I promised to post some articles I wrote during the holidays, so here goes another one of them, I look forward to getting your responses and being of help any way I can.
Cheers...
Life as unpredictable as it is, is really worth living if it
were not to be so, the proportion of people that give up on life to those that
fight for dear life would have been much higher. Don’t get me wrong, I am aware
that in the past few years, suicide rate all over the world has increased
astronomically but this doesn’t negate the fact that Life is worth living and
worth living well.
I needed to write this because recent events, discussions
and Coaching sessions have opened my eyes to the fact that Negative Emotions
are major deterrents to living the good life God has promised us.
A major part of life experiences are those events that literarily rip our hearts
out (most people avoid discussing them) like the loss of a loved one, a cheating husband or wife, a broken
relationship, a wayward child, disappointments, an unexpected loss of a job,
the list goes on and on but you catch my drift. These events occur and most
people don’t know how to move past this point. There have been instances where
the person just shuts down and shuts everyone else out of their lives and in some extreme cases, wish
death upon themselves.
I very recently had one of those heart retching experiences
and believe you me, it wasn’t funny. You know it is way easier to give other
people advice and tell them to do this or say that or load them up with
scriptures that will “encourage” their faith, but when you are the one in that
situation, all those wise sayings seem to run away. You just find out that you
are blank and it seems to suck away the zeal to pursue a good life. Questions
like; Lord, why me? Why do I even bother? Am I the only one? Begin to arise and
more often than not, you don’t get immediate answers.
It’s the holidays so I have some time and I decided to
document some lessons I took out of this experience and share it with you,
seven of them stood out, there were so many more but I would share just seven.
I had asked myself some of those questions mentioned earlier
and so many others but each time I drew blanks so I decided to take a long walk
and clear my head. It was during this walk that lesson number one came:
1)
Never make long term decisions when you are Hurting:
If you are yet to make sense of the situation, please don’t make any long term
decisions, even if they are urgent decisions, you can delay making them by a
few seconds, minutes or hours, you need the perspective and clarity you might
gain within that time. Decisions made while angry or grieving are usually
emotional decisions and more often than not, they are the wrong decisions.
Clear your head, calm down, sort out whatever emotion you are feeling at that
point; the anger, grief, disappointment, etc take care of that first before
making that decision.
2)
Don’t compress your emotions, it might lead to depression:
It is important that you let out that emotion, don’t try to compress it, it is
very dangerous to do so. Now when I say let out the emotions, I didn’t imply
that you should go around punching people or breaking stuff or throwing
tantrums (which are some of the popular ways people let out emotions) NO, I
meant you should seek out a reasonable way of letting out the emotion. We are
all wired differently so find what works for you (within the confines of that
which is sane) and use such means to de-stressify yourself. I would either take
a very long walk or hit the gym and push weights till I’m burnt out or watch
football and scream at players that can't hear me lol but that’s me, find what works for you.
3)
Talk about it: African men or men generally they say are not expressive most
especially when it comes to verbal expression, but it would help you a great
deal if you talk about what you are going through and how it makes you feel.
Women are more likely to resonate with this because of the way they are wired,
but men also need to adopt this too. So you can choose to see a professional
Counselor, Life Coach, your Pastor, also you can talk to your personal confidant
provided him/her isn’t the reason you are hurting. Sometimes, talking about it
alone can do you a world of good. You can also talk about it with the person
involved assuming it was someone that hurt you, but be sure to have sorted your
emotions out before doing this, you need a clear head to have the right
perspectives.
4)
Forgive and Let go: This is the part that everyone
seems to have an issue with, question always is; how can I forget about this? I
hear people say I can forgive, but I don’t think I can forget, which is why I
used the word “Let go”. When you let something go, popular saying is that if it
is really yours it will come back, that’s not the point I want to make with
that, the way I see it, you letting go reduces the influence the thing has over
you hence you will notice that it hurts less as the hours or maybe days go by.
The way it works for me is that I forgive in advance then gradually work on the
letting go part and trust me, it helps. But you also need to be careful if it’s
a loved one that hurt you because you can let go and literarily let go lol and
I am not sure that’s what we are aiming to do. So if it is a loved one that hurt you, you let go of
the event that occurred and not the person. There are also instances where you need
to let the person go so as to aid your healing process, I would advocate that
you seek professional counsel on this.
5)
Have Faith and Trust again: In hurting situations,
Trust is always one of the first things to go and this is very (I think I
should add another very to that) difficult to regain. You feel like you were
let down and this affects your Trust in God and Trust in people depending on
who you decide to blame, but if you have taken step 4 above, it is very
important that you step out on a limb and trust again. This will really help
your healing process, it makes you feel vulnerable but if you can look beyond
that immediate feeling of vulnerability into the future, you will find that the
healing process won’t be so hard anymore.
6)
See the Bigger Picture: If it didn’t consume you
or kill you, then I believe God still has something planned for you. Two
scriptures come to mind; “For I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts of
good and not of evil to give you an expected end” and “Behold ALL Things work
together for your good to those that love Him that are the called according to
His purpose”. A certain someone believes I have abused that second scripture,
but it helps me find perspective to everything hence I don’t get too
disappointed when some things happen, I just categorize them as “All things”
lol. You need to see the bigger picture, though this weeping is enduring for
this night, your joy will definitely come in the morning.
7)
Pray in the Holy Ghost: It might be difficult to
frame the right words or pray according to His will when you are hurting, so I will advocate that
you pray in The Holy Ghost. I sat there looking at the TV screen, blank, not
really seeing anything but my lips were moving, praying in tongues (thank God
for Spirit filled understanding friends who just let me be and didn't drag me into the football arguments, everyone needs them #justsaying). After
a very long while of praying in that position, I had this peace within me, I didn't know what next to do but I
just knew that everything was going to be okay. The Holy Spirit is called The Comforter for
a reason, He understands what you are going through and knows exactly what to
say and do to sooth you.
Time has passed, I am still hurting (not as much anymore), I
am healing pretty fast and I am almost at that point where it really doesn’t
matter anymore, I am Living the Good Life and most importantly, I am Happy.
So what is that thing hurting you, do you want to talk about
it? If you do, You can send me a mail onyekwere.obinnaya@yahoo.com
or follow me on Twitter @IamOluwaObinna or via BBM – 7C889941
IamOluwaObinna and I am committed to your Peak Performance.
