It’s been a year since I’ve been 36 as I turned 37 a few days ago. From last year’s blog article I wrote, “Why Turning 36 Is A Big Deal, Especially For Women.” I had promised to report back to see what it was like to have two master cycles in Numerology cross-over, the life cycle and the women’s cycle, which usually create a significant transformation in life. Here’s the excerpt from what I wrote last year:
“Three key reasons why turning 36 is a really big deal?
1) Your master life cycle gets activated.
2) Your women’s cycle gets activated.
3) Your natural talents kick off into full throttle and they will help you grow significantly personally and professionally over the next 18 years.”
Generally, the effects kick in between ages 34-38, but the prime time is at age 36. I’ve been reflecting a lot recently over this, and to be quite honest, it was a tricky discovery because turning 36 in 2020, the year of COVID-19, with lifestyle restrictions, travel restrictions – limited movement all around of course had an effect on many ways personally and professionally,
I can’t say my transition was obviously outright but having thought about it more thoroughly, I can see bigger changes in subtle ways in my own life, on the other hand, having looked at girlfriends who also turned 36 in 2020, I’ve seen MASSIVE changes, pretty much as numerology has pointed out 36 to be a transformational year, especially for women in the most obvious ways. One girlfriend who has been trying to have a baby for years finally got pregnant, another who has been dating around bouncing from one toxic relationship to another met “The One” during 2020 even with COVID restrictions and is getting married in a few months. Another friend of mine has a third child on the way at the tail end of her 36th year, right before she turned 37 too. For me, my biggest transition was around self-acceptance and that broke down significantly in three ways:
#1: Motherhood?
For me, for the first time pretty much ever, I feel much more comfortable in my own skin. I feel more grounded than ever before as a 36 now 37-year-old woman. I’ve been able to answer one of the key questions most women contemplate in their life with more confidence, “Do I ever want to become a mother?” I’ve struggled with that, just as I’m sure many women have because for some women it’s a very natural YES! I had girlfriends who dreamed of being a great mother since childhood and I’m so, so happy for those who have been able to realize that dream. But for others like myself, whose answers aren’t so loud and clear, I had wondered whether the answer is there yet or have I somehow missed the signs or overlooked it. I wondered whether I was even contemplating over it because I’m worried I’d be missing out and regret it someday or was it something I fully wanted to experience? Am I feeling pressured by social or cultural influence? Or am I being realistic about my biological timeline? Do I TRULY want to become a mother, and if so, why? Would I regret it either way? There are SO MANY thoughts running through my head while I was knocking on my heart for more information over the year. It’s a HUGE commitment that I’m sure would turn out beautifully, but still, we’re talking about procreating life here so of course, it’s not something to be taken lightly. I was very honest with myself and my partner around this question over the year while being 36, and it wasn’t because I knew what it meant in Numerology, but on a very practical end, it felt time to. If our answer was yes, then there’s a whole lot to prepare for. The desire to become parents is a very personal decision that I don’t feel anyone has any right to get involved in, not even parents, siblings, or friends which I’m aware my thinking is a bit out of the cultural norm, but it’s our own experience that if we were to commit to, we should be all in. 36 has been a wonderful year of further self-discovery and personal development where I feel solid with my own answer and feel in total alignment with my partner about it. I’d say that in fact has helped our relationship evolve on significant levels. And I’ve become quite alright in telling anyone who has an opinion about it to kindly sod off, and you should too. See? That’s self-acceptance in action. 😂
#2: Healing My Relationship With My Mother.
Another way 36 has been impactful for me is that it’s given me an opportunity to heal my relationship with my mom who I’ve been on rocky terms most of my life. But truthfully speaking, even though it’s not great to hear sometimes, what we find issues in someone else, or don’t like about someone is a reflection of our own internal world, our perspective, and our understanding of it so I know that there’s work to be done on my end before I could ever consider healing my relationship with my mother. But something shifted during the year and I’ve been keener to do something about it. It started with me being able to see her and our relationship with a different, more neutral set of perspectives, which helped me understand her in much better ways. Honestly, there were times when I was a teenager I would scoff and get annoyed when she called. There were even moments I held the phone away from my ear when I felt she was nagging me for too long. I took her love for granted and I knew it especially knowing that not everyone is able to have a living, breathing, healthy mom around them but for years, I didn’t know how to remedy that. I wanted to, but I seriously didn’t know as I had a vault of not-so-great emotions towards her. In fact, one of the reasons I had moved back to Hong Kong from Los Angeles was to get to know my parents better as an adult (I had lived apart from them for over a decade). I found it hard to accept her in many ways but I really wanted to try. So over the year, I did some serious work that was definitely sometimes very uncomfortable. It involved a lot of meditation, self-reflection, digging into my inner child, deprogramming work around negative thought patterns with the help from my mentor, and a great deal of emotional energy healing work that I did on myself which changed things sporadically. My relationship with my mother has radically transformed over the year, and we’re really lucky to be in a much more positive place. The things that used to bother me about her don’t matter as much anymore. I don’t dodge her calls or texts like I did when I was a teenager. In fact, I’ve come to appreciate her and have been genuinely more interested in spending quality time with her. Our conversations have flowed more and it has become two-way. It feels lighter and natural when we’re sitting next to each other. There weren’t awkward silences anymore. As I’m accepting more in my mom from a genuine place, I’m also accepting more of myself. Healing is still a work in progress, but I’m confident that where I am with her now is just the beginning of a very positive direction and that’s seriously massive to me.
#3: Authenticity Doesn’t Mean It Needs To Be A Big Tell-All.
Truthfully, over the year I’ve become less interested in social media. It used to be such a wonderful way to catch up with friends and family around the world, updating each other on interesting news, The updates were heartfelt and it was so nice to see other people I love and care about were up to. I still so appreciate seeing those feeds of friends getting married, sharing photos of their adorable newborns, or of delicious food that makes me drool. That was the initial intention behind social media I think. But over the years it’s turned into a platform where people share, a lot, and sometimes it almost felt like a personal diary that was available online of sorts or a marketing channel and if it’s helpful to that individual that’s great, however, I used to feel a bit of pressure from it, because sometimes it made me wonder if I wasn’t as authentic because I wasn’t sharing my journey too loudly on social media. Or perhaps I’m just old school and prefer to save updates for in-person catch ups. But at the end of the day, I’m not a social media influencer and have no desire to be one, so this new level of self-acceptance at age 36 helped me reaffirm that I’m perfectly happy with when I wish to tell my story and how to without any pressure. I also feel like the word “authentic” has changed over the years, and in my opinion, it has been a bit overused and not as meaningful. Maybe it’s just my industry, but I feel like it’s changing just the way word “wellness” has over the last decade. I think quite a few people I know would agree too. I yearned to take it back to a truly heart-centered space. And that’s exactly when I decided to reshift my perspective. That moment was a beautiful reminder to me and I hope it might be helpful to anyone who also questioned or struggled with expressing their voice externally so I thought I’d include it here: Authenticity is living in your true state, being aligned with your heart and my heart feels comfortable as is, expressing as I am in moments like this blog post online when it feels right and there will be a lot of other days when I’ll be happily offline and very present in healing sessions where my also very heart-centered wonderful social media manager will take the reigns of my account. But what I’ll share, is and will be from the heart. I suppose this is when quality over quantity feels really true. Thank you self-acceptance, and THANK YOU for holding space for me as you’re reading this!
So all in all, during this year of 36, I would say I definitely did feel the cross between the life cycle and women’s cycle. My transition into more self-acceptance has been priceless and very timely. I would say my transitions were a little less obvious than my friends and clients who experienced age 36 because it took more self-reflection to realize but nevertheless the transitions were significant. And that’s what truly matters. That’s what numerology is all about at the end of the day, working with energy behind the numbers along with your free will so that it can benefit you in the most supportive way possible.
