WHAT THEY DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED

A week ago, I attended a bridal shower in Lesotho with my sister. This was not your usual type of bridal shower, or my idea of one. When I hear the word bridal shower what comes to mind is a kinky theme, girls gone wild and drinks all night. Sort of like celebrating your last weekend as a single woman. This one was different though as majority of attendees were the bride's family:  mother, aunts, grannies etc. The friends only made up 5% of the total number. I was already yawning when we got there because I expected it to be boring.

Speeches we made by the elders to congratulate the bride to be, we ate and had champagne. Had dessert and even went for a second helping. Though the shower didn't fit the script of the norm I ended up enjoying myself and learning so much. Then they had that part where all the married elders go to a secluded room with the bride to be to give her pearls of wisdom for the chapter she is about to embark on. Since I had my glimpse of marriage in the past, I ticked myself fit to be part of that meeting. I was curious about what goes on in there. You see some of us never had the pleasure of experiencing such, we just jumped into the deep end and thought we would learn to swim along the way and MAYBE that's why we drowned.

I loved how the lady who opened the conversation started, when she said, "we are not here to scare you but to prepare you for the journey ahead. Remember everyone who will be speaking will do so depending on their context and their view of marriage. You don't have to take everything you hear but pave your own foundation in your own marriage." That spoke volumes to me, not taking anything away from the experience of elders and what years in a marriage may have taught them, sometimes they expect what they say to be taken as the only truth of what being married can be and that is not always a true reflection.

The elders then began to share their thoughts. Everything from the importance of humility, standing your ground, building your own traditions and customs as a new family, how to handle your in laws, submission and how to deal with affairs if and when they arise in your marriage. What stood out for me is how giving in on your marriage was never made an option. What do you do if you have really tried all you could but it still doesn't work? But more than that it spoke to how our generation lacks tolerance and the patience to stick through it during the rough patches. Several women spoke about the first and second honeymoon. The first one being right after the wedding and the second one being years into the marriage when you have faced the storms together and hated each other and acted out of character but somehow found your way back to each other and the love that initially brought you together in the first place.

So I learned, marriage is not a bed of roses and the tough times are not always an indication that you should give up. Sometimes you just need to stay put and hold on and God can help you pass the storm. I was sitting there thinking why is it only married women who are allowed to partake in this discussions because there is so much single ladies, especially those aspiring to marriage can learn through these talks. Why only be prepared a few weeks before the wedding when these pearls of wisdom are needed even prior to the wedding date? Not only to prepare you for getting married but possibly also to tell if you are ready or not and if you really willing to do all that is said to be the foundation for a good marriage.

In the same breath I wondered if men were also taken through the same process just before marriage or it was expected only from the women. Something that came up quite frequently in what was said is how a woman is responsible for building her home. I suppose that's a fact but does it take responsibility away from the role and part that the man needs to play? You can only do so much as a woman. If the man is not prepared or equipped, no amount of preparation and words can help the woman succeed because this is not a fight you engage in solo. I think both men and women should go through this preparatory phase and maybe the institution of marriage has a better chance of succeeding. A boxer can have all the preparation before a fight but if he is going to go into the ring alone can he really say he has won? You need an opponent to fight with to claim victory but in the case of marriage, the other party is not your opponent but someone who will fight equally hard to ensure that both of you win and your marriage wins

DO YOUR PART

Few days ago I had one of those days when you can't wait to get home, take your shoes off and drink a glass of wine. I had been at school from 8am in the morning trying to sort out issues around my registration and getting recognition for the modules I did in my previous degree. I woke up bright and early determined to beat the queues and finish early but I had another thing coming as students were there in numbers when I got there. I stood in 1 queue for what seemed like forever, 2 hours to be exact, only to be told I was in the wrong queue.

I was pointed in what was said to be the right queue but the lady there couldnt help me either. At least the queue there was shorter. Went to the third point now, walking around mind you in the blazing sun and just feeling irritable and annoyed. Got there and was told it's the wrong point and was sent to another one. QUEUE AGAIN! At that moment I have to admit that my patience levels were non existent and anything and everything just seemed to annoy me. I have yet to master this virtue they call patience, still have a long way to go. I eventually got assistance at the last point and by then I had already missed 2 classes despite being on campus since 8am. It was just after midday. 

I took a taxi home and put on my headsets, determined to push the happenings of the day to the back of my mind but not feeling any less annoyed at this stage. I always have my headsets packed in my bag for days like these when I just want to get home and not have anyone try to start a conversation with me along the way. I got off at my stop, went to the local spaza to get a few necessities and this boy, couldn't have been more than 13 years of age, approaches me and asks me to buy bread for him to eat when he gets home.

What caught my attention was that he didn't ask for money, he asked that I buy him food so I believed his request was genuine. A closer look at him and his uniform is not only dirty but torn so I asked him to come closer. He goes on to explain after questioning him that he lives with his mom and grandmother and both are unemployed so there is no food in the house. I buy him milk and bread and give him a R10 and walk away.

But my heart is tearing from the inside, so many questions run through my mind and I wonder how they survive. Here I am annoyed at the day I had and this boy is walking back from school, probably tired and wondering what he is going to eat when he gets home. I can't help but be thankful, for my life and all that I have. It's not much but at least my family and I don't go to bed on an empty stomach.

I am overwhelmed but I know that I must do my part to change the world. It may not be the whole world but if I can change one person's life I would have done more than enough. Walking home after that encounter, I saw the importance of following through with my vision for Born To Conquer.

THE BIGGEST LIE

You know what I liked about Khanyi Mbau back then when she was still chasing fame and wealth? She was unapologetic about it. You look at her now and see that she's grown so much over the years and made so many changes but even then when her behaviour wasn't exactly a "norm" she lived by her own rules and never pretended to be anything that she wasn't. Whether you agreed or not wasn't the point, she stuck to what she wanted and believed at the time.

Now I don't get people who know they are one thing but act to our faces like they are something completely different. People who try to uphold standards set by society only as far as we can see but turn around and do what is truly them in private. People who say what sounds right and acceptable when they don't really believe in it. Whose fooling who here?
We all need to come to a place where we stick to our truth, whatever it may be instead of trying to please the people around us by doing what they want while not even doing it at all, just merely pretending so that they think the right things about us. Given that we all show different sides to who we are depending on the people we are with but at the core of it all, needs to lie who we truly are. We can't be preaching one thing and doing another, saying this but doing that.

I would rather someone be true and show me all of them and give me the fair choice to decide if I want to associate with them or not. Not someone who says and does what they think will gain them my approval while having no intentions to live by those things when I turn my back and look the other way.

I don't know if it's a quote out there or something I made up in my overworking mind but at any time you lie, you may deceive the rest of us but the biggest lie you tell is the one you tell yourself. It's too much of a burden to try and live life wanting to please others and living a lie in the process. Just be yourself, whatever your self is. It may not make you favourable but you can at least live knowing that you aren't ashamed of the choices you make and how you behave, you owe yourself that much. Don't try and win us over with lies, don't portray yourself in any way other than the one that is a true reflection of who you are. 

RESOLUTIONS

It's almost that time of the year when people will be making resolutions and vowing to do this and that and change one thing or the other in the New Year. For the longest time I was one of those people, who always had a long list of things I wanted to do and change in the new year. I don't subscribe to the idea of resolutions anymore.

Simply because time has taught me that any change that you want to make is not tied to the beginning of a new year. Every day you wake up, you are availed another chance, a clean slate so to speak and with that comes the choice to do what you want. To know that the minute you realise you have been travelling the wrong route, you can change. You don't have to wait for January the 1st to change the things you don't like.

Truth is I think more than waiting for the clock to strike midnight on the 31st of December, we need to work on changing our thoughts. Is it the Bible that says "as a man thinks so he is," it doesn't matter how long that list of resolutions is, if you go into the new year with the same thoughts that you had this year, chances are you will produce the same results. So rather than waiting on the new year make a decision to regularly reflect on your life and the direction that it is going and if you spot anything that you don't like, evaluate your thoughts and how they may be influencing your results. When you find a correlation, make the needed changes upstairs before you even think of what action to take.

By all means have goals but instead of that list of resolutions you usually make. List what you want to achieve, how you are going to do it and assign a time frame to those goals. More importantly work on your thoughts and get rid of any self-limiting talk that goes on in your head. When you believe you can achieve it and see the victory in your mind, that list you compile will serve as motivation for you and not just something that fizzles out by March of the new year. ALL THE BEST WITH 2015. Make it count. Make it a turning point.

WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR?

Our teen years are usually categorised by a lot of learning and confusion and trying to find our direction in life. One of the things that stands out during this time is our need for peer acceptance, breaking away from our parents and finally being able to make our own decisions. Decisions that don't even turn out to be our own because we are so hell bent on trying to win the approval and validation of our peers. With your late twenties comes a shift in focus and finally coming to a place where you know who you are and what it is you want from life.

Unfortunately the transition is not natural for all of us and it's sad to watch grown people still not knowing what it is that they stand for, their decisions are still based on trying to be accepted and loved by those they regard as important. The problem with trying to live a life that is centred around pleasing everyone around you but yourself is that, you never win because no matter what you do there will always be a few people who don't approve and therefore don't accept you on the basis of the choices you have made. Not only that but it's rather tiring trying to always think of the next person before you take any action in your life. I am by no means saying we should blindly do things without considering how they may impact others but sometimes being selfish is a good thing especially when no one is getting hurt as a result of you putting yourself first.

The people we gain by pretending to be who we aren't are not even worth having in your life because the right people will always love you for the right reasons. That means they can look passed your flaws and differences and embrace the person that you are. There must be things that you believe in, things that you stand for and while those things may not always win you the approval of everyone or even popularity, it should be enough for you just knowing that you are true to yourself.

Not everyone will understand or love you and it's not even your job to make them change their minds about what they think. I am of the belief that when you stick to who you are and what you believe in, the right doors will open and the right people will naturally gravitate towards you. Effortless and definitely a win-win situation in my eyes. Life is so much simpler when you don't feel the need to hide your true self and when you can be as crazy and silly as you want around people and know that they don't love you any less or think differently about you.

There is a popular saying that, "if you don't stand for anything you will fall for everything." That's how you find yourself going in whichever direction the wind is blowing and your no means yes and yes means no. Don't fall victim to seeking approval of the people you love so much so that you don't know who you are outside of that acceptance. Seek to know who you are and what you stand for and trust the Universe to bring people along your path who will not only understand that but share the same sentiments as well. Also learn that differences are inevitable and it doesn't mean either one of us has to change to fit what the other thinks is ideal but that we can learn to co-exist and still love each other the same even if we don't see everything through the same lense. Cultivate your own thoughts and beliefs by not accepting everything at face value and when you have come to learn that which you stand for,  don't try and impose it on everyone else. Stand for something or risk falling for what everyone else stands for.

WHEN YOU HAVEN'T HEALED

I attended a Conference for women and teens the other day, it's something that one of the guest speakers said that brought this specific piece to light for me. You know those moments when you listening to someone speak and it lights a bulb in your head and heart and brings to the fore something you didn't necessarily not know before but they say it in such a way that it forces you to look at your life and face things you may have swept under the carpet.

How many of us are walking around broken and bruised and don't even realise it? Something happened in your life and you put on a brave face and convinced yourself that it didn't matter and then something that someone said revealed to you that you hadn't healed. I think so many of us are preoccupied with not falling apart that anything that vaguely tries to bring unbalance in our lives is ignored. We never let the wounds of what happened heal themselves in a natural way instead we try and speed up the process by numbing ourselves. We all have different crutches that we use,  for some it's alcohol, ensuring that we are so busy we never have time to think about our hurts or just plainly refuse to acknowledge that we are in pain.

So we go on about the day, pretending not to have a care in the world. We almost succeed at playing it cool and showing the world that we have it all under control. Until something very minor happens and sets us off on a downward spiral into the depth of depression. What happens when you haven't healed? You live a superficial life, one where you playing a role that's not a true reflection of all that is burning inside of you. You have answers to anything and everything but never to the troubles that make you toss and turn at night, in public you are the epitome of strength and yet in private you barely know your left from right.  You haven't healed.

You took what was bothering you and put on a band aid and turned the other way in the hope that the wound will go away all by itself. But it doesn't. It may appear to be gone for a short period but I guarantee you that anything you have not dealt with will one way or the other find its way to the surface again. What happens when you haven't healed.

Just as physically the body is able to heal itself, we need to allow our emotional scars the time to go through the healing process in a natural way. That means not rushing the process and trying to pretend that what hurt you didn't. I am in no way saying that one should wallow in self pity and give in to their circumstances but know that healing is a process and the time frame for all of us is different. It's okay to admit when you have not healed and to realise that,  trying to fake it will only delay the process. Embrace your hurt and how it makes you feel, give yourself time and when you have gone through the motions, you can truly move on without looking back. When you haven't healed, you deny yourself the opportunity to live a full life and when you are walking around bruised and broken, you risk hurting others you come across. Only when we have dealt with our pain and allowed time to heal us can we give ourselves the best and ultimately those we interact with too.

LESSONS LEARNT

A friend and I went out for dinner the other way. We hadnt seen each other for a while so naturally the conversation was about updating each other on what has been happening in our lives.  The joys and struggles and how we have felt about both. In the middle of the chat I said these words, "don't you sometimes wish we could turn back the clock and make different choices but I suppose we would still make the same mistakes even if we could because we would still not have learned all we know today."

In that brief moment I found myself at peace with everything that has happened in life and how things turned out. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't beating myself up for the wrong choices I had made but instead realised that there was no way things could have been different.  I am only a better person today because of everything I had gone through. The mistakes were lessons learnt, lessons I wouldn't have otherwise acquired.

I think a lot of times we blame ourselves for the mistakes we made and always wish we could be given a chance to go back in time and correct them but fail to realise that this is how we grow and learn in life. Going back doesn't guarantee that we will make wiser decisions or be able to avoid the flaws of the past. We can only learn what we know through reflection and that sadly means that what happened had to happen so we can be the people that we are today.

Only when we stop regretting the bad maze we had to go through can we truly embrace the lessons that we have been taught and do better because we now know better. As cliché as it sounds it holds so much truth, we can't change the past but can use what we know now to influence the present and therefore change the future. Don't dwell on the mistakes for too long but only look at them long enough to see what the lesson is in the experience, what you can take from it and what you can do better next time. In that way your mistakes will always be your stepping stone, propelling you to the next level and phase of your life.

When you have done that, you can look back with gratitude at how things have panned out and how you have grown from your bad experiences.