Am I the problem?

Hi everyone!

I’ve never really been optimistic. As matter of fact, I always want to die when I talk to someone about an actual problem (already negative and most of the time colossal) and they spin me with the ‘it’s going to be alright’ sticker on my forehead. That tells me that they really want me to throw them in the fountain and walk away.

I know it sounds contradictory to most of my posts because I spend half of them telling you (and me) that everything happens for a reason and how to fix your current situation that I know too well. Today, after a failed conversation with my mom, I started writing this post mainly to identify a problem, rather than to fix it.

I had difficulty sleeping last night and I had those life questions scary nights. Where do I see myself in a year? Do I really want to get married? Am I built for relationships? Can I really raise 6 kids? Why am I not a millionaire? Am I still afraid of driving? Am I overloaded with other people’s problems? Why does my blog/channel not do that well? Why don’t I like to teach myself how to make myself pretty? Why don’t I like gyms? Why does my body hurt so much? When am I going to die? Will my kids do what I tell them? Do I want to raise them as a single mom? When am I getting a dog/cat? When am I renewing my license? Who takes care of me when I run out of fuel from taking care of others? When will I be truly happy? How will I know if I’m truly happy?

Drama right? I have these questions swirling in my mind, giving me heartburn! It’s not like I have all the answers but I truly feel so drained and absolutely exhausted! I think my brain has had the biggest crisis for the longest time. The moment I unplug for 4 days my mind literally lost it.

In a way I’m thankful this is happening because like I mentioned in my previous post, this is major decisions year and it was naïve of me to think that I will make one major decision and expect everything to fall into place. There are so many frustrating things. I think sometimes you can get lost in all that is happening around you and that causes RIDICULOUS PRESSURE. It’s so crucial in this time to know exactly who you are and what exactly makes you happy. You have to learn to switch off your mind to things you can’t change. And always speak (repetitively) good things into your life that will help you through those stubborn wrinkles that life gives you.

You can get so distracted by what other people are doing and certain choices they make. You can get so consumed with comparison. You can even spend nights awake thinking that you are just made ‘wrong’ and that you are the only person of your kind left on earth. You can even feel so misunderstood. By others and by yourself. However, always do something that you are conscious of. Always own your space. At the end of the day, only you can explain yourself to YOU.

Don’t let the river carry your body downstream.

Be present.

God KNOWS.

Making critical decisions

Hi Everyone!

It’s been exactly 3 months since my last post and almost 3 years since I felt really excited about my life and what’s to come. Today I think I feel more than ready to get back into blogging and the rest of my online life. So many things have changed! People have left and there are new people. Most of the women I follow are now moms and I would say some have had some procedures done – from boob jobs to fixing their teeth! What a time to be alive!

Recently I realized that I’ve creatively starved myself for so long and it’s so hard to get back into the groove. I think I’ve had tunnel vision for the longest time so it’s so hard to figure out where to start. I’m going to let you guys in on some changes. I’ve moved back home and got a new job. I’ve also sold my car (It’s been a year now) which still makes me an amateur driver and my mom won’t let me drive her car. My brother also moved back home which is driving me insane because we can only get along properly long distance. And my adopted sister is still in school which means that I share my room with her which is unacceptable at my age because I’m really missing out on night shift calls! LOL!

So how did we get here? All I can say is that we’ve had to make some critical choices and that’s what the rest of my life is going to be about. That is being deliberate. I’ve spent way too much time letting the river drag my corpse down to an unknown place. I want to be deliberate and even more specific about why I’m here. I’ve always wanted to travel but it always ended up no further than my wishlist and I’ve always wanted to be socially involved and I guess I get to do that with what I do know. I’ve also always wanted to be financially independent and I’ve made some hard choices that will hopefully help me get there.

Here’s the thing about critical decisions – they are never easy. Especially if you are a low risk person like me. You always want to make the right choice and never want it to have any consequences. I think this time around I really believe that ‘you do your best and God does the rest’ because of the way certain things happened - it just can’t be a coincidence! It’s all about that ‘off a cliff’ moment, when you know that God will catch you. You also have to allow change into your life. It might not be upward(or what others would consider upward); it could be a curve or a turn to the left that will eventually go up.

I’ve always considered the 20’s to be learning years. It can be intimidating when your peers or friends already know what they want but I really believe in that small voice. You always heard it when you chose the ‘wrong’ thing, it will eventually steer you toward the right thing because it has that peace factor that you can’t replace or find anywhere else no matter how far you look.

Life is a precious gift. This has been said a thousand times!

This time, treat it like one.

What was 2017 though?

Hi everyone!

I feel like I kind of knew 2017 was going to suck before it started. Admitting that, is probably the saddest  thing to ever come out of me. I was looking toward a hard year and all I thought of was that the only thing I needed to do, was to survive. And it started going badly the first week already and I deeply depressed by the end of January.

I can barely remember each day. All that I can recall is waking up, doing my best to not crack down at work and getting home to my lover – Insomnia. After a while I started having a glass of wine more frequent than I can remember so that I can fall asleep and not be hooked on sleeping pills – again.

I definitely put my body through the most. I had a lot of takeaways and never planned my meals. I would eat after 10pm. I would never walk or do any form of exercise. I completely stopped caring about my appearance. I was completely dehydrated at one stage because I never drank water during the day or in the morning like I used to do.

My family also went through a lot of ups and downs and most days were about us all not cracking down and falling apart. We had to adjust to a lot. And accept not having certain things that we are used to. We definitely talked less, however I think that worked in our favour because we all knew what we were going through so we remind each other? We definitely spent more time apart because we could not afford to see each other as often.

I was dealing with first hand debt issues.  Don’t know how other people dealt with this as students! After I sold my car I had a lot of debt and I had to cut back on everything! I still am. On the other hand –work was such a nightmare. I just realized that I’m wasting my time and I’m always ill for no reason. Through this issue, I had to learn how to deal with anxiety. I have a huge fear of the unknown and it is horrible for me to always worry if tomorrow will be okay. If I will be able to persevere.  If I will endure.

I definitely tired a lot of things but one thing I realized that is that you can always wrap a problem up nicely but at the end of the day it’s still there. In most cases, I would actually be okay for a couple of days and then have a bad weekend. I hated being in conversations where people were discussing their future plans and things they were proud of. Which caused me to spend a lot of time on my own which basically added to the anxiety.

Through all of this I definitely grew stronger, It might not be academically or in work experience but definitely In my mental state.

And all my hope came from this one scripture I would always repeat::

Phil 4:6 – ‘Do not worry about anything, but instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for ALL that he has done’

It’s so easy to get lost in what you don’t have or what has not happened to you but never waste another second worrying about it. It will turn you into someone you can’t even recognize and that will just make your journey so much harder.

Join me on my channel where I will be having a conversation about this so that it can be more interactive! 

Down but Not Out

Hi everyone!

I’ve been in such a spiral since January started. 2017 truly feels like an uphill battle where all the victories are short-lived. It really feels like no matter what I do, the paw-paw keeps hitting the fan and at this point it’s kind of pointless to clean up the mess. Currently I’m on leave for about 8 days that I desperately needed and I’ve spent about 5 of those days just going through the motions and properly addressing my feelings.

I think I’m ready to go back to work. I actually went awol because our firm is just so unfair in terms of how they treat us and there’s basically nothing you can do about it. So when I feel overwhelmed I just disappear and go offline until I feel better.

I’ve been looking at how I’ve just completely gone off the radar on my blog and channel. Youtube, especially because I’ve been trying to get a better lens since last year and I haven’t been in a good space to buy it. I’ve also been having extremes – emotionally. Which affected my writing and filming because I just felt bad about myself and my life in general. On some days when the sun would shine again, I would just soak that in by taking a walk or going out with a friend I’ve neglected.

If you know me, you’d know that I don’t believe in mood swings. Mostly because I wasn’t allowed to have any. When I started puberty my mom basically told me that I wasn’t allowed to be sour just because I was going through a natural thing. My mom is pretty controlling so if you know her, this would sound perfectly normal, LOL! So during this time of intense stress it was just better for me to retreat rather than be unhappy in public.

I’ve been thinking about how to make my blog mainstream and ‘commerciable’. I like talking about different things and I did not want to make it one thing so I made my channel more lifestyle with my name on it but I realized during this time that I like being under an alias or a brand that will represent me so changing all the banners is truly daunting but needs to be done in order to ‘continue from here’. I no longer want to go under ‘ClosetFreedom’ because it’s one of those things where looking back was good, but now you’re like ‘what were you thinking?’!

I want something that can represent my soul and my beliefs. Currently I truly feel kind of damaged and under intense strain so that is affecting this process. I also want to factor in my love for communication and helping people to be more understanding and open. It’s probably the only thing I loved doing this year. I got my results from the first semester yesterday and it went well with 2 out of the 3 subjects, which made me realize that I need to work harder and learn to prioritize better.

I’m excited going into the second half of the year even though it’s already August but I truly can not live my life without hope. I have to believe that I’m being battered in order to be able to handle something worse than this, hopefully very far in the future because I could seriously use a break this year!

Can’t wait to share my thoughts and views with you guys for the rest of 2017!

Stay blessed!

XX

Typical Hard day at Work

Hi everyone!

It’s been soo sooo hard to get a minute lately. In the week, we have back to back work assignments that never end and over the weekend I wake up towards the afternoon because I’m convinced that if I don’t, then I’ll forget what sleep is like and that can never happen. On one hand I also feel that in order to work full time and grow my channel this year I’ll need to give up sleeping longer but my oh so amazing job requires additional energy and I really to recharge otherwise the burn out will be oh so real.

Side note: I’ve said oh so too many times.

Instead of complaining about it, I’ve become more invested because this is my last year(finally) and I really need to get this period of my life over with. I also know that it’s bad to say that because I should always be in pursuit of happiness but I don’t have the trust fund and high risk personality to do so. So I go through the motions and it can get really dark. Today will just be of a typical day. You know how people hate Mondays? The last 3 years have been permanent Mondays.

Typically in the morning I spend an hour snoozing my alarm which actually makes me more tired in the end because my body goes in and out of consciousness and by the time I wake up everything is still slow and I'm extra tired.

These days I make my coffee at home to stop spending money on coffee at work. Which has really helped because it makes me feel full till around 11am. In future it would be ideal to exchange this for a filling smoothie as soon as I have the blender of my dreams!!

On a really slow day I already start feeling down around just before 11am. I wish it was something I could control. At this time I’ve probably been sitting for 3 hours doing something really mindless while everyone talks about breaking political news which is the worst kind of news.

By 1pm or even an hour before that I’m already out of the office to breathe in all the fresh air I can first come into contact with and then all of the available air. Sometimes I would go to lunch by myself just to disconnect and plan my blog or my channel or sometimes I would invite a friend.

Then it’s the race for 5pm – I actually get the most work done during this time because I guess it has a reward of going home! It’s also when the office is the quietest because people are either trying to stay awake after a massive lunch or they need to chase a 5pm deadline so that they don't work overtime that they will later not be allowed to take leave for (unfortunately on a learnership you can't get a labour law lawyer to defend you).

I am probably first out the door at 4:58pm because I need to get to my safe place. I sometimes take work home and then I never do it until the following morning so that I can remain productive when I’m at work because I’m normally the first person to get there!

As soon as I get home my first priority is to do some breathing exercises (when I’m too stressed) or to take off my work clothes and get comfy to study(when my heart rate is normal) or to prepare a soothing candle-lit bath(when everything is on fire).

Today has been a fire day. And it’s all my spheres. Family. Work. Finances. Studies. Insomnia. Bad Diet. Productivity.

But in an hour I can close my eyes and forget about it and try to fix it one at a time!

It's 9pm.

Almost Bed Time.

xx

Why Alone Time is Important

Hi everyone!

I literally CAN NOT WAIT to share what I’ve been learning in my new course. Don’t want to be too excited about it but I can’t believe how much I’m liking it! I want to introduce a segment on my blog for the lifestyle called ‘THE (T)EA IN TALK’ which I just thought of yesterday. If I think about it too long it starts to not make sense so I’m running with it!

As I’m trying to navigate through January I’m realizing how strong I’ve become because as per my previous post you can imagine that I haven’t had the best start to the year but in the back of my mind I secretly know that 2017 will be the best year EVER! I’m not just saying that because I hope that will happen but because I’m not going to repeat the same mistakes of 2016. It’s as if my lungs are just recharged (if you were with me physically, I would have said relunged) HAHA!! Omw, what’s wrong with me?

So! With all of this happening I can definitely say that it is hard for me to be charged up all the time. I’m also learning how to drive which has been the worst because I grew up being terrified of driving (My mom is a nervous wreck when she tries to teach me so she freaks out, cries and gives up and my father never owned a car) so I don’t have the best background when it comes to this which is adding block to my progress because I want to be completely independent.

So this week every day (planning to do this till end of January) I’ve been spending some quiet time looking out to the undisturbed plantation at my backyard and catching up on some magazines that I bought but never read. I've also been taking really long baths with scented salts and candles to treat my body. It’s been so lovely that I’ve actually started looking forward to it.

What’s the goal with alone time?

·         So many things rushing in my head. I just want some silence and sometimes the only way to do that is to introduce new and fresh info (like magazine articles and reading people's stories)

·         To really look at myself in a calm state and actually say…despite what’s happening, I WILL BE OKAY.

·         To actually let something sink in well enough to make a decision. E.g: I’ve been stressing about finding a suitable new flatmate since I kicked out my brother in Dec (he contributed to my daily stress) but I’ve processed the situation well enough to know that if I don’t find someone I need to find another place to live.

·         It frees me from my writer’s block that I’ve had for months!

·         It helps me deal with my reality

·         It de-stresses my body. I’m the type of person who gets physical signs of stress. Which is highlighted mostly by extreme fatigue, extreme tension headaches and sometimes by a runny stomach. Sometimes I neglect my diet which leads to obvious weight gain and on other days I don’t eat at all which then leads to dizziness and extreme insomnia.

·         It helps me plan. Sometimes there’s so much to do and so little time and resources so I you can plan and make compromises – you can deal with it better!

Quiet time might sound like a waste of time but I truly advice you try it when your world is going for a spin (other than the spin the Earth already makes) LOL, Omw. Invest in YOU!

LOVE, 

How to become a morning person

Hi everyone!!

For the longest time I only identified myself as a night owl. On most mornings I just used to roll out of bed and it would take close to 3 hours to be really awake. I really don’t miss those days. I think one day last year after I couldn’t sleep for 3 days(…again) I just decided to get up and watch the sun rise for 2 days and it was super life changing for me. I would cry or whatever but that was because I felt burdened at the time, but that specific time in the morning became my favourite time of the day.

I think with a little mindset changes you can become a morning person too!

1.       The key to changing anything is for you to accept that YOU need to want to be a morning person. It’s the same as negativity and optimism. No-one is born to be the one thing forever. So in order to become something you must really want to become it.

2.       Second thing is to work towards it. If you want to be a morning person you must be awake in the morning to truly transition. You must just let it all in. Have your breakfast by the window, take a quick run or start your day early.

3.       Appreciate things about the morning! I believe everyone has a lot of energy in the morning!! Your body is rested, your brain is fresh and a good stretch is actually effective. But if you roll out of bed and your posture is all wrong, you’re going to have a heavy day and everything is going to feel like a burden!! It’s a new day so look new too!!

4.       Slowly shut down the opposite. You can’t be negative and positive at the same time. Just as you can’t be a morning person and a night person at the same time which means that you’ll have an earlier bedtime person (which you must accept) and give yourself a fair opportunity to truly transition. No-one can willingly function on 3-4 hours of sleep every day (unless of course there are circumstances that make it impossible for you to get say 6-8 hours).

5.       Depending on where you live you might have the blessing of getting fresh. I live in a place surrounded by lots of trees and there’s just pure fresh air and it’s on a mountain. I can’t sleep with my windows open – I don’t react well when I’m face to face with a giant insect or based on where I live now some sort of snake that lost its way home. So the first thing I do is open the windows and just take in the new day.

6.       Always start your day with a nice and coldish glass of water. It gets your body up and running and I always find it impossible to sleep afterwards. I just think that you’re giving your body new fuel to just get it up and ready. Try to drink a full glass before you shower if you’re a coffee person so that by the time you drink your coffee your body had a chance to work with clean water!!

One thing I learnt from Fringe from Olivia was that mornings were her favourite time of the day because it was so full of promise and that you don’t know what the new day will bring and I will always carry that with me!!

Ps: Also, I love watching Michelle Phan (more like stalk but who’s investigating?) so I loved it when she said that whenever experiencing failure/disappointment it’s God’s way of saying not yet or there’s something better.

Always start your day on a positive note!!

Love,