Wednesday 27 June 2012

FORGIVENESS: IS IT POSSIBLE???








Forgiveness does not always lead to a healed relationship but it is a good way to start. This makes me question the popular saying "when you forgive and then you forget" which means until you can forgive you wont be able to forget what happened and when you don't remember, everything goes back to normal like it never happened. Humans are blessed with the ability to remember every experience they have or go through, it helps them get better, work on areas that need attention, provide valuable lessons. So how do you get to forgive and forget if you still remember everything that happened? How do you truly let go, how do you stop yourself from hurting? Forgiveness is a big deal, easier said than done and sometimes we assume we have forgiven whoever hurts us, a trip down memory brings back unexpressed emotions ranging from anger, resentment to physical pain. So what then is forgiveness?? It is simply giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me, to cease from resentment from hurt or offense. I want to lay emphasis on the word cease, which means to put an end or stop. So how do you explain that weird feeling you get when you remember the offense? Do we really forgive? How do we let go of the hurt? especially when we were betrayed by the people we trust the most or love, Is it easy to just let it go like that? Why is it easy to forgive a stranger but difficult to forgive the people we care about? Our relationship with them compromise true forgiveness? What about cases where people actually forgive but it comes with a price of letting the offender go completely by cutting them out, if memory plays it purpose, they would rather not have a constant reminder of the hurt whenever they see the person. Again i ask do we really forgive? Bitterness is only few inches away. People who have being hurt sometimes say its not really about the offense but about the person who committed the offense. The feeling of betrayal and shock, this explains why regardless of how much they say they have forgiven the offense committed, having the offender around them makes it difficult for them to let it go completely so they resort to complete elimination, the process of cutting them out. Apologies sometimes are way over rated as it is so easy for people to say "i am sorry" and not mean it or say those words and yet it does not make the situation any better. When we say karma would take its course, does it mean we are hoping the offender gets hurt as well? The purpose of forgiveness is defeated. Do we really forgive? Humans are complicated beings and i am not saying achieving complete forgiveness is not possible but it has to come from you forgiving yourself first before you can forgive others. In painful situations where we are left traumatized or shocked, first we blame ourselves about why we got hurt, how we put ourselves in the position to get hurt and how we allowed the hurt to happen. We try to pick on our weakness, If only we were stronger, wiser, less trusting, not naive, less caring. True forgiveness comes from within. It may have being that we put ourselves in harms way by caring too much or trusting too much but understand this, blaming yourself would not make the situation any better for you to make sense out of it, it would not take away the hurt, blaming the offender would not take back the words they said or their actions towards you and how we absorbed it: stored it in our long memory compartment. Sharing blames never makes it easy to move on. The offense sometimes may be hard to get over, people may not understand how much it may have hurt you also but would you rather live your life trapped in bitterness and resentment, devising means on how to get payback??? Consider this, no matter what you do to get even, even if its worse than the offense or hurt, it may make you feel better or not but you would have wasted so much time which includes days, months, years in planning, which you would not definitely get back. So you wasted valuable time of your life trying to get even when you could have being focusing how to stay and maintain your happiness, embarking on self discovery, building a better life for yourself? Do you see how much you give up to get even? Do we deliberately hold on to a grudge to play the victim? to get sympathy? to get others to feel empathy for us and take sides? Do we hold on to the hurt as a reminder to ourselves never to be over trusting, never to open up? For whatever reason you may have, until you completely forgive, you are in bondage. Yes i said it, BONDAGE!!! A bitter person can never experience or appreciate happiness. You can forgive and not forget, of course how can you forget part of what makes up your life experience but you CAN decide to let go of the hurt and move on... by forgiving yourself, forgiving who hurt you and not allowing the situation change who you are by building up painful memories and committing yourself to it. If we shut down a part of us whenever we are hurt by others or a situation, in no time we become a cheap version of ourselves and lose everything real we have ever known. To err is human but to forgive is divine. What that means is, people would hurt you, break your spirit with hurtful words and actions but in forgiving them you prove to them how much better and stronger you are to let it go, get back to the joy of being alive and having the love of the people you cherish the most. Forgiveness does not come with a price tag, it comes from within. You can forgive the person who hurt you and still love them, have them in your life also. Think on this, if for every time you have ever hurt your parents or friends and they actually forgave you but cut you out, where would you be today? having being abandoned by the people you love??? Nobody is perfect, you have hurt other people as well and if you are truthful to yourself, maybe even worse than the offense you are holding on to. The people you hurt still loved you regardless then why can you not do the same thing too?? Are you too good to forgive? even when we sin against God, commit all sorts of atrocities, i understand we are not God but we were created in His image and likeness that makes us demi gods. God is still ever loving and merciful to forgive, why cant we do the same??? People would always make mistakes, forgiveness is the only way to look past that mistake. They say love covers multitude of sin, a broad definition of sin includes offense, offense results to pain and hurt. Can we allow love help us to forgive. Think carefully on the mistakes you have made and the steps you took in correcting them, how you were forgiven, how you were given a second chance and then decide to do the same. Give someone a second chance. Phone calls, text message, BBM, yahoo messenger, Skype, twitter, Facebook or any form of social network platform, reach out to the people you have offended and ask for forgiveness. You may think you have a clean record but sometimes we hurt people without even realizing it. You can start with this "i am sorry i hurt you, i am sorry i said words to you that i know i cannot take back, i am sorry for all my actions, the way i treated you, i am sorry for not realizing how much i hurt you, i am sorry for sending this late. it may not change anything between us, i understand you have the right to be upset and angry but i can not move on knowing that i hurt you. i do not want you to become a bitter person, from your heart i ask that you forgive me. " You may not get immediate response but you have taken the first step. To people holding on to a grudge, let it go. Forgiveness is not an easy process, you do it everyday till it hurts no more. Say this with me "I forgive those who have hurt me, for i have hurt others and i have being forgiven. they gave me a second chance to act right and do things better so i deliberately choose to give someone else a chance. it does not fix the pain or hurt but forgiveness is the first step" . Always remember, FORGIVENESS is the first step!

Sunday 24 June 2012

HER vs HIM

Love is for the brave. Sometimes we miss out on the best thing that can ever happen to us because we are too scared to take a leap or make a move. Assumption has always been a silent killer. Someone once said when you assume you make an ass of U(your significant other) and ME. If only people would just say what they feel. Genie's do not exist so it is almost impossible to make wishes come true. If you love someone, let them know. It is better you hear what they have to say than just assume or let your fear of rejection get the best of you.


Her thoughts: So i am here listening to love songs hoping to let my imaginations run wild. This is so depressing and i wish you could see me as more than just a friend. I find myself secretly wishing you would call my cell phone like you always do but this time, you tell me how much i mean to you. I wish you would realise how much i would sacrifice to see you happy, what i would give up just to see you smile, the things i do to please you. I wish you would appreciate me for me and not see me as someone you run to when you need help or comfort. I wish you would spend more time with me more, i wish we would have that moment where i pause for a bit and bask in all the love and attention you spoil me with. I wish you would tell me about how much you miss me and care about me instead of making me listen to your feelings for someone else. I wish we could go to the movies together and just hold hands afterwards. I wish we would have breakfast, lunch and dinner enjoying each others company. I wish i could tell you how i feel about you but i am afraid you may not feel the same.


His thoughts: I keep looking at your pictures and reading your text message all over again trying to over analyse every word and establish a connection. I wish you would realize how much i appreciate you and i am thankful for everyday i get to see you. I wish you would notice how much it hurts me not being able to express how i feel about you, i wish you would understand how much i need you, you are the first person i run to if anything goes wrong, i wish you notice how shy i get when i am around you and how much i want to spend a full day with you but get extremely shy and leave, i wish you realised that moment where i stared at you and how i appreciated every minute of looking at you, i wish you understood what i was trying to say when i called you to tell you about my feelings for someone close to me and how scared i was because i felt they would not feel anything back but in reality i was talking about you, i wish you would realise that the time we had a quick snack at the cafeteria it felt like breakfast and the time we ate at yours, lunch and that evening i asked you to join me for take out because we worked so hard on that essay that was dinner. I wish i could just tell you i much i am in love  with you but i am scared you may resent me afterwards for complicating things between us.

They stayed friends for a very long time and lost touch with each other eventually making it easy for them to grow apart. in between years, they attempted dating different people whilst trying so hard to deny their feelings for each other. finally, they successfully got over each other but got stuck with regrets of what if's moments. if you love someone..... damn... JUST SAY IT! Let them know. 

Friday 22 June 2012

LDR: CAN WE MAKE IT WORK?













Long distance relationship or LDR as it is often called has been a major problem in relationships as they often say love needs presence to grow and blossom, then again contradictory to that statement  absence makes the heart grow fonder. So does that imply LDR can be successful with the absence of your significant other? does their absence make you appreciate them better? Statistics have shown that most young relationships end prematurely due to LDR, if i am allowed to be frank, LDR is just fucking hard to be honest but with the aid of modern technology, old ways of communication has been made obsolete. In the 18th century, LDR was seen to be the strength and growth of young lovers and love, as partners turned into love poets writing love letters and sending it with trained doves as carriers and some sometimes a message in a bottle, How romantic would that have been now? and No you can not keep the dove as a pet. I remember in the early 2000's, emails and yahoo messenger chat was the fastest way to reach a loved one across borders. overnight chats and special messages with sounds, short videos and images and then it got better, mobile phones became an asset as well and now we have BBM and Skype video call which allows you to chat and send voice notes, more also see your significant other and talk to them as well. So if there is constant communication, what then is the problem of LDR? Do people just assume once your significant other is half across the world, your relationship is bound to fail? Sometimes they end the relationship without even trying. Here is the truth, LDR is not meant for everyone, some people have the gift of making it work regardless of the distance while others, not so lucky. What are the problems of LDR?
Communication, this the basis of every relationship. In LDR, constant communication is required as it helps both parties stay in-touch with each other and be involved in each others lives. Although constant communication can never be enough especially when the person involved is accustomed to being with their partner physically even with the constant texting which has its disadvantage of your finger tips hurting or constant phone calls which can incur bills or Skype calls which sometimes you may just fall asleep half way through the conversation because you have had a long day at work or school and all you want is to just sleep or even time different time zones (morning at your end and past midnight at your significant other), days where you are swamped with work or have a busy schedule so you keep the conversations short and precise. Communication in LDR is very tricky, you can never do it enough. It does not replace their presence and can not make up for absence either but most times if the relationship started off as LDR, it is easy for both parties to nurture their love and perfect it by just communicating with each other because that is all they have for now and that is all they know. bottom line, it takes real effort in spite of communication barriers to make it work.
Insecurity, this can not be over emphasized enough as even healthy non LDR are also affected. This is a situation where the significant feels less active in their partner's life and they are scared someone else is playing the same role they once had. With miles apart from each other, it is hard not to think someone else somewhere is filling your shoes and making your loved one more happy with their presence that can lead to paranoia where you begin to imagine situations that do not exist, you call their phones several times and when no answer or response, your brain just assumes they are with other people or you call them and you over hear a voice in the background, he/she is out with someone else... ever considered that could be their boss, family relative or just a casual friend? Paranoia kills everything living, especially relationships.
Lack of trust, this is the key to every relationship as trust strengthens the confidence you have in your significant other. Once trust is broken it takes ages to get it back and in most cases you never get it back at all. In LDR, trust is also an issue because distance plays its role by separating you from the person you care about then you start to worry if they are doing the right thing or not, like i said earlier, paranoia comes into play, where you are over analytical about everything they say, suspicious of every move they make and sometimes build up emotional walls in other to strengthen yourself in expectation for the worst that may lead to doing things you might end up regretting. with trust in LDR, behavioural patterns and dating history are factors that you may consider. if your significant other has a long history of being flirtatious then worrying is almost expected because you begin to question their loyalty whenever they are in company with the opposite sex, you call them more than often to check if you would catch them off guard and that may lead to a strain in your relationship. as long as you can not trust your partner, you can not make the relationship work.
LDR sometimes act as a prelude to a breakup because being separated from your significant other and the efforts to keep things going may become over bearing and the only right thing to do is to end it in a subtle way by letting distance give it a natural death. Ending a normal relationship may seem too difficult and emotional to do, so when a partner is separated for too long from the significant other, letting them go would not be hard to do as they slowly warm up to their environment losing everything that reminded them of what they had.
Expectations may also differ in LDR and that also may cause a problem for the people involved. Different expectations may create difficulty in making the relationship work as one partner may put all their effort into it and can not wait to reunite with their significant other while the other partner may see it as another chance to try something new and be open to new experience. More also, one partner may see the need to talk to their significant other every hour of the day and their partner may see the need to talk to them few days in a week. You and your partner's expectation must or should be the same so it does not leave one person expecting more than the other person can give.
I have mentioned few of the major problems with LDR and now some solutions, although most LDR's are not built to last but it is the effort to make it work that counts. In the problems of LDR also lies the solution. Communicate as much as possible from BBM, Emails, Text, Calls, Skype video calls, tweets though the conversations sometimes may seem scripted and other times boring but at some point you can not deny the comfort you feel from hearing from each other. Calls can incur ridiculous phone bills, you can spice things up by leaving lovely voice mails or sending voice notes as well so they hear your voice at random moments when they do not even expect to. You can send pictures and videos as well.
Trust is the key. Learn to trust your partner even when you have doubts which is almost normal to happen in every relationship, re assurance of their devotion is never a waste. Lack of trust and jealousy go hand in hand, you should understand with a new environment your partner would have to socialise more, make new friends, hang out more to feel at home. You dont expect them to stop living just because they are in a LDR. Drama is no no!!! repeat after me: drama is a no no! Do not be too over trusting by acting naive about everything going on in your relationship but at the same time do not be over suspicious. here is a quick one, do not do anything your partner would not be pleased about.
As much as branding is seen as a cheeky move and by branding i mean giving your partner a personal item that belongs to you with a sentimental attachment to it. This also helps, even though the distance separates you from your partner, they still have something to remind them of you. Personal item can either be their favorite wrist watch, jewelery, perfume or a shirt that has their body scent. it does not replace their presence but helps in dealing with the absence.
Always stay positive even when things are not going well, stay positive and keep an open mind. Never expect the worst or play God or assume anything. stay positive.
Do not limit yourself to the laws of LDR.... break it. challenge yourself by trying to be among the few  people who have made it work despite been far apart. In the end, all that matters is how much effort you are willing to put into it to make it. Your effort counts and if it is not meant to be.... You tried your best to make it work with no regrets. To people in LDR, stay strong and stay positive!!




Tuesday 19 June 2012

IS IT WRONG TO DATE YOUR FRIEND'S EX??

So where do we draw the line of loyalty to our friends? Loyalty vs Happiness. what gives? that is the question for the day, how loyal can you be to a friend? More specifically, is it right to date your friend's ex? considering time and effort put into their relationship. I often hear people say it is not right or acceptable, do you risk your loyalty for a lifetime of happiness if the time frame may apply? When people end relationships and move on with other people, do they subconsciously mark their ex as theirs and make them non date-able for others most especially their friends? So is the new life they have with someone else not enough they have to keep tabs on who their ex is dating now? is it just a personal rule or a known fact? sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where the new person you are with was someone's ex and a friend as well. Is there a restriction on who you can love? Do you forfeit your love for your friend's ex for the loyalty to your friend? They made me believe love has no restriction, no limitation and no boundaries, so is it ok to say where you find yourself in such situation of choosing between your loyalty to your friend and the chance of been happy with the ex you are placing a limit to love??? more also they made me believe that you do not choose  who you give your heart to, you cannot control how much you feel and who you love, do you risk your chance at been happy with someone else just to respect what the society see as a code of conduct??? You are not allowed to date your friend's ex but it is way more easy to love someone you already know, understand, trust and can tolerate their differences, initially you may not have felt anything for your ex's friend and with the amount of time spent opening up to them and trusting them with fragments of your heart, you tend to love them eventually isn't that what love is about?? where at your weakest point, the person that makes you feel the strongest, supports you, makes you happy thats who you eventually fall for? so how is that a crime? Allow me to paint another scenario, what if a guy dates a girl and in the course of the relationship they realise they are not meant for each other, they end it on a mutual ground and the girl gets the chance to move on, the guy decides to take a break from dating and couple of years later he finds love with his ex's friend, did he do something wrong? and this works vice versa. before you get judgmental, consider this also that people needed to let others go and become an ex in order for you to find them available and date them. what if they held on to their ex's as well would you be as happy as you are now with having someone new, So giving someone else a chance, say your said friend in question the opportunity to be happy with your ex is only fair because someone else did the same thing too for you. Someone had to be an ex for you to include them in your present and possibly in your future. Giving someone that same chance other than yourself is also the right thing to do. What if your said ex was not part of the plan for your life, holding unto them or preventing someone else from being with them, what good would that do to and for you. I understand that sometimes it may be difficult for people to deal with the fact that their ex has moved on or is moving on regardless of how many years may have gone by from when they broke up and most especially if they moved on with someone they both know but it is safe to say this, there is a reason why it didn't work out for you and them, consider the progress you have made without having them in your life, the chance of being with someone else, working on your weakness and maximizing your strength, addressing your fault or what you considered a problem, you have had the chance of doing it all over again with someone new and doing it right, if you have truly let them go and moved on, whoever they date should not be a problem. Finally, if it were you in their shoes, would you put your friendship first against your chances of being happy? have this in mind, it is way more easier said than done. words are just words. Until you find yourself in that same position, you may not know any better.

Saturday 9 June 2012

THE LETTER:


This is dedicated to everyone who has lost a lover. All the words you wished you had the opportunity to say. I hope this helps you let them go. 


Dear lost love,
It is with deep regret I write this, though I know it is too late but I just want to unburden myself from the guilt I feel inside. I know we had it rough and I promised to treat you right, sometimes the bad times overshadowed the good. In the end relationships can be such a pain especially when you do not seem to understand what is going on, if you are the reason for the mishap and if you can help deal with the situation by sacrificing more. I tried to love you in the best way I knew how to but I always fell short because the feeling was overwhelming and I just could not express it well enough.
I had to lose you in order for me to understand what I did wrong, I still cannot forget the day you walked away, it felt like the best part of me was taken. I missed you so much. Each time I closed my eyes I saw visions of you. I never thought you would leave me, I never thought it would end the way it did, leaving me empty and drained, I never thought you would make me laugh or smile. My feelings were very much alive and they became stronger with each passing day that I missed you. Every night and day I prayed that I would be that one person you have in your life for always, losing you has been the hardest thing I would ever have to deal with, I often wondered what the essence of falling in love was, if at the end you end up feeling miserable, depressed and frustrated. My heart did beat for you and all my thoughts were of you though I had a strange way of showing it.  The idea of you been happy with someone else always left a landmine of heartaches; like that someone else could have being me. I loved you a great deal and even now that I find myself having a lot of “what if’s”. I tried not to picture me without you, the love we shared together that made us strong, facing every challenge life threw at us. Regrets and mistakes that I made became my daily companion; if I were a better version of myself would it make you stay? If I became the idea you had about me would it change your feelings towards me now? Would you care more to know I was doing everything in power to make you happy? If I told you more how much I loved you, would we still be together? 
There was a time when you believed in us, so why couldn’t we make it through this; the process of losing you completely, I was supposed to be your back bone, I was supposed to protect you but some days I was so caught up with my own issues I left you exposed to deal with whatever it was yourself. 
Wanting more than what I had made me lose out on the best things you had to offer, constant comparisons with the people I had in my past life without realising how much damage I was doing to your self esteem made it easy for you to pull away from me. 
I prayed for you more than I prayed for myself, I carried you in my spirit so I never went a day without you in my life. I just wished I showed you how much I really cared. The pain you feel from loving alone can sometimes make the heart bleed, and sometimes I made you feel that way. I wish I could go back in time to when everything about you and me mattered then all this pain I feel inside wouldn’t be there and I could save whatever we once shared. So many thoughts keep running through my mind, what if saving us or what we had is not necessary, what if we were just supposed to be together for a short while, what if you were never mine. I died in your arms the first time I kissed your lips, died in your arms when you held me close and you told me how much you loved me, died in your arms when… I died so many times that I felt more alive every time it happened.
They say if you can take the pain of a broken heart then you should let the person you are in love with go, what I didn’t get was: how was I supposed to do that when somewhere in my heart, you mattered. They say love is the slowest form of suicide and slowly I found myself dying without you. I tried burning every picture of "us", stopped playing all the songs that reminded me of you and yet I still wanted you even more then I met someone new, different in a good way. At first, it took awhile to open up because in my head and heart I secretly wished you would still come back to me. I had grown up, a little wiser, more matured and emotionally stable. I wanted you to see the new me and experience the kind of love you always wanted. I did not want to share this new me with someone else because I felt I owed you that much but the memory of the moments we shared kept hunting me and I had to let go, I had to let you go. I was scared to start something new with a stranger, the fear of losing them due to my much complicated yet very confused personas, the idea of breaking my walls, making them my everything and been left with nothing if and when they eventually leave but love and relationship is a risk, you are never really sure of what you might be getting yourself into but you are willing to place you heart and emotions in the hands of the only person that can squeeze the life out of it and hope they don’t. I was wiling to go through that because sometimes all you really need is to start afresh and work your way to the top. In order for me to move on, I had to let go of you and everything I held on to. They say true forgiveness starts in you first then on to others. No sharing of blames, no regrets and no resentment. I needed to give someone else a chance to make me happy, I needed to make them happy as well, I have and I treasure every moment of this new found happiness. You made me become a better person. I had to lose you to painfully realise that I could indeed become a better person at loving someone else other than myself and expressing myself with words, gestures and actions.
It’s been few weeks, few months
Happiness has found its way back into my life. I wish you well always.