Brutal Honesty => Self-Awareness => Mindfulness

       As you know spring has sprung, (she wrote… not knowing what would happen this weekend in Canada, but you know? If you live anywhere else, like say London, don’t let us stop you from living your best SPRING life!), so the plan for the blog is to talk you through a bit of spring cleaning. Basically, I will release two articles a week (Monday and Thursday) that help you de-clutter one aspect of your life. As this is the first article in this series, I am starting with you… and me, you and me both. I feel that in too many circles, mental health and wellness is brushed under the carpet and secretly prayed away. And trust me, I believe in prayer, I believe prayer is extremely powerful and has the ability to do incredible things. However, I also believe that there are things you can do to control the energies around you and steer your mind in the right direction. I believe that there are always things beyond our control, and some days where you are just going to feel shit, but there are ways to reduce anxiety and stress and foster overall better health, and I think this is worth a conversation.

Daniel Chidiac once said “Being self-aware is not the absence of mistakes, but the ability to learn and correct them.” Self-awareness is a conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires. Social media, Instagram especially, has made it way too easy to compare and measure your life based on someone else’s and convince yourself that you are the only on who struggles, and I mean… it is just not true. I could talk about “oh you should have more mind power and self-restraint,” but it is addictive, it is like picking a spot on your face. Literally everyone says “leave it alone, focus on something else” but no. Every chance you get, you go back to the same spot, no matter how sore it becomes, or how much it bleeds. You pick it. You pick it until it becomes this life-sucking entity, thriving and blossoming on your face, and then you slap an absurd amount of makeup on to cover it up because you know? you haven’t given it enough attention already. 

I am guilty of this and trust me when I say I excel at fabricating stories in my head that are 100% false, but I convince myself are true, and you know? somehow everyone except me, is just badass and kicking ass at life 100% of the time. It is just such trash, but it has the ability to ruin my mood for a good couple of days at least, because nothing I’m doing at that point feels as special or inspiring or impactful as what I see my friends doing and achieving on Instagram. Ok, but to the good part of the story. I am not better at leaving my spots alone but I am better at catching myself when I am going down the Instagram-comparison downward spiral and this is what self-awareness is. It is not becoming more perfect, not by a long shot, it is about knowing yourself better. It is about abandoning this notion of perfection that we are sold so frequently. It is paying attention to yourself and learning your patterns and knowing your triggers and understanding what brings you back to reality the quickest. For me, it is talking to the people around me, you know? REAL people, with scars and spots and  stretch marks and flabs and jiggles not the six-filter, $10,000 surgery versions of them on social media.

Billie Jean King, American former World number 1 professional tennis player once said “I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.” This struck me because I would expect someone like her to talk about mastering your opponent or training as hard and as often as you can, which I don’t doubt that these things are important, but she thinks self-awareness is the most important thing. Being a champion inherently means that you have failed, multiple times. Being a champion just means you have gotten up and learned from all the mistakes you have made. Winning is not the absence of losing or failure, it is the mastery of failure. Winning is failing better. Winning is failing as many times as you need to, to know a situation better, and better than that, know yourself a little better in that situation. The only way you can actually fail is to accept defeat in your mind because at that point there is no reason to put in any effort. The universe is going to conspire to give us what we put out, good or bad. You see? The mind is extremely powerful. Getting to where you want to be in any thing in life starts with your mind whether you know it or not. Once you conquer something in your mind, that’s at least half the work done.

De-cluttering your mind is such a powerful tool. While some people naturally have their shit all the way together 100% of the time and that’s lovely, I am not of those people, so yeah… I need the help, and it is totally fine if you do too. So like I say, self-awareness starts with being brutally honest with yourSELF. Be honest, be absolutely honest about where you are, and how your negative thoughts about yourself have maybe contributed to, and held you back from getting to where you want to be. Once you feel clear about the blocks, you can begin to clean them up to make space for positive manifestations to occur. Example. I have a really hard time believing I am an intelligent human being with lots to offer. I went to the University of Toronto and graduated with Honors, I have this blog that I have done almost consistently for four years, I write for Schick magazine (just to show that how you feel about yourself does not always have anything to do with your actual reality). I should be content and grateful because at the end of the day, I am quite lucky and so fortunate. I should. I should but many times I struggle to feel that way and find that place of gratitude. Gratitude is not natural. It has to be a conscious decision. But I have found that gratitude lasts longer when you work your way up to it. It doesn’t last that long when you abandon everything you are ACTUALLY feeling because you feel guilty and you feel you should be grateful. Instead of trying to feel how you think you should, admit your feelings in that moment, then take stock and adjust appropriately. Do this as many times as you need to in order to get to a place where it becomes easy and gratitude becomes the go to. 

So, it’s the beginning of spring and I think it is the perfect time to do a little spring cleaning and inventory. I guarantee you, that no matter who you are, there are a thousand things you have to be thankful for and there are thousand times your body and your mind have proved to you what you are capable of. It is just now left to you to remember those things when you feel overwhelmed or defeated. It is amazing to have the courage to be totally honest with yourself about where you are but it is more important to  take action and root for yourself when you figure who that is. Spring is the perfect time to clean out and ward off all the negative energy but it is also the perfect time to plant and put things in place in your life to bloom and manifest positive attributes. 

The Sisterhood of The Travelling Pants 1

     Guys… I am a little sad. It is literally almost the end of March and I’ve been enjoying blogging  so much, just organically sharing the lessons I have learned and continued to learn from my tribe of queens has been an extremely cathartic process. If you have just started reading the blog and have no idea what I am on about, March is Women’s History, so on the blog this month, I have been talking through different positive attributes and character traits every week, and highlighting women in my life that exemplify these qualities.

     “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants” is a series of four novels written by Ann Brashares, and a two-part movie adaptation with the same title, that tells the whirlwind story of four teenage girls who share a pair of blue jeans, and much like their friendship, they all bring something different, but it fits all four of them perfectly. This pair of blue jeans quickly becomes more than an item of clothing, as this coming-of-age story unfolds, it becomes the fabric of their entire friendship and the very thing that holds them together as they drift away and explore their own individual journeys. So, naturally it is the perfect reference point for this story because it truly reflects my own relationship with my sisters. Except the perfect pair of blue jeans are our entire wardrobes, all three of us. In part one, we are throwing shade and catching feelings and not catching feelings and throwing more shade. I feel like more than anything, my sisters have taught me how to authentically and organically become “other”, unconsciously by fiercely being exactly who they are and consciously by letting me throw shade at the regular population’s failed attempts. And I mean sometimes it all comes off a little harsh or dry especially when the shade is directed at me, but we get each other, we get each other on a level that allows us to remember that none of us are mean spirited. No matter how hard we have to dig, whether it takes 3 minutes or 3 days, we do it because we know there’s kindness in there somewhere.We all have the same extremely sarcastic tone and the same bone dry sense of humour so we get along great, we never really run out of things to talk about, we can talk for hours and hours and I love it (well except when we’ve been talking for 3 hours straight and it’s 2:28am).

     Reyna Biddy once said “you can only get better at what you practice often, practice being yourself; the one you are behind closed doors, let people love that person,” and my sisters let me be that person and they love her fiercely. We hear over and over again that practice makes perfect and it seems repetitive and a little redundant to remind you that you can only get good at being yourself if you practice but I promise this is important. It is important because being yourself is often uncomfortable and inconvenient, and being authentic often makes you look “weird”or “uncool” to begin with, but it gets better… I think, I hope. The “best” of us struggle with the same crippling fear of being rejected or judged or misunderstood or not liked or unpopular. It is not hard to see how pretending to be someone you are not can be a much easier, much better deal. For one, being someone you are not and getting rejected, is much easier to deal with than being yourself and getting rejected, because there are at least 6 billion fake versions of you but only one real one.

Practising being yourself is important also because social media makes it so easy to lose sight of who you are. Social media makes it so that you are constantly being scrutinized. Social media has become like an interview, and in many cases it is (something like 80% of employers search for their candidates on social media before the first in-person interview), to where it is stoic and noble to admit your weaknesses but there is also an unspoken obligation to tie it all up in a pretty pink bow. We constantly demand the truth but the truth is, the truth we demand is not the truth that is the truth, it is the truth that we envision in our minds, the truth that we unconsciously want the truth to be. And to prove it, here’s nine “other” fails…

1. We say we want a woman  to show her scars and stretch marks and flabs and folds but when she does, we think “good for her” not “oh my goodness, she’s gorgeous.” This ridiculous need to seem “perfect” comes from the illusion that we are the only ones with flaws and stretch marks and baggage and darkness. But as Ernest Hemingway so astutely points out, the truth is “we are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.”
2. I feel like I woke up one morning and it was suddenly uncool to like Beyoncé and Chris Brown and Usher and all the regular-Joe, mainstream artists. Now everyone is all about Solange and Kehlani and SZA and Khalid, and I mean I love SZA and my little sister is OBSESSED with Khalid, so by association, I am too. This is not the problem. The problem is that there are people who think they are like music connoisseurs or something, and their music taste somehow makes them “better” than the rest of us. Answer me this, wouldn’t you rather enjoy your “crazy in love” in peace than join “chopping mouth association” on top being cool? The truth is I love Bruno Mars and Drake and Beyonce, and I’m fine with that, but I also feel pressure to be artsy-fartsy-vibey-cool.
3. Being on social media does not qualify anyone for a PhD in maturity, ok? Like, please what is that about? Social media is not for everyone and that is perfectly ok. In fact, Portalndia is not on Instagram and mi rei is, and there’s about two pictures of her in total on there, but that’s just because like I say, they are both super private. No one likes that one annoying person in the group who wants to put everything on Snapchat, but it is not fair to treat everyone who is on Snapchat like they are compulsive.
4. I feel like everyone knows someone who is on some phony-ass, “flower child”, “septum piercing”,“hippie-dippy” shit. Is it by force to be alternative? 
5. My favourite “other” has to be the “naturalista,” the “my hair is natural , so if you are Black and your hair isn’t, then you are either self-hating or a sell-out.” My hair is natural and believe it or not, it was not my choice, just bad timing I guess. I have no tolerance for ANYONE who hair shames. 
6. Ooo and the boys who claim to “like girls natural, natural hair, natural nails, no makeup.” Ooo but “I like my men tall, dark, handsome and rich!” I guess we are both going to have to settle, aren’t we?
7. Another favourite “other” of mine is the “couch potato/old lady” other. The “I don’t go clubbing, I would just rather stay home, read a good book and have a glass of red wine” other. Like, ok sweetie, good for you, you should do that then. The hole-and-corner, tongue-in-cheek insinuation that staying in on Friday night somehow makes one more mature is beyond me.
8. Sex. The “Ooo she said bad word!, Oh what must we do?, i’m pretty sure they are directly related to Jesus” other, the ones who act like sex is such a taboo and you are just a horrible person for wanting to talk about it. So irritating. Then of course, there’s the obnoxiously suggestive “other” that tries so desperately, to give off this bogus comfortability, borderline nonchalance with sex. Again, irritating. Just act normal, the fact that you feel comfortable enough to talk about sex does not make you a ho, it makes you an adult. And anyone who acts like they are not at least curious about sex, virgin or not, is a… wait for it…. LIAR! SURELY we can reach a happy medium.
9. Weed. Oooo she’s on one today. My friend had a birthday thing a couple of years ago and it was interesting, to say the least. Basically, after we got done with dinner, we all headed outside the restaurant to get cabs. While we waited, my friend pulled out a blunt, lit it, took a puff and passed it to the next person and then the next person took a puff and passed it to me. Only thing is I don’t smoke weed, absolutely no problem with the ADULTS who do, but I, Ninioritse, do not. Before I could politely refuse the now slightly unsanitary offer, “oh no she doesn’t do that!” And I instantly felt the judgment and thought to myself, I have been totally respectful of your choice, why am I being called out and made to feel weird about mine?

My sister Portlandia made cool look cool before it became cool. I feel like living with her, while unbearable sometimes has really influenced the girl I am today. She has taught me to be relentless in rooting for myself, my success and my happiness. She has taught me to think for myself. She has taught me to think of what I think of my own actions and decisions before I think of what other people may or may not think about my actions and decisions. I say this, but I also unconsciously make the decisions I feel she will be the most proud of me for. My sister ‘mi rei’ is just my best girl. She is the smartest, most focused, most loving, most forgiving, most encouraging person in my life. She holds me in such high regard that it scares me. No, you know what scares me? It is the fact that she forces me to look at myself the way she looks at me. She forces me to see myself in the best possible light and fights tooth and nail to hold me up there, because trust me, I continue to give her enough reasons to drop me. More than anything, my sisters are two of the largest pieces of my heart and I hope I make them proud every day.

This is the story of "Grace": Never Throw Anyone Out

         As you know, March is Women’s History… wait, no… I really can’t explain this again. If you are totally confused, please check my last two posts. I mean… I know you probably didn’t, you probably just continued reading, so I’ll explain… AGAIN. As you know, March is Women’s History Month, so the plan for the blog is to talk through different positive attributes and character traits every week, and highlight  a woman in my life that exemplify these qualities. This week, it’s my Mamaca, my grandmother. She is the most compassionate person you will ever meet, the most elegant lady and she does it all with such style and grace. She has 7 biological children and 16 grandchildren, so that accounts for 23 out of the 614642537 people she takes care of.  For most of her life, she has taken care of all these people while also juggling a full-time job as a nurse and her activities in the Catholic Church, which is pretty much like having two full time jobs. Wait, I feel like, that just made her sound dead or really, really old. “For most of her life…” She’s not. She’s 73 and She’s just retired.

When I started creating a plan for this article, I found myself struggling to decide whether to describe her character and they way she treats people as “empathetic” or “compassionate.” I was initially weary of the word “compassionate” because it is often affiliated with pity, which my Mamaca doesn’t help people out of pity. However, “compassion” also means “empathy” accompanied by action, which is the most accurate depiction of her character, so that was it. Mamaca helps people because she feels their pain and desperation, she has lived so much life that she can pretty much relate to everyone. Compassion is empathy accompanied by action. So, in this way, Mamaca is compassionate because she shows empathy and takes the time to listen, but more importantly, she accompanies her feelings with action. It is the same spirit that my Queen Julie embodies so well. So much so that I’m just now, as an adult, figuring out that most of my “uncles” are actually my uncle’s friends who needed a place to stay after university. 

        Over the past couple of months, I have been in Nigeria, so I have gotten the chance to visit her more often and it has been such a blessing. Almost every time I visit, she has found a new way to help someone and she is never the one who tells me about it. I found out quite recently that the people who currently rent her property have not been able to make rent in almost a year but she doesn’t fight them because she knows that they struggle. She is 73 years old but every time I visit she makes me dinner fit for a queen, no matter how hard I try to convince her not to. I think I am just now learning that although my Mamaca is not an emotional or a sentimental woman, she still shows more love than the average Joe. She is quite sarcastic but she possesses a kindness that seems to know no bounds. This is an important lesson. This is an important lesson because I often confuse love with affection, which affection is nice and affection can be an indication of love but it is not the same thing as love. Mamaca is not affectionate but this is no way diminishes the love she shows on a daily basis. I think society’s definition of love is becoming so warped and twisted and shallow and one-dimensional that a man who abuses his wife or girlfriend can so easily mask his animalistic tendencies by a few kisses and tender touches at dinner.

Mamaca continues to prove herself worthy of my utmost respect, and so effortlessly too; she has become quite the professional at putting me in my place and showing me up, sometimes, without saying a word. Like, that one time when I showed her the pictures I took in Versailles last summer, oh so proudly that I could barely get my words out, partly because I was too excited but also because I thought she won’t really understand. But I ended up stumbling on a picture of her standing in front of the Versailles castle in 1982? Or you know, that one time when I thought I was mad cute in my tiny, little dress and Mamaca told me about it, but it went over my head because I thought to my self “she is too old-fashioned?” But again, I ended up taking it back to the tailor and having a few more inches added to it. As it turns out all that fuss, all that back and forth is unnecessary because true elegance is not shouty, it has nothing to prove, it is timeless. 

Elegance is a dignified or restrained beauty of form, appearance or style; an art my Mamaca has mastered. According to the Oxford Living Dictionary, it is the quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance or manner. Manner being a person’s outward bearing or way of behaving towards others. In other words, elegance begins internally, elegance begins with a personal decision to manifest your light a certain way, to maintain a certain a level of decorum, a decision that will not be compromised by the energy or vibe or appearance or verbal decisions or actions of anyone else. Elegance is having all the power, the whole time and not letting go to prove a point or win a petty argument. Elegance is putting your personal peace before other people’s opinions of you. It is the same reason Mamaca didn’t get worked up or annoyed when my mum had to point out to me that she (Mamaca) put herself through nursing school. I didn’t think she was uncultured or uncouth or anything, I didn’t downplay her wisdom in my mind, but I guess I just assumed that she didn’t have any formal education, which is not cool.

Many times, the words “elegant” and “classy” are used interchangeably but in my opinion, there are some fundamental differences between the two, which when explored have the potential to offer clarity and highlight authenticity and depth. To begin with, elegance is all about self-respect and self-restraint, and the pursuit of classiness is superficial and deeply rooted in showmanship. True elegance nudges you to reflect on who you are as an individual and how you treat people, and trying to be classy inevitably takes you down the spiral of comparing what you have and your level of sophistication to those around you. “Classy” is often a self-acclaimed title, on Instagram, the caption “keeping it classy” has spread like wildfire because people feel the need to prove that they are the “bigger” person in whatever context or capacity.“Elegant” is more often used by a person when describing someone else, in their absence no less. “Classy” is objective, elegance isn’t. Queen Julie and Mamaca would casually without realizing, refer to a party they enjoyed as “classy,” but never the people. An event, a one-time thing SHOULD be classy, and possess a certain air of sophistication, because it will only last a couple of hours and is meant to be impressive to the guests. As a human being, a real person, choosing to live your life with the primary goal of being impressive is like trying to throw a cool party every single day, it will always be far more exhausting than just being yourself. And fortunately or unfortunately, people will always remember how you treated them over what you gave them or how you looked. Working towards elegance is significantly easier to maintain and more authentic and more organic, because the easiest person to be is yourself, like with my Mamaca, what you see is what you get and it has been that way for as long as I can remember.

My Mamaca’s name is Grace, Grace Theresa Okpiabhele, which makes all the sense in the world, because you need a well of grace to be able to half pull it off. My Mamaca carries a thousand worries on her head and in her heart but never in her smile or in her walk. She is not perfect and she never claims to be, she just enjoys the grace, the unmerited favour of God and she is almost too aware of it. Like clockwork, she begins or ends almost every sentence with “By God’s grace,” which I mean she needs it, to continue to be everything to everybody at the same time. My Mamaca enjoys the special grace of God and she works hard to make sure we all know that. I love my Mamaca, always have, but now that I am bit older, I appreciate her. I may disagree with her when she criticizes my questionable fashion choices but I know that knowing her and having her in my life makes me a better person.

Sink or Swim?

Dear September, 

This is the one where I talk about faith and perseverance and resilience. As you know, March is Women’s History Month. So the plan for the blog is to discuss different positive attributes and character traits every week, and highlight the women in my life that exemplify these qualities (which if you read last week’s post, you also know this). This week’s post is all about faith, perseverance and resilience, because they often manifest the same way, and there is no one who exemplifies these qualities better than my aunty-mother, Aunty Ede. 

According to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘faith’ is a complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Trust and confidence. Trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something. Confidence is the state of feeling certain about the the truth of something. By definition, it is unlikely that you have faith in just one thing. Thus, choosing to be a Christian and choosing to have faith in God FIRST, does not disqualify anyone else. In other words, as a Christian, my commitment is to put God FIRST and have Him on speed dial, not to have Him be the only one on my contact list. Christianity is more a relationship than a religion, so naturally, everyone’s journey is unique and there is freedom to make it what you want it to be. 

Christianity, like any other positive relationship fosters and ignites other positive relationships. The Bible teaches that we were created to help each other and the Christian faith is built on the foundations of communion and fellowship, asking for help and being your sister’s keeper. My aunty Ede, as everything as she is, has a tribe of people who support her and the last thing you will do is shame her for it. No one became richer or better or more successful by insisting on doing everything on their own; that is exhausting and it is an unnecessary burden. I mean I love a good grass to grace, started from the bottom now we’re here, coming from nothing to something story as much as the next girl, but that’s all it is, a story. It is definitely not necessary. With the rise in popularity of YouTube as a career, and a thousand other DIY narratives that following your passion and glamourize success, admitting that you need help or you feel confused, makes you stupid or lazy or ungrateful. So many people buy into this narrative and get tricked into believing that they are one viral video or one Instagram post away from being great. The status quo often overlooks the potential of having too many options to be just as heavy a burden, and as overwhelming, as having too few options. 

There is also something about the rhetoric and dialogue around faith, and asserting your absolute trust in God, that makes one sound lazy and in search of an easy way out or worse, like one wants a perfect life with cotton candy and unicorns and rainbows, that obviously doesn’t exist. As a Christian, I think it is quite the opposite, in that, faith in God is NOT the easiest or most convenient thing in the world, not by a long shot. Being a Christian and using the Bible as a life manual in no way guarantees a perfect life, if anything it prepares you for criticism and having to fight for what you believe to be true and what you want to achieve. Faith doesn’t eliminate obstacles or difficulty, faith merely removes fear, which is not to be undermined because it makes all the difference. I mean going to church on a Sunday and being reminded of how God has got your back is an amazing feeling, and it is no wonder Maya Angelou refers to religion as “the opium of the people.” However, faith is easiest and most glamorous on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, it isn’t about what happens on Sunday, it is what happens on Monday and Tuesday and every day after that, but of course, no one ever talks about that because it is not nearly as pretty and perfect and Instagram-worthy. 

Keeping the faith is a battle, in that way, I guess this is a story about putting up a good fight. Perseverance is persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. Perseverance is continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition. Perseverance is a relentless pursuit of a desired goal. Perseverance is consistency. Perseverance is absolute refusal to give up hope. Perseverance is putting up a good fight. My Aunty Ede works a “9 to 5” where she oversees an entire Human Resources team for a really big bank in Nigeria. Her “9 to 5” is more like a “6 to 9, or 10” on most days and this does not include all the weekends she’s had to come in, but she does it without complaining. And like in most corporations, her work, her diligence and her sacrifice is often overlooked and taken advantage of in fact, but it’s ok because she doesn’t do it for them. She does it for her children because they deserve the absolute version of her. She does it for her mother, who has taught her that giving up is never an option. She does it for herself because she needs to know she’s doing her absolute best. She also makes it to church almost every Sunday and attends a mid week service because she does not flake on her commitments, she knows that her faith is a priority. Her faith is her strength, it centres her and gives her peace.

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Capacity is the maximum amount that something can contain, the maximum amount of water that a boat can hold before it begins to sink. So, essentially a vessel cannot know its strength and the maximum amount that it can contain, until some water is poured in. Sink or swim? Resilience is being able to float, or better still, being able to breath under water, resilience is perseverance. Capacity is also having the ability, fitness, or quality necessary to do or achieve a specified thing. Thus, resilience is very much a choice because the fact that a body possesses a quality does not guarantee its use. If you don’t swim, you will sink. Sink or swim? Drowning doesn’t automatically mean you can’t swim, sometimes it means that you didn’t, you chose not to. There is a fundamental difference between ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t.’ Resilience does not have the time for mind games, resilience requires you to go through life not trick it or avoid it. My aunty Ede knows resilience, in fact she breathes it. There is no other way to put it when you have to balance a “9 to 5” and 4 children and writing a novel, while going through the unimaginable, mind-numbing loss of 2012, the kind of pain that nothing can prepare you for. In university, every time I had one of those weeks where 6 assignments were due, and things to do for Black Ties, and I had to clean my apartment and cook food, I would think of her and it would seem like nothing, in comparison. This is not to say that, because some people have gone through more difficult things in their own life, your own struggles are irrelevant. It just offers some perspective, because maybe you are making something more of a thing than it needs to be. And I mean, if you think about it, YOU have probably been through worse and survived, so you’re good and strong and capable. Maybe you’re drowning and you just need to be reminded that you can swim, is all. 

To Kindness and Friendship

Dear September,

This is the one where we talk about kindness and friendship. As you know, March is Women’s History Month, so the plan for the blog is to talk about different positive attributes and character traits, and the women in my life that exemplify these qualities. I don't know a lot of well-behaved women (and I love it) so please bare with me.

This week, its kindness and friendship, because my mother is the kindest soul I know and the best friend a girl can have. I’m going to try my best to not cry because ain’t nobody got that new laptop money! So, here it goes... this is what my mama taught me.

A couple of months ago, my friend Sinmi wrote an article where she openly discussed lessons she learned from books and in conversations and in life in general and it was incredible, so insightful and so full of wisdom. One of my favourite quotes from her piece was “Be kind, Bury that instinct to be any other way, and just be kind.” I liked it first of all because it reminded me of her, she is my best friend’s older sister, so I don’t see her very often, but when I do she is very direct, a sharp shooter, quite sarcastic but also very warm and welcoming; qualities I find refreshing. Admittedly, fluent sarcasm is not for everybody but it is very much for me. It is the same energy and authenticity that my mother embodies so well. I also identify with these words because they offset the consensus that we millennials seem to have; to be incredibly self-involved and act like being kind is sooooo difficult, because you know? we’re too busy trying to be great and somehow being nice makes you weak. It doesn’t, I agree with Kahlil Gibran when he says, “tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.” Not every kindness can be donating a kidney because you only have two. I mean, these heroic acts are inspiring and important and noble, and this in no way diminishes that, but most times, something as simple to do as a smile, is enough. One act of kindness has the potential to shape your whole day and change your entire life.

The Oxford Dictionary defines kindness as the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate. Being friendly means treating everyone like your friend until they act otherwise, this means you cannot be even slightly judgmental or pick and choose who to be pleasant to. It is no more kindness when you decide who deserves it, that’s called nepotism and any halfwit can do that. Generosity is the cheerful willingness to give beyond what is expected of you. Consideration, more than a Rihanna and SZA song, is a mindfulness of one’s surroundings and a resolve to act in the interest of as many as doesn’t interfere with one’s personal well-being. And now being fully aware of the definition of kindness, I can confidently share that over the past couple of months, I have lived in my parents house and I have gotten to see just how KIND my mother is, you know? the good kind. She does it is so effortlessly that you begin to expect it and almost never stop to think and take stock and compare. This then begs the question of kindness being more of a lifestyle than a mere character trait, which seems like a whole other ballgame but it really isn’t. 

In her book, “5 Gifts to Give Yourself,” author Lori Hill talks about the gift of kindness, she says “give yourself some kindness today until you’re filled and pass it on.” Lori Hill recognizes that no matter how hard you try, you cannot give what you do not have. My mother is 50 years old and she looks about 25 and a half, because she takes care of herself. She constantly does what makes her soul happy, never at the expense of others though, so there is no guilt. She takes a two-hour morning walk at least four times a week, she does a honey, turmeric, milk and baking soda face mask two or three times a week, she gets a facial, massage and body scrub at least once every six weeks, she never holds a grudge, she minds her own business, she prays one hour every night and goes for about six different prayer meetings outside of church on Sunday and you wonder why she glistens and damn near floats when she walks by. 

My mother has taught me to appreciate who I am and not try to be someone else, consciously by constantly reminding me of my own greatness and unconsciously by living her best life. When I ask her, she equates her grace and authenticity and her comfortability in her own skin, to age and the wisdom that comes along with it. But no shade (ok maybe a little shade), there are older people who don’t have this glow and who haven’t made it to this place mentally. Maybe it is what Jason Scotts said, maybe it is that “when you show people kindness and respect, despite petty differences, you are bringing positive vibes into your life and into the lives of others.” My mother never shies away from necessary confrontation, but at the same times, she manages to never be hostile. She has no problem calling you out and telling you off because that is who she is. The difference is she tries her best to focus on the situation, she vocalizes her emotions without ever making it personal, which is very hard to do. I mean, she’s human (believe or not) so she sometimes has crazy road rage and in the heat of the moment, she may act out of character, but it balances out because she is never afraid to admit when she’s wrong. Her intentions are never to belittle anyone and to her, maintaining peace and positive vibes for herself and anyone involved is more important than who wins the argument. 

In conversations with other people and in navigating your relationships, there is a tendency to isolate our own actions and idealize the other people’s intentions. When we hit an awkward pause and in the presence of a little tension, we feel extremely uncomfortable and we assume responsibility and make it our life’s mission to make everyone happy, so everyone can move on as swiftly as possible. I hate confrontation and often I justify my decision to not speak up in uncomfortable situations, by convincing myself that keeping the peace is more important than whatever it is that I am feeling. The rhetoric around kindness is often tangled with that of forgiveness and rooted in emotional maturity, with the promise of being the bigger person. In that way, kindness can become an opium of sorts, more so than most other positive attributes, the feeling of instant gratification has the insane ability to cloud one’s judgment. So be kind from and with your heart, but bring your head along, but I know this too well because my mama already showed me how. The only thing to do know is to remember this in the moment, not twenty minutes after, when we are facing off or two hours later, when the bliss of winning the argument has already turned to crippling guilt.

Empathy is exhausting

        Susan Sarandon once said “When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.” She said this in an interview where she explained that she continues to make it a point for her children to give back. She continued by highlighting the joy that accompanies giving of yourself as opposed to the usual self-congratulatory “i’m such a good person” type of joy, you know that type of joy that so many white people are used to? You know you're white when your daily life and your daily experiences, don't require you to give off yourself. But the first thing I learned from the quote is that empathy is not natural for anybody and using your imagination isn’t automatic, they are both qualities and character traits you have to work towards and it all sounded a little too familiar. You see, about a month ago I decided that I was too emotional for my own good, so naturally, I came up with a solution. I decided that whenever someone said or did something to me that I found hurtful or offensive, instead of bottling up all my emotions and staying silent, I would put myself in their shoes. And in the beginning, it made me feel great, it made me feel like an adult, like a super mature version of myself, like the bigger person.

       However, as time went on, what felt like bliss and unicorns and rainbows began to make me feel more bitter and resentful than ever. It became exhausting and soon enough, I began to put everyone else’s emotions and feelings before my own. I stopped speaking my mind altogether, and that is not okay. It is especially not okay because empathy hardly ever equates to silence, and empathy is definitely not the opposite of speaking your mind. Sometimes the best thing for you is not the best thing for someone else and it would be a shame to put someone before yourself, especially someone who probably will not do the same for you. I mean your actions shouldn’t be motivated by the prospect of reciprocation but a wise man once said “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” It is no use continuously putting yourself on the line for someone or people who have shown you over and over again that you are not really a priority to them.

        I recently got into an argument with a guy on Instagram (which if you know me, you know that this is so out of character, but it was necessary), a guy who wasn’t willing to show any empathy, so he sure as hell did NOT deserve any. As this month is Black History Month, I feel it is necessary to use my platform to share my own personal experiences with racism and racial prejudice. Ok, the story.

        So remember that story that went around a couple of week ago? about WHITE Russian designer, Ulyana Sergeenko, who sent a note to WHITE Russian fashion vlogger, Miroslava Duma, that read “To my ni***s in Paris.” By the next day, the internet had obviously gone to shit and OF COURSE, Ulyana Sergeenko had released the usual backhanded apology, talking about “she is sorry to whoever she offended” and “she is not racist” and “she didn’t mean any harm” and “she doesn’t know why the blogger would share a personal note on social media” and “she loves Kanye West and wanted to pretend she is cool enough to speak like him.” The last statement was the one that really infuriated me because WHITE people have become even better at idealizing racism and making it seem like a compliment and an advantage. WHITE people have become experts at biting and blowing, so they hurt us and humiliate us but someone gives a good speech about how our struggles are their struggles and everyone is oppressed in some way, shape or form, so we are all in this together and we are expected to forget about it. So naturally, I tagged my little sister to the apology letter on Instagram and expressed utter disdain for white, ignorant people who do stupid shit and then come back to push the whole “pity me” narrative at the end.

       All of a sudden my phone started going crazy and so, I picked it up only to become even more infuriated because it was none other than another ridiculous, sheltered, unaware white person who questioned me and had to understand why I am not bothered by Kanye West using the word “ni**a” in his songs. Oh… and that’s not all, he suggested that if Back people were so offended by the word, then THEY should stop using it as well. You see, there is something to be said about context? With racism, with empathy, with everything, really. So naturally, I reminded him that Kanye West is a BLACK man and that is about one of the two and a half freedoms that BLACK people have. However, when used by a non-BLACK person, that word is not acceptable in any way shape or form, it is offensive and derogatory and extremely disrespectful. Honestly, I don’t see how or why it would come in conversation between two white people. Of course, he disagreed with me and proceeded to argue that following my logic, German people should be allowed to scream “hail Hilter!”in the street. Note how, we are back to the oppression olympics, because one BLACK person has expressed discomfort with the oppression and disrespect. Notice how he argues that based on the oppression of BLACK people, WHITE people should be allowed to do even more disgusting and inhumane things. Because God forbid, a BLACK person expresses themselves and exercises what little freedom they have. Because WHITE people feel so threatened by BLACK people that the thought of being called out and made to think about their actions is so scary that they find any way to shut the BLACK person up. Because a BLACK person calling a WHITE person out on their ignorant, racist actions is the equivalent of supporting one of the most dangerous and notorious leaders the world has ever known. It was at this point that I knew there was no helping him but I replied because the alternative would indicate defeat and some sort of consensus. So I replied and said “that is ABSOLUTELY NOT following my logic, but him disagreeing with me, sure as hell doesn’t make him right and the fact that he, a NON-BLACK person, feels once again, that they know what should and shouldn’t offend BLACK people is enough to end the entire conversation. He continued to talk directly to me and continued to push the “pity him, pity them” narrative,  because they meant no harm, pity EVERYONE else but the BLACK people, the people who were actually offended, but I didn’t reply because I was done. 

        He went on to mock me and ask me stupid questions like “how do I know he isn’t BLACK?” because you know? racism is hilarious. I didn’t reply because I began to see how much, or pardon me, how little an issue as serious as racial prejudice meant to him. And I could finally empathize, because how can you take something you have never, EVER had to think about seriously, because privilege is blind and brainwashing. Because what is the use trying to see reason with a person who is so out of touch with reality that he sides with and defends blatantly racist people? Because he isn’t helping but he isn’t the entire problem, the whole system is FUCKED. We are still slaves. If we weren’t slaves, the parents of a BLACK young man would never allow their son to model a hoodie with the words “Coolest monkey in the jungle” slapped across the front. We have been so oppressed and so brainwashed into thinking that we are all equal and everyone wants the best for us that we can no longer tell when we have become puppets, that WHITE people can so easily pit against each other. So as a BLACK person, I am angry and insulted and sad but I’m mostly exhausted. I am no longer going to make excuses for people, BLACK or WHITE. I am going to empathize ONLY when I feel as though people put thought into their actions and their actions are not ill-intentioned, otherwise… don’t count on it. I am in no way knocking the importance and the value of seeing things from other people’s perspectives but you shouldn’t spend so much time in other people’s shoes that yours no longer fit. Because in reality, many times people are not handing you half the respect you are so easily and naturally giving them. I mean why should you give someone the benefit of the doubt? There is no place in life where the BENEFIT comes before the ACTION, not even in the dictionary, so take a hint. If people have consistently acted only in their best interest, you should do that too. If you don’t know them and there’s no action to go off of, I am not going to ask you to be defensive because that breeds unnecessary hate but I am also not going to ask you to assume that anyone is a saint. I think the best thing to do is just trust your gut and follow your instincts because they are almost never wrong.

Dear Millennial...

Dear Millennial,

Trust me… you can handle one day in the year that may not be about you. I am single, so I mean… I may be bitter or whatever, but I’m really not fond of all the patronizing “love yourself” posts on social media, and all the oh so wise people, people in relationships, talking about “Valentine’s day is a day to spread love, whether or not you’re in a relationship.” I mean, I know it’s totally crazy, but I don’t feel left out or resentful towards Valentine’s day and it not being totally relevant to me, at this point in my life. 

In my opinion, being told that “self love is the best love” on Valentine’s day by another single person is fine but when it comes from a person in a relationship, I find it condescending and borderline insulting. I honestly cannot handle all the pity messages about if you’re single its OK, like being single is some sort of terminal disease. And then, there are the single ones on social media, who go off on a rant about how they are all they need and “this is how I sleep at night knowing that my ex is out there messing up some other girl’s life.” Like you don’t at all sound zen or mature or even remotely OK, you sound bitter and you are an attention seeker. I feel like the battles we all face in our private lives are enough, no need for the extra nonsense. All single people need to stop having FOMO (fear of missing out) over what they think they know about someone else’s relationship. I am not afraid to say that sometimes I get very lonely and sometimes I cannot shake the feeling that I am missing something, not being in a relationship. I honestly have no problem getting to this place on my own, so I really do not need yet another person in a relationship shoving another self-love message forced down my throat and I do not anyone relentlessly but passively trying to convince me that I have a shitty life solely because I am single. 

I mean , what is the guarantee that my life would be better if I was in a relationship? Yeah, I get lonely… but when I think, no, like really think about it, past all the superficial bullshit, I know that I am not ready to be with someone just yet. I have heard from people who are married and/or are in long-term relationships, that it is good to know without a doubt, who you are, before you commit to someone else. It’s hard enough embracing who you are when you know, and holding on to that in a relationship can prove a little more difficult. Thus, it is a recipe for disaster, choosing to enter into a relationship, uncertain and unsure of who you are. You are the most vulnerable and the most impressionable when you are uncertain. Not knowing who you are will mean that you will have an even more difficult time setting boundaries and recognizing when you are losing yourself. When you are uncertain of who you are, you don’t notice when you are letting go of what is fundamentally essential to your character and when you are making yourself small to fit the needs of your partner until you wake up one day and you have no idea who the person staring back at you in the mirror is.

That being said... for most of my adult life, I have been single, it is what I know and it is what it is, so the only type of love outside of family and friends that I have any sort of experience with is self-love, so that is what I am going to talk about. And well… what’s different about this one is that I am going to speak honestly about my experiences and hope that you can relate to at least some of it. No backhanded comments and no bullshit. I think this is useful because I have learnt that it is important to sort out your relationship with yourself and your friends and your family before you get into any sort of romantic relationship, you know? (not because you have to have a good relationship with everyone but because it is good to know where you are and it is good practise for a romantic relationship, setting boundaries and all) 

Build a tribe, a solid support system, so that when you do get into a relationship, you are not solely dependent on your partner for emotional support and stability. I mean, a blind man can see how that would be unhealthy and easily result in emotional abuse. The most common thread in domestic violence cases is that the oppressor isolates the victim from their emotional and financial support systems early on in the abusive relationship, so that the victim feels trapped and keeps going back because they know and they have nothing else. The number one reason why domestic violence survivors go back to their abusers is because they have no sort of financial backbone and so they feel helpless and dependent on their abusers for survival. 

So, here it goes… I figure I should use myself as an example because this is who I know best. Loving who you are is a no-brainer and really quite easy when you feel confident and you are doing well but it is most important in those moments when its feels impossible and you absolutely cannot love who you are. In terms of self-love and self-acceptance, the thing I have struggled with the most is my weight. I mean, I have good days and bad days but whenever I feel like I have had a good couple of days, weeks even, someone makes a sly comment and we are back to square one. I have been in Nigeria for last couple of months and if you know anything about Nigerians, you know that we are as subtle as a steak knife. So, no… I have not been feeling great but now instead of wallowing in self-pity, I have chosen to take back my control and stop letting what people say have such an effect on me. I have decided to get out more often because I find that I sink into depressive thoughts when I am on my own in bed, sans wi-fi and literally doing nothing. I have also decided to make a conscious effort to write my feelings down, so that I don’t bottle them up and just explode out of the blue… Lord knows, I’ve been there and done that. Easier said than done, but at least I know I am moving in right direction. In addition to my chicken wings and muffin top, I have also acquired a healthy amount of acne over the last couple of months, which I know… these all sound like first-world problems but I am going to continue to be honest because I know that honesty does not always mean you can relate but it does make me a little less phony so I’ll take it. So, yeah I feel like every single pimple I have ever popped has risen from the dead and come back to haunt me. It is like “ghosts of pimples past” on my face right now and I have probably made it worse with all the worrying I have done. And again, every time I go out without makeup on, someone makes it a point to ask what am I doing about it because you know, MY acne situation is sooooo stressful for THEM. However, I have chosen to do everything I can to distract myself  and drink as much water as possible because water apparently solves everything.

I find it quite difficult to see myself, much less love myself when I fail or make a bad decision. When I fail or make a bad decision, I almost always revert to losing it and the standard “I fail because I’m chronically dumb and I make bad decisions because I am not good at anything” downward spiral. Any sort of attempt to come out from under the fire and recover makes me feel like I am trying to transfer blame or shy away from the part I played. I never think about the fact that failing and making bad decisions require courage and thought and effort, which is what I would like to do moving forward. I never stop for a second to think about the fact that the level of guilt and disappointment I feel is totally unrelated to how much of an adult I am or how to fix the situation, so at best... it is a waste of time. I am human so obviously I feel bad when things don't go my way, but what is futile is to extend this period to a point where I can't understanding how failing does not make me a failure. I honestly think that sometimes I fail because I get confused and immediately doubt sets and I never recover. So now, whenever I feel the slightest bit confused, I panic, which does nothing for my acne but I am so terrified that being confused means failure, which makes things a little foggy in my mind and it suddenly becomes quite difficult to see how I am just making everything worse.

However, over the last couple of months, I have had the opportunity to speak to a few wise people who have almost unanimously told me that being confused and getting to what feels like rock bottom, while utterly terrifying can also mean that inspiration, the most beautiful thing, is just around the corner. Thus, I am now in the process of reconditioning my mind to accept that a significant part of embracing growth and your journey and trusting your dopeness and the timing of your life, is learning to embrace it when one feels confused. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word “confused” as lacking in order. So many times, because we feel confused, we also assume that it is because we are stupid and we have nothing to offer. Lacking in order can lead to blocked access to whatever it is that you need, for example, having a messy room can make it quite difficult to find your cute mustard crop top that you absolutely have to wear to the house party tonight. However, the fact that you can’t see the top does in no way, shape or form mean that the top isn’t in your room. In fact, you know that the top is in your room, so it is just down to tidying it up and you are almost certain it will show up. You don’t take one look at the mess and decide that the mustard top has to be somewhere else. You may take the easier route and decide to wear something else because you feel like you don’t have enough time, but you know very well that the mustard top is somewhere in your room. Unfortunately, we often fail to do this in our minds, when it is more difficult than usual to form a coherent thought or use the resources that you have, it is probably down to taking time to de-clutter your mind. But instead when an answer is taking a little too long to show up, we begin to doubt our minds and our abilities and assume that it is because we have nothing to offer or we maybe don’t know how to use our brain and our resources, that’s why we are here. Either way, it always somehow becomes your fault, which does nothing for your confidence.

Being confused can often make you feel stranded and suffocated and like you have no options, but in fact, it is quite literally, the opposite. We get confused because we are indecisive, because we have no faith, because we have no perseverance, because we do not trust our own intuition and because we are so terrified by failure, that we freeze and do nothing at all… I mean, that’s one way to do it. Not finding the mustard top the first time, does not mean that it isn’t there, so what if it takes a couple more tries? We are so good at convincing ourselves that we are confused and we do not have the answers we need, but the fact is, we are just entitled cowards, and we fear that what we want is so far out of our comfort zones that failure seems imminent. So, it makes sense to pout and bask in our “loneliness” and what we think we may or may not be missing in a relationship, because it is much easier to feel the pain or try to bury the pain of loneliness that is self-inflicted than to face whatever or whoever it is that terrifies us and have no agency over the pain and where it comes from. So, we conveniently talk about “self-love” and what not, to give off the illusion that we are mature and well aware of ourselves while actually doing nothing to get to know who we really are. We are so focused on feeding our present selves that we become totally oblivious to the great disservice we are doing to our future selves. 

We have become or slowly become so incredibly self-involved and narcissistic and so relentless in our avoidance of life and change that we are left with no time to much of anything else. And you know what’s worse? We often don’t even notice, so we could be doing this over and over and over again for years and years, only to blame a new thing or person every time shit hits the fan. So, honestly… Isn’t it  much easier to just give in? and do whatever it is that terrifies us because what’s the worst that could happen? What? failure? well… you’ll be OK, trust me.