Self-Sufficiency And The Trauma We Carry

I've often wondered if the notion of “be a man”, men are not supposed to show weakness should not be seen differently. Boys just like girls are human beings and have feelings. They should be allowed to express their feelings and feel safe to show weakness and vulnerability. Teaching self-sufficiency is great, but I believe there needs to be a balance on when to reach out or speak out.

Over time I have watched this happen and the part of raising men to bottle their feelings or telling them from a young age to be tough/be a man has never sat well with me. Sadly, it leads to boys teasing one another on this subject, and eventually men doing same. Many men feel the need to not be vulnerable or act like it is wrong to cry. This unfortunately, could play out on so many levels with men taking those bottled feelings or frustrations out on the people closest to them or the society at large. They would rather find ways to cope and some of these ways could be negative coping mechanisms. In some instances, young men act out to get attention, which they would hardly ask for. But even that attention could be withheld from them due to bad behaviour. Then it spirals out of control and becomes a point of concern.

Sisterhood and life lessons

I was up late last night reflecting and would like to share experiences of the two ladies in my life I cannot do without. Their experiences have taught me some life lessons which might be relevant to you too.

One of my sisters was put in a corner last year where she had the option of resigning or asking in the 'nicest possible way' to be retained. This was a job that drained the life out of her. She hardly had a life outside work as she worked crazy hours. There was generally no job security as she worked under someone who was quite impulsive. As an outsider, this was my observation.

Mindfulness Meditation: wrapping up 2016

Sometime this year, I started to look more into meditation and mindfulness. I was looking to reconnect with myself on a certain level, and I knew what I needed to do.

My god mother and her husband are mindfulness meditation instructors and naturally I turned to them. My god mother gave me two books written by her husband on the subject. And guess what! He signed them, whoop whoop!

Happiness and How It Happens: Finding Contentment Through Mindfulness

Mindfulness and Compassion: Embracing Life with Loving Kindness

Is This Some Form of Identity Crisis?!

There have been different instances of Nigerians living abroad saying such horrible things about Nigeria. We must understand that when the media reports certain things, they are blown out of proportion. Everything makes the country seem unappealing in every sense of the word to return to. However, bear in mind that with the media, no news is good news!

In the light of this, a friend and I were chatting and we were talking about some of the crisis that are ongoing in certain parts of Africa. We ended up having a lengthy chat about the crisis in Central African Republic, at a point she wrote AFRICA! I asked what about Africa, then asked her simply if the United States where she currently lives in is any different. I asked her if people were not being killed in broad daylight with not much being done about it. I asked her if she had had to go through the painful speech with her sons of how to behave and how not to behave in public. I asked if she had warned them not to wear hoodies, if every day she didn’t live in fear with the hope that nothing would happen to her children. I also asked if the many threats, some that are not even reported are not terrifying enough in the U.S. I am not in any way saying that one conflict/any form of killing is better than the other, but I do not understand why there is the need to ignore the problems that exist in front of us, while we are so quick to point at other people’s? Note in this case, that every person apart from her nuclear family lives in Nigeria. She was born and raised in Nigeria but relocated with her family to the U.S. about four years ago, then all of a sudden, the very place that raised her and accounts for most of who/what she is, is now talked about with disdain. We ended the conversation with her writing, “abi ooo nobody is safe anywhere”.