What is the measure of success in life? What does success mean to you? Would you recognize success when you encounter it? This is a question that I struggled with.

We are all born into a world where we have a “to-do” list that is prewritten for us. The goals on this list, we are told, should help us find meaning in life. The society labels these goals in form of education, employment, marriage or even the amount of wealth one has accumulated within a given period! Unfortunately, when an individual is unable to fulfill these goals, they are labeled failures in life.

Despite achieving everything society expected me to achieve at my age, I was not happy. I had been divorced for about two years and I seemed not to be able to move from that space! I was stuck! Life did not make sense anymore. I felt like a failure!

What does “tired of being tired” mean? That is the question I asked myself when I received a flier from my sister-in-law 2 years ago.

When I received the WhatsApp flier from my sister-in-law, the message resonated with what I was going throughat the time. The caption on the flier read, “Are you tired of being tired?” That is what got me really interested.

I had heard of Alabastron 5 years ago from my friend but I wasn’t too keen on enrolling. We actually met when she was going to class. She just told me “I’m going for Alabastron”. I heard about it again from my sister-in-law 2 years ago. I had just had my third child and I couldn’t enroll.

I decided to enroll for the program after I saw the flier. I didn’t have an excuse this time round. I made up my mind to go for it. I had not received a lot of information about the program from either my friend or my sister-in-law but I signed up! [...]

Prior to my mum doing the Renewing Self Program at Alabastron, I did not understand what was really going on. I was bitter about what was going on at home – my relationship with my mother and father was not ideal and it translated to my school life and my personal relationships with other people especially other women, both authoritative and platonic.

For a long time I hated women! I did not like the idea of a woman in my life because of the pain my mother had caused me. Every time I needed someone, there was nobody there! I would go and hide somewhere because I didn't want to see her

For most of my childhood, I didn’t have a mum, I had a mother. I had to learn a lot of what I know from trial and error. Some decisions cost me a lot! There are a few times I sat and thought ‘let me approach her’. The few times I did, I would get into trouble for it. [...]

Why on earth would she be calling me? After all we had fallen out! In 2012, a friend whom we had fallen out with called and asked to visit. I was surprised as we had not spoken for years. She came and we spent an evening together. I observed that she had really changed! There was calmness around her and even though we didn’t discuss the issues that led to our fall-out, we talked about past years and as she left, I asked her, “What happened to you?” she said, “I went for a course. I would recommend it to you. It is transformational! Look up Alabastron on Google.” And that was it!

I went to the Alabastron Network Trust website out of curiosity. By the end of the following day, I had googled, and signed up for the Alabastron Renewing Self Program. At that point I was single and very active in church but I had lots of anger and bitterness with my mum, big sister and some friends. [...]

When I saw communication about Miale, I didn't think it was for me...i felt I was doing ok in my "God space" and that I didn't really require a program to grow in that space. I've done many programs and I just was not sure if this was what I needed I was ready to do "Revamp Confidence" which did not kick off at that time so I decided to give Miale a try...pretty sure that if it didn't work for me I'd just drop out.

Miale has helped me realize that where I thought I was OK with God was a mask because I had given up on having a real, vibrant and authentic relationship with God. It opened me up to a space of being authentic and real with God as my loving Father. [...]