TOMORROW IS NOT GAURANTEED

This year certainly didn't waste any time getting down to business. One minute I was talking to a friend and they were saying that they love the space that I am in and we were saying that we need to milk the good days for all they are worth because we never know when life’s curveballs may hit you and affect your peace.

In what literally felt like the next minute after that conversation, my curveball came in the form of a phone call from a former colleague turned friend. She had been trying to get hold of me for the better part of the afternoon but I was in and out of sessions, couldn't pick up my phone and honestly didn't think much of it.

When I finally got a moment, I returned her call. She was sounding weird over the phone but not even in my wildest imagination could I have predicted what she was going to tell me next. A friend of ours has passed on.

I thought I was hearing things, I wanted her to explain in detail who she was speaking about because in my mind she couldn't be speaking about the person I knew. I spoke to my friend throughout the festive break, she was at home spending time with family and I was laughing at how she was stuck at home and couldn't go out because she had broken her leg and it was put on a cast.

She had just bought a car and was finally moving her son to Bloem to attend school there. That had always been her dream, growing up in a small town where good schools were few and far between. She had achieved what she longed for for years. I was so happy for her and we were both filled with excitement for the new year and the fact that both of us would be staying with our children.

We made a commitment to go on a weekend away in the new year because life had so many responsibilities that we hardly saw each other but we acknowledged that despite that we had to make time for those we cared about. Things were falling into place and finally all her hard work was starting to pay off. So how do I make peace with the news that she went to bed and that was to be her final sleep?

What about all the dreams that she still had? Who would now give her son the life that she always wanted for him? At the age of 31, how is it possible that it is the end? Wasn't this supposed to be the prime of her life? I mourn my friend and my heart bleeds for a child that now has to grow up without a mother.

In the two weeks following my friend's passing, two other people passed on here at work. One was a colleague's daughter, whom I had seen and interacted with at the office a few times - she was only 20 years old and had been battling with lupus. The other was a client, who had lost her battle to cancer.

I think we all know how fleeting life is but we forget and we allow ourselves to get caught up in petty issues that don't contribute anything meaningful to our lives. I found myself wondering, what if I died tomorrow? Would I look back on my life and say that I spend my days in a way that mattered?

Beyond the hurt and shock that came with death, it also gives one a rude awakening and probes you to think about life and how you are living it. We make so many plans and we have the tendency to put off what we need to do and want to do, oblivious to the fact that tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us. It could all be taken away in the blink of an eye and in a split second so much can change, almost leaving you disorientated.

I've wrestled with many feelings over the last few weeks but I can safely say that, though this was not a good way to start the year, it was a reminder to go into it with enthusiasm and purpose. To live each day with intention, to do what you can when the opportunity is still there and be conscious to the gift that is each day we live and we are still breathing.

Though I am still trying to find peace, learning to accept that never again can I pick up the phone to speak to my friend - I need to be grateful for the gift of life and make changes if anything I am doing now is not aligned to the legacy that I would want to leave one day when I am no longer around.

My hope is that we don't wait for death to knock on our doors before we realise that life is too fragile and too short to get caught up in the small stuff. That we don't live our lives consumed with winning the small battles that we lose the war of what our lives should represent when the curtains close one day.

Light and Love

RLG Lenkoe

#Born To Conquer

#Stepping Out Naked

STOP HURTING YOURSELF

There's no greater truth than the saying; "you can’t control everything that happens to you but you can control how you react to it." So much of our pain is self-inflicted. 

It's not the things that have happened that hurt you but your thoughts about what happened that continue to hurt you long after the incident has passed. When something happens that hurts us or makes us feel disappointed or even betrayed, the feelings that come with it only last a few minutes or possibly hours. But the days, weeks and months you spent hurting about that thing is what you inflict on yourself. 

You continue to replay what happened, asking yourself why and maybe even punishing yourself for having let it happen. How you process the incident or event is what is holding you captive not the actual thing that went down. 

When my relationship with my fiancé ended, it wasn't the end that was causing me so much pain. It was my thoughts over the break up that kept the pain alive. I was feeding it with my thoughts, thoughts about why he left, what people would say etc. I was entertaining these negative thoughts and they were in turn fuelling the pain that I felt. But the truth is it wasn't what my ex did that was hurting me, I was choosing to hurt myself every day that I was allowing these thoughts to consume me. 

I didn't realize that I had no control over what happened but I had a choice in how I was reacting to it and the platform that I was giving this hurt in my life. 

Every second that you choose to dwell on the things people did or didn't do, what you did or failed to do, you continue to inflict pain on yourself and deny yourself the opportunity to regroup and get yourself together. You can't think straight while you are consumed with pain and you can't move on with your life whilst still replaying the past in your head. Thinking of ways to blame yourself or the person who did you wrong? 

Whatever happens in your life is meant to happen, to either teach you a lesson or to distance you from people whose part in your life is over. If you keep staring at the closed door long enough, you miss all the other doors that are opening right in front of your eyes because you have managed to convince yourself that you are hurting when all it is is a flawed thought process. A process that is making you stay in your place of hurt instead of realizing the beauty of what happened. 

Every bad thing that happens in your life is an eye opener, calling you to awareness and pushing you to a place you couldn't have gotten to had the incident not taken place. The Universe is making moves in your favor, teaching you about life, people and yourself. Things you wouldn't have the privilege of knowing if all went as you pleased all the time. 

I would never advice one to deny their pain, to pretend like it doesn't exist but I am saying question why it hurts as bad as it does, question your thoughts about what happened and aim to find out if you aren't the one that keeps stabbing yourself in a wound that wasn't so deep to begin with. Ask yourself why you are choosing to stay in that place of hurt; do you think it validates you, you think if you stay there long enough it takes something away from the person who hurt you or are you staying there because you are making excuses, using what happened as a scapegoat that's exempting you from taking responsibility and doing what you must. 

Don't get caught up in the sympathy that comes with having an injury that you end up not realizing when you have healed because you are afraid you will lose the attention that came with being injured. Eventually the band aid needs to come off,  you need to let go of the things that caused you pain and realize that you are responsible for yourself and no one can take anything away from you that you don't willingly give