Reflections on Self

Time is My Companion

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Time is my companion—
the quiet essence of my presence,
the unseen artist shaping my form and contour.
From time I have gathered my insights;
through time my soul has found its voice.

It is no wonder that as I move into my Autumn years,
my outer light softens, making space
for the deeper radiance within to emerge.
This is a hard-earned presence—
one that draws the right people closer
and gently sifts the rest away.

I no longer spend my precious time
on those who do not belong in my season.
My soul holds this knowing as its holy grail.

I have no need for validation,
no hunger to be seen,
no impulse to explain myself,
no longing to be liked.

Respect is the road I walk.
Those who meet me must read its signage
and choose their steps accordingly.

The need to be validated, understood, or approved of
are swing doors—
flapping open and shut with every passing body.
I have no use for such doors.

Time is my companion,
and with it, I close what no longer suits my sou.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Human Thread

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I have always loved books — and more importantly, I have loved the authors who opened my mind to other ways of thinking, living, and loving. I loved those who challenged my sense of reality and time, and who revealed to me that my experiences are forged by the meaning I assign to them — the result of a network of brain regions working together. In other words, if I give my memories a different meaning, I experience different emotions. That reality has always felt magical to me, as though I am the sorcerer in my own life. Reading books — entering other worlds — taught me that.

I also admit that I am deeply partial to the classics. Twain, the Brontë sisters, Austen, Hugo, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Eliot, Flaubert, Woolf — just to name a few — allowed me to step inside their inner walls like a visitor to the moon.

To the moon, because I knew that not in a million years would I ever live the lives they shaped on the page, nor would I encounter such characters in my day-to-day life.

But what unites all these authors is not style, language, or ear — it is their shared excavation of unchanging human truths. The inner human condition remains forever the same: recognisable, repetitive.

And that, to me, is astonishing.

Because as a society — and within each generation — people believe their lives are unique, their challenges special and distinct to them and the era they inhabit.

Wise King Solomon once wrote, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Yet it is only in hindsight, as our winter years quietly creep upon us, that we realise how long it takes to become wise — because for so much of life, a veil covered our minds and we comprehended only what sat directly on our nose.

Nowadays, I am keenly aware that every book I read is merely part of the continuous thread binding humanity from the beginning of time.

The only difference is the ever-evolving spoken and written word.

The heart of humanity remains still and untouched.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

On Beginning Again

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I am starting a new chapter tomorrow.

At nearly 59, I am teaching in a new post.
I am excited — and also very anxious.

I am acutely aware of the difference between starting a new chapter in my twenties and starting one in my fifties.

In my twenties, I don’t recall overthinking to the degree I do now. Yet I was the least confident version of myself. People, back then, made me nervous because I didn’t know if they were genuine or not, and I was unsure how their intentions might impact me in the workplace. I also knew I lacked a significant degree of professional and communication skills — and yet, I walked in believing I would somehow survive, eventually learn the ropes, and thrive.

All I had to do was allow the day to unfold and keep turning up.

Now, I wonder whether I will be able to navigate the labyrinth of all this newness — and even as I type, I find myself challenging the gremlins in my mind.

What labyrinth?
What if there is no labyrinth?
What if I simply let the day unfold?

What if I treated the day like a recipe?
Step one.
Step two.
Step three.

Maybe it’s time to simply drop the feeling onto the floor.
Maybe I don’t need to pick up the baggage at all.

Yes — like that.
On the floor.

I want the day to be over, and yet I also want to remember it in fine detail — so I don’t miss the feedback, the magic, the excitement.

New chapters teach me just as much about the woman I am in my fifties as they did about the woman I was in my twenties — just different lessons, different mirrors, different insecurities following me.

Maybe that is what this is really about: learning to meet each new version of myself so I can step into the next chapter with continued growth, allowing myself to become someone new again.

Maybe my mind wants to settle and retire from “new,” but my soul does not.

As a twenty-year-old, I never wanted to settle or retire. I wanted to remain eternally curious about life and living.

Ah — that’s what it is.

I am a little nervous about curiosity these days because it brings change, and my soul is tired of change.

But I see now what my soul truly needs.

I need to be kind to myself.
I need to reassure the voice inside my head that I have her back — and that together, we will be just fine.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

Forgiving in Silence

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I forgive people in silence, long before they ask — or deserve it.
I especially forgive those who never ask, and who will never be part of my life again.

I am no saint. I have my own shadows — moments of regret, lack of skill, and choices that reveal my humanity rather than my virtue.

My reason for forgiving is not altruism, nor does it come from some exceptional empathy for the imperfections of others. I forgive because I do not like the weight of not forgiving. I do not like how it occupies my mind, or tightens the space between my breasts. It is a heavy way to breathe, day after day.

So I forgive quietly, and I move on. I let experiences transform into insight, into learning. I allow my heart to navigate the process, and I can almost feel my thoughts forming new synapses as I do.

It is not painless. Forgiveness often requires meeting grief, fear, insecurity, and loss — without rushing past them.

But on the other side of that work is something I value deeply: the ability to live lightly, and in the light of growth.

I have learned that committing to how I want to experience life — rather than reacting to how life happens — is the most satisfying way for me to live.

I hope, with my whole heart, that I will always return to this place.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

From Performing Empathy to Precise Empathy

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I am on holidays in the wonderful Moree, in NSW, Australia. Moree is famous for its therapeutic Artesian Hot Springs, its rich agricultural land (wheat, cotton, pecans), vibrant Art Deco heritage buildings, significant Aboriginal culture, and its role in the history of Australia’s Civil Rights Movement, notably the Freedom Ride protest at its public pool.

In this space, my mind went into what is empathetic performance vs precise empathy.

Empathetic performance is displayed care that is driven by fear of judgment rather than genuine feeling.

In my youth, I performed empathy because I did not want to be seen as cold, bad, or immoral. This showed with me knowing the right words to say while feeling nothing in particular, helping others because others were watching and judging me in my community, staying longer than I wanted to at a celebration because I did not want to come across as uncaring, seriously over-explaining my good intentions, sacrificing my comfort, time, or boundaries to maintain a moral image but ultimately feeling resentful, drained, or faulsely exposed afterward.

I performed empathy not because it was arising inside of me but because I felt socially pressured to do so.

Is this wrong though?

How many times, do we encourage our children to say “thank you” when given a present?

How many times, even as adults, do we say “thank you” for a present that is clearly not something that we want, need or desire?

 Afterall, at no point in time, was I being cruel, or lacked empathy, nor was I being selfish.

I stopped performing empathy in my 40s which coincided with healing my nervous system and thus my gaining the skills to retrain my nervous system.

My nervous system had adapted intelligently to an environment where moral safety depended on appearance, not truth.

The covert message I received in my youth “How I am perceived matters more than what I intend.”.

The learning did not come from one event. It was a social pattern I picked up that communicated my tone and not my meaning was important, that behaving neutral was interpreted as being emotionally cold, being corrected emotionally rather than being emotionally understood was the norm, and appearing good prevented escalation,

My nervous system optimized for social survival.

What happened in my 40s that was the beginning of me being able to heal my nervous system?

My father died.

I performed a lot for him. I was the good girl, the dutiful daughter and the child he was extremely proud of because I had achieved my father, as a migrant in Australia, what he had not been able to achieve – a successful career, a lovely home, a good family and financial security.

So, when he died, something inside of me cracked open, like a volcano that erupted from the centre of its core.

I no longer wanted to identify as the good girl, the dutiful daughter or the child who sought my fathers pride and fundamentally approval.

And it hit me like a brick in the head – I NO LONGER FELT THE NEED TO SEEK MY FATHER’S APPROVAL and by definition, I no longer had to shift ANYONE’S approval.

This whole and big world opened up to me and I started shaking off beliefs that I no longer believed, narratives that were not mine to carry, dreams that I never cared for, relationships that had long ago not served me but drained me, clothes that I had outgrown….I sifted and springcleaned my life.

I felt empowered.

I also bled onto others and that was my only and biggest regret.

Strangely, it was the ability to truly feel and own regrets that opened up a lifetime of grief and being able to look at my life with acute truth and without judgement that gave birth to me healing my nervous system.

Within the space of regrets is the birth of humility. The voice that that knows what is mine to carry, what is not, and to act without needing to appear important, good, or superior.

And I stopped proving my goodness, stopped defending my image, embraced my limits without shame, accepted my strengths, admitted my limitations without collapsing, discerned the boundary what was not mine to fix and I was able to admit when I was wrong without losing my dignity.

And I found this amazing calm, unhurried energy and quiet confidence and I was able to behave with ethical clarity and in that space I learned the power of “I will care where care is actually needed.”

I found home in precise empathy and I started to live in truth.

I cannot be everything to everyone.

I have finite capacity.

And the most powerful truth – not all suffering belongs to me.

Interestingly, my heart has become bigger, not smaller. I feel emotionally safe now — safe enough to feel, and safe enough to say no.

I applaud my younger self, because behaving in socially appropriate ways, even when I did not yet feel them, was not deception — it was adaptation. It was intelligence. It was a nervous system doing exactly what it needed to do in order to survive an environment where belonging depended on appearance, not truth.

That version of me was not wrong. She was learning.

But I no longer need to live there.

Today, empathy no longer needs to be performed. It arises – or it doesn’t – and I trust that distinction. I care where care is actually needed, not where it is demanded, expected, or socially rewarded. I can stay present without self-erasure, compassionate without collapse, ethical without exhaustion.

This is what precise empathy has given me:

  • clarity without cruelty,
  • humility without shame,
  • and a deep, embodied permission to be truthful.

I have learned that I cannot be everything to everyone.

That my capacity is finite.

And that not all suffering belongs to me.

And in accepting this, I have finally found something I never had before – a sense of home inside myself.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

Assuming I belong

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There is always a part of me that feels I don’t belong. It doesn’t matter who I’m with — family or not, loving or not, accepting or not. The thought is persistent and irrational, a quiet but insistent whisper that lives somewhere in my mind.

I recognise it immediately when it appears. My heart sinks into the hollow between my breasts, my breath becomes shallow, and my body stiffens, then numbs. These physical signals are familiar to me. Inevitably, I feel disconnected from my surroundings, as though I’ve slipped into a psychological tunnel, far away from the people beside me — even when our shoulders are touching.

I know this thought, and the way my body responds to it, is unproductive and, frankly, toxic.

Yesterday, a friend invited me to a Sunday indoor spa afternoon with a group of women. My first instinct was to decline. Instead, I paused. I questioned the messages running through my mind — and the stories my eyes were already telling me.

I questioned my inner voice.

What if I do belong?
What if I simply assumed I belonged?

And then another thought followed: what if belonging requires nothing more than assumption? What if, in that assumption, my heart relaxed — and in relaxing, expanded outward? How differently would I experience my reality then?

So I assumed. And then I assumed some more. I even began to enjoy rewriting the evening in my mind, deciding — deliberately — that these women enjoyed and valued my company too.

There were five of us. We met at four in the afternoon. There was small talk, cheese platters, fruit, cake, soft drinks, and later coffee. We talked and laughed and shared stories until ten that night. Somewhere along the way, a warm, gentle bubble formed around us — and I was inside it.

We laughed freely. We ate without counting calories or weighing ourselves down with judgment. We were simply present.

I think when the whispers return — and they will — I won’t try to silence them. Instead, I’ll choose to assume a different truth. One that serves me.

I belong wherever I assume I belong.

And it is a delicious feeling.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

Living in Truth After a Childhood of Illusions

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The sadness of being emotionally neglected as a child is that I learned never to neglect the people I love. So, when no one turned up for me, I accepted it. At my lowest and darkest, when I lay in a hospital bed, only my husband came. The truth is painful: expecting no one to show up for me is still my reality, although now it is no longer my truth.

Healing is slow and steady. The past, however, has a loud voice, and each day I work to challenge it into the lie that it is.

The fact is, I was my mother’s personal cleaner from the age of three. I scrubbed her house, vacuumed, washed floors, cleaned the bathroom, washed my own clothes, hung them on the line while standing on a ladder, and changed everyone’s sheets. I believed that if I made myself useful enough – good enough – she would finally see my worth.

She never did. And when I confronted her about my childhood, she denied all of it. That was the moment I understood our family was built on illusions. When I stopped protecting those illusions and chose instead to live in truth, I became a threat.

I learned that when people live in illusions, they must defend them. Having those illusions challenged triggers shame. The trouble with shame is that it cannot move; it ferments in the soul. And when shame is triggered, the ego becomes fiercely invested in defending the illusion, not in seeking accountability, growth, or gratitude.

Eventually, every person must choose: uphold the illusion, or live in truth. One path preserves belonging; the other preserves the soul. I chose freedom. And freedom meant exile from the clan.

The grief was profound. I had to face that the worth I believed I had earned—by being useful, patient, responsible – would never be acknowledged or loved. But refusing to live in someone else’s illusion also forced me to confront the illusions I had created for myself.

Freedom is found in truth, but only after grieving the years spent living a lie for the comfort of others. Once the grief dissolves, the path that had always been waiting reveals itself.

In that clearing, a doorway stands open – quiet, steady, and entirely yours.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Difference Between Wounded Mothering and Healed Mothering

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It has taken me, entering my autumn years, to understand that mothering from a healed self versus a wounded self is a completely different mindset at every level.

I remember being a young mother, determined – absolutely determined – not to make the same mistakes my own mother made. But while I was running away from my inheritance, I had no idea what I was running towards. My compass was broken. All I knew was what I did not want. This is not a reliable intention. It is like driving a car with the destination labelled: “I don’t want to get lost. I just want a safe journey.”

So I read hundreds of books on parenting, absorbing every new theory on babies, children, and teenagers. I read and read and read.

But with maturity – and hindsight – I now see that knowledge without a healed self means parenting from fear.
And fear squeezes out love.

Parenting from a wounded self meant that I parented technically – filtering my mothering through everything I had read rather than through connection, intuition, presence, and the unique soul of each child. One size does not fit all.

And although I did not repeat my parents’ mistakes, I made new ones, because I was not mothering from a healed self.

Healing required me to reparent myself – to listen to the parts of me that needed a voice, needed witnessing, needed validation, needed space to process and soften. Only then could I access the true depth of love for my children, because only then had I loved all the pieces of the child I once was.

By that stage, my children were adults.

So I know I missed entire chapters of parenting from a position of love. A healed mother understands instinctively the protectiveness of the lioness, the roar of the bear, the flight of the eagle, and the quiet beauty of sheltering her chicks beneath her wings.

My children were my greatest teachers. That is their gift to me.
And it is both my greatest accomplishment – and my greatest grief – that I became the mother they needed in my autumn years.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

When My Guard Finally Rested

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Hate used to visit my heart, but at some point, I realized it was not meant to live there.

It came came as my defender when I was hurt – when betrayal cut too deep, when I felt unseen in my pain. Butor a time, hate felt powerful and purposeful. But what began as armour soon hardened into eternal rage and isolation.

One day I woke up and realized I didn’t need to fight.

There was no war, even if my body hadn’t realised it yet.

Those who wronged me had faded into their own stories, but my heart still kept guard at a door no one was trying to enter.

It was time to let that guard rest.
And allow the tears to come instead of the rage.
Grieve the dream that died, the love that never came, the apology that never arrived.
Letting grief in, did hurt, – yes – but it flowed finally through me when I allowed it.

Hatred on the other hand had stayed far too long, like an unwanted guest, until I showed it the door.

Forgiveness I learned is not forgetting.

I will never forget.

Forgiveness was uncoupling myself from the weight that no longer belonged to my present.

So, I learned boundaries instead.

I learned self-respect.

Self-honour.

Self-integrity.

I learned to surround myself with people who built me up.

I let others reveal themselves first.

I let them earn my trust slowly.

Above all, I learned to always have my own back – unapologetically.

I learned to protect my peace, but with an open hand, not a closed fist.

I carried this burden long enough. In hindsight, far too long.
I lay it down purposely and deliberately, everyday,
because there is more ahead of me – a life waiting to be lived – than the life that no longer exists.

And I refuse to waste anymore of my precious time what was never mine to hold.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Quiet Rebellion of Happiness

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I spent a long time collecting reasons not to be happy – and all of them were valid.

I was hurt, overlooked, mistreated, misunderstood.

I carried what others should have carried. They should have known better, been accountable, changed their ways. I remembering trying to speak to them about their behaviour, or confided in someone who brushed off my experience.

Sometimes, I kept their secrets to protect a loved one, or endured their silences because I refused to play their game. I built walls not because I wanted to, but because the world taught me early that softness was unsafe.

There came to an impasse, where I had decide that the past no longer defined the quality of my present. Happiness , I decided, was not a reward for those who had an easy story – it was an act of rebellion for those like me.

It was a quiet, deliberate choice to stop rehearsing my pain and begin reclaiming my life on my terms, because deep down, I already knew what I knew.

Choosing happiness did not erase what happened. It did not excuse cruelty or dismiss my wounds. It simply meant I no longer was willing to make those wounds – or the people who caused them – my mental and emotional home. I can honour my pain without worshipping it. I can remember without reliving.

And yes, the world, kept insisting that happiness was naïve, that in choosing happiness, I ignored depth, injustice, reality and that I was a victim.

But now I know this – happiness, when chosen consciously, is the deepest form of wisdom.

It is not the absence of awareness; it is the presence of perspective. It is what happened when I stopped waiting for others to change and began building a life that nourishes my spirit today, on my terms.

So I released the need to make every scar my identity.

I allowed myself to have joy even if my story is unfinished, even if my heart still trembled when I trusted again. I refuse to believe that I am betraying my past when I choose to live fully.

I am redeeming my life. I am telling the past, I am done with being your prisoner.

And in that space, I learned happiness is neither always laughter or sunlight.

Sometimes it’s a quiet evening where I breath steady again.

Sometimes it’s choosing to let something go without bitterness.

Sometimes it’s simply waking up and saying, “I am still here, and that is enough for today.”

I have learned that the choice to be happy is not about pretending.

It is about returning to myself, and to the life that is still waiting beyond my pain.

I meet it daily noe because it has been waiting patiently for me.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Gold Beneath the Mud

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I have never been uncomfortable with difficult feelings – sadness, grief, shame, guilt.
It’s not that I embrace them or draw some unhealthy satisfaction from their presence.
It’s simply that I find profound truths inside them, a clarity like still water that settles my mind, my thoughts, my heart, and ultimately guides me toward my soul.

On the other side of difficult feelings, I always find release – from people, situations, or choices that were never meant for me.
So I invite these feelings in, like a loyal friend who refuses to be “nice” at all costs, who will not smooth over truth or hide discomfort under polite veneers.
They reveal the absence of genuine care in places where care should have been.

The truest friends are the ones who sit in the mud with you, who remain quiet witnesses to your hard passages, and say, “You can walk this path. I know you will. And I’ll be here when you reach the other side.”
Their faith becomes a kind of shelter.

I have no need for those who flinch at my difficult feelings.
They are bright trinkets – costume jewellery at best.
A shine that was never earned.

This too is a difficult truth to speak into being:
deciding who to let in, who to keep at a distance, and who to greet gently but never invite beyond the frivolities of passing time.

These truths are guides to a richer life.
So I embrace them.
They are the most excellent companions –worth the finest gold.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Theatre of Youth

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I was never good at being young.
When the girls around me were discovering boys, I found the whole ritual overwhelming and strangely contrived – a choreography of ego rather than a meeting of hearts.

So, I watched instead.

Two unpolished, ill-trained ballerinas performing an awkward duet, each trying to master steps whose beauty they did not yet understand. This fascinated me more than the performance itself. He’d smile too widely, lick his lips like a cat tasting cream for the first time, desperate to appear more polished than he felt.

The girl, meanwhile, flicked her hair from one side to the other, shoulders pulled back, chest forward – a rehearsed display of allure meant to draw the fly to the web.

With every fibre of my being, I knew I could never perform in that theatre.
I was a foreigner in a land of amorous play I could neither understand nor desire, where the beauty of love and passion was reduced to meagre crumbs.

Inevitably, girl and boy would pair off, flaunt their uncomely attraction in small, nervous gestures, then part in a blaze of aloofness – each pretending not to care.
It always puzzled me. This dance of pretending, this performance of desire without tenderness, seemed a sure path to heartache and gossip.

I could not understand the point of it.
Even now, I’m not sure I ever will. Why put oneself through the inevitable? Why invite ego-pain early, when life itself will deliver it soon enough? Why let it be the unwanted guest arriving before its time?

So, I stood at the edges of youthful sport, observing life lessons played out mere inches from my nose, and felt an unseeming gratitude that the theatre of adolescence taught me whom to invite into my life – and whom only to respect from afar. Yet the same actors pitied me, and I smiled in return.

~ Evgenia Pimżin