Breaking Unhealthy Emotional Patterns (part 1)

Iyanla vanzant once said : “Feelings buried alive don’t die. They fester and they show up as inappropriate behaviors” and it is not until this year that have I truly understood the meaning of this statement. Although it is true and applies to almost everybody, it has granted black women the label of “Angry black women”

To speak from my own experience, I was not always genuinely angry. I was more withdrawn but always felt like I had to defend myself aggressively, especially when I had to answer questions that had to do with my feelings and my personal life. It is not until recently that I started to pin point triggers that made me feel the way I was feeling. Sometimes people do you wrong, but most of the time the response the incident elicits finds its roots deeper. It finds its roots in unresolved issues, past wounds and feelings that were shoved under the rug in hope that they will go away. But because the brain is wired in such a way that even if your active memory does not remember certain events your unconscious does; and whenever a situation arise that is similar to something you have been through in the past, you will still experience the same feelings and the same emotions.

We are all the results of the choices we make and the way we chose to deal with certain unfortunate situations can make or break us. The approach that I picked, gave me the strength to power through some of the toughest situations I faced in life. Unfortunately, years after choosing to shut down my emotions as a defense mechanism, I still can’t turn off the survival mode that helped me stay alive and strong when time was tough. And the struggle is in no way less real now than when I was going through those tough moments. The struggle is real because the feelings are still alive and the PTSD associated with some of these past events eat me alive everyday. They hide behind every smile, behind every “ I am doing good” and behind every pain I feel in my body. I was so good at compartmentalizing and blocking my emotions that my mind got tired of fighting to let these toxic emotions out and it eventually gave up. But they came under other forms: They showed up as passive aggressive behavior, unusual quietness, irritability and withdrawal from any form of social interaction and sometimes depression. They also hijacked my body and my goodness! Never in a million years did I imagine how internalizing things and carrying such a huge emotional baggage could destroy me physically. It was the headaches, the panic attacks, the migraines, the heart arrhythmias, the high blood pressure, the constant muscle tightness, the chest pains, the insomnia, the weakened immune system, the constant round of antibiotics and the never ending anemia. Everyday there was something new, and my body as well as my health were falling apart in new, amazing way I couldn't even describe to the doctors who were as clueless as I was. But all those discomforts and symptoms I was experiencing was just my body screaming for help, begging me to let it out and let it go.

Women as well as men are taught to be strong and independent and because of this, we are afraid to open up about our struggles. We don’t want to be labeled as weak or be seen as vulnerable. Worst of all, we are afraid of being betrayed so we keep everything to ourselves, shove it under the rug or block those "negative" emotions in hope that whatever it is that is bothering us will go away. We hide behind our titles, material possessions to make up for what is broken inside. We spend time, efforts and money to fix the outside when it is our soul and/or heart that is/are broken. We seek all those distractions outside hoping those unwanted and bothersome feelings/emotions will magically disappear but the truth they won’t. In order for those things to go away there is a need to take a course of action and until this is done, the same patterns will be recreated over and over again. In the next article I will share the roadmap I use to deal with my emotions as an attempt to fully recover after years of killing myself softly and I am hoping it might help someone out there.  

Until then take care of yourself, focus on yourself, on your heart, on your soul. Stop reaching outside to fix what it broken inside because it is only by looking inward that you will be able to do it.

Much Love

*PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Confessions Of A Wounded Healer

It is always more difficult to deal with your own issues, to fight your own demons, to be strong when your world is collapsing. But ask me if I could do it for my family, for my friends and for the people I care about like there is no tomorrow. Ask me and I will tell you that there is nothing I won’t do for those people.  There is no battle I wouldn’t fight for them because love is the where I get my strength from, it is what sets my whole being on fire and make me keep on going well past my limits.

Ask me how painful it is to me to see the people I love hurt, I will tell you it feels like your heart dropping in your stomach and breaking into pieces as if it was a fine porcelain vase that was dropped on the concrete. Ask me about what I would be willing to do to make their pain go away and I would tell you anything.

But then if you asked me about my pain, I would lose my words. I would smile and remain silent because sometimes it comes in waves and when it does, there are nights where I am drowning. So I won’t say a word. I will not hush a word because I would hate to do so and realize that I can’t say a single word without disappearing into a puddle of tears. I won’t say a word because I hate how my heart starts beating faster, how the pain just jumps on me out of nowhere and punches me in the gut without me being able to do anything. I won’t say a word because I hate how my voice starts to crack the minute I start talking and I have to stop midsentence to close my eyes, breathe and ask my body to chill the fuck out because the pain is not here anymore…. Or is it?

And perhaps that is the reason why I am always trying to fix people, comfort them and help them heal… maybe it is because helping them through their pain feels like healing mine. Perhaps being there for them and helping them go through is my therapy, my way of coming to term with my own pain. Or maybe it is just a counter mechanism that kicks in because I know how it feels when people give up on you or When you walk around smiling while carrying the weight of the world on your shoulder, keeping your reputation of a strong and badass chick/guy intact during the day but then rushing to get home because you might give in and collapse under the weight of all that pain and bitterness you carry everyday at any moment.

Perhaps I am working on helping other people heal to distract myself and earn forgiveness for all those times I wasn’t strong enough to stand for myself, for all those time I let myself down. We are the way we are for a reason and sometimes it takes more than a few words to explain it to people. Sometimes it takes them to walk into your shoes, walk your paths and fight the battles you had to fight. The only difference is that I  had to fight mine on your own, in the walled in silent and hiding behind well preserved appearances on day where the pain was bearable.

When you have been through hell and come back, you are never the same person again. Perhaps that is the reason why I am such a chronic wounded healer, walking around mending other people’s wounds and not really caring about mine, even though I am secretly hoping that one day I will be strong enough to heal them. Then maybe a day will come where I won’t be silent when you will ask me about my pain and my wounds. Perhaps that day, I will smile and show you my scars and then I will hug you and tell you that things get better. Perhaps it will be the end of my journey as a wounded healer and the beginning of another as simply a healer...

5 Things You Learn From Being Raised By A Strong Mother

Why… hello there! I know… I know… I have been missing in action lately and nothing comes close to the guilt of leaving you guys on the tip of your toes, waiting for a new article and then post nothing. I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings and I will [try] work hard to build back the trust. The thing is… I hate not having something of substance to share. I feel the same way Adele did when she was recording 21 and she thought she didn’t have THAT song... You know… The one she could connect to people through, the one that make you feel like you got punched in the gut and have a full blown meltdown in the middle of your Wholefood, in the icecram/dairy aisle. I am all about emotions and as a blogger, I am very much like Adele in a sense that I need to write something my audience can identify with. And unless I can do that, I do not have the courage to show up on my platform. I am not the platonic kind. Sorry… phew… okay I feel better. We’re cool now… so.. now that I got that out of the way, let’s dive into the topic of the day: Parenthood from a child perspective. Hopefully there will be more upcoming articles (Hopefully) about that topic which I find quite interesting.

Yeah I know... I was a bit on the heavy side circa 1990s'

As children, we most of the time find our parents annoying when we are not actually trying to get over the embarrassment we think they are for us. We are so used to this train of thoughts that we undervalue the things they have brought into our lives and the values they have passed onto us; values that are being acclaimed because of how awesome and respectable adults they have made us. So today I want to talk about what it was like for me to be raised by a strong mother and what a huge difference it has made into my life. Just FYI, my parents are [very happily] still married [celebrated their 30 yrs anniversary this year] but for the purpose of this article, I am focusing primarily on what I have learned being raised by a strong mother. So without further due, here are the five most important lessons you learn [from my perspective] from being raised by a strong mother.

1-      You don’t take shit from anybody

As a strong woman, my mom has never been the kind of woman to let people walk all over her. She wouldn’t take shit from anybody and if you did something wrong, she would call you on your shit at the very moment. Being a young woman with brain and moxie is difficult but being in a male dominated field is even more difficult. And sometimes people are not very nice, whether it is in the workplace or in real life. Being able to call people on their bs and not take trash being thrown at me has definitely given me the ability to build my confidence and distinguish myself from the crowd. And I am forever grateful for that. Thank you mama ❤

2-      You learn what unconditional love is

Nothing was never too much for my mother: she always gave her best and did her best, giving to each one of her child pieces of herself for us to be whole. And She has instilled that sense of sacrifice in me. It is true that I sometimes come as closed off, unexpressive emotionally but just because I don’t express my love doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. I feel it deeply and for the people I love and care about, I would do anything; Anything to make them happy, to ensure that they know they are being loved by pouring my love and t happiness into their lives. I give without expecting anything because by watching my mother do it for me, I have understood that it’s what you do when you love people: you give without expecting anything in return.

3-      You have the capacity / potential to do anything you put your mind to

My mother is my superhero. She could handle any situation and up to this day it still blows my mind. If my mother is onto something I can’t handle on my own, I am 99.9% convinced it’s going to be solved. And I have grown up to be that woman too. Being raised by a strong mother, I have learned to not wait around for somebody to do something for me or save me: I get sh*t done myself and make myself the heroine of my story. I have also learned that the only limit to being the best version of myself and achieve great things in life is my own mind/ beliefs. Why? Because I have seen my mother do it all and big and it made me understand that I have all I need within me to do the same thing.  All I have to do is believe in myself,  tap into those unexploited resources within me to make great things happen.

4-      You can be strong and soft

There is no contradiction here. My mother is a strong woman but she has a soft side. We are so used to that mindset of picking  one or the other that at some point I was confused too. Growing up strong I had that misconception that being soft was a weakness even though, socially, it is more acceptable for a woman to be soft than for a man. But looking up to my mother, I finally got comfortable with the idea that I didn’t have to act like (or be) Superwoman all the time and be strong 24/7. I got comfortable with the idea that I was entitled to feel any type of way I wanted and that it was okay to be in touch with my feminine side, it was okay to be soft (sometimes).

5-      You learn to have faith

In God first and in yourself, trusting that no matter how bad things seem to be, it will all work out in the end and everything will be fine.

Loving Without Expectations Or The Art Of Being Happy In Relationships

Welcome back to your favorite happy place for another article. Today we are going to talk about Love. I know what you are thinking ...

Yeaaaah... I knoooowww... I'll make it quick and as painless as I can. So grab yourself a chair or lay down on the Sofa like we do when we pay hundreds of $ to talk to a psychologist who only cuts us off occasionally to say: "you have some really deep issues"... okay... Thanks I guess... 

Make yourself comfy and let's dive in right away. Let’s talk about love and its implications [told and untold] that one minute drive us crazy about the people we are in a relationship with only to leave us filled with anxiety and on the verge of a panic attack the next one.

Love is a beautiful thing. It is an amazing feeling [when you can actually feel it…] to have. For all the times I didn’t really have a chance to fully embrace it or dive into it without feeling hurt, I still chose to cherish the greatness and happiness I got from briefly waving it “hi” instead of reminiscing/ reliving the hurt I got from it. I chose not to turn into that cynical friend you dread to be around… You know... The one who can’t help but throw some shades at your love story and your new beau, narrating you his/her version of “1000 ways to get your heart broken” or “10 steps to getting your heart in pieces”. No… I turned into the sarcastic one with the naïve smile and the occasional smirk on her face, the one that will pretend she isn’t hurt when in fact she very much is but would rather wait to get home and cry herself to sleep because she doesn't deal well with letting the world see her misery. Yes.. THAT friend... I do believe in love, I do believe it is beautiful but I don’t believe that love is all pink and beautiful and that it is all we see in the movies.

Love is not always that romantic comedy that makes us break in tears happy and wish for a happily ever after. This is not the reality of love. The reality of love is what happens when all the hormones settle down and your haziness from being high on dopamine starts to dissipate. It is what happens when you go back to normal [whatever that means 😒] and that you go from being high for days to having your wings cut. It is that sudden anxiety that you feel when you realize you are free falling and about to crash but you hope you won’t because "in theory" your significant other should be there to catch you. And sometimes they are and it is wonderful! But sometimes they don’t and nothing comes close to the hurt you experience at that moment. It is devastating… And though the pain you might experience could be anywhere similar to being punched in the gut and the balls at the same time [for months until you finally move on], some of us are able to walk away with minor emotional trauma that resolves within days, weeks, months (depending on the individual) and a slightly bruised ego, while some other just land in the ER, in a non reactive coma. Been there many times, occasionally waking up from my emotional coma, only to ask myself how was it possible for a human being to suffer that much pain over and over again… The answer to my question came when I stopped jumping from one relationship to another in hope that it will mend my broken heart, and started focusing on what was happening inside of me.

I understood that love didn’t put me there. Love is a dangerous beautiful thing. It is the expectations we carry and impose to the person we are about to start that emotional journey with that beat us to death, before hijacking the parachute and tricking us to jump off the plane; and next thing you know, you are crashing on the concrete. Sounds scary huh? That’s because it is scary. The moment you crash is the moment the frustrations hit, the arguments, the cold shoulder and/ or sometimes the cold war and God forbid you are a child stuck in the middle of all this chaos. Your stake on love will forever be altered and good luck being an emotionally stable human being again.

As I was in emotional rehab working on myself by myself for myself, the only question that was on my mind was: how can I possibly prevent this from happening again? And if it ever happens, how do I minimize the casualties should I do one or more rounds of this bittersweet suffering? I asked myself this question because I knew that if I kept on doing what I was doing I would turn into your cynical friend I mentioned earlier who you grew tired off and eventually unfriended on Facebook, blocked on Snapchat, Whatsapp, Viber, Imo, and also IRL. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I didn’t want to be that type of person. And to my question, some people’s answer was to build walls around my heart to protect it. In theory it works great but in reality, you confine yourself in a very lonely place emotionally and while you are protecting yourself from being hurt, you are also protecting yourself from being happy.  And who wants to live a safe but unhappy life? Maybe some people do but I didn’t.

My epiphany about how expectations could ruin everything before things even started led me to learn how to walk into relationships without expectations; and if this was impossible, helped me keep them very minimal. I have learned not to expect the good nights and good morning calls/ texts and the fluffy stuff that came with being in a relationship. And when my heart was too wild and loving beyond reason, I learned to not expect too much because I couldn’t sustain the hurt and pain that came with being disappointed. I tend to have very high expectations for myself and as a human being, I most of the time fail to hold them, hence disappointing myself at many occasion. So if I can’t hold these expectations, why do I expect somebody to hold them? I have learned to not expect somebody to fix me, mend my broken heart, cure my debilitating loneliness, fill the void I experience more than I would ever like to acknowledge or be my hero and save me from the monsters of my past that more than once have come back to haunt me. I don’t expect somebody to be my everything and I don’t expect somebody to make me his/her everything because the amount of pressure and the unrealistic expectations that come with it are untold of and highly unrealistic! And it wouldn’t be fair to put somebody through that because this is not their job!

The most important thing when it comes to expectations is to not expect somebody to love you when they actually don’t and no matter how hard it is to love someone without being love in return, you have to accept it. Learning to be happy in a relationship starts with being happy alone and this calls to your ability to be self-reliant and to look within yourself for all those things you are seeking through a relationship. It starts with your ability to be independent and keep your expectations from your Significant other non-existent or, at best, minimal because you know that all you need lies within you.

Don’t wait for somebody to make you smile, be happy or give you validation: do it yourself, create your own happiness. Don’t wait for somebody to be your hero: be your own hero, write your own story. There is a power that stems from the ability to be self-reliant and fuels your desire to be happy in a relationship that can only be reached once you have mastered the art of expecting nothing. And until you learn how to do that, being happy will remain nothing but a foreign concept which you will never be able to fully grasp.

What I Have Learned From My Failed Relationships.

Failure sucks. And besides the fear of death, it is one of the things we as human are absolutely terrified of after the fear of rejection. So we sit in our little corner, we try to play it safe and remain in the comfort zone. But from all I have learned in life, all the amazing experiences I ever have, all the amazing people I crossed path with, it all came from getting out of the comfort zone and risking it all.

A very good and close friend of mine, a sister of heart I should even say told me something that really remind the quote that goes by: “ If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.”

She told me that when it comes to relationships, we shouldn’t be afraid to fail and we should be able to go back on our feet and try again, as many time as we can, until we finally get what we were looking for. Now looking at my very inglorious emotional past and relationship career, I immediately told her that another relationship failure would be fatal for me and I don’t know if I could get over it. But deep down I knew that I could. I just said it because with the wears and tears of getting your heart thrown on the ground and stepped over, it takes much longer to recover. It takes more effort to consolidate the broken pieces. It takes more will power to get off the couch and find your way back to life because well… it hurts like a motherfucker to be hurt, especially when it comes to your heart. But the truth is you learn to get over it and you move on. You eventually forget the pain but you don’t forget what it taught you. And this is what I have learned from my past failed relationships.

1. Be the mature one.

For a relationship to work at least one grown up is required but ideally and in order to have the optimal conditions reunited for a blossoming relationship, two grownups is the norm. Two can play the Ego game but pride has never been a great guest in any relationship. So if you care about your relationship and the person you are in it with and if that person cannot act their actual age, you need to get above and beyond the childish whim and tantrums they throw and be the mature one.

2. Don’t speak under the influence.

And here of course, I am speaking mostly about any type of alcohol and drug (including your hormones) but more specifically under the influence of your emotions. When anger and hurt strike, there are so many things that we say that we either immediately regret or that we regret the next morning, after (of course) processing how hung over we are and vaguely remembering that WWIII happened in your kitchen and somehow ended with you falling asleep with a bottle of wine on the couch, while doing a SATC marathon to calm your nerves. Sometimes the things we regret are the ones we don’t mean that and that we say just to hurt the other person we engage in an argument with. Some other times, it is the things we mean, the legitimate concerns we raise that lose their validity as soon as we start yelling because we are getting our point across the wrong way. I have never been a great communicator but one thing I have learned to do is to shut down when a situation becomes so confrontational that I know if I open my mouth it is going to be Armageddon. I have learned to walk away from conflict not because I am a coward, but because some words can hurt more than sticks and stones and once words are said, they can only be forgiven but not forgotten.

3. Don’t try to change your partner.

Don’t fall in love with potential: fall in love with the person you are in a relationship with or you are about to be in a relationship with. Potential can be deceiving. If you can’t sign up for what you are being offered, just back away and decline the offer. But just don’t walk into a relationship thinking you can change somebody. You don’t have that power. The only way a person can change is if that person wants to do it. Don’t make the relationship a project, don’t try to fix the other person  (especially if there is nothing wrong but you somehow convince yourself that the other person is broken. That’s creepy AF.) , don’t try to make them do things they do not want to do because the only thing that will get out of this is frustration and resentment and those are very toxic adds-on to a relationship. Either take him/her as s/he is or watch her/him as s/he goes.

4. Don’t say it unless you mean it.

We all get caught up in the heat of the moment: the promises of the happily ever after, the forever and ever, the “always” to quote Isaac from TFIOS. And we can’t blame ourselves for nothing but our crazy hormones and the infatuations that blind sides us and make us lose out mind. Be wise with your words and patient with your heart. Let the steam go down a notch and let your head rest a little. Let your words be said when your mind is clear and your thoughts in order. Good things never stemmed out of chaos.

5. Don’t listen to respond, listen to communicate.

Listen to your S.O for what it is : to listen. Even during an argument. Don’t listen to pick things apart and try to blame, convict them. Listen to understand, without bias; listen to communicate and turn an argument into a two ways street communication. It is hard but it works.

6. Give and ask for forgiveness, show grace and mercy , love unconditionally.

"Forgiveness is the Final act of love" ~ Beyoncé

a) Especially when you feel the urge to bail out. Unless the person is not showing signs that they want to make it work, always apply those three principles and b) especially when you are in all your rights to be mad and walk away. To come back to TFIOS and quote Isaac again  “Love is to keep the promise anyway” and if you promised to make it work no matter how hard it is, do it. If you promised to stick with each other, love each other, “agree to disagree on red velvet cake” to quote Paige in The Vows, do it, because the best clap back to somebody who is giving you hurt (whether they mean it or not) is to give them love, forgiveness, grace and mercy.

7. If everything else fails, leave.

The worst thing you can do to yourself if you are in the wrong story is to stay and be unhappy. So if you have tried everything and nothing is working or if you just feel like you have given your all and you can’t just keep on letting your SO other make a fool out of you, leave. Life is too short to be unhappy and stuck in the wrong story. Leave, close the door behind you and write a better story than the one that broke your heart and made you cry uncontrollably. 

I hope this article helped you and that you found some valuable advices in it and no matter how many times you fail in love, always remember this : “success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”

Until next time,
xo


*TFIOS : The Fault In Our Stars
*SATC: Sex And The City
*S.O: Significant Other