Category Archives: Thoughts in motion

Life Is Beautiful Yet Tragic

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Life is beautiful yet tragic for the same reason.

No matter what happens in our world, irrespective of how life changing it may be, life goes on.

People must get up, feed their families, go to work, see friends, finish that project, and do all the other things to sustain their lives.

It doesn’t respect persons or their wants, even when parts of the world is shook by an event, life doesn’t suddenly come to a halt, the show must go on.

You might even say it’s a juxtaposition of sorts as,

In someone’s death, elsewhere there is birth

In someone’s heartache, elsewhere there is love

In someone’s downfall, elsewhere there is victory

In someone’s poverty, elsewhere there is wealth

In someone’s breakdown, there’s a breakthrough

And we should, in some way, take solace in knowing that life will continue with or without us and that is a beautiful thing just as it is tragic.

XO

P.s It’s my 3 year blogging anniversary today, and it’s bittersweet! Thank you for staying with me for this long xoxo

Trapped

22 Saturday Apr 2017

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You’ve been trying a ting* for a while now but it’s not quite working.

One possible reason is this: You’re living in your head!

What do I mean by that? There are certain things you say to yourself on a daily basis that contradict what you deeply want for your life. You hold incapacitating beliefs that limit your ability to make your dreams a reality.

You’ve held onto these things for so long that whatever you attempt to do is really futility at its best. You’re living small, acting small, doing enough to look like you’re doing something, all the while, side stepping doing the VERY thing that will make a massive difference to your life. Your fears and insecurities make you a spectator to the life you really want to lead, in other words, it’s bitch.

Take me for example; I believe that what I do IS valuable to someone, yet my other thought is, who the hell will listen to me? Who would even care about what I have to say? No one cares!

Unsurprisingly, there are going to be behaviours that follow these thoughts, like not speaking up, not promoting your work, being critical of yourself and so on.

But enough is enough! As my mother would say, ‘Time waits for no man’.

If you want a different experience, you have to think and do things in a way you have never done before. Say f*ck it and just do it. Not half-heartedly, not cowering, do it with your chest! There’s no other way to get around it or over it. No matter how silly or unqualified you might feel, do it anyway. It’s the only way you’re going to get closer to living the way you truly want.

It could be buying a home, speaking to that family member, setting up a business, starting YouTube, getting an agent, returning to university, sky diving, travelling to another country alone, ending that dead relationship, clearing your debt, changing careers, whatever it is, know that you can do it.

Free yourself from the things someone once told you about yourself, the things you have told yourself, the belief systems that have crippled you and begin a new, more edifying conversation, starting with believing in your-bl**dclart-self!

You can, you will, you have.

Xo

P.s Ting is a Caribbean/London slang for ‘a thing’…that was obvious right? Anyway bye.

Speak to an expert!

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Tip Numero Uno:

Speak to smart, successful and accomplished people. 

I used to think that you could learn from anyone and how it wasn’t that important to seek advice from those that had the experience. Well, I was a little bit off on that last thought. It is very important to get their advice and guidance!

The insight from those that have done it against those that haven’t or worse still those that do not* is like night and day. They just don’t compare.

You could do something for years, wonder why it’s not working, end up disenchanted, not realising that you’ve been doing it wrong the entire time. The thing is you don’t know what you don’t know. This is where having an accomplished person to advise you can be an absolute game changer. Just a little nugget from them can make a world of difference to your personal development and growth.

You could save yourself a lot of hassle by going out there and learning from the experts-Do ask for assistance. The worst that could happen is they say no, and if they do, someone else will say yes.

Here’s how you do it:

  1. Look around you (there are people everywhere) and find someone who has done what you want to do or has accomplished a few things that you admire.
  1. Set up a meeting, lunch date, send an email, call them, buy their book, watch their videos, listen to their audios, just find a way to be able to connect with them.
  1. Harass them, only kidding, learn from them! Pay great attention to not only what they say but also what they do. For example, let’s say you wanted to be a bikini model competitor; you’d need to know what the other successful competitors have done to achieve this. As well as listening to them, other things to do might be forming a vigorous daily training programme, changing your diet, learning how to pose, buying the right outfits to showcase your physique on D-day, hair, make up, smile, tanning and a whole hoard of other things. You get the gist.

It is never too late to learn and get it right. Put away your pride or whatever hang-ups you have and just ask.

3 things to avoid

  1. Speaking to lots of unaccomplished dream killers
  1. Stick to number 1
  1. Do 1 & 2 religiously

If you confide your affairs in a fool then surely you will become a fool too- Okay I just strung those words together but I must say it’s quite sound (dusts shoulders off). Feel free to quote me 🙂

Xo

P.s *”Those that do not” are people with zero ambition be it great or small, avoid them like the plague.

Rejection or Re-direction? A Blessing in Disguise

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I hope you have missed me? If not, the rest of this post will be blank…try me. Just kidding 😀

Last week Friday I received not so good news. The long and short is I’ll be out of a job soon, as my contract is coming to an end. Womp womp womp.

It’s typical for this to happen just as I have FINALLY warmed up to the idea of being a nine to fiver (for a period of time) and building on a both the vocation and my aspirations simultaneously. But nope I’ll be out on my ass lol.

Thing is I am used to being in and out of work, it’s the life of a work-in-progress entrepreneur. I have lived this way my entire working life but this time around I felt a great sense of disappointment and disqualification. I began to second-guess my purpose and myself.

In instances like these, our outlook can sometimes magnify the negatives and all the problems we have ever had suddenly come into full focus.

After feeling sorry for myself for like a day, I dusted myself off and began to think about the upside. What if this is a prelude to something greater, something that I have always wanted, an even better opportunity?

You have to consider what is this “missed” opportunity saving me from or even leading me onto?

“Every time I thought I was being

rejected from something good

I was actually being redirected to something

better.”- Steve Maraboli

I remember one specific moment as a child where I was super excited to go to a birthday party. My aunty was coming to pick me up and as you know one minute to a child is like an hour. It turned out that my aunty couldn’t make it anymore, I was devastated, well as devastated as an 11 year old could be. My mother said to me “Irene, every disappointment is a blessing in disguise”. What the hell does that even mean to an 11 year old?! But she was right. I ended up having a great time going somewhere else.

The example may sound trivial but it taught me a life long lesson.

Be down just for a moment, then pick yourself up and think what is it I should be paying attention to? What is the great thing that can come from this disappointment? How can I turn this around for my good?

There is always something to be gained in every situation. Don’t think: “What if I fall?” (think) Oh but my darling, What if you fly?”

XO

29 and Unmarried

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I can’t even begin to tell you what its like to be a woman of African descent born and raised in the United Kingdom.

Trust me when I say there are many realms to navigate through, AND to do it successfully? Its hard, hard af.

In my culture if you’re not married at 29, you’re already past your sell-by date. Yes it IS the be all and end all. It’s something almost all mothers irrespective of backgrounds are worried about.

It’s heralded as an unspoken and if you’re Nigerian very spoken of rite of passage for a lot of women. I remember shortly after graduating, the questions began to come in thick and fast about when I will get married, as if I am supposed to pluck a good suitor from a tree, wrap him up and present him to the family. As the first born in my family and one of the eldest in my extended family, in Tupac’s words “All eyes on me”. I had to ban my family at one point from asking me such questions and I won’t even begin to touch on the children, biological clock, and your eggs will be dust talk…That’s too much to discuss in one day.

If its not my family, its my friends and their families. Sometimes they say it and at other times I just feel it, the general consensus is “Irene, you are the problem, stop being so picky etc”. At some point, not sure when exactly, I started to believe them and it cost me! I mean if ‘everyone’ is thinking it and often times saying it, they must be right, right? I MUST be the problem, right? I didn’t want to be the black sheep and the one who wouldn’t get in line, so I ignored all the alarm bells and stood in the shit for a little too long. I entertained pursuits that I knew from the get-go were not right. Fortunately for me, I came out bruised and not broken.

Do not and by that I mean NEVER go against what you feel in your gut.

In addition to desperately trying to make something work, I spent a few months last year looking at every woman’s finger and then harshly judging her because the conditioning I had had since I was a child began to engulf me and swallow me whole, like Jonah. The thoughts swirling around my head were what’s wrong me? Why does she get to be married? Why wasn’t this a part of my life? Nobody wants me?! (Proceeds to cry in the corner).

The pressure to be married or find your soul mate is everywhere and unavoidable. It’s on TV, its on social media, it’s on YouTube, it’s on the tube, anywhere you can think of it, it’s there, haunting you.

There is an implicit notion that you are broken if you are not in relationship, engaged or married. Having a ring on your finger infers that you are wanted, loved and that someone saw value in you enough to make you a Mrs. This train of thought is detrimental, soul destroying and on every level, just wrong.

You are not broken, nor unloved or unwanted. The ideals established by our families, our cultures and society are often times unrealistic and can lead to an unhealthy state of being.

Anyway, I say all of that to say that I have been delivert*,I have finally made peace with all those demands and expectations that I and others had for my life. I have opted to be nobodies bitch least of all this society’s.

I have become very clear on what a good suitor looks like and my previous experiences were not it and I’ll be damned if I get to the altar and Mr Big chooses not to show up, someone will die, sorry I mean…nah, someone will die!

There is a whole lot more to life than being married or in a relationship. Life doesn’t stop there as my many married friends will tell me, it’s also not an easy feat. While it may not be in your very immediate future, do not sit there moping and become a glutton, get busy. Get busy in discovering more about yourself and living your best life yet while it is still on your own terms, because when you do eventually settle down, you can kiss goodbye to that lol.

Really spend time investing in yourself and your goals. Focus on the things that make you happy outside of anyone and do that, explore, learn a language, travel a lot, buy a home, do a placement abroad, write a book, go back to university to study (actually don’t, tbc), try new things, become a yoga instructor, take a series of cooking classes, make money, join a circus, start painting, get into photography, start a business, take a twerking class (hey, your mate will thank you later),spend time with your non annoying family members and friends, become so busy with living a wonderful life that you do not have time to feel sorry for yourself or look at other peoples lives as being seemingly better than yours. Your life can be amazing on your own, you do not need a mate to have a fulfilling life.

Now, I am not advocating that you completely shun your desire to have a mate, simply that you do not make it your everything. When people are desperate, desperate ideas and decisions become them. When people are happy, well you know how that goes.

I’m off to the gym now at 00:40, okay i’m lying, I was going to though, ha! Tomorrow, I promise.

Goodnight Xo

Ps Delivert- The act of being over delivered from something. Past past tense lol.

A Perfect Lie

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We have got it so so wrong.

I love it when I have an epiphany that I know will revoluntionise the way I think and operate. We have been sold this illusion that we are supposed to have ALL our shit together and that if we don’t, we are failures. That is a bona fide lie!

No matter who they are in this life, whether it’s your parents, friends or someone famous, everyone has a thing or two that isn’t quite ‘right’ in their lives. Should this make them less of a person? Absolutely not!

For the longest while, I have wrestled with needing to be perfect and to be perceived as being in complete control, to the point that when things did/do go left, I would hide and isolate myself because I didn’t want my ‘failures’ to be seen. This thinking alone can be a contributor to depression; I know it was for me in 2012.

You look at the media and idealism is being plastered everywhere. You look to your friends and family and they may also be cocooning their struggles which results in you feeling like you are all alone and that you are the only one that can’t get it right-WRONG!

The truth is we’re all figuring things out, even those we deem most successful. Consider yourself amongst good company if you find yourself in a financial bind, so was Simon Cowell. Maybe it’s that you suffered abuse, so did Oprah, or you were fired from your job, so was Steve Jobs. You don’t have to look far to find that even those closest to you have had some really tough breaks. Will you respect them any less because of it? I doubt it. In spite of it all, they thrived. Don’t beat yourself up that your life isn’t yet what you want it to be, or feel bad that the choices you made didn’t quite pan out, instead let those experiences further shape you, because at the end of the day,

Stuff happens

Nobody is perfect

So what you fucked messed up?!

So what it’s fucked messed up?!

You are not less than

You are human

…like the rest of us

Xo

P.s I hope you really heard what I said today, nobody is meant to be perfect, find peace in that. Perfect is boring anyway.

 

A Dry Spell

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I bought these flowers last week and a day or two after getting them, I started to think ‘erm, are they broken?’ (I’m impatient remember and currently in rehab).

None of them were opening up, but I left them anyway. Slowly, one by one they began to bloom.

It reminded me that there is a process to everything and how crucial it is to be patient, lest (I feel so fancy using ‘lest’) you miss your time to shine.

Do not prematurely abandon your ship, in hopes of ‘making’ it on someone else’s or resorting to ‘it just isn’t for me’ quips. Without you, it will not reach its destination and neither will you. If you believe in it, deep down in your marrow, then continue to nurture it, no matter what anyone has to say.

Give it time, let your intuition guide you, and exercise patience- a lot of it.

Xo

P.s Patience is quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence.

 

Hey, Listen Up!

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Hi Guys,

My real name is Irene and erm I have a tendency to saunter off when life gets manic but I’m working on it and I hope you can stick with me.

Pretty please…?

Thank you!

Xoxo

Okay, we’ve established that I’m guilty of going away and my excuse is I have been traveling, I visited Paris ooh la la. I don’t mean to sound like I am full of excuses because I am not. Well, not really, they are more like reasons, yes reasons, reasons sound better.

Anyway, I hope you have been doing fabulously! Let’s talk.

I was saying to someone yesterday, that it is so much easier to believe in someone else’s hype than your own. Why is that? :s
Take me for example, I personally believe everyone can fly if they want to, but to fill out an application form for myself sometimes is like Mount Kilimanjaro -_- .Not because I cannot do it, but if truth be told because I am not sure I’ll get it and dealing with rejection is a mother******.  The kicker is how am I supposed to get it, if I do not do the work that is required? However, ask me to jump off a ledge and I’d sooner do that than apply for a role. It is a strange conundrum I know but we’re going to mend it!

I can talk your ear off about affirmations, positivity, and all that stuff but, something has to change and the catalyst for that is action.

Let’s be about it, I am all about making leaps and bounds this year and shaking off those gremlins that have been gnawing at my/our brain ( gross I know) and preventing us from living the life we have always wanted to.  I am therefore challenging you to a duel with me, not really a duel, but to intentionally do the things that scare you shitless. I mean that thing that merely thinking about it, gives you the shits. Don’t front, we have all experienced that intense nervousness. That nervousness which you experience may be an indication of something that you really, really, really need to do.

How else are you going to make your dreams a reality, if you don’t switch up your regular, mundane, dry chapped lipped routine?  You must inject some life, some oomph, some je ne sais quoi into it!

Stop playing small and cowering away, step outside your comfort zone.

Oh and because I am not fear’s b*tch (lol I am on one today), I am sending part of my manuscript to two publishers this week, whoa!

You gon’ learn ta day!

XO

P.s Irene has been abducted and the above post was written by a clone named Irina. We do apologise if this post caused offence, sike!

Pain now, Gain later

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What’s stopping you? Is it fear? Is it the work? Is it the lack of discipline?

For me, it is the pain of doing the work. The difficulty or should I say, the idea I have built in my mind of how difficult something is or how long it will take, is one of my stumbling blocks. I’m sure you have gathered by now that patience is not one of my strong suits. The irony is once I’ve done it, I say to myself, ‘Is that it? What was the big deal?!’.

You have to think of it this way, do the work now so that you can enjoy later. I love studying people (my favourite pastime) and when I looked at a lot of successful people, many of them were still reaping from what they sowed years and years and years ago. They are harvesting from the work, graft, grind, that they also found difficult to do at the time. Wouldn’t it be great to have something that continues to bear fruit in your life, years after it’s been done?

Let’s take a singer-songwriter for example. They wrote and performed a song, 10 years ago. When that song gets used in an advert, they get paid and recognition from it. When it’s used in a film, they get paid and recognition from it. Someone does a cover, they get paid and recognition from it.  This is all from one song that they created, in a room, spent hours recording, fine tuning, staying up late, perfecting the performance of it, creating a video for it, doing interviews to promote it,  and all the other host of things that come with being an artist. These are some of the pains, which later became profitable.

It could be anything in your life, getting a new job, reenergizing a relationship, clearing your debts, making an investment, learning a new trade, weight loss, producing content for YouTube, writing a book, a social enterprise, raising a family, anything worth having does not comes easy or overnight. Without doing the work, none of these things will materialize. It’s the natural order of life, sow first, reap second.

Like my mentor says ‘Do what others won’t, to get what others don’t’.

Xo

P.s I am doing the work too, albeit begrudgingly grrr.

Lemonade

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I am probably going to tell this fable all wrong and add and subtract bits, but you’ll get the gist. My counsellor told me a story about a multimillionaire and it goes like this.

He had a pool in his house filled with alligators and he said that whoever can swim the length of this pool and make it out will be given half of his wealth.  Of course, the rich man did not believe anyone could make it through. The next minute, all you could hear and see is a man who was thrashing and flailing his arms around like a mad man in the pool. He miraculously made it out on the other side, unscathed.

The crowd was applauding and cheering.  He was now the heir to half of the rich man’s wealth and his first words after gathering himself together were “Who pushed me?”

When I was told this story, I laughed so hard. I was having a miserable day and hearing it, thoroughly cheered me up because I could certainly relate.

We’ve all been in a situation where we have been thrashing and flailing our arms for dear life and somehow we survived. We probably didn’t think we would, but we were trying anyway because we had no choice. These moments are what I call lemons.

Sometimes its life’s way of showing you that you have become complacent and that thing that you want is NOT going to come to you if you carry on as you are, so it thrusts you forward and lemons appear everywhere, it’s time for you to thrash and flail. Do not despise this phase of your life, instead see this as your opportunity to grow, learn and once on the other side, thrive and drink lemonade.

Xo