"The 7 Rules of Life" mini-series: Find your own wings and fly- You owe it to yourself

I was scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed a while ago and I stumbled upon the status update of a girl that I somewhat know where she complained about the fact that beside a few people that she knows, everybody else from our home country Cote d'Ivoire is only vlogging about men-women relationship. And the funniest thing is that, just like her, I’m wondering what is it about that obsession with relationship everybody seems to be developing right now?? And believe me when I say I’m not trying to be a jerk right here but I’m just like… am I missing something? Before you start throwing sticks and stones at me let me make a disclaimer: I am talking from my personal opinion and personal experience and you are free to agree or disagree with what I am about to say. So hold off your guns and read first. Then maybe after that we can start throwing sinks at each other.

The reason why so many people are bitter, sad, angry and get stuck on past relationships is in my opinion because they haven’t come yet to the realization that a relationship is a part of a life and not an entire life. People have gotten into the habit of being depend on relationships for their own happiness. They have grown into the habit of measuring their self-worth and self-esteem to the ability they have to be in a relationship with somebody. They live in a bubble where their significant other along with their relationship is their all. And then when everything fall apart they have nothing to fall back on because the relationship was a win or lose bet in which they dived head first. We have all been there at some point and for most of us our heart, self worth, self esteem has taken a HUGE toll because we were left with nothing that made us fell worthy when it all ended.

Speaking from my personal experience, I have come to understand from the long period of time I spent being single that there is a life to be lived and that life is an ensemble of multiple things, each taking a big or small place of our lives. I have grown to understand that there is a difference between having an aversion for commitment and a fear of confinement. The reason why I find it so difficult and complicated now to be in a relationship is that I have found myself confronted to confinement. I have dreams, ambitions, hopes and I cannot settle in with somebody who cannot understand that and support me. Why? Because I am not ready to give up on all that and lock myself up into something that might fall apart one day. It’s not being selfish… It’s understanding that I still have a long road ahead and the journey is far from being over, and as much as I would love to have company during my journey, I’m not ready to bailout on what I hold close to  my heart.  I do believe that everything in life is a matter of balance (which I am obviously not very good at the moment but I’m working on it) : people need to understand that they are sharing their life with someone, not making someone their life. It is important because in the event a relationship falls apart, you know that you still have something to fall back on and your life still has a meaning.

I have grown and learned a lot from being single. I have learned to be happy and content with myself. I have come to the understanding that my happiness, self-worth, well-being and self-esteem are not determined by my ability to be in a relationship. They have nothing to do with whether or not I am in a relationship. They are independent from each other. I get to determine my self-worth and self-esteem value, I am in charge of creating my own happiness. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying I’m against relationship and that being single is the way to live life. I am just saying that there are a few things being single can teach you about life and about the way you might want to handle your next relationship. It is time to find your own wings and fly. Stop depending on people to validate you; stop relying on people’s compliments to feed your self-esteem because when those compliments stop, your self-esteem will eventually die from starvation. Break your dependence on relationships for happiness and learn to be happy on your own because if you don't know how to be happy by yourself, you won't know how to be happy when you are taken. Yes it is hard at the beginning but you will find a way whether it's through traveling, working, praying, making a change in your life, pursuing your dreams, ambitions or working on yourself; just do what makes you happy without necessarily involving other people's validation. Find self-fulfillment, validation and accomplishment within yourself. Find your own wings and fly because after so many years of being down and not being appreciated you owe it to yourself.

"The 7 Rules of Life" mini-series: Learn to celebrate the little victories

About a month or so ago, I was walking home from my BJJ class, thinking about my day and how far I had come ever since I started the little journey I have been on to find myself (this also will be the story of another post later sometime)

You know how people walk into gyms and have a list of goals and you're just ready to crush every single one of those things you have your mind set on? well I didn’t have that the first time I walked into Mass BJJ and met Mike and Nate. To be honest I didn’t have much left at this time: I was going through a rough patch in life, I was lost and it was just a never ending fall to the abyss that felt like an eternity. Everything was falling apart and I needed something to hold on to. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was on my way back from meeting with a friend for a late afternoon coffee and I passed by the gym that had just relocated to a new place literally 5 minutes away from my house. I stood outside,  in front of the door and took a peek inside: the light was dim, it was as if the gym was about to close but there were still some people inside. So I walked in and greeted the people I found inside. After a few words with Mike, co-owner of Mass BJJ, I signed up for a trial because I thought “Why not? That might be fun and at this point I literally have nothing to lose". It was all I needed for my life to take a new turn, this time for the best. After a few months of training, sweating, drilling, frustrations from being choked and submitted but also of learning and taming the storm that was raging inside of me, I finally got promoted. I was getting my first stripe and boy did it feel good!

On my way home that day, I tried to think about what I would say if somebody asked me what that stripe meant to me. Of course I would say it’s an acknowledgement of the hard work and the hours I put in on the mat. But in all honesty, it was much more than that. That stripe to me was and still is a symbol of Hope as well as a little victory in my fight to stay alive.

Why? You might ask... Well simply because honestly I don’t think I would have made it otherwise. When I started BJJ I was looking for something to hold onto to when everything was falling apart. I was desperately in need of something I could invest myself in, pour my heart into; something that would help me get my head out of the water. I was in need of something and/or someone to rescue me because I was dying inside and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu saved my life. Mass BJJ gave me my life back.

That stripe is also a symbol of strength and endurance. I am not the broken girl who walked in Mass BJJ for her first class and was on the edge of fainting 2 min into the drill. Walking home after that first class, lightheaded, my legs barely holding me, I understood the meaning of the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Training BJJ made me stronger and it is not just my body. Physical strength is nothing when it comes to being on the mat. Because you can be 300lbs and be taken down by somebody weighting half your weight. The strength I am talking about is the mental one. The first thing that I wrote on the goal board when I started training was “challenge my limits” and I am happy to say I did. My mind is much stronger and as a results I have grown comfortable getting out of my safe and comfort zone. I have grown in strength and I am still getting comfortable being uncomfortable and accepting challenges I wouldn’t have accepted years ago. One of them was the challenge of evolving and going from thinking “I can’t” or “I will never be able to do that” to “If I put in hard work, I will” or “One day I will be able to do that. I just have work on this”.

Reflecting on how I things have turned out for me lately and how far from my expectations I am standing at the moment, I thought it was a much needed thing to take a break and celebrate that little victory. Little but not so much because of the significance it carries. As we just celebrated thanksgiving, I thought it was the right time for me to stop and be grateful for that victory right here. It is so easy to get discouraged and disappointed because we don’t see the big things happen but what we forget is that the accumulation of the small victories create a ripple effect leading to the big victory. Raising today my bottle of water (while having some chocolates... of course...) to celebrate a small victory that is nothing but the sign that greater things are laying ahead of me; but at the same time a victory not so little because of how meaningful it is. Indeed a huge victory on the old me, a huge milestone in the transformation process that is happening in my life at the moment, a huge step forward in my journey to find myself in the midst of the chaos surrounding me. To our “littles” victories and to the biggest moment of joy they have brought to us, celebrating and being grateful/hopeful as sometimes it is important to be gentle with yourself and appreciate the results of your hard work because you are doing the best you can with just what you have and sometimes it's not much. So...

Cheers

"The 7 Rules of Life" mini-series: How to overcome challenges in life and find motivation to move forward

It is so funny how most of my articles come up at a time where I am hitting rock bottom and right after I am done writing them, I feel a boost of energy and go tackle whatever I had neither the strength nor the energy to do. It’s probably the reason why most artists and bloggers can easily reach a bigger audience:  they share their personal experience and give their audience something to relate to. Today is the perfect day for another inspirational (hopefully) article as I’m back into “The 7 Rules of Life” mini-series, after a short break which, indeed, did well to my thinking process and my creativity. In this article, I will be sharing with you some of the tips I personally find helpful when it comes to overcoming challenges in Life and finding motivation to move forward in life. They are not ranked in a particular order but rather listed in the order in which they come  up to my mind. So with no further delay, let’s get right into the heart of the subject.

#1-      Find and Understand your purpose

Moving forward in life with no purpose is the perfect way set yourself up for giving up as soon as a challenge arises. When you know your purpose in life you are unstoppable. Challenges may come your way and slow you down but never stop you. It is important for you to find your purpose in life, to find who and where you are meant to be. Why is it important? Because it times were you will be tempted to give up, you will remember it and find the strength to overcome challenges and move forward.

 

#2-      Don’ let your situation define you

Whenever I am having not such a great day and/or a great week or when things get really hard in life, I try to stay motivated by reminding myself that it is only temporary. A bad day, week, month or year (yes sometimes it can be a long time) doesn’t mean that you have a bad life. A bad chapter in a book doesn’t make the book a bad one. It is just a sucky chapter in the midst of a great book. As a matter of fact it might be the suckiest chapter ever seen in the history of the sucky chapters in a great book. Nonetheless, it remains nothing else but a bad, sucky chapter in what might be the greatest book that ever existed: your life. So keep that in mind and keep moving forward because things will get better.

#3-      Every challenge is meant to bring out the best in you

Let’s be honest challenges, especially the hardest ones suck… but think about it that way: consider the number of students entering med school and the number of them who actually make it to the end. It is ridiculous the amount of people that give up after a few years in the system. Those who stay in are the ones who have understood the first two concepts listed above as well as the fact that the challenges they face on their journey to become a doctor is meant to bring out the best in them. Those challenges are meant to turn them into the best, top quality doctors their program has ever formed. It is the same things in life: challenges are meant to bring you best out of you. A wise man a.k.a Mike Pellegrino (who happens to be my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor by the way) once told me: “Don’t give up when life throws challenges at you. Don’t say it’s too hard or you can’t make it. When life throws challenges at you, you adapt, you change, you evolve”. And that’s what we have to do, keeping in mind that it’s for the sole purpose of turning us into a better version of ourselves, ready to handle the greatness laying ahead of us. Challenges are about pushing you do be so good that people can’t ignore you. That’s what challenges are all about.

#4-      Believe in yourself and in your dreams

To be able to overcome challenging situations in life, you must have faith in yourself. Familiar with the saying “fake it until you make it”? yeah well there is a better one which goes by “fake it until you become it”. Believe in yourself and in your dreams, believe that you are capable of becoming whoever you want to be and of making your dreams come through. I like that quote saying “the only limits we have are the one we impose to ourselves in our mind”. The minute you believe you are capable of doing anything and being whoever you decided you wanted to be, amazing start happening. Believe in yourself, invest in yourself when no one else will and amazing things will happen.

#5-      Believe that eventually something will work out

I think out of everything I have talked about, this one is the most difficult I have ever had to practice on a daily basis. It’s hard because sometimes you can’t seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is hard because the more you try to hold onto things, the more they start falling apart. It is hard because sometimes you are just too exhausted to inject some optimism and positivity in the midst of chaos. But believe me, in the few times that I have tried doing it, it made a HUGE difference in the way I handle challenges and in the way I perceived them. Staying positive and believing that things will work out can turn situations around for the best and I know because I have experienced it. So no matter how hard it can be, keep repeating yourself that someway, somehow, something will eventually work out for you. And it will J

Briefly, these are the tips I wanted to share with you about overcoming challenges in life and finding motivation to keep moving. I hope you will try some of them and if you know some more that can be added to the list feel free to share them J

The Queen is back and greeting her fans "Hello"

Taking a break from "The 7 rules Of Life" mini-series to talk about the News while I put my thoughts in order and pull myself together to deliver articles with content which you can (hopefully) relate to. This being said, on the agenda today is what has been on the headlines of every journal, magazine and website which is (of course) the Release of Hello, a title from the new record of Adele entitled 25. Although the majority of Adele's fans  loved it, some others didn’t. And it’s totally okay because we all have different taste and it is that difference and diversity that makes the world the complex yet beautiful place we live in. I personally loved that song and all of Adele’s songs, not only because I am a fan of her,  a fan of great music with substance, a fan of most of the artists the UK have given us, but mostly because most, if not all, of Adele’s songs hit home for me. Her lyrics make me travel in time and her music just says what I would say if I could find the right words. 

"Every song is a path that leads to an ocean of words that got lost somewhere in between our mind and our heart ; an ocean of words about the things that were left unsaid"~ F.A

I think it’s more than the words and the melodies: it’s about the emotions behind every song and how you can relate to them because each one of them takes you to a place in life; whether it’s a happy or a sad one where every word she says resonates and makes your entire being vibrate. I love how upon releasing this song she made a statement about life, what we want to be, stages we want to be at and once we reach them we then wished we hadn’t. What particularly moved me is how she talked about getting to know herself and finally being at peace with who she had become but more importantly, how she qualifies 25 as being a "Make-up record" unlike 21 which she says was a "breakup record"

 

"My last record was a breakup record and if I had to label this one I would call it a make-up record. I'm making up with myself. Making up for lost time. Making up with everything I ever did and never did." ~ Adele

Entering the early 20’s is an important turn in someone’s life. It’s the time where you start forming your personality as an adult, you start changing and evolving and understanding things in life you didn’t before. It’s a period for me that was about building myself, finding myself, nurturing myself and healing my wounds just like Adele said, because supposedly time helps you heal. And it does. And as years go by, you become wiser and start viewing life under a new angle and a new light. You start thinking more about your future in a more realistic way but you also think about the past a lot. You think about the choices you made which were not necessarily the best ones, you think about all the times you have messed up and if you hadn’t before, you draw lessons from them. You get to understand and experience at a deeper level the value of things like friendship, relationships, love, and every little moment of happiness you spend by the side of the people you love and who mean the world to you.  You are no longer blindsided by your anger, pain and frustration about getting your feelings hurt and your heart broken because you don't have the time nor the energy for it: you are focusing on better things. You have come full circle and have decided to redirect your energy to things that matter, things that will make you a better person. You reach that stage where you finally have a sense of who you are and where you stand and you are at peace with it.

In her first interview in three years with i- D that you can read in full here, Adele was asked what was Hello about. To that question her answer was : “The song is about hurting someone's feelings but it's also about trying to stay in touch with myself, which sometimes can be a little bit hard to do” and when asked if that song was a form of apology to the former love the refers to her most famous song Someone like you, the singer responded: "Oh, god no,"[…] "That's over and done with, thank fuck. That's been over and done with for fucking years. No, it's not about anyone specifically. It's about friends, ex-boyfriends, it's about myself, it's about my family. It's also about my fans as well”

Whether we talk about the topics addressed in Hello or about the musicality and the vocals, it is undeniable that maturity is imprinted in that album. It is what makes the DNA and the structure of that album: This album is about maturity, all it has to offer  and the opportunity to start a new season in life. People find that song simple and to that the only question I can’t help but ask myself is:  isn’t it what maturity is about? simplicity? Isn’t it about letting go of all the artifacts and superficial embellishments to get back to the basics and most simple things in life that we most of the time ignore? I think maturity is all about those things: getting back to the basic to figure out who you are in order to grow and be a better version of yourself.

"The 7 Rules of Life" mini-series: "Take life as it is"

Sometimes it is just hard to keep going. You feel like nothing is moving; like nothing you do is moving your life in the direction you want it to go. As a matter of fact sometimes you feel like the more you try the worst it gets and you are just like: “what am I doing wrong?!”. Sometimes you are doing nothing wrong. Sometimes you are doing everything you have to do in order to see results. But life is full of mysteries and has a way to work things around that is different from what we have in mind. The order in which we want things to happen, the time at which we want things to happen, the kind of things we want to happen… life the way we picture it in our mind… Everything is just different… If I had to talk about my life, I'd quote Rachel Wolchin and say:" My life can be described in one sentence: it didn’t go as planned and that's okay". Does it suck? Yes sometimes. But in those times I want to remember how what came unexpected was even better than what I asked and was hoping for.

Don’t give up too soon on your dreams, don’t give up too soon on your goals. Just because it didn’t work today, doesn’t mean it is not going to work tomorrow. Just because today was a rainy day doesn’t mean that the sun won’t be out tomorrow. We have a tendency to extrapolate today’s situations and apply them to the future without even being there yet. What we truly have to do instead is to take each day as it comes and believe that the next one will be different. You can't anticipate life : you have to let it be and work you way through it everyday to the best of your abilities

Good doors have to close so that better doors can open. Some things in life have to fall apart so that better things can fall into place. Don’t limit yourself to what you see or seem to see. Walk by faith and believe that good things are on the way. They might not be what you expect; they might not come at the moment you expect them to come but once they happen, they will shatter all those memories of pain, tears, hopelessness you have replayed so many times in your head. Let your faith be bigger than your fears, bigger than any circumstances you are going through right now. Let your faith the bigger than any battle you are fighting right you and let it take you were you are meant to be.
Life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to but it’s okay because sometimes it’s even better than what we hoped for. So just take life as it is and let your faith be the light that enlighten your way when dark times arise; let it be the strength that moves you when you have none left.