Mental Health

self aware, self reflection

BECOMING SELF-AWARE THROUGH THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

By / Sep 16, 2023

I woke up the other morning, irritated and grumpy because of a small insignificant matter and I ended up taking it out on my family. I wasn’t in control of my emotions, I let it run wild and ruined what could have been a perfectly good morning. It led me to pray and ask God to help me control these feelings I get of annoyance, irritability and anger, especially when its for no good reason. The Holy Spirit prompted me to read Galatians 5, it speaks on the fruits of the Spirit and what our lives should produce when we live by the Spirit.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, humility and self-control”

That self-control one is tricky for me, especially when it comes to my feelings and reactions – I’m a very emotional person and I can be reactive at times. I get irritated when things don’t happen when and how they are supposed to happen and now and then I can have an angry outburst. I know it’s not pretty but if we lack self-awareness, we’ll never be able to deal with the deeper issues of the problem. When I read Galatians 5 vs 19, it said the following:

“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear; sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties and other sins…”

For me, hostility, quarreling and outbursts of anger are what I battle with. Especially at home and in the mornings when we have to get done for the day and things are not happening as fast or as smoothly as I want it to happen. But I’ve realised and maybe you can relate if this is something you also struggle with, that getting angry or irritated won’t solve the problem or make circumstances more ideal. In fact, it might make them worse. It will sow division in your home and everybody will end up being in a bad mood. It certainly is not the way to start or end a day.

So that has been my prayer lately. That God helps me to stay in control of my emotions and teaches me patience or teaches me how to be patient when I experience less than ideal circumstances and that I don’t just get angry or frustrated at anything or anyone over small matters.

Another verse in Galatians which is sort if the core for me is verse 13. It reads as follows;

“Don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead use your freedom to serve one anther in love, for the whole law can be summed up in this one command ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ “

Galatians 5 is full of wisdom and basically teaches us that we should let the Holy Spirit lead us, lead our lives, actions and thoughts. It speaks of how the sinful nature only wants to do evil;

“And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions”

Every morning when you open your eyes, you are entering the battlefield of your mind, in fact, the battle has already started while you were sleeping. When you wake up, that’s when you choose on which side you are fighting on. Are you on the side of your sinful nature or are you on the side of the Holy Spirit?

Every day is a battle and it’s easier to give in to sin than it is to surrender all we know to God but then we need to ask ourselves, what do we want more and what is worth sacrificing?

Galatians 5 vs 24 ends the passage with the following:

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another”

So this will be my guide and my prayer and I hope it can be yours as well, with whatever sinful nature you are struggling with. I pray that our lives will be filled and reflect the fruits of the Spirit and that we don’t give in to our sinful actions at the expense of our loved ones.

A little self-awareness and introspection can go a long way. Below is a video of a poem I wrote about the battles we face in our minds.

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THIS TOO SHALL PASS

By / Feb 7, 2023

To the woman sitting alone in her empty house
Full of memories and mementos, wondering where it all went wrong,
I was you.
To the young girl crying her eyes out in the office bathroom, staring at herself
In the mirror, not recognizing the person staring back at her
With bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks,
I understand.
To the tired mother, using her last strength to dress and feed and play with her kids
When she hasn’t eaten or had a decent shower in days,
I have been there.
To the friend that needs comforting and can’t control the tears from flowing,
Feeling as if everything is falling apart,
You will be okay.
It doesn’t matter how strong you feel you need to be or how tired you are and
How many times you need to start over, I want you to know that
This too shall pass.

woman, bench, sea-4347235.jpg

PIECES OF ME

By / Dec 31, 2022

we are shaped by our experiences but we can choose how to live out those experiences. We choose how to live, we choose whether we give up or go on. We choose to forgive.

life demands of you to be intentional; intentional about your actions, your energy, your focus, your thoughts and emotions.

It hasn’t been easy but it has been fulfilling

love is one of the most if not the most powerful source of hope we have on this earth

Its not just okay to live as your authentic self, its absolutely necessary.

do not fear.
do not tremble.
do not question or second guess

These hard, tiring and busy days won’t last.

Your ability to nurture, love, care and encourage is God-given.

break out of the mould you created for yourself with all the things you thought you knew

I hope you relinquish all expectations
you had of yourself for this next season and simply enjoy being alive.

Even if it fails, at least you know that you tried.

We all have a place in our minds where we wish to go, things we want to do and places we want to see but if I’ve learned anything, these last few years, is that you won’t get there if you don’t get moving.

It’s a beautiful day. The dog dreams. I breathe

Better to have a moment of awkwardness than to have a lifetime of regret.

But I see how you carry on.

I see how you carry others.

I see how you love,

I see how you pray.

I see you and I love what I see.

It’s a road not travelled at all.
A sad and painful place where the rivers
are made out of tears.
Very lonely. Very heartbreaking.

Very beautiful indeed.

My faith saved me.
It saves me still.

regret always comes too late.

You are more valuable than you know and you have so much more power than you realise

One hurt does not fix another

I want to be that brave person again

I’m a weary wife.

bride, loneliness, melancholy-7611312.jpg

MARRIED TO DEPRESSION

By / Dec 16, 2022

He sits with me, hollow and heavy

I can’t breath

I hide in the shadows

Hoping he won’t find me

Forgetting that he commands the shadows

My own ball and chain

I found myself myself married to depression

I climbed into his embrace and

found a home in the darkness

Not better, just worse

In sickness and sadness
Till death, will we part?

I curl on the bed

Knees to my chest

Keeping myself together

As he watches me fall apart

A spouse of sorrow

I’m a weary wife

A marriage of inconvenience

Based on loneliness and lies.

man, lonely, park-1394395.jpg

MENTAL ILLNESS- A DARK PLACE

By / Sep 17, 2022

I’ve been thinking about mental health or mental illness for some time now, and like most people, I’ve been there. I call it the dark place.
I remember when I was going through a dark time, I felt lost. It was as if I didn’t belong anywhere. I felt alone. Almost as if no one saw my struggle and my pain, or even if they did, they couldn’t understand it.
When I look back now, I see myself in that place, a dark hole, an endless dark pit, the darkness tangible, I could almost taste it.
It doesn’t leave you. There are times even in your healed state when you find yourself sliding back into the embrace of that familiar darkness.
When I say darkness, I don’t mean not being able to see in front of you which is also very much the case. The darkness I am talking about is a heaviness, a hollow heaviness. It tortures you day after day after day until it eventually chokes the life out of you.
I was alone, lost, and being slowly killed by an enemy I couldn’t see.
My faith saved me.
It saves me still.
Once you’ve been in that dark place and made it out, every single day after that is a battle not to go back there.
I’ve learned that this battle is no longer mine.
You wake up every day, knowing you’re fighting today to stay alive, to not fall back into that dark despair.
It is not something you get over. It’s something you have to work on every single day.
Can you imagine the emotional turmoil, the mental anguish, and the raw desperation someone must be feeling or experiencing to come to a place to want to take their own life and then the bottomless and overwhelming hopelessness to go through with it?
Just take a second and think about it.
Finding yourself at a place where you have absolutely no hope, no escape, and no place to turn except to death.

So just a bit of food for thought; next time you engage with someone just be kind. We don’t know what battles people are fighting within their minds. Your kindness could be what saves someone from taking their own life.

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THE LONELY WRITER

By / Sep 6, 2022

Being a writer is a very lonely thing to be.
Unlike a band of musicians working together to create a symphony;
a writer is but one person.

You are all alone with just your thoughts. A pen, and a paper, trying to make sense of the loneliness. You hope someone will understand but knowing no one ever will.

It’s a very lonely place to be.
In a room by yourself, writing about loneliness.
The words on a page holding you together granted you should
crumble if you don’t let it flow from the ink.

Yes, it’s very lonely. Very quiet indeed.

Words not like music are silent, unassuming, and not demanding. Gentle almost. The silence is deafening.
If not for the sound of your breathing and the slide of the pen, you would almost think you were dead.

Alone and dead with only a pen and page as your companion.

Only the brave ones know where writing truly stems from
and where it takes you
The places in your mind and imagination that you thought you had forgotten. The memories you never knew you had. The dreams you never dared speak of.

It’s a road not travelled at all.
A sad and painful place where the rivers
are made out of tears.
Very lonely. Very heartbreaking.

Very beautiful indeed.

A day in the sun

A DAY IN THE SUN

By / Jul 23, 2022

Sitting outside feeling pressed, smelling the dog next to me.
The sun’s heat warms my skin.
Hearing bird songs and little insects all around me.
It’s hard to pinpoint in which direction it’s coming from.
There’s a helicopter somewhere, flying overhead,
the sound of it starts or far, then it comes closer and closer until I can almost feel the vibrations on my skin.
I see the dog out of the corner of my eye, vigorously scratching himself. I’m hot right beneath the sun.
I take off the pink cardigan and immediately feel a chill. The dog lies down on his side, baking. His white fur looks almost golden brown.
A car whizzes past. A bird chirps in the distance. The sun is hot.
I look up and squint.
I’m still feeling pressed.
It’s a beautiful day. The dog dreams. I breathe

30 things before 30

30 THINGS I LEARNED BEFORE 30

By / Mar 24, 2022

This month I celebrate my 30th birthday. The last 30 years seem to have gone by in a blur but there were some hard and necessary lessons learned. As I enter my 30s, allow me to share 30 things (out of the thousands) I’ve learned before turning 30-years-old. My 20’s were for learning. My 30s will be for putting what I’ve learned into practice.

1.Everything is a blessing from God if you choose to see it that way and if you can’t see it as a blessing, see it as a lesson.

Isaiah 43:1-3 Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord you God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

2. You’ll save yourself a lot of heartache and frustration if you choose not to focus on what others think of you.

3. Time with family is more precious than money.

4. Its not just okay to live as your authentic self, its absolutely necessary.

5. Gratitude opens up the door to opportunities.

6. Comparison is just another form of ignorance.

7. Grief never goes away. You simply learn to live with it.

woman looking at sea while sitting on beach
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

8. Patience, persistence, preparation and prayer, these things will get through hard times.

9. Rest when you need to. You are no good to anyone when you are operating on fumes.

10. Inspiration is not something to be found. It’s something to be created.

11. To get through anything, you’ll need patience. You’ll find yourself waiting a lot. Waiting in queues, waiting for transport, waiting on people, waiting for signs and miracles. Work while you wait. (I wrote this part while waiting in a queue at a clothing store)

12. Always have a book with you. Whether its a reading book or a note book. You’ll either read something worth remembering or write something worth sharing.

cup with plate and book with notebook on table
Photo by Samson Katt on Pexels.com

13. No one will and no one should believe in your art more than you.

14. Prayer will guide you and conviction will save you.

15. You need to have honest conversations with yourself about who you are and who you want to be. You need to dig deep into your heart and that will hurt sometimes because you won’t always like what you find.

16. Marriage and love are beautiful thing things. Despite the fact that many people will make you think love is painful or marriage is pointless, once you find it and experience it at its purest essence, you’ll understand the beauty of it.

marriage, sacrifice, love
My husband and I on our wedding day.

17. You children will never do what you say. They will do what you do. Make sure you do the right thing.

18. The world is full of bad things but there are even more beautiful things to be discovered.

19. Set goals for yourself, have a plan. Do not go through life rudderless.

20. Take care of your finances. Be smart about your savings and where and how you spend your money.

21. Mind your business but make it your business to care for others.

22. Read and study your bible. You’ll find all the answers you need.

23. It’s okay to ask for help. It does not mean you are weak.

24. Your mind can become a battlefield, you need to protect it at all costs.

photo of man sitting on a cave
Photo by M Venter on Pexels.com

25. Be grateful for the hard times. Grapes are pressed and crushed to create wine.

26. Change is scary but sometimes it takes a big change to move you into action.

27. Being kind doesn’t have to be a production. Sometimes its a sincere word, a hug or just a smile.

28. Not everyone is out to hurt you. Some people simply want to get to know you and love you. It’s okay to trust people.

29. Don’t make social media your life. Make time to live in the real world.

30. Love sincerely and wholeheartedly and never regret giving someone your heart, even when they break it.

“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been” – David Bowie

composing, woman, fantasy

THE STRENGTH OF A WOMAN

By / Jan 7, 2022

MEETING THE MATRIARCH

This past December, my family and I took a road trip to East London in the Eastern Cape. I met my husband’s grandmother, and now my grandmother.

In the ten days I lived in her home, I saw and experienced raw strength.

She is the matriarch and a true one at that. Mama is my husband’s 81-year-old paternal grandmother. She is also as fierce and feisty as they come. For you to understand my admiration for Mama, you need to understand a bit of her life and her history.

Mama, as she is so affectionately known, lost both her husband and only daughter of five children, who was also the youngest sibling, within the space of 6 months more than 15 years ago. She ended up having to take care of her late daughter’s son, who was two years old at the time. He is now a well raised young man.

Through conversations I had with Mama during our stay at her home in Buffalo Flats, I was in awe of how she relayed stories of when her husband, Dada, died and then how she lost her daughter only six months later. When I listened to her speak, I could hear pain, sadness, loss but also acceptance. She made me realize that acceptance like that only comes from a very deep-rooted strength.

I also realized that she didn’t have a choice but to be strong. She took on the responsibility of raising her grandson like he was her own. I cannot fathom the sheer determination and willpower it had to take for her to get out of bed every morning and be there for her grandson, the rest of her children as well as other family members.

Mama, strength, children, great-grandchildren
The first day we arrived, Mama showed her new great-grandchildren some photos.

SHAPED BY EXPERIENCE

I watched her as she sat on her red lumpy but very comfortable sofa in her home, hunched over with all the experiences from her past trying to weigh her down but she gets up every day, determined to live her life and do her daily chores.

It was at one of these moments when it hit me; she wasn’t sitting on a couch but a throne.

Mama also very much reminded me of my mother who died in 2020. Both women have seen and have been through some of the worst pain you can imagine, both refusing to be dictated to by bad and negative circumstances and both set in their daily way of life.

During the time I spent with Mama, I learned that yes, we are shaped by our experiences but we can choose how to live out those experiences. We choose how to live, we choose whether we give up or go on. We choose to forgive.

Mama, strength
Mama, my husband and out two children.

ACCEPTANCE

There was a point where Mama said to me that she didn’t know if she could ever accept or get through what had happened to her but God had gotten her through it and she did manage to accept her fate.

She could have chosen to be angry and to turn away from God, which I’m sure there were many of those moments when those bad feelings overwhelmed her. She could have chosen to become a lifeless vessel of her former self but I can assure you, that woman still has a lot of life left in her.

Her relationship with God is so secure and I truly believe that that is her source of strength. Every morning she wakes up and reads devotionals and her Bible. I’ve decided to put that in practice as well.

LIVING WITH INTENTION

Every time Mama would tell a story and explain the difficult parts, she would say, “but it doesn’t really matter“

For me, that didn’t mean she gave up or lost hope or didn’t accept things. For me it meant that in the bigger picture, the grand plan of God for her life, her focusing on the past was not the point. It was what she got out of all her pain and loss. The wisdom and understanding that her loss and pain was not for nothing. The way in which she imparted her wisdom and what she learned, to others around her. It was peace beyond all human understanding. It was knowing that love is sacrifice and that understanding comes from compassion.

Mama showed me that life demands of you to be intentional; intentional about your actions, your energy, your focus, your thoughts and emotions.

I learned patience and I saw accepting the things one cannot change, in action.

I loved sitting in her company, I loved watching the movie of her life play out as she told me stories and showed me old polaroid photographs.

In ten days, I lived a life of 40+ years through the eyes of a woman who lost everything, was forced down on her knees and found herself in the perfect position to pray for the strength and will to live to tell the tale.

hope, dandelion

MY HOPE FOR YOU

By / Dec 30, 2021

I hope you fall in love with yourself. I hope you know that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I hope you learn to appreciate all your flaws and find the beauty in every scar, wrinkle, and folded skin.

I hope you learn to love your voice. I hope that you use it to change your world.

I hope you learn to forgive yourself for the mistakes you made and, I hope you let go of the burden of guilt.

I hope you find love in all the different relationships in your life. 

I hope you chase your dreams and get the chance to watch them come to life.

I hope you share your stories and adventures and inspire others to do the same.

I hope you learn to be gentle with yourself and remember that bad decisions do not define you.

I hope you find the strength to fight through the bad times and come out the other side a stronger person.

I hope you remember to pray.

I hope you remember how beautiful you are.

I hope you laugh more.

I hope you play more.

I hope you find more.

I hope you always look for stars in the darkest of nights 

and know that the sun will always rise in the morning.

I hope you start believing in love again.  

Just believe it again.

I hope you can look back on the last season in your life and find the good

And I hope that you will always be grateful that you have made it this far.

I hope you know that your story is far from over and that the next blank page is waiting for you to create the life that you want.

I hope you know that you have the power to change your life and I hope you remember to never give that power away.

I hope you know that you can push boundaries and break barriers.

I hope that you know that you are never alone.

I hope that you witness great things and climb majestic mountains.

I hope that you find the courage to reach deep within yourself and do what makes you happy.

I hope you walk away from anything that no longer serves you and, I hope you walk away with your head held high.

I hope that you smile again and laugh with all the joy in your spirit. 

I hope it’s so loud that the rest of the world can’t help but laugh with you.

.

girls, women, happy

I hope you remember that saying goodbye is not always a bad thing.
I hope you know that the pain doesn’t last.
I hope you know that love is plentiful.
I hope you dance in the rain and roll in the mud.
I hope you plant seeds instead of picking flowers.
I hope you remember that having a bit of fun is good for you.
I hope you hold warm hands and kiss soft lips.
I hope you get the chance to look into loving eyes and fall asleep in a warm embrace.
I hope you take care of yourself.

I hope you know that your story is worth telling.