WHAT DO YOU NEED TO WORK ON????

The last few weeks leading up to 2016 I think the phrase that I have said the most to everyone I spoke to was that I can't wait for the New Year to start.  I still don't have the words but I am excited about this year and the endless possibilities that are in front of me.

Besides the fact that this is my final year as a social work student and this means it won't be long now before I step comfortably into a role that I've been working towards for the past 2 years. There's also the excitement of launching my first book, Stepping Out Naked: Lessons learnt from wounds exposed (call me or drop me an email on rlglenkoe@gmail.com if you would like a copy of the book), a book that took me just over a year to wrap up, it's about my experiences and lessons learnt from those experiences. These are just the tip of the iceberg for me because I feel like there is so much in store for me this year.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way, there's always that sense of excitement that comes with a new year and starting over and trying again if we had previously failed. Often we think that a clean slate is all we need to accomplish the many things that are on our list and we make plans, the date changes but we don't.

We remain the same people, with the same self-destructive habits and thoughts that we had in the previous year. Then we get shocked that a new year didn't bring with it all the changes that we hoped for. As much as I feel like this year is going to be different, I also realize that there are things that I need to work on and change before I am able to live out my dreams.

You see if we don't change then a new year doesn't change anything in our lives. So you need to be asking yourself beyond making a list of all your goals and jotting down those steps that will enable you to reach them, what do you need to change about yourself or work on in 2016?

Failure to ask this question and answer it honestly only means that, you may become your own barrier. The very thing that stops you from attaining your goals. If you don't question your habits, your thoughts and your surroundings, you may just end the year in the same place that you started in. It's important to realize that for life to change you also have to do your part and the part you need to play involves more than just knowing how you are going to achieve your dreams, it requires that you also change. 

What habits do you have that are counterproductive? Is it an inability to keep time, spending too much time talking and not doing? What negative thoughts do you need to discard? Do you want to achieve something in your life but privately telling yourself that you can't? That you are not good enough or even worthy? What are you surrounding yourself with? Are you wasting your life going to a job that you hate? Are you keeping company with people who inspire you to grow or people who tell you to play it safe?

If the very same things that held you back in 2015 are still in your life, do you realize how life cannot change for you nor can you produce different results. As I was writing down all the things that I want to achieve this year, I asked myself these uncomfortable questions about what I needed to work on to ensure that I was someone capable of achieving the things that I wrote down.

And here's my answer. And I am sharing it with you so I can hold myself accountable throughout the year.

1. I need to learn to be still. Life will throw you curve balls and your patience will be tested. It's a natural reaction to want to respond to everything and defend oneself but this year I want to learn to be still. To breathe before I react to anything and ask myself, is it important or worth it. I want to learn that everything is not worth a response and sometimes we have to be willing to lose the battle so we can win the war. The trick this year is not to get worked up over things that don't matter.

2. I am enough and I am capable. I want this to be my mantra, my affirmation and a reminder that every day I wake up, I am doing what I can and that’s okay. I want to walk in this knowledge and never doubt myself.

3. Peace. I want to have peace and live with peace in my heart. Life reflects back to us the things we may not be willing to acknowledge and I know now that a chaotic life is just a reflection of what's going on inside. If I can live with peace in my heart, the people around me and my surroundings will be a reflection of that.

So what do you need to work on and change to make 2016 your best year yet? Be honest with yourself and when you have the answer commit to making those changes so you can achieve the goals that you have set for yourself. You cannot conquer the world without first conquering yourself. You have to change so the things and people around you can change.

Wishing you love and life in abundance. May 2016 be the year that you conquer.

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

DEAR FEAR

Why have I allowed you to consume my thoughts, my life? Why have I believed the lies you told me and the reasons you gave me everytime I wanted to do something in life? Why did I think you could have so much power over me and my dreams?

I look at my life and mourn for all the things I could have achieved,  the places I could have seen and the people I would have met, if only I learned early on in my life that you only have as much power in my life as I allow you to. All along I thought I was a victim to your games, I considered myself helpless and gave in to your demands. When the truth is you were only surviving because I kept feeding you instead of starving you to death. I wanted you out of my life but everytime you reached for the door knob, I pulled you back and held on to you. 

I should have let you go the day I realised that you were standing between me and my dreams. I should have kicked you out the day you tried to convince me that my greatness didn't exist. But I let you stay and take over every corner of my thoughts till I almost forgot who had the keys to your place of residence. 

I continued to fight you but at the end of the day, when no one was watching, I curled up in bed with you and cuddled you like your warmth was the only possibility there was. I knew you were holding me back but I kept trying to go forward without cutting off the ties that were between us. No wonder it was so hard to go anywhere, I was your slave and obeying your every command. 

You told me it was safer where I was so I didn't try to be anywhere else. You told me the world was cruel and it would reject anything I tried to bring forth so I dismissed the ideas I had and learned to be satisfied with only waking up in the morning. You told me people only care about themselves so you help me build a wall to keep myself safe but forgot to mention that the same wall would also block out any light that aimed to enter my life. You watched me scream silently and led me to believe that no one could hear me but it was you all along who was suppressing my voice so my scream wouldn't be loud enough. 

I've finally had enough. Enough of watching others live so fully while I was holding on to what you were promising me. I'm tired of being scared, of being afraid to live and try and dare to fail. I'm exhausted from playing small so you could be comfortable and feel big. You have overstayed your welcome,  kept me too long from erupting like the volcano I know I am. You need to leave. 

No rephrase that. You are leaving! Because I have grown too much and you no longer have space here. There is not enough room for both of us to co-exist and since I am calling the shots here, you are the one who needs to disappear. I need to start living,  I need to start being awesome, I need to start living out my dreams, I need to break down the walls so light can reach me and I can finally breathe. I need to start being all that I can be and I can't do that while wrestling with you. 

Goodbye fear. Hello life.

ITS OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY

This topic sounds so familiar, besides having spoken on the same subject a few weeks ago at a workshop, I feel like I have written about it before. But what the heck, maybe you need a reminder the same way I do right now.  The last few weeks, days, have been rather hectic on the heart. First it was school, then it was home, then it was betrayal, hurt,  longing and then there was work. Where do you even begin when the walls are closing down on you? When all attempts fail and you just find yourself sinking deep into a hole? We all have our different crutches and escape methods. While in the past I've been very vocal about my struggles and pain, its often left me with regrets more than anything. So I went back to my most trusted method whenever I was in a bad state, grab a box of tissue and paper and write till I had no words left. The beautiful thing about using pen and paper as a weapon is that you can be totally naked and not worry about being judged. You can be completely vulnerable and not feel like a weakling. You can tell yourself that it's okay not to be okay without feeling like you are disappointing anyone else. At times you just need the platform to be, knowing that things will eventually work out but not before you surrender to what is and what you feel in the moment. You know that this too shall pass but you don't have to act like the reassurance makes it hurt any less. You just take the moment for what it is and allow it to teach you what it must without rushing through the process because it's expected of you to keep it together and not cry. And you can cry as much as you need to for when you stop, you never have to deal with unresolved feelings that you swept under the rug. More than allowing myself to feel the way that I do, I have tried to find comfort in His word. Overdosing on sermons by Bishop TD Jakes, I find myself shouting YESSSSSSSS! like a crazy woman because I am reminded that its okay not to be okay but I will be okay. I've found something incredibly beautiful in being able to cry out to God because He knows. He doesn't only know me but He knows the things I try to hide from the world. And because He said to bring my burdens to Him because He cares. He doesnt only care but He has promised to work all things for my good, the good and the bad and that's why surrendering to Him is such a joy, because He said that if I have faith as small as a mustard seed nothing will be impossible for me and my present suffering will be nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed. I get why pain has a purpose, why our plans need to be wrecked and leave us in limbo. So we can realise that our might means nothing, that we have no control because He is the One who should be in charge. I get that sometimes things fall apart so He can rebuilt them, so we can know that we are nothing without Him. I understand that troubles are meant to draw us closer to Him because He is the source of life and when we go around like we are in control, we might just forget to plug into Him and draw from Him.The last few weeks have been tough and I have accepted being okay with not being okay. This time is working in my favour even during the times that it doesn't feel that way. Even when I don't have the answers, I have found myself and who I am in Him through this process and I can say with confidence, it's okay not to be okay because God is going to ensure the passing of this season. It's going to be alright. No matter how it looks now, I will not lose sight of that. 

I WOULDN'T BE ANYWHERE ELSE

I was writing my Psychology exam today and naturally studying days or weeks ahead of time, I always feel like I don't know my work and I am not ready. So the closer I get to writing the more things start to make sense and the night before is always crazy. That means I got very little sleep and after the exam all I wanted to do was go home and sleep but I had to go to work. *sigh*

The whole time I was at work I was thinking about how I'm going to jump into bed and enjoy being home alone because my daughter and niece wouldn't be there. The plan was to get myself a bottle of wine after my shift, get home and pour a glass and enjoy it in my birthday suit. Then I remembered that I was cutting down on the alcohol (that's been going great because in the last 2 months I've only bought 2 bottles), sleeping was a much better option for when I get home.

I arrived to any empty house, which felt kind of weird. Then I didn't know what to do with myself. I switched on the TV and watched a movie but the whole time I was thinking about how we would be laughing at this stupid guy on the screen with my niece and how bored I really am.

It's funny because with the kids here, I always tell them that I look forward to the day we move into a bigger house, where I would come home and lock myself in the room and they wouldn't even know that I am here.  My daughter turns 5 in a few days while my niece is 19 years old but you would be forgiven for calling me any day when they are here and thinking I was running a Day Care Centre. From the moment I walk through the door, my daughter is already going into a full account of how her day was and who did what to her. My niece, typical of her age is on her phone chatting the evening away. But when the two of them collide, which by the way is almost every day, I have to forget how tired I am from school and work and play referee to their fights. 

It's exhausting and sometimes I just sit there in silence and shut down while they wait for me to intervene and I pretend like I am not there. I can never win! You would think that I would appreciate the time out and space to just be with my thoughts but I found that the freedom isn't exactly as exciting as I imagined it would be. As tiring as it is to be a mother and sister at times, after today I am looking at my life in a different way. These little people truly do make my life what it is and I cannot imagine my life without their noise, fights and everything else. It's deceiving to get caught up in what life could be if you had the opportunity to just be but what I realise now is that I cannot be without them. They give me a reason to come home and it is home because they are here otherwise it would just be an empty house. So the next time they are working on my nerves, I have this to remind me that they are the "e" in life because they are EVERYTHING to me. 

POURING INTO A HEART WITH HOLES - IT NEVER GETS FULL.

This picture and others similar to it, depicting the same message has been doing the rounds on social networks for a while now. Whenever I saw the picture, I would scroll right passed it. It didn't say anything to me, it wasn't worth my attention till now. Someone shared it and it somehow made an appearance on my timeline and something about it caught my attention and got me thinking. 

It was last year after a nasty break up that I first heard about "soul ties", I was listening to a show on radio on Sunday morning and the pastor was talking about these soul ties. How we never completely break up with people because we hold on to things and memories made and these things are then dragged into our present and future when we should have left them in the past. The pastor went as far as saying when you break up with someone, you shouldn't keep anything that would be a reminder of the relationship if you were serious about moving on. 

I wanted to move on, I wanted to forget but there was no way I was willing to give up the shoes I had gotten from that relationship. Silly right? I mean I was so angry with my ex that after he left, I burned all his clothes and sneakers that he had forgotten when he moved out but I was not willing to part ways with the shoes. Not yet anyways!  I had never heard about soul ties in all the years I had been going to church and this pastor was not about to convince me of anything. When you not ready to face reality no one can tell you anything and I certainly wasn't buying into this soul ties business.

Fast forward to a few months later, I'm at a Women's Conference and the speaker mentions soul ties and in the week that follows, a friend of mine on Facebook shares a video clip on soul ties. God are you trying to tell me something? You see I have never believed in coincidence, I honestly don't have a picture of God in my head, sitting and thinking how He can amuse Himself. So I believe everything happens for a reason, though we don't always know what those reasons are. I watched the video clip and for the first time I think I get what these soul ties are about, why we need to be weary of them and break them off when we realise that we have made unGodly soul ties. Until you really ready to hear what God is saying to you, you will miss all the ways in which He tries to speak to you. I think only when you clear the clutter in your head and life can you really hear what He is saying and has been saying all along. Soul ties! 

After watching that clip, I attended a workshop where my friend was speaking on soul ties. How we give of ourselves and get left with what wasn't ours to begin with when the relationship ends. When my relationship ended, I was left with indescribable guilt and shame and anger that had me thinking thoughts I can't even repeat to you reading this right now. He came and left me with all these negative feelings and thoughts that were not there, that I didn't want. And more importantly, he left me feeling like I was not enough for anyone to ever love me. I was saying I want to move on but behind closed doors I was looking at pictures of days gone by, stalking his social media accounts to see what he was up to and with whom. I was saying one thing while a large part of me was still hoping he would come back. It didn't matter that he brushed me off or spoke harshly to me when I made contact with him, I still thought he would come back to his senses and at the time, that meant him coming home - where I would welcome him with open arms, no questions asked. 

I made a vow to myself to remain single for a year, that is how much time I was giving him to get his act together. Days, weeks, months went by and the decision to remain single was no longer about him but who I was becoming and how I was starting to love the person I was looking at in the mirror. If you think my ex was solely to blame for the break up, you are wrong. I played my part too and played it well. I knew which buttons to press and on numerous occasions I went full on crazy on the guy. If I were him I would have run too. 

That's the beauty of taking some time out. Realising that you weren't particularly a victim in how the relationship played out. Knowing that you have to be still, to find you first so you don't end up giving of yourself to someone who doesn't deserve you. In the past  15  months I have learned so much about myself, the things I like and those I don't, the ones I keep working at to improve. Had I jumped into another relationship without taking the time to reflect, I would probably go into a situation that was doomed from the beginning. 

Going back to soul ties. Look at that picture and tell me it doesn't scare you. It doesn't scare you that you may be giving all you have to someone who can't give you anything back in return. That it doesn't scare you that every time you give a piece of yourself to someone and they leave,  you are left with less than what you had and eventually you may have nothing else to give to the person who will be deserving of your everything. It sure as hell scares me. 

I want to be equally yoked, I want someone to compliment me not complete me. I want to cling on to someone and be completely vulnerable and know they are giving as good as they are getting. I want someone to see parts of me the world knows nothing about and trust them not to use that to destroy me. I want crazy, raw love, the kind that we can't explain to anyone. I want someone who is afraid to lose me yet give me his heart like forever is guaranteed.I want someone who can't go a day without talking to me. Someone who dreams with me and works equally hard to make those dreams come true.  I want a Godly soul tie.

I realize to get what I have never had, I need to change how I have always played the game. I still have loads of work to do in me, so much to learn. I know I need to prepare myself to be the kind of woman who can accept and embrace what I yearn for because if I am not ready, I may push away the very thing I want when it arrives. I'm no expert on soul ties but I know I want and need a Godly tie, not just any relationship to pass time. Yes I am getting older but ultimately waiting is better than being an incomplete person sleeping next to a skeleton and using the bits of me trying to revive a situation that I should have never been in in the first place. I am willing to wait. Because now that I have broken those toxic soul ties and I am finally getting back what I had lost in them, there is no way I am going back to that life again. I'm not prepared to be the woman in the picture, giving and giving and getting nothing in return.  

CHURCH QUESTIONS

The past few weeks I have been questioning a lot of things when it comes to the church and the whole concept of Christianity. Maybe my understanding of church and it's purpose is flawed and I have had a rude awakening on that front. I always thought church was a place where we gathered as Christians to fellowship and encourage each other and that when I went to church, I was supposed to leave at the end of the day with a fulfilled heart and a feeling of restoration.

I have been experiencing quite the opposite for a long time. I've left church and wondered how could we pray for each other while we harboured such bitterness towards one another and how we could heal each other as children of God when we engaged in so much hate talk within the walls of the church. How do we lift our hands in church and shout Amen's during the sermon, yet leave at the end of the day and do the very things that the sermon and Bible warned us against?

I've also felt burdened as a Christian, like I had signed up for something I couldn't live with and practice in my own life. I couldn't admit that I struggled because I thought that would be an indication of my faith not being strong enough. So I do what we all do and hide behind scriptures and pretend to be a good girl. Yet that wasn't a true reflection of my state of mind because the truth is I still struggle. 

I struggle to keep my mouth shut when a fellow church member is put on the table for discussion in their absence, yes I gossip. I struggle to forgive and yet go to bed every night and pray to be forgiven as I have forgiven others. But that ain't the truth because I have yet to forgive people in my life for the things they did and those that they failed to do. I would sit in church and lift my hand in approval when the preacher reminded us that pride is a sin. In the same breath I am holding on to my pride and watching things around me crumble because my pride is bigger than making things right. You see I am a Christian whose been lying to herself and others because I was agreeing to things in church that I refused to implement in my interactions with others. 

I wasn't happy with what I got or even what I gave so a few weeks ago I stopped going to church because I was not willing to be a hypocrite and continue to shout what was not true to appease people and live up to their expectations. The problem was, I had committed myself to several roles in the church and knew that my absence would not be ideal but I had to choose. Was I going to hold on to meet the expectations and come home every time and moan about things that drained the life out of me? Or would I take the courageous step of putting myself first and stepping back? I chose the latter and maybe in the next person's eyes I wasn't brave at all, I was actually a coward who was running away. 

I don't know if I know for certain but at this point, I am still happier staying away although Sunday mornings bring me back to the reality of days gone by. Days when I would wake up in the morning, totally geared up to offer all I had to God and the church. I've been feeling a little lost, like my soul is just drifting about without a place where it belongs. I then resolved to visit other churches with the hope that I would find what I was yearning for. The first church on the list gave me something refreshing but I was still not certain I was ready to commit to it. Then it hit me a few days ago. 

It's not a church that I need its God. I didn't need to find another 4 walls that promised to be better than where I was, it was a deeper relationship with God that I needed. I was not in need of religion but a relationship. A relationship with God that would allow His plan for me to unfold. Who am I in Him? What is it that He wants me to do with my life? How could I serve Him with my talents without the burden of rules and regulations that He sure as hell didn't make up? What do I need to do to allow Him to heal me from the things that I struggle with? That's my journey. I need to build my relationship with God. 

Naturally that has raised questions about where I am and why I have stopped coming to church but I can't answer that because I don't have the answers as yet. All I know is what my heart yearns for at the moment is not to be found in any church or people and so I keep on praying for clarity and direction. I don't expect anyone to understand because this is between myself and God and when the time comes, He will point me in the right direction. 

For now I am just basking in the joy of not having to pretend.  The joy of finally being able to say yes I am a Christian but I still struggle and having the guts to bring that to God and let Him handle it on my behalf. The joy of not having any roles to fulfill and just waking up knowing that the only person I need to be right with is the One who lives in me and who walks with me everywhere I go.