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~ To A Life Worth Living xo

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Tag Archives: trust

Belief–An Acceptance That Something Exists

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Posted by Irene Ephraim in Life, Motivational & Intentional

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belief, health, trust, Wellness

I made myself stupid. Hear me out.

Years ago, because of an unhealthy level of expectation I placed on myself (which stemmed from comparison), I would harshly judge what I said and how I said it. I would go over every minute detail and pick myself apart mentally, with the underlying message being you’re not smart enough, you have to do better.
We think these types of statements will encourage us to improve, but instead, it has the opposite effect because as a man (subconscious) thinketh, so is he.

The lack of belief in my abilities caused me to self-fulfil the fear in my own words. I was becoming stupid.

Once that information came into my awareness, I little by little, changed the internal conversations I was having about myself. This meant every time I said something not in alignment with the truth, I verbally cancelled those words/thoughts and replaced it with what I intentionally chose to believe about myself.
These small adjustments however, rarely feel impactful at first. It’s not until one ordinary day, as you’re putting the washed dishes away, do you realise your beliefs have changed and so have your circumstances.
Words have meaning & thoughts become things; don’t underestimate the power in your thoughts or words or things.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right

Henry Ford

Xo

A Little Value For The Value

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I Made It

33 held so much for me. I felt like I couldn’t fully exhale for a few reasons.Give or take the inaccuracies of reported history, Jesus was 33 when he ascended. My late friend was also 33 when he ascended. And a small part of me had come to anticipate that this too could be my …

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by Irene Ephraim December 17, 2021

CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF?

The constant chatter is overwhelming. One person says this, another person says that. Your mum says it’s this way, your brother says it’s the other. Then there’s the people who love to be contrarian with no actual thoughts of their own, just adept at piggybacking off what a group of people might agree upon and finding a …

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by Irene Ephraim December 13, 2021

Cloudy With A Chance Of…

One day you’re fine, life is good and the air is filled with prospects that you could almost pluck them like the squiggly lines you see when you look at a blue sky. The following day however, you’re freezing your bits off, your umbrella is inside out and the contents of your bag have just …

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by Irene Ephraim December 6, 2021

The Improbable Is Still Possible 

Improbable–not likely to be true or to happen.I saw a TikTok of a guy doing the improbable. Getting two basketballs into a hoop using a crutch, throwing a CD into a moving Wii console, releasing ping pong balls with the aim of reaching various points and so on.   It was fascinating to watch. In a different …

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by Irene Ephraim December 2, 2021December 2, 2021

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Trust the Process

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Lessons Learnt, Motivation, Motivational & Intentional, Self-Development

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growth, Healing, Hurt, Lessons, life, Love, Pain, Proactive, Process, relationship, Self-Development, Transition, trust

My three biggest takeaways so far for 2019 are patience, trust and humility. I have had to exercise these qualities in various amounts, sometimes all at the same time. It is testing, but growing.
Growing. I wonder if people understood what it meant, whether they’d still want to grow? We say it all the time, “I want to continuously grow and develop”, the reality of that is a lot different to those few words. It can be painful, especially if you resist the change.
If you are in that transition period, here are some things that can make the growing pains easier on you:
DON’T: 
  1. Resist the change. Forcing it to go your way is only going to cause you more strife. Relax.
  2. Do not constantly repeat your problems to anyone within earshot. You only exacerbate the situation and deepen the attachment, which tends to be negative.

DO:

  1. Do be proactive. Learn something new, invest in yourself. Standing still will only cause you ponder over what’s happening and if you’re an over thinker you’ll simply make it worse.
  2. Let go of the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s, it’s regressive.
  3. Go with the flow.
  4. Keep going, however you know how. It will improve.
  5. Exercise patience. Wanting it to be over and doing everything in your might to make it so, will not make it so. Can you plant a seed today and it bear fruit tomorrow?It has to take its natural course, whatever ‘it’ is.
  6. For the love of God, learn the lesson (lol). This one was for me, but still, I thought it might be useful for you too.

Xo

Seasons

22 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Experiences, Lessons Learnt, Life, Self-Development

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author, change, easter, Experiences, Harvest, Heartache, Holiday, Law of Attraction, life, Manifest, Money, Relationships, Seasons, trust, vision

The weather in London has been amazing! But if you’re from here, you know all too well how fleeting it is, and how eager we all are to enjoy it whilst it’s here.

Seasons. We might not like them but we need them, whether we recognise it or not. Everything has its time. A time to work and a time to relax.

What are you working towards? And is it working for you? Because if not, maybe it’s time for you take a step back and assess what season you’re in.

When we resist what is happening for us, we cause further pain and strife to ourselves.

There is however another option, to stop resisting, relax and get into the flow of your season. I know, it’s difficult to relax when you have these dreams that you need to make happen, which are obviously not going to come on their own, right? Well, not entirely. Sure you have to do something, but notice how things come to you much faster when you’re relaxed, and the urgency isn’t there? You might have even forgotten about the thing itself and suddenly it appears. This is what will happen once you choose to accept versus resist.

I know it’s annoying when things aren’t working how you want it to, but what’s even more frustrating, is trying to force something to happen that is unripe.

If there is something you have been trying too hard at, choose today to relax. Take a deep breath, pull back and then get in tune with the vibration of your life. Pay attention to the things that are happening/working and flow with that, and you’ll soon find that the others things will begin to work itself out.

Xo

A Little Me Time

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Experiences, Life, Motivational & Intentional, Thoughts in motion

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Experiences, friendships, Journey, Let Go, lifestyle, Path, plan, Reality, Relationships, trust

Recently I have felt like my interactions with those close to me have become a bit stale, and it seemed to have happened ever so rapidly.

We’re just not gelling like we used to, and with life evolving so quickly, our paths are diverging in a way that’s challenging and causing me to really reassess my relationships.

And so I made a decision to limit my engagement and take some time out to figure out what’s going on and in the meantime redirect my focus on other things.

It’s important to evaluate what’s going in your life from time to time, especially if it doesn’t feel right- The whole elevation requires separation bit.

Now I’m not sure if my game plan is to elevate, although as I think about it, I suppose it is. To mentally elevate.

Maybe you’re in similar place to me, having to figure things out and that’s okay. For your own self development, it is sometimes necessary.

There are a few things I’m doing more of in this period:

  • Gratitude
  • Positive affirmations
  • Reading a minimum of a chapter a day (currently, Crushing it by Gary V)
  • Investing in my goals
  • Meditating
  • Journaling

I don’t know how long I’ll be disengaged for, it could be a week, two weeks or a month, I’ll know once I feel different.

I’ll still be here though, on the blog that is.

Xo

The Year of Realisations

12 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Experiences, Late night, Lessons Learnt, Life

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Family, friends, friendships, Honest, Introspection, Late night, Learnt, Lesson, Lessons, life, Love, Relationships, Thirties, Thoughts, trust, writer, Writing

As much as some find it purposeful, my writing is my remedy and I hope you’ll allow me to continue to use this platform to express myself as necessary and bear with me whilst I go through this weird phase.

A friend of mine would often say “Wow, the year of realisations” in response to anything (usually funny stuff) that takes her by surprise. I have a similar use for that phrase except the surprises are a bit more painful than funny.

I have recently had to question and re-evaluate some of the friendships that I have and it hurts to know that perception isn’t always reality.

The realisation that the esteem I held people in isn’t mutual is a hard pill to swallow. What concerns me more is having to look at myself and ask how did I get it so wrong? Why did I give of myself in a way that would yield such little return or regard?

I share this purely to show that irrespective of who anyone is, everyone deals with similar things.

How will I go forward with this new ‘enlightenment?’ Time and wise counsel from God. The one thing I do not want to do is harden my heart and become bitter, because let’s be real that will do more damage to me than it’ll ever do to them.

Relationships of any kind are hard work and require consistent reciprocal effort, compromise and compassion. If these are missing then it’s time to release the noose from around your neck and free yourself.

You cannot be of service from an empty space, you have to be full and part of that comes through your relationships with others.

Remember this, if there’s no love in it, leave it.

…In other news this is how I’m trying to be for the rest of the week:


LIT!

Xo

P.s I’ll be back to normal asap.

The Writing’s on the Wall

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Experiences, Life, Thoughts in motion

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2017, blogger, Intuition, Men, Relationships, trust, voice, Women, writer

The most vital lesson for me this year was to trust my intuition. Your inner voice knows best, don’t doubt it, believe in yourself! Trust. That. Voice.

PSA: A recommended good friend doesn’t necessarily make a good boyfriend or girlfriend.

I must be putting out ‘I need a man vibes’, because over the past 2 years, I have been encouraged by those close to me to consider people who they thought highly of. Two of those did not pan out well AT ALL.

But here’s the kicker, in both of those situations, I knew from the very beginning it wasn’t going to work, yet I continued on in great hope that it will just “work”, and that I would eventually be wrong.

Desperation + Desire= Disaster, sheer catastrophe, abort mission!

I always say that the worst place to operate out of is desperation. I don’t think I have ever had good results from taking action whilst in this mode.When you want something bad enough it can completely cloud your judgement and stifle your ability to make sound decisions.

I was forcing it to work with people, where my intuition and experience told me it would not work. I ignored all and every warning sign telling me to ‘abort mission!’ because I believed I deserved it and was prepared by any means necessary to get it. I had had enough of being told this or that, and being looked upon as the ‘problematic one’, so I forced it.

What did forcing it look like? Well, it looked like putting aside my standards, tolerating things that went against my better thinking, and in effect devoting time, effort, energy into the wrong places. The cost of this? My peace of mind, full functionality and temporary insanity.

I have had people all through my adult life, tell me that I am quite particular, especially when it comes to relationships and that I needed to be more malleable.You hear it long enough, you start to believe it and I did. I started to doubt myself and what I truly knew was right, in exchange for what people told me about myself.

I am not blaming these people, because at the end of the day the decision was mine to make. I placed more value on their opinions over what I knew to be true for me.  It was at this point, I knew that I had f**ked up.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to have different opinions, it’s healthy in some cases, as it establishes a dialogue that may not have been had before, however, I cannot stress how important it is for YOU to have the final say in terms of what goes on in your life, your word is the most valuable.

We all have an inner navigation system that guides us in life, make good use of it, it’s there to help you. The more you use it, the easier it becomes to detect.

How I identify that voice:

  • I know it because it disturbs me at the most random and very often, inappropriate time.
  • My heart starts to race whenever it comes to mind, letting me know that there is action I need to take.
  • There’s a tightness in my stomach
  • Unease when doing something that you have been putting off.

These are my tell-tale signs that there is something not quite right and needs addressing. Once I do it, there is a huge weight off my shoulders.

If it doesn’t look right, smell right, feel right, let it go, leave it. You cannot dress up shit and even if you manage to, it doesn’t last long, it will eventually hit the fan.

Save yourself the aggro and do what you’re supposed to while you still have control.

Trust your intuition.

XO

P.s Your intuition might be the most unpopular feeling to everyone else, still go with it, it’s for you, not everyone else.

You’ve got issues!

11 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Life, Thoughts in motion

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angel, Beyonce, decision, devil, issues, power, problem, secrets, solution, trust

Isn’t it amazing how we could have all the answers to everyone else’s problem but for our own we have nothing?!

We can provide a full break down about everything they need to do and even how to do it, but in our own case, its crickets and tumbleweed.

Why is that? Why do we find it difficult to come up with solutions to the problems of our own doing? And further still, should we come up with a solution, we second-guess it. Roll. My. Eyes.

Trust, we have trust issues. We’ve made the wrong move before and it now causes us to doubt everything. It’s the old ‘Angel vs Devil’ scenario and who wins in some cases? The lil’ red bugger.

Do I flip flop around my solutions? 100% I sit there and go back and forth on a decision, which simply heightens the stress I undergo.

The strength however is in sticking to your decision and going full throttle with it, void of it working out or not. It’s the quickest way to finding a resolution.

As cliché as this may sound, you’ve got the power. I don’t doubt for one second that you and I have the ability to turn around our circumstances, if only we would make a clear decision and go for it. What’s the worst that could happen? Okay sure, there are a number of things that could go wrong but on the other side of that coin are just as many things that could go right, the prospect is equal.

You’ve made it this far, even with the ‘mistakes’ you believe you’ve made, give yourself a bit more credit.

If its advice you require, be sure to seek it from those with the expertise. I am re-reading ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ and reiterated to me the importance of getting guidance from those who have already done it. Now who has Beyoncé’s number? I need to speak to ask her a few things…lol.

Last thing, limit the amount of people you confide in when making the decision or having made the decision, too many cooks spoil the broth. You’d be surprised how many people will inadvertently place their insecurities onto you.

One of the secrets to anything lasting or being successful is silence. I’ve had an insurmountable amount of peace, keeping certain things to myself-Trust me.

 

Why Didn’t You Warn Me?!

Why Didn't You Warn Me?!

Why Didn't You Warn Me?! is a podcast speaking on the things you should know, but don't. The things you typically find out after the fact, and it's sometimes too late. Fear not, Why Didn't You Warn Me?! with Irene aka Lipstick, will give you the 411 through story-telling, conversations, and refreshing perspectives.

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