Episode 21: Back Into Order

Tags

empowerment, encouragement, life

What we have no control over: The minute you let go, the minute you give it to God, the minute you be yourself and say hey this is who I am, this is my financial status, this is what I can do and offer to the best of my ability, if you can surrender & acknowledge that currently, today, right now, this is me… that is when YOUR things will start coming to you, you start to attract your real and genuine people, the right energies, you attract where you wanna go, you attract new ideas, you attract prosperity.

This is no lie. This is an interesting season and yet painful to many of us, many of us who in the past made certain decisions and choices that resulted in unpleasant, non-content and fruitless present.

What is interesting about life though is that, right now where you are, you can make new decisions and choices that can and will result in a pleasant, content and fruitful future.

There’s nothing as strong and as powerful as the mind. Choices and decisions are based on how strong and powerful your mind is. Let’s be frank and honest, in most cases, we do know what results to expect by our decisions and choices, we do know.

We know exactly when we’re fucking up but we will still go ahead and fuck up.

The “too late” part are the consequences and repercussions when we cannot undo what’s been done BUT, we can always try and prevent fucking up again especially if it’s the same thing.

Burn once and don’t go burn yourself again.

What we have control over: We have feelings so we have to catch them, we do catch them. With that said, we’re responsible for our own feelings. It doesn’t matter who did you bad or good, what happened or what’s happening to you…you’re responsible for your own feelings.

Do not allow an environment, a circumstance, a situation, control and take over your life, read that again… Do you understand this? YOUR LIFE, it’s YOUR LIFE. This means that you have more than what it takes to decide to haphazardly un-pretzel and pretzel things back into order, an order that is controlled and commanded by YOU.

We have the power to make things work at our favour and a lot of us refuse to believe this.

I’m such an advocate of “work with what you have”, do the most with what you have and can do. Think, think, think.

This reminds me of Episode 1 when I finally decided to work with what I presently had at the time, deciding to train at my place in my lounge. This decision prepared me ready for the new non-idling journey and lifestyle I’d been drowning and suffocating myself in, voluntarily so.

As I’m writing/typing this, it’s Monday, the 25th of February, 22:28 and, I’m just thinking about how gradually so much has been unfolding, how gradually so much has been making sense…since the day I decided to take a totally different and life changing route.

A little progress each day.

PS: My website is finally up and running! If you would like to follow my stories further please visit: http://boitumeloikaneng.com/

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Episode 20: I Did It!!!

Tags

empowerment, life

I wanted to get back end of March but this was not going to work. I figured that I cannot be in the hiding for that long, in order for things to move on my side, I had to get back to the real world and communicate with people that I needed to.

It is done, I did it!!! I managed to get off social media to be in my own world, to be able to be in my own thoughts without any outside influences. Upon my return, everybody wanted to know why I did it, how the whole experience was and has been and, what now?

I learned that everything you do should be with intention. The big question you should ask yourself is WHY. Why am I waking up in the morning, why should I engage in this thing, why do I want to do well at work, why do I want to lose weight, why do I go to church, why am I in this relationship.

The importance of this word, for what reason and what purpose? Why?

For every act that is accompanied or is preceded with intention and purpose, results are inevitable, depending on your intention and purpose.

This is what I went looking for (amongst other things) during my ”sabbatical”. We go through depression and we go through stress because we are scared to question ourselves. We are scared to find out the answers ’cause the answers might require us to change too much of ourselves, so much of what we are used to. Change is hard for some people, change is hard, period. It isn’t easy if whatever it is that you do is done without intention and purpose BUT, it gets way easier when you know WHY you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing or whatever it is you want to do. You’ll sure get pleasant results.

I do not like making promises, but I am confident about this one, so I promise you, whatever you do with sound intention and purpose, you’ll fully and pleasantly experience this thing called Life.

”When you realize you’re alive, you can live life!” – Chad Michael Murray

”Do you want to live life, or do you want to escape life?’‘- Macklemore

”You’ve got to live life to write a book about it.”- Andy Williams

To be continued…

Episode 19: English

Writers are all different. We all approach writing in different types of ways. I for one am very informal, I use simple, light and basic English because that is the English that I speak, on a day to day basis.

My English teacher, Miss Schoeman, once mentioned to us that, try connect with people how they’d most understand you and hey, English is not even my 1st language and it sure doesn’t measure my level of intelligence.

There are quite a whole lot of English words that I don’t know and find hard to pronounce. I’m the type to say or write an entire sentence instead of just using one word to describe something simply and innocently so ‘cause chances are, I don’t even know that there’s a word that can save me an entire sentence. 🤷🏾‍♀️

My mother never got the opportunity to even finish high school and her English is quite bad. My dad was a qualified Architect and spoke English fluently as far as I can remember.

Ask me who I look up to the most and I’ll tell you my mother any day, not because she can or cannot speak this language (English) that is installed in our minds that it’s a language of only the intellectual but because of the person she is, her values and her teachings. I am partly who I am today because of the woman who raised me with broken English.

Hey my dad played a huge role in my life too, I looked up to him as well, I wanted to be as educated as he was. He was very popular “cause of his educational and Architectural background and status, I was a very proud daughter.

I remember being in a relationship with a guy who kind of like made me feel inadequate in the most subtle way ever because my English wasn’t as good as his. He once asked me; “so have you ever attended a kasi school?” Kasi school is an all blacks school where we’re only taught in our mother tongue and English is just a mere subject on its own. “Yes right until Grade 6, I was about 10/11 years old, the following year only then my parents decided to take me to a multiracial school”, I responded. This boy laughed at me, he laughed in such a condescending manner and I really felt so belittled, I was also so confused actually to say the least, I couldn’t believe him. He also went on to mention how it makes sense that he’s so fluent is English ‘cause he’s been in a multiracial school all his life.

Of course the relationship didn’t last. Few years later, after I had made a new couple of friends. I’d mention him to my friends in passing while counting and talking about our past relationships. I happened to see him at some HipHop event with a couple of his friends but he never saw me. I was in such disbelieve of the status of his appearance from the days we were together. I couldn’t even turn to my friends to show them that hey girls, that boy over there is my ex. Let’s just say that I was glad I wasn’t with him anymore, he saved me. His fluent English had happened to be irrelevant.

Remember, knowing how to speak a certain langua… actually let me be specific, knowing how to speak English does not measure the level of your intelligence. You can be intelligent and still turn out to be a blunder in life.

*”The thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much intelligence you may have.”
*”My attitudes are more important than my intelligence”- David J Schwartz

How many soccer stars do we know are living legends and speak or write very little or no English at all and have inspired and changed young lives?

I for one know that am able to articulate myself better to some degree through writing (‘cause you’re able to pause and think) than a face to face conversation which I’m still working on. I’m required to perform daily powwow at work and this has been good practice I must say. Public speaking boosts your confidence.

In 2016 I traveled to Germany, Munich for a young holiday. What I experienced was really eye opening and fascinating. I figured that these people don’t give a shit about knowing how to speak English fluently, it’s none of their business. It was a bit of a hustle having to go to shops alone ‘cause of the language barrier, my knowing English didn’t quite help much, it didn’t matter that other side of the world, I wasn’t “intelligent”.

When I arrived home in South Africa, I reflected on how we laugh at each other when one cannot speak English fluently, when one mispronounces an English word, when one doesn’t understand a certain word or idiom. This made me feel pretty stupid and ashamed. This is what black people do in South Africa, we laugh and shame each other for a language that is not even ours.

With that said without contradicting myself, yes English is considered as an international language and one can survive almost anywhere with just basic knowledge of it. This language can open doors all over the world by just speaking it very well and, I do encourage each and every person that when boredom and idling crips in, to just grab a book and read.

This post best suit this 2 awesome tracks by Janelle Monae.

Janelle Monae – ”I Like That”

Janelle Monae – ”Cold War”

To be continued…

Episode 18: Feelings Are Not To Be Trusted

Tags

Body, empowerment, life

I grew up my mother saying to me; ”if you don’t feel like doing something that you know you have to do, that is when you should stand up to do it, immediately.”

When I woke up this morning around 08:00 am, my body was so heavy, I was not in the mood for anything, basically I did not feel like doing anything.

I got out of bed, opened my window, did a young prayer, I think I jumped into bed again preparing to doze off again…got out of bed again to put on my training gear, as I was busy dressing up, I was complaining about how tired I am and if I really have to do this today. I just like how I was complaining though busy continuing getting ready to train. I did not feel like it, I did not feel like anything bra.

I dragged my feet to the lounge still bickering and complaining to myself, trying to build up the perfect and sensical excuse why I should not go through with it, it was a constant battle (not even only in my head, I was speaking out loud) right through the preparation of laying out my training mat and putting dumbbells ready…to switching on my TV to get workout videos rolling. The 1st exercise was jumping jacks, I did not want to jump, at all.

Oh well when I was done I had forgotten about the bickering, it was all done, I was done!!!

The old me would have allowed the negative to dominate. The old me would have listened and obeyed the negative ’cause it’s much simpler and easier, requires no work whatsoever and, no work delays the process, no work equals no results.

I am glad to say that I can already see results actually, even though most of the time I wish I can just wake up to the results I want already, forgetting that this what I am doing, is forever. I will have to workout for the rest of my life, it is a lifestyle that I chose, the nicest pain and struggle I have chosen. So there is clearly no point or reason to rush the journey , this journey is forever. I am preparing to look, talk and walk the part.

They say, ”what you seek is seeking you”. A few minutes after my workout, I came on to WordPress ’cause I needed to read, daily routine. I immediately came across another unambiguous and relevant post from Cristian Mihai which I have mentioned him before on Episodes 5.

The post reads:

”The say feelings come and go. They also say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does enthusiasm.

Love, hate, depression, frustration, disappointment, anger…none of those truly last.

They come and go, depending on the circumstances in our lives.

So, what lasts?

Principles, as long as we hold to them no matter what. Promises, as long as we hold to them no matter what. Decisions, as long as we endure the consequences of our actions.

Discipline.

That is the one thing that lasts.

No matter what you feel, you decide what you do.

In fact, what you do when you feel depressed, lonely, bored, or just lazy will define your life far more than the fight you put when you really want something.

It’s a bit ironic, but the more you work for what you want when you don’t feel like it, the less you have to struggle when you feel like it.

People want to do what they feel like doing. They want perfection, happiness…passion…

These things come and go. They are temporary.

There’s a world of difference between being strong and feeling strong, between avoiding what you don’t want to feel and accepting it. Between going through a lot or going over a lot.

The choice is yours.

This is what it all comes down. What you choose to do when you feel like giving up…

Your dream is possible. It’s there, for the taking.

But you’ve got to realize that whatever it is you’re feeling, be it fear or boredom or disappointment, it’s often just an illusion.

The sky isn’t the limit. Your mind is.” – Cristian Mihai

This was the only post I chose to read for the day ’cause I felt like I didn’t want to confuse myself with other things, this was for me and I’d been mediating on this the entire day.

I said to myself, if it isn’t the universe talking to me then I do not know.

To be continued…

Episode 17: Holding On By A Thread

Tags

empowerment, life

Today; Monday, 4th February. I woke up at 4:30 am to train (remember I train at home at times). Walked out the house around 5:40 am to go catch a public taxi, the walk is extreme but because I have been training, taking walks in the afternoon, it isn’t bad. My good neighbour decided to give me a lift on the way as he was driving the same direction. Oh yah, I know the time between waking up, training and showering and leaving the house at 5:40 am sounds a bit cramped for a girl, training-20 min, showering and getting all round ready-40 min. Hey, I got Bella Swan moves!

My car broke Friday evening, luckily I was home and was just about to drive out when it started showing me flames and no love, again. I think our relationship has ran it’s course, it is over. I have had to fix it at least every 3 months, even before the accident. I am exhausted. I have been praying to God to please keep it going and safe for me but, He knows better. getting attached is a motherf*****. You know when it is time for change and God just destroys and breaks things surrounding you, how He also removes people who no longer serve any purpose in your life. Every damn thing connects, you cannot dissociate universal energies.

This reminds me of all my past and obviously failed relationships. I have the habit of hanging on until the last thread. And I have noticed that
when you wait for things to get really messy and bad, it hurts even more. I do not have the guts to let go, especially when I am attached and not even trying to imagine life without that specific person, even though I can see that there is no life anymore in whatever we were trying to push, it’s crazy. They say nothing hurts like the heart, nothing truer than this.

When I think of it, I have been dumped more that I have dumped. In some instances, I would dump, go back after a few days to play the convince game to try again, I would get rejected making me the dumpee in return, it would hurt even more. Why am I like this? Or is it ’cause I have had a lot of loved ones die and leave me?

This is the year to LEARN to let go.

‘‘Never love something so much that you can’t let go of it.”
Ginni Rometty

”Change has to come for life to struggle forward.”
Helen Hollick

To be continued…

Episode 16: Insanely Beautiful

Tags

empowerment, life, love, women

Since I have gotten back to work, it has been so crazy. I need to now squeeze reading, writing and working out when I get home. I read and wrote while on my leave, that consumed 90% of my time, that is basically all I did. If I start writing whilst at work I tend to neglect my work, I noticed this the 1st few days before taking off for my leave. I need to make new adjustments and re-schedule. But thing with writing is, it has no timing, I can feel like writing whilst driving, I’d feel that I need to park by the side way and write, I once woke up in the middle of the night to write. It’s insanely beautiful.

Yesterday, was a Friday, 1st of February, resumed work after 13 days of self-reflection amongst other insanely beautiful discoveries. Made time to catch up with my colleagues who are also friends. One deep conversation that hit deep was with my friend about how women are able to lose themselves unaware, more especially around a man they like or love. My friend who has parted ways with a man he has been with for close to a decade, shared this with me:

Paraphrasing: ”I was just too solid, I was this ”wife” that wanted everything to be perfect in the house, he know that he would find food ready for him, every day. What I missed is to be completely myself with him, I only gave him the ”good” side of me, I deprived him an opportunity and the chance to know the goofy side of me, the crazy and goofy side I show freely when I am with you guys my friends. I was scared to say ”NO” to him, I was scared of what this would do to our relationship, I was scared that he would leave me. Now he went outside the relationship to find the ”other side” of me. My friend said.

This shit does not work!!!

I had goosebumps through out her entire confiding conversation, my heart was beating heavily ’cause I knew exactly what she was talking about. This is the most common truth and women are still yet too oblivious towards this behavior, a whole lot. It is like we have been brainwashed and conditioned that you should act a certain way with a man you like or love, we try too hard and in return we lose who we are, we lose our identity over a relationship, this can happen with any sort of relationship, whether it’d be a crowd that you’re in, just trying to keep up a facade. This is such a fatal death while still breathing and living.

I know this of myself as well, the minute I start to like a boy it’s like I forget who I am. I want him to see Beyoncé, I want him to see superwoman, I want him to see the coolest chick ever, I want him to see how smart I am, I want to make him see that I am different…killing myself in the process.

On Episode 11: Booty Call, that was my realization that actually when I am with a booty call I am whole, I am fully myself, It’s like I am carefree, I am not scared to say ”no wait”, what you think of me is really your business, there are no judgments ’cause we are in this with no hidden personalities and lies, no hidden agendas or intentions.

My friend realized this with a relationship that she is currently in. She told me how natural and flowing this new relationship is, how she realized that she effortlessly still remains herself around her man. She exhausted that other ”perfect side” so much that she does not “care” anymore, she just wants to be. Take me exactly as I am or fuck off.

Being human and more especially a woman is an every day battle. We did not choose to be woman, we came in this world with fixed ”terms and conditions” of how a woman should behave, an unrealistic social quo and destroyer of existence. This is so unfortunate for many of the women, there are women who do GET IT early that fuck this shit, I am going to be myself, if you’re going to leave me ’cause you think I am loud, then bye Felicia.

Being completely honest, I am still struggling with this but I will get there fully. All I know is that I have lost a friendship and a relationship ’cause I decided to completely speak out and be myself. To avoid surprising people, be yourself from the word go, it is insanely beautiful…

”It takes a long time to fully become who you are”. Björk

To be continued…

Episode 15: The Dream

Tags

empowerment, encouragement, life

Today, Thursday, 31st January, 10:50am.
I genuinely used to wake up late on purpose and reason being that I’m making up for all the days that I had to wake up early for work. I used to hate waking up early, I hated it, so much.

It’s my last day of leave today, I’ve been able to wake up very early to make sure that I have a longer and productive day, it’s been an amazing 13 days, I did exactly what I said I was going to do… pray, read, write, eat healthy, exercise, meditate… I am oh so refreshed and rejuvenated 🙌🏾.

I was just with my sister in law, she mentioned how January was not such a bad month, actually it wasn’t bad at all. To come to think of it, yeah it wasn’t bad, it was an awesome month. State of mind is something very important. I was not going to dwell and participate on how broke one gets in January, I made plans, movable and tangible plans to keep going & within a blink of an eye, tomorrow is a new month! Ask yourself, “what did I do, what did I learn, was it a fruitful month? maybe I can do better and pick up next month”.

Going to a meeting later on in the day to make final decisions and make my website a reality. Now listen, last night I dreamed about having to find out that I’m pregnant, I had the pregnancy test in my hands, I couldn’t believe the 2 lines that were right in front of my eyes but at the same time took it as good news. It got so weird because in the same dream I dreamed I went to bed, slept then woke up in the morning and I was still pregnant, I realized that I cannot run away from this because I am indeed pregnant. When I woke up for REAL in the morning, you can imagine how confused I was. But I quickly regained my full consciousness to know that it was just a dream and I am not pregnant.

I google just about anything and everything. I rushed for my phone for any solid and sensical interpretation of my weird dream and it says; Pregnancy dreams symbolize an aspect of yourself or some aspect of your personal life that is growing and developing. Being pregnant in your dream may also represent the birth of a new idea, direction, project or goal. For those who are actually pregnant, then the dreams are more about anxieties of the pregnancy.

This interpretation for me sealed the deal. God hectically communicates with me through dreams, since I was very young.

I can tell you now that I wasn’t this person a month ago. The adjustment in ones habits, choosing to sacrifice what I was used to and to trying things that I never really enjoyed doing (waking up in the morning, there is no such thing as “not a morning person”, you’ve created that in your mind to believe that “I am not a morning person”, what does that even mean?).

Reflecting and reflection propelled me into refocusing.

“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.”- Lee Iacocca

“If you’re tired of starting over, then you need to learn to stick through and overcome difficult things instead of running away from them.”- Jeanette Coron

Episode 14: Different Types Of Friendship

Tags

Frienship, life

We keep different kinds of friends in our lives for different reasons. There are those friends who will go all out to help you without showing any signs of weariness and, there are those friends who will not even try to see if there’s an alternative or if they can bend the rules a bit to assist you.

The ones who’re always willing to assist do so immediately and without any hesitation partly ‘cause they know that you would do the same. The ones who’re always making excuses as to why they can’t help, will not even try and find ways to assist ‘cause they don’t have the time or your problems are simply non of their business.

Mind you, I don’t even like bothering my friends (I’d rather bother my big brother), if I reach out to you know that I had already tried everything I could on my side and now I’m left with no option but seek for external help. And anyway what’s the point of friendship if we cannot lend a helping hand to each other more especially if we are able?

Let me tell you what I’ve noticed between these two… actually three types of friends:

1. Helpful friends: A whole lot of them are somewhat successful, always ready and willing to assist a friend to the best of their ability, they are winning in everything they put their mind to, they are winning at life.
2. Non helpful friends: Always full of excuses, always ready to dismiss the idea of assisting you, they are excusitis as David Schwartz calls them. I’ve also noticed that this behavior has also taken over their lives, it has spread and has become a disease in their lives to live and breathe excuses.
3. And there are those “special ones”, who have studied the kind of a person you are, that you worry or feel shitty if they offload their problems to you and they know that no matter what, you’ll think for them, you’ll solve their problem, you’ll put your yourself in an uncomfortable position just to help and save them. They don’t even ask for help, they just tell you what the problem is in a form of simply confiding in you knowing exactly that you’ll jump and offer to help. I suffered a lot from this all my life actually, it is one of the characters of an empath.

I think number 3 compared to number 2 is the worst! With number 2, most probably they haven’t noticed their bad habits, haven’t noticed what they are doing as it’s also they’re way of unconscious and subconscious living, full of excuses. But number 3, they are fully aware of their behavior, I don’t know what to call them, selfish or “con-artists”.

Since I’ve discovered this, my time and energy will therefore be reserved for those friends who reciprocate.

That’s all.

Episode 13: My Spiritual Journey

Tags

Freedom, life

Today: Monday, 28th January. Enjoying these last few days before going back to work. It’s been awesome just chilling, thinking and reflecting, reading, writing, praying, going to church, waking up early (I used to wake up late on purpose just to make up for days that I had to wake up early for work), been working out and eating healthy, AND still not on any social media platform. I don’t know what’s going on, what memes are trending and all of that that we follow everyday on social media.

That is all I lived for and this caused too many destructions and time got wasted that I’ll never get back. Of course there’s absolutely nothing wrong with social media, it’s incredible! But a whole lot of us go on about it the wrong way, we dream, eat, shit and breathe it, it got way too much for me. Just being in my own world has really been revitalizing.

Since I’ve gotten back to writing and working out, I’ve been busy with my website that will be consisting of my “Episodes” and a Health & Fitness page 😅, it’s about damn time!!! 🤸🏾‍♂️🤸🏾‍♂️🤸🏾‍♂️

You know before shutting down everything, I did announce on my WhatsApp story that I’ll be taking some time off, but it seems like nobody believed me 🤷🏾‍♀️. I had a few people who asked why, for how long and some just didn’t ask and the day I left, I left for real.

I have a friend who stays in the same complex as my big brother, I see her at times for a young chat when I’m that side. Yesterday she was telling me that people are busy on social media asking her about my whereabouts, this makes me laugh ‘cause I announced as a sign of courtesy and to allow any questions to be asked. You know in the Bible when Noah was building an Ark and told people about the flood that was coming and they didn’t believe him…yes that’s exactly what’s happening.

It’s quickly heading for a month since I’ve been “social media free” (I’ve just invented that 😅) and still going.

This is my Spiritual Journey.

To be continued…

Episode 12: 25th January

Tags

comfort, life, love

It’s a Friday, the 25th of January 2019 and my little brother could have been 25 years old today. It has been 17 years since his passing. I wonder all the time how tall could he have been, how handsome would he have grown to be, how deep his voice could have been…I’ll have these unanswered for the rest of my life.

At age 8 he was already “full blown” smart and intelligent, had a sense of humor and was a very good story teller. He would ask my mom and I a question first before telling us a story of what took place when he was at school or at home when we where not around.

“Between Papa (dad) and Obuti Stan (older brother), who’s stronger?” My little brother asked my mom and I. Naturally and without any doubt we both said Papa because he’s the oldest and, I remember how keen we were and couldn’t wait to hear why we’re being asked this random question.

“Nope” he said, “Obuti Stan is stronger than Papa, every time you (mom) ask Obuti Stan to pass you the suitcase on top of the wardrobe, he pulls it off without any signs of struggle or tremble and puts it on the bed effortlessly, BUT Papa struggles and trembles right through with the suitcase”, so Obuti Stan is the strongest”. During this entire time he would also be demonstrating. We burst out in laughter as we had never even noticed this and we were never ready! He was so observant in the smallest details.

At his funeral, his Teacher shared a few things that we were not aware of. We knew that he was a smart ass but not to that degree. After a lesson, his Teacher would put him in a corner with other kids who didn’t quite grasp the lesson for him to explain and assist them. Each time they would show signs of still not getting it, he would do a subtle sigh, shrugging his shoulders and would start from the beginning 🤷🏽‍♂️ … I knew that he was smart but had no idea that he was this exceptionally brilliant.

I think about him almost everyday. I used to dream about him so much over the years. I once dreamt about him pulling him out of my car, we had just been involved in a car accident and the car had rolled over. I was pulling and pulling and pulling, it felt so real, it felt like I was pulling forever, I pulled without giving up until I managed to pull him all the way out then I woke up. I interpreted the dream as him letting me know that life might be hard but I’ll always come out the other side stronger only if I believe, push and pull.

Happy 25th birthday to my little brother. The 8 years we had together, are cherished forever. “

To be continued…