Okie Dokes! So I'm passionate about people's stories and how they overcome difficulties. There's nothing more fantastic than seeing people get out of a storm and grow in the process. But I do think this blog needs a little bit of a change or rather, sunshine. So instead of only focusing on the gloomy, I'm also gonna migrate to the happy; things that bring people joy or help them escape from the everyday humdrum and the mundane.
So I'm working on that, keep a look-out for newness!!
Holla!!!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
MEMOIR OF A GLOOMY HEART
Many of have bad days because life is full of ups and downs, but when most of your days are gloomy, dark and dingy, sadness might not be the only problem. Many people suffer from depression and they don’t even know it. Sometimes they can’t explain why they feel so hopeless when opportunities are all around them. They can’t fully embrace the good in their lives because the causes that lead to the depression haven’t been dealt with, so these taint everything the person does and experiences. One of the worst feelings that a depressed person has is that of knowing they have so much potential to be great and do great things, but they feel inadequate, almost hopeless that their situation will change. They know deep down that they are not what they’re meant to be. I got another memoir from my good friend Kg, as she shares about her experience with depression.
Lord, I feel down, almost depressed for no apparent reason. And I dnt have any reason 2 be, like I’ve got a good family, good friends, good hobbies and a life of opportunities. Bt when I woke up this morning, I woke up with a hole in my heart & a pitch black cloud over my head. My heart felt heavy with a mixture of despair, sadness, emptiness, boredom, aaargh I cnt fully explain hw dark & dingy it was. It was as if sum1had switched the lites off in my present and future. All I cud see was a big black whole. I still feel it nw. I feel empty inside, bt an emptiness that hurts, that’s longing to be refreshed. Ive had this feeling all my life, whether things were going gud or bad; an innate feeling that no1 truly knws or understands me bt @ the same time, im distant and numb to myself. All that ive been doing made me feel good, it brought happiness & I got to see the world, bt after the effect had weared off, the truth of the matter resurfaced, a big black whole. I always feel like crying, bt I feel like the tears are so deep down in the well of my heart, that they can’t come to the surface. I constantly think that something’s wrong with me, bt I can’t pinpoint it. Im oblivious to compliments, even tho they help lift me up & negative comments are all too common, ppl coming and going is all too common. I wonder if I’ll ever be truly loved & committed to, I sometimes wonder if the God of creation will ever be able 2 go 2 these places in my heart and fill them with His glory, with Himself. I’ve begged Him countless times, pleaded with Him 2 fill this void of intimate love with Himself, bt it feels like my cries 4 help have fallen on quiet ears; ears that hear bt are still. I do struggle 2 see the good in my life coz it seems like the bad always overrides it and overwhelms me.
At the end of the day, nothing lasts forever, especially the bad times. Everything has a beginning and an end. There’s hope at the end of the tunnel, as dark as it is. You just have to keep walking through the tunnel and believe that that shimmer of light will appear and you can finally be who you were meant to be, a person with great potential to do great things and a person who is loved unconditionally.
Lord, I feel down, almost depressed for no apparent reason. And I dnt have any reason 2 be, like I’ve got a good family, good friends, good hobbies and a life of opportunities. Bt when I woke up this morning, I woke up with a hole in my heart & a pitch black cloud over my head. My heart felt heavy with a mixture of despair, sadness, emptiness, boredom, aaargh I cnt fully explain hw dark & dingy it was. It was as if sum1had switched the lites off in my present and future. All I cud see was a big black whole. I still feel it nw. I feel empty inside, bt an emptiness that hurts, that’s longing to be refreshed. Ive had this feeling all my life, whether things were going gud or bad; an innate feeling that no1 truly knws or understands me bt @ the same time, im distant and numb to myself. All that ive been doing made me feel good, it brought happiness & I got to see the world, bt after the effect had weared off, the truth of the matter resurfaced, a big black whole. I always feel like crying, bt I feel like the tears are so deep down in the well of my heart, that they can’t come to the surface. I constantly think that something’s wrong with me, bt I can’t pinpoint it. Im oblivious to compliments, even tho they help lift me up & negative comments are all too common, ppl coming and going is all too common. I wonder if I’ll ever be truly loved & committed to, I sometimes wonder if the God of creation will ever be able 2 go 2 these places in my heart and fill them with His glory, with Himself. I’ve begged Him countless times, pleaded with Him 2 fill this void of intimate love with Himself, bt it feels like my cries 4 help have fallen on quiet ears; ears that hear bt are still. I do struggle 2 see the good in my life coz it seems like the bad always overrides it and overwhelms me.
At the end of the day, nothing lasts forever, especially the bad times. Everything has a beginning and an end. There’s hope at the end of the tunnel, as dark as it is. You just have to keep walking through the tunnel and believe that that shimmer of light will appear and you can finally be who you were meant to be, a person with great potential to do great things and a person who is loved unconditionally.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
MEMOIR OF SELF BETRAYAL AND SABOTAGE
Forgiving yourself for past mistakes seems to be one of the most difficult things to do because you can’t take back any of the things you did, and more especially, the person that you ultimately betrayed is yourself.
We know that that we’ve betrayed ourselves because our conscience tells us so. The conscience is something we’re all born with; all of us have both mind and conscience, so we cannot hide from ourselves or even fool ourselves. When you do something that you know is wrong (not because you’ve been socialised into believing that that action you’re about to take is wrong, but that you have a gut feeling that it’s wrong), but go ahead and do it anyway, you are betraying yourself because you are doing something that is against your own intrinsic beliefs.
This became more pronounced to me when I realised that I’ve always felt like at some point in my life, I let myself down, not because society told me so, but my conscience told me so. I convinced a good friend of mine, Kg, to allow me to use her diary excerpt where she poured her heart out about feelings of self betrayal and self sabotage. In the excerpt, it’s almost as if she’s repenting and asking for forgiveness. Check it out:
Im like so bent on living “la vida loca”, on living my own life according to my rules and my way. Those rules and ways were always dictated by society nw that I look back, so in reality I was reli living for other ppl. I made mistakes, I did things im nt proud of. I turned against God & I sinned against myself. I betrayed myself by nt standing up 4 what my conscience was telling me abt what is rite and what is wrong for me. I sacrificed myself for their attention. I bowed down to their demands & said no 2 my needs & knowledge of what I knew was rite, I was afraid to be rejected by them & be abandoned. I felt lonely at the time & friends were gods. They were what seemed to be my life out of loneliness, a ticket to happiness. And with guys, disastrous! You dnt need to have sex to mess yourself up in relation to the opposite sex. I wasn’t aware of my emotional promiscuity, bt looking back now, I realise I was so desperate for their love that I gave most of me, valuable parts, & they saw it & treated it as nothing. I reli have a face hey. All my life I looked perfect & unproblematic on the outside, bt there was lots of self-loathing, rejection, hurt on the inside, distance 4rm myself, sexual sins that brought 1second pleasure & a lifetime of pain, pain that ate @ the core of myself, where I felt like I had robbed myself, sold myself too low, was a piece of junk that was worth nothing. I felt stupid (emotionally, socially, academically, spiritually), even tho I knew what I wanted. I constantly blacked out when I knw what I want, when it is confronted by sum1’s wants, when they clash. I always felt I wasn’t true to myself, & that no1 truly knows me coz I hide behind a façade. You knw Lord, I always felt U were stingying me of the good life, holding out on me. I felt like a relationship with You meant I cudnt live the life I wanted the friends, the in-group, the hott guys, parties (cool hotspots with cool ppl). Funny enuf, those I was rolling with were never reli committed to me, so when they left, I collapsed. I was lost, felt like I was bereft of identity, I was desolate. I made myself a doormat & a punching bag so I cud win ppl’s affection. Never worked. So I sabotaged myself. God, hw do I move on from this? Hw do I forgive myself? My conscience is weeping….
Kg asked for my advice on how to move on from this self betrayal, self sabotage, and I didn’t know what to say to her. I guess you gotta learn how to forgive yourself for your mistakes, because at the end of the day, you didn’t know better. You look for love in the wrong places; you look to people to validate you as a person. But just like a car needs to go back to the manufacturer when it breaks down and has faults, we need to go back to our Manufacturer when we break down. After all, we didn’t create ourselves, so we can’t come up with the manuscript on who we are and how to fix what is deeply broken.
I salute Kg for allowing me to share this with you guys, and for helping me to reflect on where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going.
We know that that we’ve betrayed ourselves because our conscience tells us so. The conscience is something we’re all born with; all of us have both mind and conscience, so we cannot hide from ourselves or even fool ourselves. When you do something that you know is wrong (not because you’ve been socialised into believing that that action you’re about to take is wrong, but that you have a gut feeling that it’s wrong), but go ahead and do it anyway, you are betraying yourself because you are doing something that is against your own intrinsic beliefs.
This became more pronounced to me when I realised that I’ve always felt like at some point in my life, I let myself down, not because society told me so, but my conscience told me so. I convinced a good friend of mine, Kg, to allow me to use her diary excerpt where she poured her heart out about feelings of self betrayal and self sabotage. In the excerpt, it’s almost as if she’s repenting and asking for forgiveness. Check it out:
Im like so bent on living “la vida loca”, on living my own life according to my rules and my way. Those rules and ways were always dictated by society nw that I look back, so in reality I was reli living for other ppl. I made mistakes, I did things im nt proud of. I turned against God & I sinned against myself. I betrayed myself by nt standing up 4 what my conscience was telling me abt what is rite and what is wrong for me. I sacrificed myself for their attention. I bowed down to their demands & said no 2 my needs & knowledge of what I knew was rite, I was afraid to be rejected by them & be abandoned. I felt lonely at the time & friends were gods. They were what seemed to be my life out of loneliness, a ticket to happiness. And with guys, disastrous! You dnt need to have sex to mess yourself up in relation to the opposite sex. I wasn’t aware of my emotional promiscuity, bt looking back now, I realise I was so desperate for their love that I gave most of me, valuable parts, & they saw it & treated it as nothing. I reli have a face hey. All my life I looked perfect & unproblematic on the outside, bt there was lots of self-loathing, rejection, hurt on the inside, distance 4rm myself, sexual sins that brought 1second pleasure & a lifetime of pain, pain that ate @ the core of myself, where I felt like I had robbed myself, sold myself too low, was a piece of junk that was worth nothing. I felt stupid (emotionally, socially, academically, spiritually), even tho I knew what I wanted. I constantly blacked out when I knw what I want, when it is confronted by sum1’s wants, when they clash. I always felt I wasn’t true to myself, & that no1 truly knows me coz I hide behind a façade. You knw Lord, I always felt U were stingying me of the good life, holding out on me. I felt like a relationship with You meant I cudnt live the life I wanted the friends, the in-group, the hott guys, parties (cool hotspots with cool ppl). Funny enuf, those I was rolling with were never reli committed to me, so when they left, I collapsed. I was lost, felt like I was bereft of identity, I was desolate. I made myself a doormat & a punching bag so I cud win ppl’s affection. Never worked. So I sabotaged myself. God, hw do I move on from this? Hw do I forgive myself? My conscience is weeping….
Kg asked for my advice on how to move on from this self betrayal, self sabotage, and I didn’t know what to say to her. I guess you gotta learn how to forgive yourself for your mistakes, because at the end of the day, you didn’t know better. You look for love in the wrong places; you look to people to validate you as a person. But just like a car needs to go back to the manufacturer when it breaks down and has faults, we need to go back to our Manufacturer when we break down. After all, we didn’t create ourselves, so we can’t come up with the manuscript on who we are and how to fix what is deeply broken.
I salute Kg for allowing me to share this with you guys, and for helping me to reflect on where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going.
Friday, July 9, 2010
MEMOIRS OF A HEALING HEART
Human experience seems to be one of the most complicated yet the most simplist things on earth. It's amazing how we are all intricately connected to each other, that when one human being in a relationship makes positive choices, it has amazingly wonderful implications for them and those around them, but when negative choices are made, pain and destruction tears them apart as well as those around them.
Human experiences seem to contain two main themes: success and failure. Everyone celebrates with you when you make positive choices, bringing up happy feelings that make you feel like you are the world's greatest person. But the funny thing is, human success seems to be quickly erased by failure. Make one mistake at any point in your life, and all of a sudden, all the good that you've done is erased, and your mistake is now the brush that paints out who you are as a person, that is, if you're painted as a person at all.
So now, my question is, why are human beings so fixated on the mistakes that they and other people make? Why does one wrong suddenly erase all the other thousand rights that we've done? Why is it so hard for people to forgive themselves for their errors, and why is it so easy for people to define themselves and others by their mistakes?
I have personally come to realise that if you don't know who you are; that you are a person, a living intellectual design of God, then you are going to allow circumstances, experiences and other people to speak into your identity and your life. Most times, the messages we get from these teachers aren't very positive ones.
I think we are fixated on mistakes because the notion of perfection is imprinted in us from a young age, especially from adolescence. Go back to that time in your high school life when you made a mistake, more especially a social mistake. Remember how you were crucified by your peers, how you were called names and became the joke of the day? From that day on, you decided that you'll never let your guard down and that you'll hustle and do all you can to fit into the status quo of the day just so you won't go through the humiliation of being belittled and rejected. Situations like that give you the message that life is all about performance; that perfect performance equals love and acceptance, and mistakes mean that your worthiness to be loved flies straight out the window. Then you grow up and perform more and more, and the more you perform the more you make mistakes because you are living your life haphazardly due to the fact that you have lost a sense of yourself.
Most of the time, we define ourselves by our mistakes because we don't feel worthy. We believe that we need to to pay for love, and that payment for that love is being perfect and never stepping on anyone's toes. I realised that this was a problem that I had; that I was loved based on merit and performance, and not based on the fact that I am a human being and that I am loved because of who I am. Then I thought of it this way: When I was born, I was loved because of who I was, not because of what I had done (whether positive or negative). The definition of my core self was in the fact that I was a human being and that I was loved, not on my successes or failures, or my have and have nots. But as I grew up, unfortunetly the definition of my core self changed because of societal influences and messages that I had allowed into my life. I learned this bottom line: my self worth is not defined by the works of my hands, but it is defined by the One who knit me together in my mother's womb.
So now, I'm adjusting my thinking. When someone makes a mistake, I choose not to paint them with the mistake brush, as I did before, but now I choose to see them as human beings which are prone to error, but those errors do not define their core identity. Same with me. When I make a mistake, I don't see it as a definition of my core self, but rather as just that- a mistake. My worth as a person is not determined ny my works or mis-works, but rather it is determined by the Father's love for me. I'm still adjusting to that, still internalizing this truth.
Human experiences seem to contain two main themes: success and failure. Everyone celebrates with you when you make positive choices, bringing up happy feelings that make you feel like you are the world's greatest person. But the funny thing is, human success seems to be quickly erased by failure. Make one mistake at any point in your life, and all of a sudden, all the good that you've done is erased, and your mistake is now the brush that paints out who you are as a person, that is, if you're painted as a person at all.
So now, my question is, why are human beings so fixated on the mistakes that they and other people make? Why does one wrong suddenly erase all the other thousand rights that we've done? Why is it so hard for people to forgive themselves for their errors, and why is it so easy for people to define themselves and others by their mistakes?
I have personally come to realise that if you don't know who you are; that you are a person, a living intellectual design of God, then you are going to allow circumstances, experiences and other people to speak into your identity and your life. Most times, the messages we get from these teachers aren't very positive ones.
I think we are fixated on mistakes because the notion of perfection is imprinted in us from a young age, especially from adolescence. Go back to that time in your high school life when you made a mistake, more especially a social mistake. Remember how you were crucified by your peers, how you were called names and became the joke of the day? From that day on, you decided that you'll never let your guard down and that you'll hustle and do all you can to fit into the status quo of the day just so you won't go through the humiliation of being belittled and rejected. Situations like that give you the message that life is all about performance; that perfect performance equals love and acceptance, and mistakes mean that your worthiness to be loved flies straight out the window. Then you grow up and perform more and more, and the more you perform the more you make mistakes because you are living your life haphazardly due to the fact that you have lost a sense of yourself.
Most of the time, we define ourselves by our mistakes because we don't feel worthy. We believe that we need to to pay for love, and that payment for that love is being perfect and never stepping on anyone's toes. I realised that this was a problem that I had; that I was loved based on merit and performance, and not based on the fact that I am a human being and that I am loved because of who I am. Then I thought of it this way: When I was born, I was loved because of who I was, not because of what I had done (whether positive or negative). The definition of my core self was in the fact that I was a human being and that I was loved, not on my successes or failures, or my have and have nots. But as I grew up, unfortunetly the definition of my core self changed because of societal influences and messages that I had allowed into my life. I learned this bottom line: my self worth is not defined by the works of my hands, but it is defined by the One who knit me together in my mother's womb.
So now, I'm adjusting my thinking. When someone makes a mistake, I choose not to paint them with the mistake brush, as I did before, but now I choose to see them as human beings which are prone to error, but those errors do not define their core identity. Same with me. When I make a mistake, I don't see it as a definition of my core self, but rather as just that- a mistake. My worth as a person is not determined ny my works or mis-works, but rather it is determined by the Father's love for me. I'm still adjusting to that, still internalizing this truth.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
STARTING OUT!
Ok coolness!
So the latest addition to communication is blogging, expressing your ideas about your favourite topic to the rest of the world.
I decided to try it out to see how far I could get, and to see how many other people agree or disagree with various ideas under various topics.
So yeah man, let's get blogging!
So the latest addition to communication is blogging, expressing your ideas about your favourite topic to the rest of the world.
I decided to try it out to see how far I could get, and to see how many other people agree or disagree with various ideas under various topics.
So yeah man, let's get blogging!
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