Virtually Nurul – { Research | Fitness | Designs } by Nurul

Author: Nurul

  • What I Want in A Man

    Secret is out – I actually have a list and story of my ideal dream man that I would like to settle down with. The list is exhaustive with the characteristics and behavioural traits, his interests, physique, financial and career choice, as well as our ideal activities, communication and interaction as a couple.

    I might not find him in this lifetime, but I’m all set and dreaming about it makes me feel excited and wanting to improve myself so that I could be at par and be compatible with and desirable to this man.

    Today, while looking at the list, I thought something was missing. I thought to myself, should I meet this man, but if he has the immaturity and not in tune with himself as a person; all of these might not matter. Everyone can be interesting if he or she invests in any activity, adventurous or not. Beauty and physique can be altered and shaped over time.

    The essence of my dream man, additionally, is that, to me, it is important that he knows who he is at his core, has his own purpose in life, unswayed by what happens around him, does not have the herd mentality. Courageous and brave to get what he wants and protect what is his. And if he decides to be my partner, I expect openness, vulnerability and compassion to accept and love me as I am. I really could not find the word to express this part of a man yet – but I want someone who did his work, know how to separate his actions, is it trauma response, or is it what he wants because it aligns with his value. I guess this is really what I need to be a free being in my full essence as a woman.

    I remember telling a friend, that I feel that I have not figure out what I want from a man or what I want in a relationship. I don’t 100% know yet, but I feel I’m getting there, and I’m ready to receive when I finally meet him. OK, gotta rewrite my list!

  • Hey, it’s July!

    Still in survival mode, but some areas of my career are showing progress.

    My mantra for this month,

    “More creation, less consumption!”

  • What is BodyPump workout?

    BodyPump is one of the many Les Mills scientifically-backed group exercise program. It is a strength and muscular endurance conditioning workout where we work on different muscles isolation work (with some compounds) together with music. I would like to highlight 2 things here in this post: the exercise and the music.

    The 55-minutes workout is structured to start with warm-up and ends with core before cooling down. The muscles worked for conditioning in between are legs with specific tracks on squats and lunges; chests, back muscles, triceps, biceps and shoulders. Each muscle group will be train in isolation, creating fatigue with tension over time with high repetition – which really is the essence of BodyPump workout. The duration for each muscle work would roughly be in 5 minutes. Imagine, by the time we finish a class of BodyPump, we managed to complete 200 reps of squats (I kid you not!).

    The magic in this workout is really on the synchronicity of the moves and the music chosen for each exercise. You often will find yourself struggle to go on with fatigue already building, but the upbeat music will drive you to push yourself to finish. I find myself exerting my effort more when I enjoy the music and be overwhelmed with disbelief that I did that! The music is fresh and carefully picked to give the drive we need to complete an exercise.

    Because of the nature of the workout with using lighter weights than usual strength training – add that with high repetitions, you would find that your body gets more toned and defined arms and shoulders. Your core gets stronger too, which helps with body posture; as well as adds up for the strengths and endurance that we need to perform daily chores.

    Those who are new to BodyPump usually struggle to cope with the tempo and muscular pressure combination. That is normal. The good news is, your body would adapt to the training as you keep practicing the moves in every class, making it easier as your body also grows stronger. Don’t be surprised that over time, you would need to add more loads to feel similar muscular pressure as you did the first time around.

    If you haven’t tried the workout, you could find a class near you using this link provided from Les Mills website. Here also, I am sharing BodyPump teaser for you to get an idea what it is all about.

  • Generational Trauma

    It’s Raya Haji once again, I joined the family for our raya visits to my parents’ kampung. The first trip was really something to me, where we went to visit my Dad’s oldest cousin (only one alive, all of his siblings passed away) to return a copy of a big – I mean it’s really enormous in depth tracing back to the link to the origin of Islamic rulers ages ago. There were 2 things that I got out of this: my lineage and heritage; and the origin of my Dad’s character or may I say trauma.

    From what the elderly told us, this was the story that had been passed down, is that, we had our ancestors from other country in Sabah due to siblings rivalry and to escape execution from the ruler. That really was a survival move back then. People could not know the lineage, or risked being killed.

    My ancestors were directly related to a certain royalty family, and they often found themselves being sent to places as enforcer (one could say that they were stationed there to kill/execute people that was ordered by the ruler). So a lot of feuds and injustices happened, resulting them to flee and settled down here in Sabah.

    I knew this story before but it slipped my memory. My ancestors were literally the seafarers of the Borneo island also like maritime enforcement during their time. I guess that is why I am so feisty and adventurous (I know my Dad is like this too). Being fed with these adventures since I was little really planted some ideas in me!

    I remembered my Dad was proudly telling us a story, whenever we visited the kampung where it happened, that, our great great great grandfather scooped out the eyeballs of pirates in captivity at a jetty where he pointed. I guess from there he had this scavenger mentality and always on the lookout of harm and danger. My grandfather was a policeman and a lot of his relatives work or worked as an enforcer themselves. The cousin of my Dad’s whom we visited also managed to slip in how our ancestors were killing other people caused of racial war, and how they needed to bury their possessions that showed their original identities to survive. For their generation, this was what masculinity is all about, savagely protecting their turf, being ruthlessly brave, be an explorer – on a positive side, they were patriotic and dutiful to their rulers until there were the need to rebel and flee. I am still processing all of this, and on how it shaped my environment and upbringing growing up.

    I believe, my late grandfather who was in service as a policeman kind of feeling undeserving of his role knowing his lineage. From what I know from my interaction with him, he was a gentle man, not much words and loved gardening. I would not know he was a policeman back then because he was so kind and so proud of us. He taught my Dad on humility – he said, “Ular menyusur akar, tidak akan hilang biasanya.” (A poisonous snake won’t lose it’s poison even if it had to slither on the lowest ground in between of tree roots). Basically, your worth, talent, lineage – what ever good things about you will not lose even if you have to endure hardest times or circumstances. Another way to look at it, no need to brag to get people’s validation based on worldly views of status, we know our own worth and abilities and it will always be with us that no one can take away from. So that was a piece of wisdom from him.

    I realised how survival was really central and it was a serious deal – do or die kind of thing back then. Without their struggle, I would not be here today writing my blog entry from the comfort of my couch all provided by my parents. And to acknowledge that my lineage traced back to very respectable people who made histories made me realise how valuable I am. I must treat myself like a treasure and fight for myself like how my ancestors fight for their family.

    My Dad did not share much on his interactions with his siblings or his late mom (other than often being scolded, pinched and punished – tough love). So I figured, that was the identity that he relates to himself the most and that was what that had shaped him today. Knowing this I feel sorry for him, but also seek to explore how I should navigate my interaction with him. We may not be aligned, but he is still my Dad who worked hard to provide for me and I just prayed one day we could figure out how to be at peace with each other before it’s too late.

    Yeah, that was a lot coming out from a raya visit. I’m glad I had joined my family and ate good food, rather than staying at home miserable with piles of work waiting to get done.

  • Processing Grief, Soothing My Wounds

    I don’t know where to start. My heart is heavy, my body is aching all over – I outdid myself with trainings, things did not go my way, financial insecurity, overdue of tasks to get done. Today is one of those days that I really feel I want to give up. It does not help that at the same time I am still grieving for the past one month.

    I want to peel the layers of grieving to move forward. This feeling, it seemed to be of no end. If I suck into it, I will be paralysed. I read somewhere, that, grief comes and go like waves on the beach. Sometimes it’s soft and mild, other times it comes crashing to the shore. Today it feels like almost 7/10. Thank God that I am older and with more experience, I am more level-headed in facing grief.

    Grief, for me today, is caused by my own expectations and optimism that people are looking out for me in good faith. I know in real world, people let other people down. People breach trusts, similarly like I breach other people’s trust at times. People hurt other people. I should have let it go at the first sight of red flags, but I have the faith that people have no intention to hurt me – and there could be some justification why someone do that. I can’t do anything about what other people intentions are. Other people have the rights to be themselves too. Instead of trying to repair, I should have trusted my gut feeling. As I am more in tune with myself, how my body is feeling about a situation, the more I can discern who are harmful for me. Still working on it and enforcing my boundaries at the slight deed of disrespect towards me.

    Today the feeling is amplified by me not taking care of myself well and what with hormones. I almost passed out after teaching this morning, only slept for 2 hours last night, and did not fed myself wholesomely. My upper back and shoulders are feeling tight. My chest is heavy. I don’t know how much more rest and food that I need. I am just so overwhelmed with what’s going on around me. Trainings, work, study, personal maintenance, emotional work and stuff. I don’t know how long can I last, though I know this setting is temporary. I just have to keep taking actions to move forward and out of it.

    What can I do with this grief? Observe, feel it, feel the sadness, feel the pain. It will go away. I grief for the loss of potentials – so much I was hoping for, growth, happiness, union, connection, generosity, kindness, lasting love and togetherness, security, protection, support, being cared and provided for. I can’t expect to get it from anyone, I must learn to give it to myself. If I see it objectively, the potentials that I hoped for, I could also get from other people who are there for me. These potentials – I might not be able to get from a single person, if I could, that would be sweeter and be the best. There could be a whole group of people that could provide me with what I long for in life.

    The pain of being abandoned without explanation cuts deep. Ego. I have none of it left. Come what may, I surrender myself to God. I know I will be in good hands sooner or later. I am where I need to be. Things are happening for me. God will take care of me. Till then, let’s do the best to feel the suffering in silence. Tomorrow will be a better day.

  • What It Means to be A Woman

    Relating back to my discovery about woman archetype in my previous post, I thought, “Wow, this is something new!”. Out of curiosity, naturally, I did one of the quizzes and the report showed that my archetype is mostly the Wild Woman, followed by Lover and Mother (both because same score). I did several other quizzes, the archetypes kept changing, but still revolve around Wild Woman, Mother, Lover and another one – Mystic Woman.

    Woman or feminine archetype originates from Jungian archetypes theory, and further expanded by a psychiatrist, Jean Shinoda Bolen. Screenwriters and writers alike used these archetypes to develop their fictional female characters in their stories. It is likely that, at a certain point, women radiate an archetype depending on their situations and what they are facing in their lives at the moment. A woman might have all the archetypes, but there would be a few dominant ones that would reflect on how she responds to the environment, and she lives her life. More about it is greatly summarised here in this post on Mindvalley, and an extensive list of archetypes also defined here. Some writers, or feminine coaches might term the archetypes differently, but essentially, they are consistent. There are typically 7 main archetypes and its essence (some expands to 12), which are:

    • The Lover – sensual
    • The Mother – nurturing
    • The Huntress – courageous
    • The Maiden – innocence
    • The Queen – charismatic leader
    • The Mystic – peacefulness
    • The Sage – wise

    You could try quizzes online. The one that I recently tried is this one. And this is what it says about me as the Wild Woman. It appalls me that my Queen archetype percentage is one of the lowest! The Queen energy is so much applauded and women everywhere are inspired to be one. What does it say about me as a woman? Maybe there is no right or wrong about it. Each and every archetype has its own strengths and weaknesses. The benefit of having the awareness I think is that I tend to be more understanding and have less judgement of why other women rarely think or behave like me. Each woman is unique which is why we need to be more curious of what drives a person or a woman to behave the way she does. It also could be useful to observe my dynamics in relationship with people, platonic or romantic. What my feminine energy says about a situation? How do I deal with it?

    Because of living and fighting in surviving mode, added up with demands from people around me, I might have repressed and lost touch with my feminine energy. I never thought myself as a feminine one. The more I untangle the emotional messiness and the effects of childhood trauma, the more I realised that most of my actions and judgements were reactions and responses caused by trauma. I know how to survive, but I did not know how to be myself, as a feminine woman. I also got to know that I am and have always been so feminine, only I did not know and did not acknowledge the softness and creative side of me (lack of validation). It is sad to think of it, but I am also grateful to discover it now at this age of 40. Now I understand, why I need to have my specific rest routines after work – I am exhausted being masculine, and need the space and time to tune back towards my feminine energy. I know now how to be in my power and be my most authentic and feminine self that I have neglected many years ago. Nevermind the Queen, I am fine being the Huntress for now.

  • How to Create A Healthy and Supportive Environment for Everyone’s Fitness Journey

    Training is hard. Being consistent at training is even harder. My fitness journey started kind of accidental actually and I had to be forced to commit to train in the beginning. At my fifth year in my fitness journey, I understand the hardship and insecurity of individuals trying to embark on this journey as beginners or as recurred attempts to get fitter. Here are some the things that I thought would be helpful in creating a conducive and supportive environment for those who want to exercise and take care of themselves consistently.

    1. Stop shaming people who want to make a difference in their lives. People sometimes can get jealous when a person around them is suddenly trying to build better habits for themselves. Remarks like, “She’s not gonna eat that, she’s on diet”, even said as a joke, is not helpful and could indirectly bring up guilt for the person for trying to change. It is indirectly separating the person from your ‘tribe’ and could dampen the person’s motivation to stick with the change.
    2. Stop sexualising/objectifying people who hit the gym. People go to gyms primarily are for a good workout not to get hit on – maybe some do, but not from creeps. Respect others as how you would not like to be objectified. If someone looks good, it is fine to appreciate from afar in a non-creepy way. Or if you need to let them know, do it respectfully. We know when someone is looking and staring at us while working out. These kind of behaviours made man and mostly women feel conscious to work out, worrying not looking modest and attracting the wrong attentions from others at the gym.
    3. Stop the negative stigma, thinking that you need to exercise because something is wrong with your body. Exercise is a privilege, a loving action towards your body and for the longevity of your health. More often than not, people only start to exercise because they hate their body, or they ate too much and needed the caloric burn. It is true that one of the usual drives behind working out is to look and feel good. The danger behind this mentality, is that, once people get to the desired body goals, they started to neglect the work to maintain exercising. Often, people indulge in crash dieting or doing a surge of high-intensity exercises for days until they ‘lost’ the perceived weights or body fat, then getting burnt out, which is not sustainable to keep for a long time as a lifestyle.
    4. Support a person decision to commit time to exercise over social invitations/events. This happened to me a lot when I was just starting out. There were many times that I prioritised training over going to family social events. At first, I was guilty because I had rarely miss family events except when I was out of state or traveling away – also due to my tendency to people please. It held me back and regressed my progress when I started to miss the frequency and rhythm of my training. Eventually, I just focused on what I needed, and everyone was okay with that. Exercise is a necessity, same as when we need to shower, eat and brush our teeth daily. Stop making it harder for others who want to make the change.
    5. Don’t shame them when they stop for a while to adjust. We all know the feeling when we try something new, got overwhelmed and stopped doing it for a while, or sometimes for good. To be committed to a training plan requires being disciplined as habit. And habit needs to be developed over time. There are so many barriers to getting fit. Sometimes it is time management, financial, work commitments, family obligations and so many things that could happen in someone’s life. Ask them what is it that is holding them back and try to look for solutions together on how to best motivate and start again.
    6. Don’t look down on overweight people when they are working out at gyms. Individuals, as they are, already have a lot of insecurity about their own body. Be kind to those who are working extra hard to improve their health. People are generally mildly anxious on looking stupid or not training as hard as others when hitting the gym and doing new routines. Be helpful when needed.
    7. Support people’s journey or effort; not compete and compare with yours or with other people to show that they are better. Different individual’s body each has different abilities and needs. Sometimes, people are not showing much results despite of training, potentially, caused by physiological factors. Individuals with hormonal issues transform relationally different than those without similar issues. Other people do not need to please or impress you with their training. They only need to focus on themselves. Save your insecurity for yourself, do not project onto others.
    8. Celebrate people’s fitness achievement. Be happy when someone shows you their progress and give out positive encouraging words to keep getting better. There are also people who show off their workout or progress for attention and admiration to feed their egos. It does not hurt, though, to give kind words instead of insulting or putting down people’s efforts.

    Changing the attitude towards creating a more positive environment could definitely help and encourage more people to embark on this journey. It is called a journey, because it is hard, and it is a long-life commitment. Being fit should not be only for athletes or for hustlers. Being fit is everyone’s birthright. Let’s help create a healthier and fitter community by supporting everyone around us and have healthy attitude towards fitness and exercising.

  • Relationship

    I was scrolling through Instagram and chanced upon a reel with a man giving relationship advice. My initial response was, not another game-playing advice please – but continued to watch. There I saw a man who was talking through a perspective of trauma – of someone who lost it all and finally found happiness. So, other than finding recommendations that after break up to abstain from dating for a duration (3 months times year of dating) to heal, I also chance upon a discussion on female archetype.

    I did one of the quizzes, and it said I am mostly a “Wild Woman”! Followed by “Mother” and “Lover” (same second highest score) archetypes. I will research more and write about it in a different post. I feel that there’s so much about being a woman when I understand the different archetypes every woman embody.

    Something about work got on my nerve, too, today. My initial reaction was to give ultimatum (yes, I am tired of my boundaries being broken). But I am giving it another chance, and try to solve it as wise as I can.

    Relationships are hard, especially when dealing with dysfunctional people. By the way, the Instagram account that I was talking about is Danny Morel’s. So good contents, very wise, very authentic. Ok, I will not be dating anyone for a year until June 2024.

  • Desire for Control – Emotional Flashback/Overwhelm Relapse!

    I was so looking forward for today cause it’s my first ortho review and I was excited cause I get to change the band for my braces. Today I chose blue!

    As the day progressed, so many negative things happened, like, water cut for a few hours at my apartment caused by pipe repair, therefore I ran late for review (oh my gosh! I hate being late gave me so much rush!), did not manage to send parcel I planned to today, my kuih plan did not turn out as I plan, and my PT session got cancelled again. And by the end of the day, I was so exhausted and seemed like occupied my day so much – but nothing gets done!

    Been feeling this way for a few days already. Being exhausted and overwhelmed when nothing goes my way triggered my anxiety a lot and the feeling that I am never good enough. At times, I can’t help feeling hopeless as I kept having flashbacks on that feeling when my efforts gone unappreciated by my dad. He’s not a bad man, I just know something within him is just wrong cause he cannot seem to show his appreciation to me no matter how great I did. I stopped caring about being validated, but today the feeling is all over the place which makes me sad and agitated.

    So, again, I must remember to ground myself, check of my good traits and strengths regardless of whether people notice or not.

    Secondly, where am I at on my hormonal cycle. Yes, this affects a lot!

    Third, check with my schedule and what I had been doing all week. My body is just exhausted. This week, I had 4 BodyPump classes (2 teaching full class, 1 team teach, 1 as participant), 2 CrossFit foundation classes and 1 powerlifting foundation class. And I did not sleep and eat enough. Added up with cooking errands for my mom. That’s quite a week already! Maybe both cancellations of my PT sessions were a blessing, if not I would be more exhausted I guess. I may have breached my own boundaries here.

    Last one, I would normally gave my body a good stretch especially for my back, and put on the essential oil diffuser to loosen up.

    I still have errands to do the next day, what with back to back weekend classes. Seriously exhausted and overwhelmed, I gotta help myself. Apart from overwhelm, I know I am feeling insecure right now with all the uncertainty of events.

    My pace is accelerating, which is good for the momentum. I gotta know and find a way to be more balanced but still get things done. For this, must be more efficient when doing things and delegate what others can help do for me.

    Badly need a good cry.

  • State of Flow in Reflection

    I know right, this is like the third post I have written in a row. While typing this, I have three other posts in line as drafts.

    I miss myself in this state of being at this moment where I can just create and create with ideas overflowing out of me. At the same time, I am feeling general anxiety. It’s 1am and I am not asleep yet, I have get up early for morning class later. I am also feeling unsettled cause I did not finish my laundry – there were rats outside, I just don’t want to deal with them right now.

    It feels great to be able to reflect on what has been happening, like process on recent events, check on my feelings. Keep myself updated on happenings, making sense of things. It’s like, “Hey we’ve gone through this! How it feels like?”. Yeah, I don’t only keep my friends updated, but also need to tell myself to update on my take for each experience. Life is just too beautiful to let by without context. I want to tell myself more, but it’s already late. Thanks Allah for this privilege.

    Regroup and get ready for what’s to come.