I’m at a loss for words
To express my appreciation
For how far you’ve brought me thus far.
I’m not where I want to be
But, I’m not where I used to be
I’ve come a long way.
Daily growing
Marking milestones
Achieving excellence.
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TRAUMA is any experience that destabilizes your life.
TRAUMA TRIGGERS are those things you hear, see or feel that reminds you of the trauma you’ve experienced.
If you’ve experienced trauma, it’s very likely that you’ve experienced trauma triggers too. You might not exactly know they’re triggers, but they are there.
To heal effectively, you’ll need to
°Identify your trauma.
°Know your triggers.
°Be willing to sort out your physiological and psychological reactions to the trauma.
°Build resilience.
°Move forward.
None of these is a walk in the park. All of these need your 💯 willingness to work through the process.
Some people can go through all of these on their own.
Some will need friends and family to pull through.
Some will need professional help from a therapist.
Some will require a combination of all of the above.
What’s important at the end of the day is that you let yourself heal so that you can live while you’re alive and not be a shadow of yourself due to trauma.
PERSONAL SCENERIO
When I lost my Mom in 2016, the first taught that crossed my mind was *Not again*🤦🏽♀️
To say I was devastated is a huge understatement.
I went from mourning and crying to being hopeful and strong to being angry, disappointed and utterly broken.
My mood was all over the place–one minute I’m calm, the next minute I’m irritable.
Praying lost it’s meaning, I felt it was pointless talking to a God who took away my brother and then, took my Mother too.
Reading the Bible lost the “Spark” it used to have.
I withdrew from my friends because they were all trying to be there for me, which is an awesome thing, but at that point, all I wanted was to be alone.
I avoided talking about the incidence.
Food lost it’s appeal. I was hardly ever hungry and so, I lost so much weight (I never recovered my weight until recently 😊)
My hiding place was my phone (I wrote a ton of poems within that period), Movies (these made time pass a little faster) and books (not my lecture notes o 🤣🤣, mostly novels, they provided an escape where I could get lost in other people’s words). While all of these was happening, I hadn’t the slightest knowledge on trauma or triggers but that didn’t exempt me from having triggers or experiencing it’s psychological and physiological effects.
Some of my triggers where:
– Seeing the Zumuntan Mata and hearing them sing (😭😭 it reminded me that my Mom was no longer there). I cried every other Sunday after Mass so I stopped going for the 9am Mass which we used to attend together and started attending the 6pm Mass. It proved an easy escape as most of the people who attended the 6pm Mass weren’t familiar with me or my family so I could easily leave after Mass without having to exchange pleasantries with anyone.
– Seeing people with their Moms or hearing them talk about their Moms (🤦🏽♀️😭😭)
– Hearing about a funeral, or seeing an obituary (I still don’t attend burials, I absolutely avoid them like a plague)
– Seeing a coffin.
– Seeing any elderly woman that remotely looked like my Mom 🤦🏽♀️
– Seeing RIP on social media (Please don’t scatter my day 😏)
It took me quite sometime to resume praying and studying the Bible. I had to forgive God for taking my Mom away and we reconciled😊
Very few of my friends were able to stay through that period of my avoidance and nonchalance towards them. The few who stuck through my bullshit then tried no be small, thank you so much Uwam, Mercy, Evelyn, Ibro, Wase, Yipah, Ene, Annah, Pamela and Sebastian.
I finally got over the pain of seeing the Zumuntan Mata after about two years and resumed going for 9am Mass.
It took a great deal of time, friends who stuck around, good movies and amazing books to get me through the pain and help me reach resilience and thus, move on with my life.
Yes, I still miss my Mom, especially on days when I have things to share with her but thank God for my mother inlaw, in her, I’ve found a Mom I can rant to. Uwam can testify that I’ve successfully snatched her from him 🤪
I still don’t attend funerals, please don’t be annoyed if you’ve lost a loved one and I didn’t show up or if you posted about losing a loved one and I didn’t comment or call. I’m still working on overcoming that part of the trigger.
In all of these, one thing should be clear; you can only heal and move forward when you are ready.
No matter how much your friends, family or therapist wants to help, they can only guide you towards healing.
You have to do the hard work of sorting through your trauma yourself. Only when you have agreed you’re traumatized, made a conscious decision to move forward and work towards achieving it can you gain resilience and fully heal.
Is the process easy? NO.
Is it pain and stress free? NO.
Is it fast or slow? It depends on you.
Is it worth it? YES!
So no matter what your trauma is, make up your mind to heal and move on.
Do it for you because you deserve to live life not just wade through like a ghost.
Feel free to email me at ppbless.bp@gmail.com if you’re willing to share or want to ask questions. Let’s start December on a clean slate with better mental health.
✌🏽 -
I saw a meme a few days back which got me thinking, the meme read, “When a man cheats on a lady and she forgives him, she truly loves him. When a woman cheats on a man and he forgives her, he never loved her.”
As I skimmed through the comments, I felt appalled by how most of those who had commented agreed with this. For me, it was total bullshit. I am of the opinion that forgiveness should be forgiveness irrespective of who is involved but then, realizing that my reaction fit into the cliché of the meme that a woman would forgive, I decided to sample the opinion of a few men I knew. To say I was shocked by their responses doesn’t even capture how I felt. I was livid that most of them agreed with the meme! Only two held my opinion of forgiveness being a sign that the man loves the woman genuinely.
This got me thinking about the unending heartbreak and betrayal stories, it made me realize that when it comes to issues of love and dating, a lot of people have different ideas of what they want and require from others. Most often than not, the focus is on what they want and what the other party is doing or not doing. They tend to forget that love and dating is a process that should involve both parties actively working together to make sure things work the way they want it to. I felt love has been greatly abused so much so that a lot of people don’t expect to be loved even by their immediate family. I’ve also realized that this love dearth is largely caused by our selfishness. Most of us are just so selfish, putting our own needs and wants over and above that of those we claim to love whilst expecting our lover to put us over and above all else. When however, the lover chooses his or herself over us–just as we ourselves have done–we cry foul, forgetting that we too had chosen ourselves over them.
This act of selfishness has eaten so deep into a lot of us that we do not even realize that we are selfish. A lot of us might even get angry when someone tells us we are selfish but the question is, aren’t we? And if we say we are not, what’s our prove of selflessness?
When was the last time you did something for someone without thinking “what’s in it for me?” How can we claim to love someone and then be unwilling to forgive their mistake?
What’s the way forward? I feel the way forward is to stop being so selfish and adopt selflessness, the Bible captures this aptly in Luke 6:31 where it said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” After all as stated in 1 Corinthians 13:7 “Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].”
So it’s high time we dropped the double standards and chose forgiveness over selfishness. -
The Miracle Morning Book Cover This book has in it one of my favourite quotes of all time by Marianne Williamson in A Return To Love, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
In the ten chapters that compromise this book, one is taken through a journey of self discovery, adjustment and discipline. It’s presents information in a matter-of-fact manner with actionable steps to becoming more productive especially using the early hours of the morning before 8am. Personally, for a person like me who isn’t a morning person—though Hal debunks anyone not being a morning person–implementing the life savers before 8am has been a great struggle.
What are these life savers?
They are practices that will help with your physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual growth so that you can become who you need to be to create the life you want. Here goes the life savers:
S – Silence
A – Affirmations
V – Visualization
E – Exercise
R – Reading
S – Scribing
Each of these are further explained by Hal and he goes further to give links to various resources that can help keep one on track.
I find his use of quotes from various people to begin each chapter interesting. His sharing his own journey and how the miracle morning started in chapter two was also a great inspiration. Overall, it is an interesting read. -
Hello everyone,
Writers Space Africa is giving everyone a free opportunity to learn about different genres of literature and writing from wonderful resource persons drawn from all over Africa.
I’m pleased to announce that I am one of those speaking and I’ll be talking on “the art of story telling.” Check the flier attached for more details.
The workshop will start from Monday 22nd to Sunday 28th November 2021 by 7pm each day.
To join the workshop – https://us06web.zoom.us/j/2781782494?pwd=RGVGWHlxcW1GV055ZG9DcmpZMER5QT09
Meeting ID: 278 178 2494
Passcode: 3pCcav
If you prefer to follow the workshop via Whatsapp, please click the link below – https://chat.whatsapp.com/G0PgStThToxCChNSPYbDSYCome let us learn and grow together.
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Life’s good
Let your mantra be
And for every day you wake
So everywhere you go
To put your life back on track
And an opportunity
Freely given to you by God
Being alive is a gift
Daily remember that
No matter how much you’ve been through
No matter what you’re going through
Read from the bottom up
Here’s wishing all the amazing men out there a wonderful International Men’s day and of course, the good life. 🥂
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“What do you want for dinner,” Grace asked.
“You” he replied, pointing at her friend. -
The Lord is my light
Present and ever near
Quick to respond to my pleas
Slow to anger
Abounding in steadfast love. -
Slowly but surely, we shall achieve all that God has given us the ability to achieve.
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If God be for me
Who can be against me?
If the Lord has set me on high
Who dares bring me down?
If God loves me
Who can hate me?
