The Polish community in Norway is not only about work and public offices. It is also people who want to help others
On YourNorway we show Poles active in Norway not only when they achieve professional success. We also want to show people who are able to speak about what is difficult, because they themselves know what life with problems, uncertainty, loneliness, the breakdown of relationships or the necessity of starting over looks like.
One of those people is Magdalena, Feminine Movement.
Her subsequent texts are not meant to tell the reader how to live. They are meant to open a conversation. Sometimes it is enough to read another person's story to notice something in yourself as well.
That's why under this article you can join the conversation. You can write what you think, tell your own story or ask a question. If you don't want to sign your name, you can do it anonymously.
Because perhaps someone who reads your few sentences today needs exactly that perspective.
Don't give a damn, and it will be given to you
Magdalena, Feminine Movement
For a long time I thought that letting go meant giving up.
That when I stop controlling, analyzing, predicting and watching everything around, something will fall apart.
After all, you have to manage.
Children must have everything they need. Work must be done. Bills paid. Relationships must be nurtured. You have to think several steps ahead and preferably even predict what cannot be predicted.
For a long time I lived that way.
If I don't take care of it, then who?
When you're constantly on alert
The problem arises when you notice that this mode actually never turns off.
The body remains tense.
Your mind keeps working all the time.
You go back to conversations and wonder if you said something wrong. You anticipate others' reactions. You analyze messages. You think about what will happen tomorrow.
You try to protect yourself from disappointment before it even occurs.
And even when for a moment nothing bad happens, an alarm still goes off inside:
I have to do something.
It was then that I started to understand differently a phrase that may sound a bit cheeky:
Don't give a damn, and it will be given to you.
That doesn't mean you should stop caring
It's not about indifference.
It's not about closing yourself off to people, feelings or relationships.
I don't want to be the person who says: I need no one, nothing matters to me, and I'll deal with everything on my own.
For me, it means something entirely different.
It's about the moment when you can say:
I've done my part. Now I let life do its part.
I said what I felt.
I set a boundary.
I took a step.
I gave someone a chance.
I made a decision.
And sometimes I ended something that had long stopped leading me to a good place.
And that is where my responsibility ends.
I will no longer drag another person along
I don't want to convince someone to choose me.
I don't want to prove my worth.
I don't want to spend hours analyzing why someone wrote or why they didn't write.
I don't want to build an entire story from one message, a look or a few hours of silence.
I can't control what another person feels.
I can only control what I do with my own life.
And I increasingly feel that if something is truly meant to be part of my life, I shouldn't cling to it with both hands every day.
And if I have to fight endlessly for someone or something to stay with me, perhaps that's precisely what I should finally let go of.
Strength doesn't always mean carrying
I can carry a lot.
I can act.
I can organize.
I can look for a solution.
I can get up when I'm tired and take the next step, even if I can't yet see the whole path.
For many years I considered that to be strength.
Today I see that strength can also look different.
Sometimes strength is saying:
I don't have to carry this anymore.
And actually put it down.
Without guilt.
Without explaining myself to everyone around.
Without needing everyone to understand my decision.
I don't have to fix everything
This is probably one of the hardest things to accept.
Not every relationship can be saved.
Not every person is meant to stay in our life.
Not every story ends the way we imagined.
Not every plan will happen.
And not everything we lose has to be a loss.
Sometimes something leaves precisely to make space.
For a person with whom I won't have to wonder if I'm enough.
For a relationship in which I won't have to endlessly guess.
For people with whom you can be yourself.
For a life that doesn't consist solely of surviving another day.
I want to live, not just protect myself from life
I'm increasingly learning exactly that.
To live.
To feel.
To dance.
To laugh.
To meet people.
To create.
To love.
To travel.
To be a woman.
To have my own dreams.
And not postpone all of that until everything is finally perfectly in place.
Because perhaps such a moment will never come.
Life is not perfectly ordered.
It is a bit unpredictable.
Sometimes chaotic.
Sometimes difficult.
But it can also be incredibly beautiful.
I don't have to know all the answers
Once, control gave me a sense of security.
Today I increasingly try to look for it elsewhere.
In trusting myself.
I may not know what will happen in a month.
I may not know the answer to every question.
I may not know whether a given relationship will survive.
I may not know whether the plan I'm currently creating will succeed.
But I know one thing.
If something happens, I will manage.
If something doesn't work out, I'll look for another way.
If someone leaves, it will hurt, but I will survive.
If something ends, someday I'll start something new.
The greatest freedom
The greatest freedom for me is no longer the ability to control everything.
It is the awareness:
Whatever happens, I will be with myself.
And perhaps that's precisely why I increasingly like this simple, somewhat provocative sentence:
Don't give a damn, and it will be given to you.
Not as an excuse.
Not as an encouragement to ignore people.
Not as a philosophy titled "I don't care about anything".
Only as permission to accept that sometimes you really have to stop holding on so tightly.
Let someone go.
Let go of expectation.
Let go of the need for an answer.
Let go of control.
Let go of something that is already over.
And make room.
When you stop squeezing life
Maybe that is when you begin to really feel it.
You won't always get exactly what you wanted.
Life doesn't work like a vending machine where we put in the right behavior and get the ordered reward.
But very often only when we stop holding on to one version of the future do we begin to see possibilities we didn't even notice before.
That's why today I'm doing my thing.
I take care of myself.
I take care of my children.
I'm building my life.
I follow what I feel.
I open up to people.
I love.
I dance.
I dream.
I take action.
But I no longer want to run after everything and everyone.
I don't want to chase anyone.
I don't want to force anything.
I don't want to control every next step.
I'll do my thing.
And later...
I don't give a damn.
And I allow life to surprise me again.
Magdalena
Feminine Movement
How about you?
Can you let go when you've already done everything you could?
Or maybe controlling everything gives you a sense of security?
Have you ever held on to a relationship, a person, or a situation much longer than was good for you?
Write under the article.
You can sign with your first name, but if you prefer to keep your privacy, you can also join the conversation anonymously.
It's not about judging someone's life.
It's about conversation.
Because behind many initiatives by Poles active in Norway today there are also personal experiences, stumbles and difficult moments. Sometimes that is precisely why later there is a need to tell another person:
I know what it's like. Let's talk.
