Category: Weekly

ONE THING ABOUT ME… IMMA LISTEN TO MUSIC.

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I want to get as close as I can to understanding why I’m endlessly touched by some things I hear. So here is my care playlist, and why I love the songs so much.

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Deeper – Israel Houghton

Lord I reach for you, lead me to Your heart // Close enough to feel the cadence of Your heart // Break my heart with the things that break Your heart.

Most mornings, I wake up with the first line in my head. Sometimes I reach my arms up, as if I’m about to be lifted out of bed. I feel peace when I hear the instruments at the beginning. To feel the cadence of God’s heart represents closeness to me.

I often lose sight of what is important and must remind myself of the importance of focusing on God. I pray to see things the way He sees them – to have an undoubtedly better perspective of life; one that causes little harm and leaves as much space for grace and love as possible. This song is spirit-filled. When I feel frantic, the intro is enough to calm me and bring me peace. It was on my On Repeat playlist for seven months!

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Be Still – Travis Greene

Chasing your ambition, try your best to be the next star. But if it’s the attention that you really want, then I already know who you are, and I love you that way.

I would be in denial if I said I don’t seek validation from people. I like hearing that I’m doing well, especially if I already believed that about myself. But sometimes I end up chasing perceptions of myself rather than being content in who really am. And adhering to these perceptions often feels like a form of attention-seeking, for I believe it’s possible to focus on my race in an effort to have people notice this focus and admire me, even from afar. This is something I would like to grow out of.

This song reminds me that the only thing I should aspire towards is God – trusting in and loving him, as to chase my ambitions is often to lose sight of the beauty of my present – which is full of things that I prayed for. I end up asking myself where my gratitude is.

While trying my best to be the next ‘star’, God is by my side, where He has always been, telling me that He already knows who I am! If I have that validation, I shouldn’t be seeking any more anywhere else. God is all I need. I remind myself that I am enough, no matter what stage I am in life.

Sometimes I need to be still and appreciate now, with God, who loves my good and bad, rather than carving out a life that exists only to please others and be a star in their eyes.

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Alright – Ledisi

It’s alright.

I have to say to myself; calm down Adefela, it’s alright! You may notice that as a running theme in my posts. Aside from reassuring anyone reading, I am reassuring myself. I always forget that things will be okay. This song reminds me. Its magic lies in the fact that every time I play it, the words feel brand new. That’s what I need to hear.

Most of the lines in the verses end with ‘…but it’s alright.’ and I feel to apply that to my own life. After airing out my fears and frustrations, I pray to end with ‘but it’s alright’. Because that is true.

As I always say, it was fine, it is fine, and it will always be fine. I strive to caveat my assessments of life with the fact that it’s alright.

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Babe Truth – Gaby Duran

I’d be damned if I let these nerves get the best of me // All timing is divinely in alignment and all I could do is my best // Those nerves can’t get to you, unless you let them in, babe don’t let it outweigh. Don’t wait for the remedy, you got everything, you don’t need anything… don’t overcomplicate it.

There’s a balance for me to find between relying on God and showing up for/relying on myself. The Horse, The Man & The Son by Chief Ebenezer Obey says: do your best and leave the rest. What I focus on here is doing my best. It’s my responsibility to work to the max, pushing as hard as I can and leaving the rest to powers above me. But I have to do my best. I just have to.

This song gives me strength when I am anxious about something that’s requiring a lot of me. When I question whether I’ll be strong enough to get through something, I remember that I shouldn’t let those nerves in, and I shouldn’t let them control me. I have everything I need inside of me; my own abilities and God. That will always be enough.

I misheard babe don’t let it outweigh and for a while thought it said they don’t light our way. I like both versions. Don’t let the nerves outweigh the peace, and don’t let them light your path. Instead, l should let hope light my way, not anxiety. For if it were anxiety, I would be scared to move forward. If it were hope, all I’d want to do is move forward. So, I will move forward.

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The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – Ms. Lauryn Hill

Deep in my heart, the answer it was in me. And I made up my mind to define my own destiny.

I try to focus on the value of what’s inside of me. This includes what I was born with, and what I learn and nurture daily. My love for this song is self-explanatory; perhaps I shouldn’t rely on anyone but myself and God, who lives inside of me, (hence my answer being inside) to define my destiny. I shouldn’t let blame take over my mind, shifting responsibility to everything but myself.

My biggest battle with this is to not be overly self-dependent, and to ask for help when need it. That’s a balance I am still finding.

Regardless, strength builds up inside me when listen to this song. When I was unsure of who I was and what I wanted, the answer was inside of me. When I was low and confused and lost, my answers were inside of me. And they still are. All I ever had to do was pay attention to myself and listen to what my heart identified as my truths, both ugly and beautiful. As I wake these answers up, I define my own destiny because I’m learning about who I am and using that knowledge to steer me down the path that was always meant for me. Now I’m understanding what’s mine!

I spoke about this more in a podcast episode, have a listen: https://anchor.fm/soyoucanrelate/episodes/13–Deep-in-my-heart–the-answer-it-was-in-me-er2oks

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Strength, Courage and Wisdom – India Arie

It’s time to step out on faith, I gotta show my face // Strength, courage, and wisdom, it’s been inside of me all along.

Intelligence is one of my biggest insecurities. I don’t want people to think I’m dumb. At some point I realised this was more of a projection if anything; I simply didn’t believe that I was smart. Any achievement I had didn’t mean anything to me, nor did affirmations from others. When I had exams this year, my battle with intelligence was tougher than it had ever been. It was close to a certain exam when this song came on shuffle and just like The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, it revealed to me that strength, courage and wisdom are inside of me and have always been. Wisdom has always been inside of me.

The battle to genuinely believe this is scary, and for too long I’ve let this battle tell me that I’m not smart. But instead of cowering away as I have always done, I had faith that I could feel as intelligent as I have always desired, and I showed my face, because it mattered to me. I turned up, I tried, and I fought against the thoughts telling me that what I knew wasn’t enough. I kept listening to this song until I finally believed it. My answers are inside, and so is my wisdom. I got an A in that exam.

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God Morning – Natalie Lauren

Today I will show up for myself.

This links to Strength, Courage and Wisdom. Simply put, no one can be relied on to constantly show up for me. But as long as I am living, I have a chance to show up for myself. If I gave someone the responsibility to do something for me and they didn’t do it, I would be sad that they didn’t show up for me. They had one job, why couldn’t they just do it? I realised that if I had the right to be mad at them, I had the responsibility to not do it to myself. Why should I tolerate letting myself down when I don’t tolerate others letting me down? Do I not care about myself and my dreams?

I say, the least you could do is show up for yourself, Adefela. So now, I do. Sometimes doing this is hard because I am human, but it’s still at the back of my mind. Get out of bed when I don’t feel like it: show up. Self-care when I feel sad and need a refresh: show up. Pray when I feel like no one is listening to me: show up. Reply that email because it’s for my own good: show up. Chase my dreams because other people are chasing theirs and it’s not their responsibility to look out for mine: show up.

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Victory – Janelle Monae

Today I feel so troubled deep inside, I wish the tears would roll back in my eyes. Will I rise? I’ll keep singing songs until the pain goes.

Expression is special with this song as on this occasion, I was unable to express what I was feeling. But I realised that my heart was singing when I pressed play. This song played out of it, as if each beat was a note. It’s an experience I’d never had before, and I’m glad that I now have access to it. This poem explains it better: When will I cry.

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That’s it! My care playlist.

• Deeper – Israel Houghton
• Be Still – Travis Greene
• Alright – Ledisi
• Babe Truth – Gaby Duran
• The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – Ms. Lauryn Hill
• Strength, Courage and Wisdom – India Arie
• God Morning – Natalie Lauren
• Victory – Janelle Monae

If I’m listening to these songs I’m probably in my feelings, which is most of the time. But that’s okay! These songs bring peace, clarity, solution, stillness, joy and assurance. Of course I listen to them all the time ❤ .

“Good. As much as life is unpredictable, it can be predicable too. And I predict that you will be okay, LIKE YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN.”

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To say I never want to look back and regret is ambitious. I know I will. However, that is expected. Regret is no longer a surprise to me, neither is disappointment, (perceived) failure, or any anti-climax I experience.

I can’t figure out if that is making me more intuitive, or simply numb to the storms of life. But whatever.

Looking back is special to me because it has brought me calm, clarity and acceptance.

I’ve written about it countless times before; at this point it’s a regurgitation of a well-known fact to me. But I keep on saying it because it means everything.

Hindsight is important because it presents this truth to you:

Everything will be okay, it always has been, it is, and it always will be. Your past present and future are covered, because you have survived everything you have ever been through, and you will continue to do so. You have to believe this.

In light of this truth, you should allow yourself to feel peace.

But, I am not naïve. I accept the fact that life sometimes disappoints.  Yet that is the least of my worries nowadays, and I thank God for that.

It goes beyond the scope of learning from my mistakes. It’s the simple acceptance that life will do what it wants. Sometimes that’s what we want, and other times it isn’t. I just believe we should accept whatever happens.

Afterall, for something to “happen” is what is expected. “Happening” is neutral, it’s just a fact. How we interact with this fact is what’s most important.

Life happens and happens and happens – it’s been happening, yet it’s been fine.

Dare I say that in retrospect, I didn’t need to worry as much as I ever did? Nerves and anxiety are normal of course, but the fact that things turn out fine in the long run (no matter how long the run is) is a bit more of a reason to relax now, when current “happenings” are worrying and plaguing my mind.

“Wasn’t everything okay last time Adefela?” I ask myself. To which I answer yes, it was.

“Good. As much as life is unpredictable, it can be predicable too. And I predict that you will be okay, like you always have been.”

Put your name there.

That’s the conversation I should have with myself now. The blessing of hindsight is in my possession. I will use whatever it takes to remind myself of that, and to calm myself when I feel like this “happening” may just kill me. It probably won’t.

I nod my head thinking, good, I’ll keep on trying. And I thank God for the reassurance of everything being fine.

GIVE IN TO A GOOD THING WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE IT, BECAUSE NOW IS HERE.

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I have a list of things I want to write about. It’s been piling up for a while. This is at the top, it should be something close to this:

I don’t want to get into my issues too much. Although I like to explore a lot on my blog, I have a diary for a reason – for the deeper issues that must be dealt with behind closed doors.

But this one can slide. I’m trying to move past cycles of self-deprivation. I wonder if other people postpone their pleasure until they have achieved or received something; until they feel like they’re there, wherever there is.

Put simply, I keep on waiting for things to become complete before I give myself any gratification. Extreme? I don’t do it for everything all the time, but I do it enough to notice. Perhaps this is difficult to write because I haven’t thought of a way around it, other than to stop doing it. Or at least, do it less.

It’s funny how often the solution to something is to simply stop, or start.

Note to self: Give in to rewards and self-commendation while the situation is ongoing, rather than waiting for it to be complete. It’s probably an indication that I don’t see myself as worthy of some pleasures I have access to, not believing that I deserve them. Neither do I know how to handle them.

Or maybe it’s because I have no self-control and I know I’ll lose my mind if my rewards are not controlled in some way.

But I won’t get lost in thinking about that, because it may turn into a trap of overthinking that stops me from doing anything at all. Sometimes I don’t want to process so much.

I understand that this is a surface-level exploration but as I said, it isn’t my diary.

Yet, perhaps this is identifiable to you.

Stopping and starting are easier than you think. There’s no need to rewrite mental patterns. No call for affirmations and no self-convincing. Just simply giving in to a good thing when you feel like it, because now is here.

I don’t need to reiterate how important balance is despite it all.

But yes, just give in. Sometimes that’s fine.

In truth there is no clearer way for me to express how lost I feel sometimes, than describing my current situation with a metaphor that doesn’t pin down a single understanding of what I am going through.

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I write this under stress and pressure.

My last blog post, On half-developed thoughts, was a struggle to write. Unsurprisingly, it’s hard to focus on non-academic things in the middle of academics. Growing up, education was everything to me, and anything that I perceived as a threat to my grades was hastily avoided.

Over time, I’ve learnt how to balance it all. But this course has made me regress in a way I did not expect. However I am aware that what I label as regression in this moment may eventually turn out to be adjacent to growth, somehow.

In On half-developed thoughts, I was recording the beginning of a mental unravel. Since then I have been building new systems for productivity, and developing avenues of thought to help me adjust to what life currently requires (things that I have never experienced before).

I was concerned with not fully developing thoughts because developing them is what anchors me. I am obsessed with figuring out and understanding myself, so when I was robbed of the time I needed to do that, I felt like I was falling apart.

Now I am telling myself that that was not me falling apart, but in fact old parts of myself falling away.

New clay is being added in their place and a new self is being moulded in the process.

It has become easier to describe my life with metaphors and that’s because I don’t know what is going on. I like metaphors because they are vagueness and uncertainty disguised as the beautiful and abstract. In truth there is no clearer way for me to express how lost I feel sometimes, than describing my current situation with a metaphor that doesn’t pin down a single understanding of what I am going through.

I’m filming content for a YouTube video that I’d like to upload when my course is over. Hopefully, it well-documents the past six months. In the video, I hope to insert readings of the blog posts I will be writing in the upcoming weeks.

Some will say that I am back and some would not have noticed at all. But here I am.

Stay tuned for Postponing my pleasures.

When everything feels contrived and depthless, I believe it’s a call to focus on the sheer unremarkability of life and yourself as an individual.

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My life looks very different today in comparison with last year. Those words could have come from your mouth. You’ve experienced a lot of change in the last year too.

Sometimes I look out of the window during a lecture, or spend more time than I’d like to admit scrolling through memories and (insert year ago) todays. I watch videos I filmed at uni and I laugh at how young I looked in sixth form. I look back at myself now knowing that I knew so little. Of course, that’s the way life goes.

Time poverty

Every once in a while we become obsessed with time. We come to realisations about it that open our eyes and we want to share it with people. That’s a phase I’m in right now.

I have been thinking about the past, especially now that life is requiring more of me every single day.

Despite them having the same quantitative value, some seconds mean more than others.

I recently saw a TikTok where a woman explained time poverty, which in a nutshell, is having too many things to do and not enough time to do them – or at least what feels like not enough time. I’ll leave it at that.

Pressure

I’m finding it hard to keep up – every week I think things will be less pressurised and easier to deal with. But they all end up as tasking and demanding as each other.

I’m being tugged in different directions by education, relationships, ambitions, my faith, my self-perception, how I feel about my body and the way I look…

Many are threatening my peace of mind and I have already lost the battle a few times.

Writing

I haven’t written a post in a month or so but it feels longer than that, because so much has been crammed into that short horizon of time.

Really, I only write blog posts when I’ve realised something and can articulate it in a way that I’m proud of, and that people can relate to.

But I’ve recently been thrown into the deep end. And the absence of time has means I’ve been less capable of processing and forming my thoughts. I have been waiting for something to come to life but my realisations have been stunted.

This is the most I’ve written in a while.

To be real

A year ago I was finishing 3rd year.

And looking back I still had no solid idea of what I wanted to do with my life. Ironically, if you asked me I would have given an answer that sounded like I knew what I was planning (pandemic considered).

I’m good at bullshitting my way through life. I‘ve been an advocate for faking it till I make it for many years, and I still am. Yet I grow in awe of how this can coexist with striving to remain who you truly are in any and every moment.

I saw a tweet some months ago saying that you know you’re real when you’re not trying to show that you are. You just ‘be’. That’s all.

That’s what I’m trying to do now. When everything feels contrived and depthless, I believe it’s a call to focus on oneself and the sheer unremarkability of life and yourself as an individual.

I have enjoyed that so much. I used to care a lot about upholding perceptions of myself. If someone thought I was interesting I wanted to remain interesting to them.

But now I am happy to become bland in their eyes. If that’s the ebb and flow of my existence then that’s what I should put across to the world, while paying little to no attention to it at all.

To conclude

Is there value in putting effort into things, and creating art with your living? Yes. But it should be authentic. And if you don’t feel like portraying a certain image of yourself, be okay with not doing so and portraying who you are right now with no care for it.

I say that for myself.

These are some half-developed realisations I’ve come to recently. I will have more over time so perhaps I should be okay with not having every thought turn into a perfectly articulated realisation in my eyes.

Psalms 73:25-26

*this reads like a diary entry

My twenties look to me, like they will be full of opportunities and a call to live my life as if it has just begun, because it has.

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When I reflect on what I was like as a teenager, I see everything I wish I did differently. I see the times where I should have tried harder and when I should have cared less. I see the things that I allowed to affect my confidence and the things I wish I were brave enough to do.

Funnily enough, I also hear a lot from people in their 30s and upwards, reminiscing on their twenties in the same way that I reminisce on my teens. They say things from ‘I was a mess, I had no clue what I was doing.’ to ‘I wish I realised that my decisions weren’t doomed to be set in stone. I wish I worried less, I wish I realised just how young I was.’

I’ve recently put two and two together and I feel like I’ve cracked some sort of code. What is stopping me from treating my twenties like my teens with experience? Here, I have the benefit of vicarious reinforcement mixed with my personal experiences. This realisation feels like a second chance to live as young as I still am, with the freedom I wish I had when I was a teenager. It’s time to turn my ‘I wish I…’ to ‘I will now, because I still have a chance.’

My twenties look to me, like they will be full of opportunities and a call to live my life as if it has just begun, because it has.

I will be 30 years old in nine years’ time. And I will use those nine years to live more fearlessly than I ever did when I was a teenager. And when I turn 30, there will remain so much more life for me to live.

I will not let the fear of how others will perceive or interact with me and anything I produce, to stop me from following my heart with whatever it is that I create. I will not hold myself back in fear and I will not allow hesitation at the sight of the unknown to transform into stagnancy and never giving anything a try.

I will start things and lay them to rest whenever I feel the need to do so, because doing so is not the end of the world. That’s something I learnt in my teens. I will try my hardest to disallow anxiety from ruling my life. That’s something I’ve learnt from those who are older than me. I won’t have a fear of the future because every moment I live is the future and I have always been fine, despite not knowing what any day holds for me.

How blessed are we to have the gift of retrospect mixed with that of vicarious reinforcement! Those who are older are advising me and I am advising myself. In doing so, I am paving a life that is full of endless possibilities, one where I will no longer hold myself back, and where I can continue living a time in my life that I thought was long gone. It’s here right now, it never went anywhere.

I must continue telling myself that my decisions are the beginning rather than the end. I’m not scared of making mistakes. Despite how regret makes me feel when I feel it, I would prefer that feeling to the numbing question of what if.

I have allowed myself to see too many things as final and it’s put obstacles in my path. So, if I am the only person that has ever held me back, I am going to get out of the way!

Are you in your own way?

“Today I realised that when what I do gets no attention, I must consider that perhaps I’ve been doing it for myself all along, and this was necessary – the way it was meant to be.“

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It’s one of the things that you forget about when it matters the most. You may only remember it at the height of worry, self-hatred and loathing.

You may realise, that a lot of what you dislike about yourself is an indirect result of what you like about other people. For some reason, the presence of their strength only highlights your flaws, as if you’re meant to be two peas in a pod – when really, they are someone you just saw online, or someone in your life who is so similar to you that they might as well be a reflection of you – an incomplete one at that, since right now, you have placed them in a category above yourself. Nonetheless, their proximity to who you are or who you want to be is actually irrelevant. You just forgot that.

You forgot that you should not be intimidated by façades, as much like the people around you, there is a polished version of yourself that you present to the world, the acceptable and most ideal version that is available. Somehow you forgot that other people are also presenting their best, fake, and aspirational selves, and you’re allowing yourself to be intimidated by them!

This is a sad story that we’re familiar with, and if you’re not, I admire you because I’m not there yet. It’s truly frustrating when you forget about what matters when it matters the most. I forget that when I compare myself, I am chipping away at my happiness. I also forget that holding myself back in the fear of failure and disregard is in fact stopping me from ever having anything to hold or improve on.

Today I realised that when what I do gets no attention, I must consider that perhaps I’ve been doing it for myself all along, and this was necessary – the way it was meant to be. This is a way for me to understand that attention doesn’t hold any value, and that not everything I do must be done in the hope for commendation and awe. That’s what matters when there is no one looking my way and I’m consequently being overly critical of myself.

When you’re restricting your potential, what matters is the fact that if you don’t start now, who knows when you will? You should start. What matters when you feel insignificant is the fact that the only noteworthy significance is the one that you acknowledge about yourself. Now it doesn’t matter how people perceive you.

So, do not be intimidated by façades, because what matters in that moment of intimidation is that it is indeed a façade – it is hardly real. And even if it is real, it’s not a cue for you to feel small.

Every time your hope feels lost, shift your focus to what actually matters in the moment. You’ll dispel many myths about who you are and what you should truly be concerned about, and your mind will feel just a bit closer to free.

“all processes are worth trusting, even the ones where everything feels like it’s going wrong because you messed up… This is for the times when life replaces peace with fear in your heart.“

***

The way the past makes me feel has changed a lot over time. Many things I regretted and hated myself for no longer stir up those same emotions inside me. Now, I feel more gratitude, relief, happiness…

Hindsight is a blessing, a beautiful thing. It’s taught me to trust every process that I go through because I may eventually understand why they happened, and realise that it was best for them to have gone the way they did.   

I want you to have this perspective too, if you don’t. Bear with me as I give an example.

Backstory

Parts of my primary school went under reconstruction when I was in year 6. Although summer came before the work was complete, I found myself watching the builders during playtime, so intrigued by their work and how they brought the structure to life. By year 8, this obsession with buildings transformed into a love for architecture. I got so excited at the sight of skyscrapers in Canary wharf, beautifully designed homes on Grand Designs, and renovations on Homes Under The Hammer. I’d decided to become an architect!

But fast forward to sixth form, my love for the career faded away as I constantly failed the subjects that I needed for an architecture undergrad. Besides that, I had no portfolio of work for my applications because I was and still am terrible at drawing (lol); it never excited me. Though I was in denial about it for a while, I finally accepted that my dream was no longer adding up; it wasn’t true to me anymore.

On the phone to a few universities during year 12 exam season, I was reminded that besides 3 A’s, I need a portfolio of my work to gain admission to an architecture course. I looked over at my bed, knowing that I didn’t have what they were asking for – questioning the genuineness of what I’d hoped towards for so long.

Yet on that very bed sat a notebook that I’d been writing in for a while. It held thoughts, flash fiction, and ideas for novels and writing that I wanted to develop. Like an epiphany, it came to me that I’d been working on my portfolio all along – just for the wrong subject. Later that day, I decided to study English literature at university, and soon after I made it a joint honours with creative writing. That was May 2016. In July 2020, I graduated with a 1^st in English with Creative Writing.

What’s my point? (TLDR)

The focus of this story is not the outcome, but the process I went through to get there. The day I made those phone calls, I was anxious. It felt like I had been setting myself up to fail all this time, and this was the finale. Unable to see how my life was going to get better from that point onwards, the situation felt bigger than me and I was beating myself up for not realising my truth earlier.

But too often we forget that life plans to work itself out in its own timing, and we should have faith in this fact. If I could, I would tell my 16-year-old self that my life is not over because I changed my mind about my career path. I’d also add that this process is worth trusting. Realising and accepting my love for writing and absence of such for architecture that day steered me down the correct path at the exact time it was supposed to.

Perceiving ups and downs

I refer to this time in my life because it reminds me that all processes are worth trusting, even the ones where everything feels like it’s going wrong because you messed up – and it did feel that way. This is for the times when life replaces peace with fear in your heart.

No story is without ups and downs. And when we retell them, we speak about the downs knowing that things worked out eventually. Even if they didn’t, they are part of a bigger story that we haven’t finished writing yet.

The value of hindsight

You should trust every process, failure, success, misunderstanding, miscalculation, mistake, the lot, at any stage you encounter them. Believe that they are part of a longer story that is yet to be complete. Zoom out and consider what this could mean in the bigger picture: something beautiful and worthwhile!

It’s time to use hindsight to our advantage when we are in the thick of turmoil. If we know that things can turn out okay in the end because hindsight has taught us so with our past experiences, we can use this knowledge to calm ourselves in the midst of the storm.

We can use it to our advantage and trust every process from now on, believing that things are working out the way that they should; they have done so in the past, and we must have faith that they will continue like this.

Try to accept uncertain times as pivotal segments of your story. I believe that this mindset helps to calm anxiety and fear in moments of overwhelm, reminding us that trusting all processes is the key we need to hold on tight and live through them, fearlessly.

Until next time!