Finding Yourself After The Storm

One thing I know (at least through my readings and stories heard) is that when two countries (or village as it were) fights, one country after a while wins, but not until a lot of damage has been done to either of the lands. No war- great or small leaves a place the same. As a result of the aftermath, there would always be some forms of statues to raise back, monuments to rebuild, and of course, houses and shelters to provide, especially in a situation where the war was severe.

A look at today’s era, while it is true that to an extent (especially compared to the times of old), we fight no more physical battles as it were, one thing holds true- we fight still. However, these battles we fight do not consist of swords, spears and axes drawn or thrown in open spaces; it consists of our minds and our thoughts and the weapons we fight with as opposed to swords, spears and axes are- truth and diligence.

Why truth and diligence? Because majority of the time, these battles (though inside of us) are started with lies- the lies of our friends being better than us, the lie of us lagging behind even when we are not, and most especially, the lie of never being enough which sometimes forces us to do things we probably would not have done, just to prove (to ourselves most times), that we are enough. The degree to which we accept and process these lies as true often determines the severity or lightness of the battle.

Diligence on the other hand is needed to sit down with our thoughts and identify which is true or not. This is the part that requires us to be self-aware, as we can only fight these battles diligently with the truth we know about ourselves. These truths can be as little as knowing you are a girl, or as intimate as knowing you are never alone because your Creator promised never to leave you nor forsake you, as well as Him being a present help for you in troubled times.

Diligence as well will make us sit down and know substantial things about ourselves, so when the lies tumbles in, the truth we know about ourselves would thin them out. the question now is- how do we know these truths?

First is by knowing what your Creator says about you through the eternal manual He provided – the Bible, and the second would be by making reading good books an hobby; for it is not enough to understand the spiritual component of your being (which you would find in the bible), but also the emotional and physical aspect of your being as well, since man is a tripartite being consisting of the spirit, soul, and body. Knowing what your bible says would take care of your spiritual, being emotionally intelligent and aware would take care of your soul, and no doubt, having the knowledge of how to handle your body and take care of it would open you up to the physical.

As a result of all the knowing (via truth and diligence), finding ourselves and rebuilding our lives back (after the storm) as it should be would not only be easier (unlike if we had been clueless all along), but also worthwhile, especially in the case of battered self-esteem and shattered self-confidence.

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The Journey To Self-confidence

Life is a journey, so is our self-confidence. It is a process that kicks off the moment we recognize the difference between right and wrong; and also the moment we become aware enough to compare our lives with that of others. It is termed a process because of its progressive nature. As a result, for every new phase of our lives, we will need an increase in confidence.

Our inability to build up confidence per time results into low self-esteem; all because we insist on using the confidence of a previous phase to handle a brand new, and at that- higher phase. This in a way can be likened to a teenager insisting on sleeping on his cot, despite his grown age. To dig deeper into self-confidence as a journey rather than just a phase in our lives or something we possess once and for all, it will be good to start with knowing what self-confidence is.

Self-confidence refers to the way we view or see ourselves. It is what we see to be the reflection of us when we look or think about ourselves: It is our inner self reflected back to our outer self. It is something we must learn and adapt to basically on our own.

In as much as factors and people may sometimes contribute to it, the bulk of the work lies on us. That is why it is called self-confidence and not people-confidence. It has to come from a place on the inside. 

If self-confidence is our basic duty to carry out, how then do we generate it?

1.       Spending time with God

How beautiful is it when the maker of a thing tells the product about itself? Wonderful, isn't it? Who else can tell it better than the maker itself; the one who foresaw it, saw how good it would be and decided to create it based on the goodness formed in his heart?

The strongest form of confidence is the one we gain from the Lord- either through His Word spoken to us or the one written to us. Spending time with God as a Christian is necessary for a healthy self-worth and a great inner strength. 

Spending time with God is like an exchange.  God gives us more of Himself even as He takes away (through processes) our inadequacies. The more time we spend with God, the more we get to know and discover ourselves. God exposes who we are to us (both who we are at the moment, and versions of who we were originally created to be) when we spend time in His Presence. Spending time with Him aligns us to His intent for us upon creation.

A look at the life of David, spending time with God gave him the inner strength to defeat all that needed to be defeated in his lifetime. It gave him the strength to kill bears and lions with his bare hands, and also imparted in him the knowledge to slay a man like Goliath who was not only higher than him in height, but also in battlefield experiences. Come to think of it, David was only a little boy when he defeated Goliath, how did He come about such confidence and boldness even as a little child? It was sure through spending time with God and God revealing who He really is to him on the inside, a factor that reflected not only in the way he saw himself but also the way he saw situations and related to people. His brothers, even the king at the time- Saul tried to dissuade him, but because of what He knew about God and himself, he knew he was well able and it was never about his stature or age. Self-confidence gained through spending time with God will make us defeat giants within and without.

Our self-confidence is never about what people think of us, but what we think of ourselves and the eyes through which we see ourselves. When we see ourselves through God’s eyes, we see ourselves right.

2.       Spending time with ourselves

Spending time with ourselves enables us to know ourselves in possible details and the areas in which we need help/change. It helps us pay utmost attention to ourselves.  Spending time with ourselves places the focus on us for better reasons; we are able to decipher who we really are away from the crowd.

When we spend time alone, we gain insights into the opinions we have of ourselves; such opinions we can easily divide into good or bad and therefore decide the ones which stays and the ones which goes. 

Quite a number of people know nothing about themselves, and so, talk cheaply about themselves because they’ve not taken enough time to think about themselves and mirror who they truly are. They simply absorb other people’s opinions (both negative and positive) about them without internally challenging them to see if that is really who they are.

Spending time with ourselves is simply paying attention to ourselves, especially our inner yearnings, opinions, desires and needs per time. It enables us to be sensitive to ourselves and our needs. 

Spending time with ourselves also makes us know what soothes us and what doesn’t. It makes us fight our battles in our own skin and not someone else'. This can be seen in the life of David when Saul- the king offered him his armor. David was able to reject the armor because he knew himself duly and what he could work in.

In the end, knowing ourselves will save us from a lot of pain, shame and abuse.

3.       Cultivating a reading culture

Reading opens us up and adds wisdom to us provided the right books are read.  It widens our views about life. Reading makes us grow in areas we should grow and as a result, prevents us from making mistakes that would have been made. With reading, we really don't have to get to our old age before we begin to ooze out wisdom and act based on it.

Reading is a seed sown that grows up as a giant tree- a tree of wisdom. It literarily places a ladder at our feet; making us see wider and better. It gives us a better view of life- a much wider view and it sharpens our knowledge of good and bad. It also helps us to efficiently separate needs from wants without comparing our lives to others to determine what is needful.

Reading takes us through time and brings us wisdom. It deposits into our present the wisdom we would have gained in our old age through experience. It gives us an edge of time and the opportunity to maximize it. Besides, knowledge is the vehicle through which we travel through time to gain wisdom. Reading great books provides such experience.

4.       Developing our skills. 

There’s such confidence that comes out of knowing one’s value. When we know who we are and what we as individuals can offer, we will not be easily threatened (if at all we will be) by other people- especially their successes. The better we get at our skill, the more confident we become. Honing our skills and using them right contributes to our self-worth in the long run. 

Conclusively, to see ourselves right, we have to be committed to the life we live. We have to be intentional to live our lives the way God intended and expects. We don’t have to be perfect to live in confidence, we only have to be receptive to God’s Word and committed to spending time with Him; and also pay attention to ourselves (especially our innermost self), and cultivate a learning culture such that will give us needed wisdom per time and help hone our skills to such level where only the best version of ourselves stares at us in front of the mirror per time. We also have to know that self-confidence is a continuous journey, never a phase. Just like our apps and gadgets, we have to keep updating it per time lest it goes out of ‘fashion’ and we find ourselves lacking in confidence once again. Different level of confidence is needed for different phases, and as a matter of fact, the higher the phase, the higher the confidence needed and required. So, it’ll be helpful to see ourselves as a constant work in progress and be willing to do all we can to become a finished work. 

P.S: Only death makes us a finished work, so, till we die, we keep striving to keep ourselves upgraded!

Referenced Story (David and Goliath): The book of 1 Samuel Chapter 17

This article first appeared in-  tamaramccarthyenterprises.com

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The Essence Of Trust In Our Relationships

What if I tell you I am pregnant? All things being equal, would you believe it? I’m guessing the responses I would get would be- congratulations, thank God, and the likes. If really I’m pregnant, why would you believe me? Most likely because I’ve not said something like that before, and most especially, because of the integrity of this blog.

On the contrary, what if I keep saying, I am pregnant, and the next minute, I tell you ‘I’m joking’, how would you feel when at another time I tell you I am pregnant? You wouldn’t believe me right? Because you know like old times, I’ll most likely come up and say I’m joking again. This is almost exactly how trust functions. Its value decreases if over and over it’s been found wanting by people concerned.

Trust I’ll say is synonymous to integrity. It is doing what you say you would when/how you said you would do it. Trust is a keeper of bond, and the lack of it?- a breaker of bond. It can either make or mar a relationship. The level of trust people have for you in certain areas of life determines how far you would go with them/ they will go with you in those areas. If as said, punctuality is the soul of business, then trust would be the spirit/life businesses thrive on. Without trust, it will only be a matter of time before a business/relationship packs up. So, if trust is as important to the point of it being the life of business (just as the life of the flesh is in the blood), how then do we build trust?

The first on the list (if ever there is a list) I would say is being self-aware. Literally everything in life starts with being self-aware. It is the act of living consciously/intentionally, in such a way that everything being done is authentic, and never out of a fake spur. It is the act of pondering and weighing literally everything we say or do, thereby allowing our yes to be yes, and our no no. Authentic living inspires a life of trust any day any time. How do we become self-aware? By making sure literally everything that happens on our inside passes through our consciousness.  This we can do through journaling, or spending appreciable time with ourselves to progressively detangle the issues inside of us.

Another way we can gain trust is through knowledge. Having a knowledge of our environment, and to a large extent, what is expected of us. We also can gain trust by asking questions. Asking questions would ensure everything expected of us is understood, and as a result, make us be on the same page with the people we are working with/for.

No doubt there are a thousand and one ways of gaining/building trust (over time), we will stop here today because of time. As always, it would be a pleasure to have your views and opinion in the comment session below, so do not forget to drop your comment/view so we can learn from each other other ways of gaining/building trust beyond ways mentioned here. 

Till we meet again next week Wednesday (the blog being a weekly/Wednesday blog), do have a great day and keep building your influence and trust. Much love brothers and sisters.

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This Social Media Palaver

No doubt, gone are the days when ‘iya Bisi’s’ daughter graduates and it takes you days, weeks and sometimes even years to know as a neighbour. These days are not like that anymore. Iya Bisi’s daughter graduates and the very moment (not even the next minute or hour) we know. Because Bisi herself is busy posting pictures and videos of herself during the ceremony, such that stays in your face even if you never went looking for it. Such is the world we live in today.

In as much as it is joyful for some, it is perhaps sad for some people because of the pressure they feel to put their lives out there even though that’s not who they are. The question now turns out to be- if that’s not who you are (but you must because the days we are in necessitates it), how do you find a balance?

Well, maybe I fall in the category described above because over time and perhaps more than ever, I have grown to be a private individual. For instance, some days ago, I went for a conference which by all standard was an excellent one. It had great places to snap, the speakers that came were topnotch, but then in the midst of everything happening, whilst many of the thousands that came were snapping pictures in desired places, all I waited for was for the program to start because in the end, that was what I came for, and all I’ll give everything for.

The two friends I met at the occasion who had come after a while to take up the seat of two other ladies that left earlier were busy taking selfies, talking so loud, to the point of disturbing the rapt attention I would have loved to have for the speakers, whose words and experiences I came to listen to and learn from. This makes me wonder what this generation is all about: the glitz or wisdom. Listening, or paparazzi?

In as well as there are people who did the two, i.e take pictures at the event and listened attentively when it was time to listen, the question is- is there a world for someone who simply went there to listen and take no paparazzi picture? Because these days, everything that seems to be happening is ‘kiss and tell’. Is there a world for people who just want to do their things in silence just like in the olden days? Perhaps such people are people who needs to keep up with the age by facing the reality. But then how? By denying themselves and pleasing the world? Placing moment by moment pictures of their lives all in the open?

For people like me, maybe there might be a solution. Work hard, so that your work would speak for you; such way, you wouldn’t have to keep posting personal and intimate pictures of yourself to keep up with the age, as well as the Jones and Joneses. Celebrities like Beyonce, Michelle Obama and the likes does that a lot. 

Their works/professional photos taken speaks the words on their pages and they only have to draw you into their personal lives as much as they want to. I see diplomats and a lot of people I look up to do this as well. They only post pictures of where they spoke at, the professional activities they engage in during the course of the day and the likes. I never see those of their kids, husbands (asides from those married to fellow people in public eyes) etc, and they get their likes and attention anyway (such as the age demands), which for me, is a welcome relief since the world wants to see a post from you every day, especially a picture of you.

This is my view of social media, especially for introverts; what’s yours? Share in the comment session below so we can learn, or perhaps find solace in each other if you happen to be someone like me.

Much love.

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