Aadya’s Experience (Participant) [she/her]

As dramatic and clichéd as it may sound, I began this program as a different person, and I end this as a different person.  

I had just ended Work on the Self (WOTS), when I signed up for Work on Resigning (WOR). Having been introduced to concepts of self-expression, associations, and care, that aligned with my worldview, I was as confident as a young padawan, ready to take on the challenge of WOR.  However, by the time we began this current cycle, stressors from my life outside of WOR had peaked and my mental and physical health were falling apart. At week 5 or 6 of the cycle, I had closed myself off to the world (my form of coping), and was unable to engage in anything remotely “unproductive”, I was ready to quit WOR. 

So, how come you’re reading this? Why am I still here? 

I have no profound reason for staying till the end. There was something in me that just continued on. Every week, an hour before the beginning of each session, I would find myself thinking that I should just quit. But somehow, I found myself still going. 

Perhaps, in the end I was just afraid of stopping? 

Continuing on despite the stress and desire to quit, I found a change in the way I participated in each session. I had unknowingly held on to certain expectations of what “participation” meant, expectations like always showing a “perfectly authentic” performance or “understanding” all the concepts readily. With time, I found myself letting go of those expectations, and learnt to be simply present. 

Simply being present allowed me to start finding and appreciating my body and the memories it holds. I began to be comfortable with holding more time and space than I would otherwise give myself. I discovered that being authentic doesn’t always have to be an analysed, polished, and perfected idea that came from my brain. Despite letting go of my thoughts, I saw harmony in my varied impulses, as if coming from an innate undefinable need. It wasn’t all rosy of course, I was often late, unable to fulfill basic requirements, and found difficulty staying disciplined to structure. 

Nonetheless, for the first time in my life, I was surrendering to each moment without (over-)analyzing my surroundings and myself. The weeks flew by, and unaware of the passage of time I found myself a different person at the end. I believe all of us, Jia Min, Dameris, Ying, Xin Rui, Darryl, and I, we find ourselves slightly different people at the end. 

“Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it… that is your punishment... but if you never know then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing… an actor, a writer… I am a person who does things… I write, I act… and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.” - Stephen Fry

So, who knows what I will be next. All I know is, I’m excited to find out.