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In her September Thoughts

20 Fifth

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When you grow!

06 min read

25 September 2019

Hi lovelies!
The month is coming to a gradual end and all I can feel now is gratitude. I haven’t seen so much around me change but one thing I am sure of is that I am not the same girl I was in August. At least I am here, typing on a blog and I wasn’t doing that last month. Last month I was wallowing in self inflicted pain and confusion….

Side Note: Please, I am begging anyone who sees this, pleaseeeeee let me know how your month is going. I am so desperate to hear from you. No matter how long the text turns out, do send it. You can leave me a mail:
Destinyfelinah@gmail.com
Or leave me an instagram message
@_purplejournal
I just really want to know how the people listening to me are doing. I want to learn more from you. I want to see what I might be doing wrong.

Now back to growth


So you’ve grown better!
Yes. Whether you believe it or not, you’ve actually grown better. You have gotten more experiences. You have felt so much emotions. You’ve struggled through some task and you still got some done.
When we look back at who we used to be and who we are becoming, the difference is amazing. When you look back, you notice all the things you once would put up with and now it seems like you’re ready to swing bad energy out of your life. As we grow we tend to get attracted to things that are moving towards where are are heading to.
Motivational gurus will state how important it is to change our immediate community. To be around people that inspire us. They tell us how the subtle involvements does influence us.

Personally, as I have grown out of some sort of phase, I notice things I went through that seemed like a waste of time. I have noticed some things I was once interested in but have grown to realise they wouldn’t matter in a few years. I’ve dropped some addictions and pleasures. I look at some things and cringe at how immature and unnecessary they are.

I had a dialogue with myself. Before bed last night, I did try to consider the people I can’t push away from my life. The people that will always be around me (you): Family, loved friends, work mates…
When we grow in certain ways (especially when the change is really visible or progressive) we tend to develop personalized metric and yardstick for acknowledging the people around us. I have talked myself into believing that this is just another phase of growth. If this phase is not handled right, we might just become toxic to the people around.

What I am trying to say is the whole idea of forcing growth on the people around us. Just because we can’t swing them out of our lives, we tend to develop an attitude geared towards moulding them into what we want them to be. Moulding them into who we think they should be. Pressuring them on how we feel they should act. Looking down on their faults. Getting agitated at their lack of response. “We” just look at so much of us we are infusing into someone’s life.

I am trying not to always make myself an example, but who else do I stay so close to? Okay, example :
Lately I have been watching my junior brother who I am two years older than. We use to do so many things together. We’ll get excited about the same stupid ideas and meaningless songs. We’ll both delve into the world of aspiring to be wealthy and believe that’s all life was about. Well, I got the chance to go to the University and he’s still in highschool. I got the chance to live with different people and try ignore what I hated about them. I got the chance to see real life struggles, the chance to be depressed and the chance to seek coming out of that nightmare. In all that, I’ve grown. Most of my values, interests and ambitions have changed; I would say my life took a 360 slow turn.

I am back home for the holiday. I am living with my family again and I am trying to be a whole new me now. A new me that’s still constantly becoming new… And changing everyday.

Who wouldn’t love living in a home with very goal-oriented humans? Who wouldn’t love living in a home that supports your interests?

I have now returned with very dramatic expectations from my family. I expect them to be positive, to be loving towards themselves. To constantly fill the atmosphere with good vibes. I expect them to act right. To do the right things. I expect them to start having dreams for their lives. To start supporting each other. Embracing and loving one another. I expect my parents to be very concerned with our mental health and notice our desire to start creating our dream lives. I expect my parents to be very supportive. This is a great vision. This is a wonderful, desirable family picture. But things can also get toxic…

I look at my junior brother and try to figure out how to get him out of the silly teenage obsessions: fantasies of great cars and huge houses, expensive shoes and nice hair do. Trending fashion and upbeat rap songs that says nothing reasonable. I force my nine year old sister to stop replying to everything someone says…
In essence, forcing them to grow out of their annoying teenage and childish behaviours and interests. It’s painful to admit but this is wrong no matter how many times I say, “it’s for their own good.”

Nothing teaches as great as experience. Don’t you think it will be a really dramatic lesson to teach someone how a certain pain feels. Sometimes words aren’t enough, sometimes they seem insufficient. Words could have different meanings and intensity to different ears. The best and easiest way to make them understand this pain you’re babbling about would probably be letting them feel it themselves… Feel the pain sting their emotions and linger on their skin.

I thought of how wrong what I was going was… Trying to deny them the opportunity to find meaning in pain; to find a meaning and reason to why they have to grow up. Why they have to heal.
We could pray. We could guide. We could teach. We could share our experiences… But one thing I have realised is wrong is expecting a certain attitude or result from the people around us.

Just because you grew wiser doesn’t make everyone around you dumb. Just because the universe gave you your share of your lessons earlier doesn’t mean the rest of the world around you have to become extremely reasonable. It doesn’t mean they’ll share the same interests as you.

Stop forcing the people around you to grow into what you think is right. Don’t force growth on people when their souls haven’t had a reason to know they need a change.

Nobody spoke you into the confusion that led to your realization. Don’t do that to someone. Nature, The Divine, Destiny… They are all able to control human progress. They hold a core factor called timing. Don’t force someone to blend into your own time(season) of growth.
Pray for them, encourage, love and rebuke them when it’s called for. Teach them. Try to help them see the big picture. But don’t, don’t, don’t pressure them into a picture in your head.

My junior brother don’t have access to some of the books I stumbled upon. He doesn’t have access to my instagram community. He doesn’t see with the same perspective as I. We don’t feel the same emotions at the same time.
It’s best to let the universe speak to him in a way that he’ll understand… While I provide him with experiences and lessons I’ve learnt. While I provide him with listening ears.

How are you seeing your family and friends?

Know that you are also childish to someone who seems to have grown faster than you did. I will still struggle with this, but now I know it’s wrong.

So, this is the message from The Purple Journal today; family… They might not always understand. That’s why we have a chance to meet with like minded people… People who are seemingly in the same phase as us (friends); But don’t force your immediate community to respond like you expect.
I don’t know if I was able to get the message across. Know it’s something very selfish to do.
You. And me. We now have to grow from this phase. We have to learn patience and perseverance.

With love, light and grace

The Purple Journal.
XoXo

In her September Thoughts

11venth September

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COMMUNITY

11 September 2019

We can’t deny how beautiful solitude can be. The fact that we get more done when there is no one around our workspace is inviting. Not to mention the hidden dance moves we get to share with only ourselves, but nothing was ever established in solitude.
Things can be created in solitude but nothing was ever truly established in solitude.

Establishment itself is a pillar made of people.

Because we force ourselves to process all the success stories we see everywhere (even when in the bathroom you know someone thousand miles away that’s launching a yacht while all you’d be launching is a toilet sit) we feel rushed. We feel the world is running forward and we are the only ones sitting behind. These unrealistic expectation cause us to focus on the unrealistic instead of what is close to us. We quickly forget the joy of a community.

I believe the people you keep around you makes up your community. A community have always been known to be an unsophisticated, ordinary, small clan.
The truth is that we are not so extraordinary that means some of us still live in this ordinary small clan. Yet the type of persons we keep around us determine how long we’ll stay in the ordinary.

A community helps you grow, they slowly journey towards improvement.
In the reality the thing people call extraordinary is just long moments of perseverance. Those mediocre, ordinary days with little unseen improvement makes up the big extraordinary reality.

In this process we forget to put ourselves out there even with our inadequacies and imperfections.
It’s a water me, I water you movement. The clouds never rush.
These people you are able to laugh with in the hard days, these people that listen to all your complains about life, the ones you call for help, the ones that make you crack a rip and even cry, the ones that challenge you, inspire you, motivate you and even forces you to improve… They are the underestimated growth factors.

There should be moments of talking to people, there should be moments of giving the little you have.
Go out and do the simple you can. A community is made up of ordinary people doing the little ordinary things they can. What happens when you add together so much little things? They grow to make something bigger….

In a community when you’re weak, they might be stronger than you… And when they are weak, you see your strength and abilities come alive.
Wouldn’t it be fulfilling to be able to help someone break down. In the times of human pains, there are thousands of words ready to be said. The mouth wants to be free and the heart also wants to be free. The eyes wants to express and every part of the body is itching to release.
Wouldn’t it be nice to help. To say the words the person in pain just couldn’t say. Won’t it be kind to help them speak while they help themselve cry and feel.
A sense of belonging. A sense of support. A sense of community.
A simple way to meet a complicated human need.

Today has been a day of reflecting on my past emotions… And it’s been relieving. I don’t feel like saying much today but it’s still a challenge and I took it.

P. S Today’s blog featured image was taken with my mobile phone and edited by me and I feel accomplished. It’s a wonder where this feeling came from.

In her September Thoughts

9ineTh September

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2ND WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
THROUGH OUT THE FIRST WEEK, I HAVE:

  1. Lived a very intentional life, everyday.
  2. Exercised my writing habit for people.
  3. Had really deep thoughts about my life (which was a bit frustrating and tiring)
  4. Taken my time to appreciate my surroundings and see the beauty of creation.
  5. Managed to stay off social media during the day.
  6. Tried to build my faith and back it up with reasons that are meaningful to me.
  7. Had nice conversations with some of the people I was stalking.
  8. Prayed for someone each day (amazing if you asked me)
    Not so much but let’s see how this week goes…

GROWING PAINS


I have seen the term Growing Pains but I never really checked out what it meant because from the first day I set my wandering eyes on it, I registered one thing: It was what I was feeling everyday.
In this fast paced world with different shades of the same thing, it’s easy to loose yourself.

I dedicate my today’s thoughts to any one feeling depressed. This is in respect of this week, Suicide prevention week.
There are more than a thousand reasons for teens, young adults and even aged adults to be depressed. My focus for today is being depressed because of your growing pains.

Growth as I have experienced is not easy. There is the part where you have decided to make good use of your life, you’ve decided to be useful to the earth, you’re ready to do hard and amazing cool things but it feels like the whole of earth is against you because you don’t even know what to do, not to say you don’t even know where to start. Your mind is not helping you because you can’t even see a map of where you’re going to. This is depressing for people looking out for how they can start building their dream life. This feeling of being too dumb to figure things out and the feeling of not being good enough is bad on our self image and growth.

Here is a fast thing I want to say:
I have been deeply depressed. The one that doesn’t have to do with anybody else but yourself. There was no other person to be angry and furious at but myself. I felt like only me can help me figure out my life but I was being too dumb to even answer questions about myself. Questions like, what do you love doing, what are you good at; these questions were disturbing to me because I just couldn’t find the answers no matter how much I thought about them. My mind became a battle ground for angry thoughts and that made me feel a very obvious void in my chest. Like hot gases swirling in my chest and stomach. It was a living nightmare.
There are more hurtful reasons to be depressed but we can’t lie that it always boils down to one thing: the thought that we could just let go of our miserable lives already.

I thought of suicide, it looked inviting to me but I just couldn’t do it for a simple reason that if hell did exist, I didn’t deserve to go to hell. I believed I had already gone through so much emotional pain here on earth and I didn’t deserve another fleet of pain in hell. If suicide did lead to hell, I wasn’t going to take that root. The whole essence of dying was so I can find rest not pain.

I took another root. I stayed with the pain long enough to know it waan’t normal. I reached out to a woman I didn’t know but works in my school’s Medical Center. She felt pity for me, she was the right person and I didn’t plan talking to her. I just walked down to the Medical Center, opened the door and said “I need help”. While she was telling me the doctors were not in, she saw the silent tears and asked me to take a sit. We went through God’s word, the bible and we prayed.
The pain didn’t go away immediately, it didn’t go away for days, months; but I had a hope that it was going to go no matter how long it took. I felt truly lighter.

I didn’t plan saying so much of the story, but there goes nothing. This is not all, the story is darker and longer than this but here’s the next thing I want to paint in your hearts:
I am happy I was depressed. I am grateful to God for letting depression crawl into my soul. Why? Because that’s what growth is all about. It’s about knowing something is wrong and seeking for answers and solutions rather than running away from it. It’s about being strong, remaining in a skin you wish to run away from, long enough to be able to control that skin. It’s about adapting to the language of growth which is pain and discomfort.
If I was not depressed, I wouldn’t have had a soft spot for human suffering. I wouldn’t be reading books and seeking principles. I wouldn’t be taking the next step towards finding my life path.

Although I am not a Buddhist, the Buddha once said, “Pain is inevitable ” and this is a general truth. It should be a mindset we carry about. It’s a mindset for survivors and we all know from the cave men days, life has been about adaptation and survival. Preys find ways to block off predators and even a prey can switch to be a predator if it finds its strength; Else how do you explain large HUMANS fighting BACTERIA.

From biology class, I was thought that vaccination is introducing a weaker bacteria into a human’s system so the immune system adapts to fighting that bacteria, this helps build immunity against stronger bacteria. This is how growth works… If you desire to grow you have to learn how to adapt to pain because pain can never go away. Evil will keep coming. You’ll face greater disappointments, heartbreaks, loss… More people will die and the economy will keep falling and rising.

Pain is not here to kill you. It only tells you the limit is being exceeded and change needs to happen. Something needs to be done.
Because I hanged on long enough to survive, I have realised that every down moment comes with a new level. I passed over my first depression. More darker ones might come in the future but I have a lesson engraved in my memory of depression.
When the growing pains I feel gets too much, I am reminded by my scars that a new version of me is being born. In the pain I find my distraction from anticipating the new version of me. And I am not going to settle for any negative version.
At least I’ll have a good story to tell. I’ll be able to genuinely pat someone on the back and wipe off a tear from another growing soul.

Hang on. Earth is still learning how to accommodate humans…

  • written note to myself during my depressed days. Full emotion expression found in commful. To check out the post on commuful put my name into the search icon

To write love on her arms (twloha) is a community that tries to save more people from picking suicide over growing. They Try to create suicide awareness and share survivors stories. In respect to suicide prevention week you can check them out on instagram @twloha
Also follow and use the hash tag:

#youmaketodaybetter

You make today better. The world is better because you’re adapting and growing.