Category: Self-Therapy

Its NOT About You

Big realization of the last week(s):

It’s not about you. (probably)

..It all started or came into fruition during a conversation with my mother over breakfast. These are one of the favorite parts of my rare day’s off. My mother is an early riser and can usually be found in the kitchen listening to Nigerian worship music whipping up something savory for the family to eat or enjoying a cup of coffee while poring over her morning devotion. I’m the other early riser in the house and so I’ll usually meet her while getting ready to head to the gym or running some errand that requires me to be up and about.

Usually these conversations touch on a familiar array of topics. God, family, When I’m going to get married, finances, and any other recent revelations either of us has experienced. On this particular occasion we happened to discuss money.

So..Money. Me and money have a interesting history.

First, our backstory: I was born to first-generation African parents who came to this country with 1 child (me) and Nigerian work ethic, a smattering of siblings scattered across the southern/western states and a desire for a better life. So needless to say, I had a front row seat to my parents growth from a 2 bedroom apartment on Memorial drive to a much nicer house in the suburbs. However, some of my formative years were spent watching my mom fly financially by the seat-of-her-pants and God’s grace. As a result, there were of course some opportunities that I felt I missed. This gives me a bent toward looking toward money as my security. Which, from what I observe is a common American phenomenon. However, as I struggle to get know God and myself better- I’m realizing (over and over) that Money can’t be my security- it’s not dependable enough. It comes and goes. Courts and politicians can take it  away with a squiggle of the pen, illness can steal it, A boss’s ire can strip it away for months. However, making the mental switch from money being priority #1 to God being #1 takes intentional effort and if i’m not careful the love of money is insidious and will stage a coup d’etat in my heart to regain it’s #1 spot.

My current situation: Today I make more money than I’ve made for most of my life. So there is a constant temptation (Which I often I give in to) to put my list of priorities (if I’m honest) in the following order: 1. Work 2. Investments/Creating financial freedom 3. God 4. Family. I have a bad case on most days of prioritizing the gifts over The Giver.

Back to Mom: Somehow we started to discuss money and I bemoaned our family’s seeming inability to gather enough money to cover all our debts/needs/wants. She promptly reminded me of a couple things, and let me in on a secret that I’ve heard before but I guess one that I was finally ripe to internalize. “Your being financially blessed – Its not  about you.” Which, can be taken one of two ways. As an insult: “you mean, i’m not as a smart, disciplined, and good-looking as I like to think? My money isn’t a result of God loving me MORE than others?” or as lifting of a burden: “You mean, God might have had a bigger purpose than just satisfaction of my personal desires when he blessed me? Whew, I was worried, because honestly who would worship such an arbitrary God.”

Things to consider: What if it’s bigger than you? What if God gave  you money, talent, discipline, intelligence to be used for more than just your personal fulfillment? Conversely, what if those with less than you were not intrinsically worth less but rather serve as a mirror for you; how do you respond to those in need? What stories do you make up about the people who look a little less well-off? Are they all drug-addicts? irresponsible? lazy?

Money, cars, clothes, things. They are a means to an end. With the end being God’s relationship with You. Yes, they are nice, but if you are living with them as your yardstick or measurement of worth then you will always feel unfulfilled. Why? Because these things aren’t designed to fill you. They are designed to temporarily satisfy an appetite. But the thing about appetites is ..they can never be fully satisfied. Don’t believe me? Let’s take your appetite for recognition – not a bad thing, but if you were to think back and count up all the times you’ve been recognized/appreciated what would that number look like? All the times your parent’s nodded at you and said good job? All the trophies, medals, hand shakes, pat’s on the back, congratulation emails, likes on Facebook, mentions on twitter, #winning tags? Could you go the rest of your life without any other recognition? Maybe you say?…if your life was only slated to continue another 24 hours. Right! Appetites are temporarily sated. And oftentimes only partially sated.

So where does that leave us?

In a sentence:  Seek God – b/c the outer (physical things) are just tools to either move us closer to God or further away.

Fly or Fall.

OFO

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Reshuffling Goals

PrioritySo. Life has been happening and things have made themselves known. Most notably my weaknesses. Now I know that the usual advice is to strengthen your strengths and delegate or find someone/something to buffer your weaknesses. Usually I think I would follow this advice but I think there are some foundational aspects of my life that I need to get in order. This of course spawns some new goals..and also moves some previous goals to the bottom of the list.

1.  Integrate my life. There was a sermon by Andy Stanley – that talked about becoming wise. (http://justaskit.org/hold-my-hand/) And in it he talked about how when we’re (men) weak at something or fail at it, we have a hard time looking for help or even moving towards that area of inadequacy. There is a huge issue in my life that continually reminds me of my inadequacy in handling it. So this year I want to focus on that area..recognizing that my emotions will be mostly negative and painful, but also recognizing that the things I most like to spend time on now..are things that I’m good at and that I became good at those things via time spent on it.

2. Learn French and Igbo – enough to have a conversation by the end of the year. So this year I am really focused on learning and accepting myself. My nigerian heritage is becoming more and more important to me the older I get. However, speaking igbo (my tribes language) has been an area that is usually met with some feelings of defeat – b/c my pronunciation usually leads to laughter – which makes me feel ashamed/like a failure..which leads to decreased efforts. But I’m going to use this realization that in order to get good at these things I’m going to have to expect failure and maybe ridicule ..but I can’t let anyone steal these things that I want from me. Fuk em. Its my life and the time for letting other people dictate my growth is over.

The addition and prioritizing of these goals may mean some of my older goals get pushed back..namely the BCPS exam, which is fine with me lol.

So here’s to 2014. FOF.

OFO

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Week in Review: 1/19-1/26

Debt Reduction Goal: So I put an extra $900 towards my student loan – bringing the total spent on loans for the month so far to $1249.86. I also plan to transfer $1500 that I had sitting around in a forgotten about savings account so that I can put that towards my student loan. Hopefully that’ will happen in time for the next week in review.

Creating Music: There have been a series of unfortunate events that have conspired against me. 1. A snowstorm that has stuck me at work for approximately 3 days. 2. Someone close to me undergoing surgery and requiring (or me wanting to give) my presence at their bedside. Still managed to create a beat with some feedback that a friend gave me. My friend pointed out something that I had kind of noticed – that some of my recent music sounded similar – mostly b/c the groove bed that they laid on (drums) were kind of getting the short end of the stick. I usually dont get the oppurtunity to spend as much time as I would like and often kind of give each beat the best of my ability for 1-2 hours. Then I leave them. However, the best music requires edit after edit after rearrangement and tons of restructuring, retrofitting, etc. I think going forward I will focus not only on putting together a cohesive beat but after february – focus on spending 2 sessions per beat instead of the one. I think now I’m just focused on making music consistently and learning to express myself easily (while fighting the resistance).

Travel: Spoke with my cousin about a possible trip to Martinique – for some reason this feels like the right first trip to take. Its to a french-speaking carribean island. I know right! – Which inspires me to refocus on my french practice..which to be honest has been getting little to no attention in the last 2 weeks. My cousin has friends down there and I will be putting in my request for PTO right after I finish this post.

Being Brave: The hardest thing on the list- and while I did semi-pull the trigger on something that had scared be for a long time – I also realized that It wasn’t worth it to me to fight for it in the way I originally planned. This I’ll continue to think on and have a definitive objective for the month (and complete it!) before the end of the month.

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Forgiving oneself: A primer

This is a follow up to the love you deserve post. Only feelings that deserved to die were murdered during the making of this post.

So. For some of us during this thing called life, we will make decisions we regret. We will maybe hurt people we didn’t mean to. We may do things that a later version of ourselves (i.e. You 2.0) may look back upon in wonderment, awe, and dismay. These mistakes, whether big or small, may grow muscles and lungs, and take on a life of their own. They may use their strength and voice to later accuse us of being something less than who we really are. People from our past may agree with these loud, muscle bound mistakes. In fact, there may be a general consensus as to who you are to a great many people.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, these mistakes, and the people who saw them born cannot know who you are today. They may have missed your “damascus road” moment. They may not have been present when you moved away from your old self. They may not have seen you peel off your old self like  a snake skin. They may have missed the hours, days, and years that you slaved away at becoming someone unrecognizable to them. Your now different inside. They can’t see the brand new skin on your heart. Or the scars from the operation that replaced your thought patterns.

So you can’t really blame these people. You can’t be mad at them. For not having X-ray emotional vision.

But you can’t believe them. You have to decide they’re liars. Not on purpose. But because they don’t know any better.

You have to decide to forgive yourself. You have to decide to believe what someone else says about you. Someone whose opinion is never wrong.

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” – Psalm 139:14

Fly.

OFO

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An Un-kept Promise.

I’ve been trying to keep a promise to God that I made a while back.

My Promise <– I made this promise probably close to about a year ago..unfortunately I stumbled…consistently.. for about a year until I came to a place where I finally decided that I should, could, and would strive to keep my promise. So if I've been a little distant ..i'm working on changing myself to be more respectful, a better honorer of women, and most importantly a Whole Man. Not the world's definition of a man..so I expect most to not understand. Which is Ok. As long as I love what I see in the mirror.

OFO.

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Prius’s and Revelations.


One of my good friends left the state a couple days ago.. [a little background] She and I always have great conversations that help me to come to some type of self-realization. My relationship with her is actually one of the healthiest I think I’ve ever had with a person of the opposite sex, maybe because at its heart its centered around some pretty consistent and deeply entrenched ideals/beliefs for us both. God/Dreams/Self-actualization and self-knowledge specifically.
Anyway after helping her throwing a couple things in the Prius we finally got to walk around the block and talk. We’re right in the middle of a Georgia summer ..but on this particular evening the weather was perfect; it had rained just minutes before and we were in one of those older neighborhoods where the tree’s were all generous.. sharing their shade.
We started with catching up. She’d taken the summer “off” from the regular activities of what was expected from her [summerjob+resumebuilding+blah]. She decided to take this summer to meditate, rest, and really work through some issues. It actually seems dishonest to try to cram her decision to step out of the rat race into such a short sentence. It really took a great deal of faith, a lot of soul searching, and then a little more faith – (all of which I admire in her)

Anyway there were a couple things I learned from our conversations.
1. Trust God. Easier said than done usually. Really believing that we shouldn’t worry and that we should just believe that He’ll take care of us is hard for me. I’ve spent a lot of my life – worrying. Worrying about money, about my future, about being able to afford my dreams, etc. I work overtime and save extra in the fear that one day there will not be enough money. I go to school for years because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to fashion the life that I desired.. “Its hard to turn off something you’ve lived for 26 years” according to my friend.

2. Don’t do “prerequisite” thinking. This goes something like ..in order for me to be happy I’d like to be a chef..in order to be a chef I need to first buy a million books on becoming a chef, then maybe go to school for chef’ing, then finally I’ll be qualified to be chef…or in my case in order to travel to France..first I need to pay off alll my loans, and then save up enough to be comfortable, and ..so on and so forth. She really pointed out to me that I was falling into the same traps of thinking that had gotten me to where I was unhappy in the first place. I need to decide what will make me happy, then allow myself to go after it. Anything extra is unnecessary, unhelpful, and perhaps a roadblock from reaching your happiness.

3. I don’t need half as much as I assumed I did to be happy. During the course of her search for herself, she had stumbled upon this room for rent. It was a nice-sized room, with an attached bathroom, and a small kitchen. There was a comfy couch, a cushioned arm-chair and duvet. It was perfect. And while I was there I just leaned waaay back on the arm-chair with my legs up, listening to people I cared about have a good time, I was really content. I didn’t need a phone (in fact I left it in the car), didn’t need Facebook, just needed the bare necessities and people who I care about. In fact I think the simplicity of the surroundings enhanced, rather than took away from my contentment.

4. Don’t worry so much. I’ve always had this problem where I’ve believed if I thought the wrong way or didn’t pray fast enough after terrible thoughts, or didn’t ask for forgiveness..there would be hell to pay. I’d be banished from God’s presence, or cast out for blaspheming, etc. Well, I came to realize that all that is, is a form of “holy” worrying. I’m dressing up anxiety and giving it more power than it ever possessed. My thoughts don’t determine God’s course of action, or change whether or not I’ll be involved in a car crash. “If your going to worry, why pray? If your going to pray, why worry? [courtesy of Kia]”

So yea..now just comes pulling the trigger on this wisdom. *sigh*

Posted on by ordietryin 0