Latest Posts

LET’S FOCUS ON NOW…

***

In my last post I was on an extreme high. I’ve levelled out since then, but overall I have been happy over the past couple of months. I got a new job and my skin is clearing up so I feel a bit more confident (thank you accutane)! I look at my vision board and I truly see it coming to life. From things I wanted to start, like pottery, to travelling and spending time in nature, all I can do is be grateful. That word doesn’t seem like enough.

Gratitude, thankfulness, joy

The journey I’ve been on concerning my faith in the past year or so has been harrowing yet freeing. I’m excited for the further questions I’ll deal with and the certainty I’ll develop about a range of my beliefs.

I believe in God and I believe in life. I believe that provided one has a belief in God, a personal relationship with him is of the utmost importance. Grace flows from that. Everything else feels like decoration. And I believe that life does what it wants – it’s down to us to surrender to its force. We always land where we’re supposed to, because all timing is in divine alignment. That’s what I’ve stripped things down to.

I am grateful for my family. To live with them is to be surrounded by love at all times and I can’t ask for anything more. I still hope to be more expressive of my love towards them.

I am grateful for my friends. To deepen my relationship with them all is something I hoped for this year, and following a recent trip away with them, I see this hope coming to life too. I love them all so much – the ones I see often and the ones I don’t. There is no one in my life wasting space or constantly draining my energy. For that I am thankful.

I am not in love. But let-downs and disappointments in the past couple of years have only established much needed standards for me. I know what I can give and I know what I deserve and I know this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Adjustment period

Despite these certainties, I know I am still in an adjustment period. The light at the end of the tunnel is so bright that I may as well be out of it – but I am still not. Perhaps that’s due to daily ups and downs. And perhaps that means this so-called “tunnel” is just a figment of imagination…

Now, I want to work on my how I perceive my body, because I’ve been hyper-fixated and insecure about it recently. I’m not sure why. I also want to make decisions for myself with all trust, relying less on people’s input out of fear that my own approaches cannot be trusted. Additionally, I want to do more things that make me cringe because that’s where so much happiness lies. I’ve been making poetry TikToks and they are all a bit corny to me but I really enjoy producing them, so what’s the harm?

Self-acceptance is and always will be key. I once again remember that I should be happy with myself wherever I am in life rather than placing my happiness in a future version of myself – I have no idea how long I’ll be waiting, and there’s no certainty that I’ll be happier with that version when it comes anyway.

One last thing…

In 2021 I made a post about fearing the next chapter. I didn’t know what to expect next for myself, and it daunted me. I still have that feeling now, but it’s about feelings rather than my any future position.

I have a fear of what the overwhelming feelings will be in my next phase of life. I always assume they will be low, especially when I feel good.

Fearing the next chapter takes away from the beauty of the moment. So I will try to focus on feeling good now, and whatever comes next will be dealt with at the time. Let’s focus on now.

Thank you for reading ❤

SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

***

All I want to do right now is record happiness. I have never felt emotions switch so suddenly in my life and that’s no exaggeration. This time last week I felt there was a dark cloud over my head; I couldn’t figure out what was making me feel so low (though i did have a slight idea) and it was overbearing. But a few nights ago, my mood changed and I have been on a high since. Perhaps I should be worried by the immediacy of it all. But instead, I am embracing it. This is what it means to hold tight to your current loves as if you’ll never let them go.

Happiness has met joy and they are keeping me company. One of my favourite songs in the world is Evergreen by Yebba. I love when she says ‘Oh, I can’t see the forest for the trees. Oh, I feel so hopeless against the stream.’ That’s how it feels when you’re depressed, like there is no way out. When I feel like that, I wonder if I will ever feel happy again. Each time it feels genuinely impossible. And to be honest, I feel like I just got lucky with this sudden good mood I’ve been in.

In hindsight, a saving grace when I feel low may be the fact that there is a forest. In other words, a bigger picture to behold. And the bigger picture often tells me there’s more to life than anything I’m feeling, and there always will be. I must remind myself of this fact when I feel like I will never be happy again. Somehow, it eventually turns around. I’m marking the spot.

p.s: vision boarding works… things are coming to life!!

LET’S TRY TO DREAM

***

I felt upside-down when 2022 began, so I really wasn’t in the mood to set goals or dream big. However, there were three things I still desired, and I repeated them to myself and others again and again:

1. Publish my poetry book
2. Get a job I like
3. Be happy

All three were crazy endeavours. I published my book, secured a good internship, and spent the rest of the year freelancing. Happiness was a tide as always; it came and went. I felt depressed for the first couple months of the year but after that, things largely looked up. Looking back now, I think I attained the last two goals to some degree, even if they didn’t look exactly how I expected them to. There’s a poem in my book called The long way Home which describes that feeling.

In my last post I discussed how I’ve had to adjust in the past year and build resilience in a new environment. I now feel like accepting this truth has paved a way for me to dream big in 2023. This year I want to have more on my heart in the hopes of success and achievement. So let’s try something new.

Here are some questions I’ve answered in my journal as I plan my first-ever vision board. I got the questions from a YouTube video by muchelleb. Everything below is 100% true; the kind of sharing I avoid because I value privacy. But I feel like sharing. Perhaps this could help you to think about your year ahead too. I may not share the vision board when I complete it, so I will share this.

What’s the next chapter of my life about?

• Achieving financial certainty/stability/ease
• Committing to a creative endeavour
• Exploring (my) belief(s) and lack thereof
• Looking after my body: rest and gentleness

Who do I need to be?
Someone that is…

• Patient
• Positive-minded (Philippians 4:8)
• Self-compassionate
• Confident
• Brave
• Willing and eager to learn from my mistakes
• Direct
• Hopeful
• Genuine

How do I need to grow?

• Trust my own approaches. Advice isn’t law.
• Be softer and more loving and caring to my family
• Accept needing God when I realise it
• Turn jealousy into inspiration. Keep congratulating people
• Stop assuming people’s responses. Always ask
• Take less things personally
• Make healthy eating a priority – spend time cooking
• Speak to myself with love always
• Look at myself with love always

What skills do I need to learn?

• Adobe Photoshop
• TikTok
• Meditation
• Praying for others more
• Sew-in with a leave-out
• Flexibility – splits!
• Self-discipline
• Saying no when I want to say no
• Healthily detaching myself from people’s feelings when it’s best for me

What steps do I need to take to get there?

• Establishing a routine for working and non-working days
  • News @6am
  • Bible/prayer before I get up
  • Breakfast daily
• Remember discipline over motivation
• Start therapy
• Change environment when I’m restless/groggy
• Put effort towards a goal daily
• Be patient
• Break down goals
• Remember all timing is divinely in alignment
• Tell myself there’s no mountain too big for God
• Think with hope, challenge negative thoughts and anxieties
• Be actionable
• Make a vision board!

It’s still pretty generic. But that suggests a holistic approach to my dreams, I think.

I avoided vision-boarding in the past because the thought of ending the year without achieving it all was painful. But I don’t think I care about that much anymore. I can’t keep shielding myself from something that could be great out of such a trivial fear. We’ll see how I get along.

How would you answer these questions for yourself?

IMMA DO THE BEST I CAN WITH WHAT I’VE GOT!

***

Moving

I have had seven addresses in the past five years. Every year since 2017 has brought on suitcases and relocation. My only issue with all this movement was that I knew I wouldn’t stay anywhere for that long. Whether it was my uni accommodation or wherever I was living with my family, I knew it was all temporary. This harboured a desire for belonging inside of me. I desired the comfort of once again living somewhere with my family for the “foreseeable future”. That way I could really take off my shoes, really sink into a sofa, really fall in love with a room.

Then we moved out of London in February, and I finally felt like I belonged at home again.

But life is always going to throw some lemons your way. When you’ve spent your whole life in one area, growing accustomed to the way of life there, it’s natural to struggle to adapt to a new place. To go from where I grew up in East/Greater London, to deep Essex was a shock to say the least.

Despite my gratitude for being near grassy fields and quiet roads, I’ve found it quite hard to adapt. I tell my friends all the time how long it is to travel to anywhere in London now (since everything I do is still there) and even I am sick of talking about it. I didn’t expect transport to be such a thorn in my side.

But I realised you can never anticipate the upcoming root of so many issues in your life. An inconsistent bus? An expensive Uber? An M&S petrol station being your closest shop in walking distance? Yes! It surprises me anyway. The lack of access to a simple corner shop or close-by restaurant in addition to the price of the bus, trains and even Ubers has been chipping away at me for months now.

Knowing that most of my out-of-home needs can’t be met around the corner has made my appetite virtually disappear and any semblance of a healthy diet has long gone out of the window. I hardly have the motivation to cook or exercise, or even step outside for fresh air on most days I’m at home. Even my creative endeavours have been muted because executing them feels especially difficult. So I’ve spent the last nine months dreaming of moving back into an area I’m used to to finally bring my hopes to life and get myself back on track.

The bike

My only saving grace this whole time (besides the thought of a car) has been the thought of getting a bike. I got rid of my old one in February and I’ve been without one since.

So, after nearly nine months of complaining and procrastinating, my dad drove me to a local bike shop and I bought a bike. It’s light blue, and it’s amazing. When I rode it home that day a corner of my mind opened up again, and I remembered just how good I feel when I’m exercising.

The following morning, I cycled for about 45 minutes. Halfway through, I was faced with an uphill stretch. It was a cartoonishly steep bridge over a river. I’ve lost a lot of focus and discipline lately and my reaction showed that. Upon seeing the bridge, I almost turned around and cycled back home – I just couldn’t be bothered to put in all that legwork. But then I thought against it and decided to go.

And it was like a movie, an epiphany. I felt emotional as I willed myself to keep going over that river. As my feet pushed down those pedals and I tried to control my breath, the idea of resilience came to me.

I thought to myself, ‘perhaps I’m here to learn how to live when ease isn’t so accessible to me – when everything feels inconvenient. Maybe God wants me to learn how to operate when resources aren’t within arm’s length. Can I still create, thrive, grow and be productive when there are so many obstacles to doing just that?’

It was only as I pushed myself up that hill with nothing but the grace of God, weak thighs, and a dream, that I realised what all this is for. Life has not always been easy. Neither has it always been hard. I am just dealing with a different set of inconveniences.

So what now?

I now see the value in accepting new battles if only for the purpose of growing the list of things you can overcome. You could eventually turn that into the list of things you’re not afraid of.

I don’t have the area I grew up in at my beck and call anymore. Neither do I have a bus to the station that comes every 5 minutes. I don’t have access to a train journey below £10 and I don’t have a driving license (my test is booked for early next year, pray for me!!).

However what I do have, is dreams and ambition. So I will use the resources currently available to me, whatever they may be, to bring my dreams to life – no matter how they may turn out. In other words, I will do the best I can with what I’ve got! And I will no longer shy away from an opportunity as blatant as this to grow and develop some resilience.

The most beautiful thing about it all is reconciling this realisation with self-compassion. There are days where I am so frustrated that I don’t do anything. But I have more patience with myself on these days than I did a year ago.

I am learning about life as always because I am having new experiences. It’s a perspective I really needed.

SOME NOTES TO SELF, AND TO YOU…

***

1. My heart never stopped beating for me. I thank it and I thank God
2. Remember to focus on what truly matters. It will calm you down when you feel overwhelmed
3. There’s no need to be intimidated by façades. No one is worth being intimidated by; we’re all putting up fronts, somehow
4. Love is a spell
5. Trying is the least and the most you can do in any situation. To really live is to try
6. The fact that I am still alive means that there is still a chance, for anything
7. I am beautiful and amazing
8. Hard work + self belief = greater proximity to self-assurance, satisfaction, success. It’s the only way to chase my goals and obtain them fearlessly
9. All my answers are inside of me. I just need to ask ‘why’ until I locate them. I can unearth solutions from within
10. God is eternally gracious
11. I should not let people’s opinions hinder me. I must allow myself to do what I want
12. It’s okay to be ‘unremarkable’. It’s a wasted fear, because we’re still alive
13. I’m still quite introverted and that’s great because it is a piece of my younger self that I have held on to
14. Paying attention to what moves you (big or small) is a guidance towards your passions
15. I have survived everything I have ever gone through and I will survive all the more
16. Just because something is free/paid for, doesn’t mean you need it
17. I don’t have to ask so many people for advice. It confuses me and keeps me in indecision, and the final decision I make may not even feel like my own
18. Work with the bones if that’s all you have. Or the tiniest thoughts – work with those. There is always something on your heart and in your mind. Work with it. Its existence is proof of its workability, so do it. Work with insignificant ideas until they evolve, transform or stop being so
19. Self-honesty is a step towards personal freedom
20. The conviction of winning is tentative. Celebrate it the moment you realise it. All too often we discredit ourselves and feel like we’ve achieved nothing
21. Lessons aren’t confined to the tail-end of mistakes. you can learn anything, anywhere, for any reason

What do you know for sure?

DON’T TELL ME IM OVERTHINKING THIS…

***

In every decision, I wonder if he would approve. I try to wrap my head around accepting God for who he is rather than questioning the things I don’t like or understand about him. I should not want to change God. In fact, I should want to be just like him. But I don’t like him sometimes, and telling myself that he is outside of my understanding doesn’t pull the wool over my eyes like it used to. Trying to unlearn that inclination feels like a dangerous game, like I’m throwing knives into the air and watching them shoot down towards my face. I could lose my eyes.

I’ve been warned against questioning too much because it killed the cat, and I’ve been encouraged towards resting in the unknown. Who vetoed the assumption that that approach to life would satisfy us all? Individuality makes no space for such a set-up.

Some of us are really trying to grasp who God is and there is little love shown towards that wondering.

I default to telling myself it’s my flesh causing me to question and that I should only embrace it so much. I’m no longer aware of who I can talk to about it because I don’t want to pull anyone down with me.

In an Uber today I didn’t put on my seatbelt. I briefly thought to myself that if I died in a crash for that reason in that moment, I would be okay with it. I feel trapped in God and I don’t know how to get out. The paradox lies in the fact that there’s still nothing better than him. But perhaps that’s a default conclusion for me too. I am lost.

An answer that has been proposed to me includes speaking to God about it and spending more time in the Word. But I don’t want to read it, it feels like my head is being pushed into the ground to ignore the chaos all around. It feels like avoidance. Though I am still scared of my head being chopped off if I stretch my neck out into the chaos for too long.

Another resolution is to do what I want and see where it gets me. Oh how dangerous that would be – I have a bright future.

I feel pain when I think of people who are like me, getting closer to God, while I am just slipping away. My hands are losing the ability to hold on to anything, they are apprehensive, they have lost all trust. The last prayer in my lungs is for it to make sense to me for the first time. Authentically.