeting goals and expectations set for us that we forget ask our ‘How am I today?’ To me, self-love is when you can find peace with yourself, to be able to embrace past wrongs and celebrate your victories. Am counting my blessings everyday, it helps to make me go forward each day.

Thanks Rock The Naked Truth for this campaign!

Serene wins the photoshoot with Cheryl Tay and a Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 Camera.

Michelle Lim (@fitlims)

For as long as I can remember, I struggled with my self-esteem. Because of my height and my build, I was always referred to as the “big one” and it made me very self-conscious.

I thought that I didn’t deserve happiness because I didn’t fit the image of what a successful person should be. I thought that once I looked a certain way or attained certain goals, I’d finally be happy.

After an particularly trying 2015, I learnt that my happiness shouldn’t be contingent upon anything. So many things that happen are beyond my control and I shouldn’t let my happiness be controlled by things that I’m powerless to change.

I learnt that the key to happiness is choosing to love yourself in spite of everything that might be going “wrong”; and that self-love is about living life on your own terms and not letting societal expectations weigh down on you.

Today, although my body remains far from “ideal”, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I started gymming not to achieve society’s ideal look but to achieve my personal fitness goals (like finally being able to run 10km without dying). And I’ve learnt to always enjoy the journey and always be happy.

Michelle wins the private yoga session with Angeline Yeo at Yoga+.

Rachel Lee (@rachxllee)

“If you were to ask me do I miss the skinny me, part of me I do miss it but that skinny me couldn’t do anything. At the point I felt the weakest I’ve ever been. Now I could do so much that I couldn’t even do in the past.” Read her full story here.

 

Rachel wins the workout with national high jumper Michelle Sng and an outfit from adidas.

I wish we could have given everyone the prizes, but enjoy your complimentary Dosirak meal (you should have received the e-voucher) and continue on your self-love journey… because you are important.

ROCKstar of the Month! This news came to me on a morning when I was dragging my feet into the office after a late night’s work and knowing I have to fight fires at work. It’s just tough. However, my face brightened due to the good news, though a part of me remained in disbelief. I know, I severely lack self-confidence. I still don’t believe that good things will happen to me and when they do, I feel that something bad is going to happen and my happiness will be taken away. This is how I have been feeling the past few years.

From a young age, I struggled with my weight – I’ve always been round, short and chubby. As a teen, my friends laughed at me and I recall eating only one meal a day when I was 13. I lost more than 10kg but I suffered from malnutrition and became anaemic, so I had to keep going to the doctor and the hospital. In hindsight, I feel so silly for doing all of that; my parents must have been so hurt! But hey, at that age, all we cared about was having the figure of a supermodel.

You can say that I was the apple of my parents’ eyes, but I wasn’t happy growing up. I’m the youngest in my family and my parents doted on me the most because I was the quietest and I obeyed them. As a result, my sister had a lot of detest towards me and I couldn’t understand why she stopped talking to me since I was eight. I envied my friends who were close to their sisters and I grew up wondering what I did wrong. I tried my best to put up with her temper because each time we fought my parents would cry and my dad would blame himself profusely. I didn’t want to see them upset because I love them.

Then, I entered two bad relationships – both with compulsive gamblers. The first relationship was short, though dramatic, and I remember going out with him in the middle of the night to play jackpot with my money till the wee hours of the morning. My studies got affected, naturally, and I was always tired from the lack of sleep. He was a bad influence and my parents begged me to leave him, but I would fight with them. Eventually it ended of course.

The second one was… bittersweet in a way. We were together for a decade and we almost got married. At that time he seemed like the perfect guy for me: not bad looking, very humourous, sporty and most importantly, filial. But we accumulated too much baggage as we went along the relationship.

He lied thrice about giving up gambling and it got to a point where I lost the trust in him. I became paranoid whenever he was texting on the phone. I started to pick on him and we quarrelled a lot. I know something is wrong but I didn’t want to give up the relationship that I had been faithfully holding onto for 10 years. Part of it was due to my ego, because I wasn’t getting younger and I didn’t want people to mock at me for being single at my age.

One fine day though, I decided I should be fair to myself because I wasn’t happy at all in the relationship. I wanted to be fair to him as well. It takes two hands to clap and I know his hands are still clapping to make things work, but my hands have stopped clapping. We finally broke up in June this year.

This wasn’t even the biggest of my problems. You can say that 2016 has been a truly traumatic year for me:

January

My father’s kidneys failed and he had to start dialysis. Seeing huge needles being poked into his frail hands and having all these tubes around him pains me badly, really badly. I hold back my tears, I can’t speak and all I can do is just to hold his hands and smile at him, while whispering, “Papa, you will be alright”. My dad would smile back, albeit weakly, and ask me not to worry about him and to go home and have some food. I know he is just putting on a brave front to make me feel better.

February

My sister is diabetic and her stubborn character caused her condition to worsen, to a point where she had to be admitted to hospital for severe pneumonia. Both her lungs are 90% damaged! She was put into induced coma and had to be supported by respiratory machines. In short, it was a near death situation.

I was in rude shock when I saw her with all these tubes and I froze, while the tears kept falling profusely. I talked to her, begging her to wake up, but she remained motionless. At that juncture, I was so scared that I was going to lose her. This continued for two long weeks and the family was under a lot of stress.

My parents were devastated – my dad refused to go for his dialysis and my mom kept holding vigil outside ICU for fear that something might happen. I had to remain the strong one, so I continued to put on a brave front, repeatedly reassuring them that my sister was doing well even though I wasn’t sure. I had many sleepness nights because I was afraid I might miss a call from the hospital. Each time the phone rang, I would get so paranoid. Thankfully, she finally woke up and all is well now. We have also learnt to cherish each other.

April

News of company restructuring surfaced – that my department is being merged with another. Many negative rumours started to spread and I felt worried because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to me. I shut myself up and refused to talk about it, choosing to drown myself in work instead. The speculations went on till May and I remember the day I was called into my boss’ office. I was scared shit that I would be retrenched. Fortunately he was taking me with him to another department and I couldn’t help tearing. He saved me.

Isn’t my life such a drama?

To tell you the truth, I really hate 2016 and I can’t wait for it to be over. Every day I have to tell myself that “Tomorrow will be a better day”, “What didn’t kill me makes me stronger” blah blah. I need to continue to appear strong because I have to be the pillar of support for my family and hold them together. Deep inside though, I was getting more and more vulnerable. I broke down a few times at home uncontrollably and that’s when I realised I am really, extremely, mentally drained and tired. I need a timeout!

I don’t know how I got through all of that. One thing’s for sure: I thank God that I have my beloved Milo with me through my darkest day. To many, she is just a pet dog, but to me, she is my everything, my family and my happy pill! Without her, I might have sunk into depression. She is the only one who saw me breaking down in tears and the one that accompanied me through the many ‘cry myself to sleep’ nights. Nobody can understand my love for her but it doesn’t really matter. I love Milo very much!

Joining Rock The Naked Truth was a turning point.

I am not someone who takes the initiative to start a conversation, hence joining a new group on my own really takes a lot of guts. The first session I went to was a 5km run with ROCKrunners and I remember it was hot and I felt like dying. I was the slowest, but they didn’t leave me behind, encouraging me to push on. I returned and joined them for more and more events, and I grew to love the positivity and energy in the group. They make me feel happy and it gives me temporary relief from my problems.

For the longest time, I didn’t want to open up about what I had been going through because I don’t want and don’t need anybody to sympathise with me. Besides, I thought I was coping fine. Then on 30 September, for the first time, I opened up about everything at ROCKshare, the private sharing session. Before I could even begin, I started crying uncontrollably without even knowing why. After sharing my story though, I realised I DO need some support and I felt much lighter after opening up.

Through RTNT, I’ve learnt that it is ok for the strong not to be ok at times. It’s ok for the strong to be vulnerable and lean on someone for support. I thought shopping will buy me some happiness, so I indulged in it. But such material happiness are soon forgotten.

Everything happens for a reason and every single story has a lesson to be learnt. I learnt not to hate and I learnt to forgive. Most importantly, I learnt to love myself more.

I am not fully recovered from all the emotional damage and it will take time, but I know I am walking towards the light. I know I have the courage to face my life. I know I am surrounded by love from my parents, Milo, friends and the ROCKfamily. I am happy and contented, and I believe everything else will soon fall back into place.

Life is like an elevator – on your way up, sometimes you have to stop and let people off. My elevator is now filled with abundant love because of you. To my dearest ROCKfamily, this is for you.

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ROCKstar of the Month is a monthly award given to an inspiring individual who advocates a positive mindset and living an active lifestyle (see full requirements below). 

Requirements to be a ROCKstar of the Month awardee:

• SUPPORT – Believes strongly in the movement and advocates the right mindset
• INFLUENCE – Displays ability to be a positive influence to those around him/her
• ENTHUSIASM – Regularly attends Rock The Naked Truth events
• LEADS BY EXAMPLE – Demonstrates desire to improve lifestyle aligned with the movement
• CONTRIBUTION – Does his/her part to give back to the movement