5 lessons in 2025

top five realisations from a year of rest and relaxation

This was supposed to be a year of rest and relaxation after a life of being a doer but it ended up being a year of life’s greatest lessons. Lately, feel like my current life or rather the life I had a year ago, no longer fits me anymore. Out of the many learning and unlearning, these are the top five to take into the next year.

1. Boxing oneself into a single category is to calcify.

There are no limits to what one can achieve in life. Our life story isn’t tied to one path. My professional life began as a dentist at the tender age of 15 when I went in to my family dentist in Castleknock, Dublin on a work experience week and ended up getting a job which saw me through various stages within dentistry- reception assistant, dental nurse, dental student, maxillofacial surgery SHO, community dental services, associated dentist, postgraduate dental student, periodontist, lecturer and clinical teacher. I’ve lived many lives just within the dental profession.

I maintain I love dentistry but what I truly love is humans- their bodies, minds, emotions, and wellbeing. We are such a deeply complex and fascinating species. Out of this curiosity and drive to learn everything that is human stem all my other interests in life.

I also love food. To eat and feed. Food systems, food origins and food history but also food’s migration from sources of origins to places where it evolves to become something completely different all together.

At the dawn of my 30’s I discovered a love for writing. It is a perfect companion to my life long love affair with reading. Writing has made my life unimaginably richer. Its brought both clarity and comfort. Incidentally, I began writing as a way to process my thoughts and memories after I began long term therapy at the age of 30. It has taken me to wonderful places.

The last two years, my world opened up once more. To a pursuit that I have thus far been an observer but life draws you to places which are your destiny ( if you are paying attention). This time towards the world of art. I have had a deep appreciation for art and photography since a very young age. My art teacher in school was disappointed that I wasn’t pursuing it to a higher level in some form and I consoled her (and myself) with this; that dentistry is a form of art. This new avenue is still in its infancy but my recent collaboration with Hito Studio on Potatoes has given me a taster for where I’d like to take things.

Health, food, writing and art are all part of the human experience. Yet, people have said ( often behind my back) that having so many balls up in the air is a recipe for failure and that I need to stay in my lane. What exactly is my lane when there are so many outlets which make my soul sing with joy? I would also argue that it is always a great idea to not have all your eggs in one basket when we only get one chance at life.

2. How someone receives your love is not your problem.

This year has been a lesson in staying soft in the face of unkindest from people I knew to be my dearest friends and closest allies. It’ been a lesson in choosing love again and again which itself has been a unlearning, a few years in the making.

Over the course of the last two years, I have sat through many conversations on love being an act of resistance or a paucity of love in the world. However the same people are closed off to love sitting there in the room next to them. Problem isn’t the lack of love in this world, it’s the act of receiving the love that is all around us. How someone receives my love and kindness is not my problem.

My core is a hopeless romantic, and an eternal optimist. This year I really refused to let people starved of love dictate the way in my life, which lead to a mass exodus of people and a great deal of emotional pain.

One does not have to be perfect (I’ve come to learn that perfection is the tool of the oppressor, used to keep us down), but one does have to choose love and kindness everyday. If that makes people think you are an idiot and your love is unworthy, then the joke’s on them, because the wisest souls are always the kindest.

3. Growth is bittersweet.

There are no coincidences in life. Everything you encounter and everyone you encounter are in a string of serendipity. I have become more attuned to the clues from the universe as I have gotten older. I will find a book or a work of art at the just the right time, a trip will arrive as a moment of respite in life’s current dilemma. People will enter life in the most aligned moments.

There is so much synchronicity which our maker sends our way that when we pause and reflect, it’s a truly humbling experience.

However, the thing I’ve learned is to not hold on to current circumstances as a constant state. So, people may enter and leave, not everyone is a part of my entire life’s journey. A place might be home and then feel unfamiliar.

I lost my ring in October and felt like a part of me went missing. A devastatingly painful feeling. I have no attachment to materialistic things so the grief surprised me. Now I think I was mourning what the ring represents- the ring was a symbol of striving through no matter what life’s circumstances. I’ve made my peace with the material loss but the sentimental value of what the ring guided me through over the last five years is a bigger emotional loss which will take some time to overcome. I go to look down on it as a reassurance that everything will be okay and it’s no longer there. It’s like being thrust into an abyss.

As humans we love the path of familiarity and we are averse to change but the magic lies in letting life unfold in all its glory. We outgrow things, places and people, we evolve into a higher field such that its no longer a fit. This is a beauty of life, this bittersweet feeling of growth and I truly believe the ring has served its purpose in my life, such that I’m being propelled towards something far greater.

4. A seed sown may take many years to bloom and ripen into fruition.

I wrote in length on this previously. Your journey towards your future self begins even before you were born in the stories of your ancestors and in the lands which you belong to. This is somewhat related to lesson no 3- that life is ever expanding and transitioning. You may intend or plan to do something in life, but it may not reach it’s full potential for years.

Sometimes life hands you a bad card and there appears to be no silver lining in sight, yet it is these moments that need further marination, fermenting or germinating for your future self to reach a moment of peak.

5. Leaning into life with Tawakkul is a power move.

One of this year’s hidden themes turned out to be spiritual devotion. It began late last year at the cathedral in County Donegal on a trip back to Ireland. I have loved a Christmas time church visit to sit and reflect, light a candle for the coming year before leaving. A practice which was instilled within my Catholic Convent school upbringing and later in the church near my home in Hungary. I am not a Catholic and no one in my family is from the faith. Yet, I have found this practice to be soothing and nourishing but fell out of it in my 20s. However, going back brought back a feeling of peace to my soul. I can’t quite make out if this was a starting point to my eventual journey through spiritual practices of different faiths but in 2025, I got to witness and move through spirituality all over this planet. From Buddhist shrines forest walk in Nagano, Japan, to the devotion towards the Guru Granth Sahib, the central holy scripture of Sikhism at my close friend’s wedding in Canada and I hope to finish this year with an Umrah, the pilgrimage to Makkah for Muslims.

In the course of this year, coming so close to religious practices, my inner world has become louder. I used to find prayer and meditative practices anxiety inducing because I was terrified to confront my fears and limitations. However, for the first time in my life, it brings me inner peace.

In Islam, a central part of our belief system is Tawakkul. Which is an Arabic term meaning “to place trust” or “to rely,” especially on Allah and His plan. It involves making a sincere effort towards a goal and then entrusting the outcome to Allah. It is not passive resignation but an active process of taking all necessary steps while having complete faith that Allah will handle the rest. I have always believed in Tawakkul, but, this year was the first time, I practiced it with all my being. It truly feels like gaining a superpower, unburdening me from anxiety, and heaviness in way one does after deep rest and relaxation. It feels like an exhilarating place to end this year.

All images are from my trip to Japan in April, 2025- which in itself was a long time in the making and resulted in reaping and sowing seeds for many things in my life.