Month: April 2023

Even now at my big age, I am still learning and unlearning a lot of habits. It is a never ending process. Absolutely a million reasons why the idea of life is just beautiful. The daily unlocking of habits and things. Magnificent. So here goes my hacks,

Letting the rational side of my brain be in control. The complexity of the brain is unmatched. I know this might sound somewhat crazy but I am yet to wrap my mind around all that complexity. How it is in control of our thoughts, memory, emotions, touch I mean the list is endless. Okay now my hack comes in here where I am slowly teaching myself how to let my rationale side of the brain be in control. I would describe myself as a highly sensitive human. Those who are with me on this can pretty much relate with how being extremely sensitive can be damaging at times. I know this is going to sound cliche because it has been said one too many times but I can’t emphasize it enough “honey not everything deserves your emotional reaction.” Imagine how much drama you can avoid by slowly learning how to be rational. Patiently teaching yourself how to take everything in before responding and reacting. Simply letting your logical side win.

The art of silence. I am teaching ” myself” how to sit calmly with “myself”. Sit through my thoughts and just let them pass as I calmly sieve them. By doing so I am able to separate my thoughts. I know what to really pay attention to and I know what to let go. Trust me this is another high form of self care. The art of silence is equally coming in handy with my communication and how I respond to situations. It has helped me big-time with being intentional with how I listen and hear people. I no longer listen to just respond. I am more present and calm all standing ovations go to mastering the art of silence.

The art of patience. I cannot stress this enough but patience is compounding. Patience is rewarding. I feel like that pretty much sums it all up LOL! A lot of beautiful things bloom in the realm of patience. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t mean that now you’re supposed to sit around and wait on time. No. Do the work, do your best. Do not rush the process. Let things unfold. The beauty that comes out of it is mind-blowing and it never stops that’s why I emphasized on patience being compounding.

Respecting nature. Damn! Heaven knows I adore nature. My therapy comes from the woods. The words simply bring out the child in me. It has taken me being in an environment with harsh climatic conditions for me to learn that nature deserves respect. I promise you I am never going to take anything to do with nature for granted. I just read somewhere that “water has a memory and trees hold the wisdom to the universe.” That is the most transforming phrase I’ve come across today. The sunsets, sunrise, the beaches, the woods…. they are here to glam and bless us. If you can be delusional enough to start having conversations with the ocean or trees or the sunset you’ll come back and tell me how much therapy can be drawn from such madness. All I’m trying to say is that nature cleanses us. For that reason I am currently in a space where I am adorning nature with all the respect it deserves. Can I start explaining about the amount of calmness that comes with that? No let me not because it’s endless.

I am very deliberate about creating a healthy mental space. A healthy mental space is a gate pass to all the good things. I’m not even being dramatic here. I just want to effortlessly embody all the aspects that will elevate me as a woman of valor haha! Okay seriously yes. That explains my reasons for diving into those amazing discoveries of learning and unlearning a bunch of habits.

First and foremost she forgives herself that it is only now at her big age that she is finding out about the sexual assault awareness month. She has honestly not been on the radar about the existence of it. Forgive her ignorance. Now that she did, she is glad that someone took their precious time to acknowledge that.  Before she continues, she is sending hugs to the boys and girls out there who have had to go through sexual abuse. She understands the pain and trauma.

Sexual assault is next level inhumane. Abusers are monsters. At this point monster is a better word to describe them. There should be a worse term out there for them. Because she does not see any better explanation that would make any sense as to why someone and in this case a full grown human would go ahead and say for instance assault a six year old. It is simply insane. The animosity is unmatched.

She herself is a survivor. She has some vivid memory of the events that took place when she was around six years. The events of that particular day are somewhat blurry in her memory. Though the one’s she can somewhat recall clearly are buried deep in her memory. She recalls the silly monster locking her in a room and holding a knife to her throat warning her not to dare make any sounds. She recalls all that with so much pain. Things like those never escape your mind. So try imagining carrying such a heavy load from such a tender age.

I think most people in her life imagine that her memory does not go back that long. No one has ever bothered talking to her about it. Whether it is out of concern or sheer ignorance she will never know. She has lived through it. She has lived through harsh comments like the boys in her village telling her stuff like “We want to do to you what Kennedy did to you” She could barely defend herself from such bullies. No one gave her a safe space to.

Sex assault is damaging.  Most survivors carry shame for a better part of their lives. Sadly, such issues are mostly not addressed appropriately.  She loves being African. She is proudly African, everyone who truly knows her, knows that important fact about her. One thing she is not proud about being African is about how lightly issues touching on sex and sex assault are handled. “Why is it still considered shameful and improper to talk about that?”  She wonders “if it is super shameful and improper why would an abuser even take that step of assaulting someone in the first place.”

When she was around ten, she met another monster. She dealt with the monster on her own for so long. One thing about abusers most of them do not come from far. They are always within our proximity. Some of them are respectable people within the society. People you cannot imagine carry around rotten morals. She has carried her trauma and she has carried it so well. It breaks her hear to imagine there are girls and boys out here who live through that.

At this point she hopes that things will get better. That issues like these ones are going to be granted the serious attention they deserve. We all deserve a safe space. It sucks that the madness never stops. In our workplaces, in matatus, in social joints. I mean what is honestly wrong with humans. We need to get our moral codes together. We simply need to carry around some respect and drop the audacity. Hoping that animosity of sexual assault will die someday. No one deserves to carry all that damage and trauma from selfish monsters.

And shame on the selfish human beings who slut shame sexual assault victims.