I spoke about this in my last YouTube video yesterday and I urged my viewers to take some time to think about and answer this question and feel free to share it with me.
A few persons responded in the comments but they most profound and well thought out response I received privately was from a high school colleague Kelvin. You can tell he spent some time introspecting and I was inspired by his response to share with you all – of course, with his consent. So here goes, I hope it inspires you to also share your responses. You can message me privately through my Facebook page here and let me know if you would be open to me sharing it here on the blog whether anonymously with a pseudonym or with your name and picture.
Here is what Kelvin loves most about himself 😃
So first off I’d like to say, I give all credits to the Most High God because everything I love about myself or have come to love and acknowledge about myself is through him and the knowledge, wisdom, understanding and strength he has bestowed upon me through his inspired words. Also the struggles, experiences, changes, failures and fixes, he only allowed them to build me. I forever remain a traditional man at the core.
WHEN TO QUIT In my most recent years I’ve had to do a-lot of introspections. So a few things that I admire most is that: I think I know when to quit and turn the page. Each day I think I am getting better at it. I think it is very important to know when to walk away from certain things, whether its people or situations.
SELF MOTIVATED/ SELF DRIVEN I’m self motivated which leads to commitment/dedication. i think I have always possessed this quality, but in recent times after a close friend of mine highlighted it to me and said that was something he admired and respect about me, it caused me to even look deeper, after which I did found out that I don’t necesarily need people to motivate me, not saying it doesn’t help but for the most part I’m always self driven.
CALMNESS IN THE MIDS OF STORMS While still working on it, I admire the fact that I am able to remain calm in storms. for a while now, I’ve know that worrying will only create other worries or other bad situations which can end up affecting your health in all aspects. Hence I’ve pride my self on learning to remain calm in troubling situations, and after being through a couple storms myself, they were the perfect teachers.
BEING A LONER I am a loner. I have never needed a crowd or people in general to feel alive, validated or motivated. I tend to do well by myself. And this is when I am free to think more critical, analyze myself and things in general and fight whatever battles I may face. Besides work, back in high school when I’m at school or in some other forced social setting, I’ve always been by myself, whether it’s in nature or in another space. I also believe this is the time when I download a lot of information as well because I have a curious mind and importantly, I believe this is when my spirituality heightens a lot, which I think is very important in my journey.
STAYING POSITIVE This might be one of the best of which I admire about self. Everyone including myself, from time to time have their negative thoughts and I believe that’s ok. We all need balance anyways. However, in recent times more than ever, as my knowledge and wisdom continues to grow, I look mat the glass half full instead of half empty. No matter whatever dark times I may be going through, I take it with a smile and try to learn the lesson its teaching me or the positive that can come from it. I do not dwell on negative thinking, as soon as it comes in, I pray about it and try my best to change my perspective and look at things differently. It is not easy. And from experience(I mentioned balance earlier) I believe that sometimes/negative/ bad things have to happen and then its up to you to take that bad/negative thing and find the good/positive from it.
These are just a few with elaboration.
I am still and always a student of life on a whole.
Absolutely beautiful Kelvin. I wish you well on your spiritual journey in this physical realm ❤️
Me – It has been 5 generations. Only 5. My great great grandma was a slave. The remnants of slavery, colonialism and post colonial life still haunt my family and my country. Wtf do you mean “get over it?”
Children were murdered in cold blood and justice has still not been served! My people value their lives far less than the descendants of the colonizer!
Systemic racism and biases are still written in our laws and constitutions! We still have our colonizer as our head of state! People are still saving chinaware in cabinets in their houses! Our crown is still outlawed to exist in it’s natural state in schools and places of business! Schools still have uniform policies that involves students dressing like “Christians” wtaf???! Students are still forced to have devotions every single morning for how dare we abandon our colonizer’s God?! 😭😡
I’m still angry!!!!!!! And I refuse to just GET OVER IT!
It was only 2017 that the British Prime Minister visited Jamaica, told us to get over the centuries of slavery AND offered to gift us a prison so he can repatriate all the Jamaicans incarcerated in the UK!!! The audacity of these vile and vicious British people disgust me !!! The sheer callousness!
What I was even more disgusted at is the fact that MY people applauded him and sat their like “good boys and girls” smh. He would have been on the first flight out had I been in any position to do so.
Caribbean history should be a mandatory course to serve in any aspects of government in Jamaica. A people unaware of their history is bound to repeat it.
Ok, so let’s get vulnerable. There’s this thing I have known for a while but hate to admit... I worry I’m hard to love. I know I’m easy to fall for; undoubtably. I’m gorgeous, I’m resilient, I’m highly intelligent, I’m very loving and caring. I’m the epitome of who Maya Angelou referred to as “a phenomenal woman”.
But you see, it is that which causes me some anxiety. I worry I might be too much sometimes. Perhaps it is my childhood and even present day experiences with the women in my family that constantly tell me “you’re too much” “yuh mind higher than yuh baxide” – essentially the Jamaican way of saying you are too ambitious. Can you imagine? Why would anyone ever say that? Why would that be a staple in our vernacular??
The remnants of colonialism shows up in such microcosmic ways that we often overlook them. It could be explained by the fact that our enslaved ancestors felt they had little hope, perhaps they felt it was pointless to dream??
Since moving to Canada and making Nigerian friends they have often joked that back in their home country it is often said that Afro Caribbean people were the “lesser” folks of their society that got sold into slavery or used as payment to end local wars. It sounds offensive, but I think there might be some truth to this belief. It is likely that my ancestors were slaves even among our own people. For to have such downcast attitudes to dreaming big cannot have come from only 5 generations ago. It is a deeply rooted belief among my people.
I remember celebrating when I earned good grades to go to what is considered the best high school in my parish and when I went to my mom shouting and dancing she said “a weh yuh a gwaan suh fa? Guh sidung and stop do yuhself suh” 13 years later and those words still burn.
Why would she say such a thing? I despised her for it. I’ve been an excellent student all my life. I’m an amazing daughter who has never been celebrated by her mother. She has never expressed her pride; verbally nor otherwise.
This pain, this disdain, this lack of pride and faith in self ends with me. The generation that will be birthed from me will never question my pride in them. They’ll never hear from me that their dreams are too big. Never.
They say that when trauma happens to an individual one of two things happen – they either continue the cycle of trauma or they live so intentionally so as to end that cycle permanently. I chose the latter.
Dear mom, God knows I am still trying to forgive you. In writing this, I let go a little more of that hurt. You owe me so many apologies and whether or not I ever get them, THE CYCLE ENDS WITH ME.
Walking into the life of an old friend and seeing how scattered it is. Feeling utterly sorry you have been such a terrible friend and mourning their squandered potential.
Coming home to the kitchen sink filled with dirty dishes, the food on the stove burning, the garbage needs to be taken out, the compost has maggots in it, the Crisper is filled with rotting vegetables and the kids are playing in the flour on the floor naked and wearing your favourite wig.
Opening the door for the first time and stepping out into the blinding sunlight in your eyes and having no idea where your shades are.
Having a shit ton of basic adult and life stuff to catch up on.
Waking up from a terrible accident with amnesia; the last couple months are a total blur, “I did what now?”
Waking up from hibernation 15lbs heavier and craving things you had no idea you even liked
Looking in the mirror and wondering what that bastard did to your body.
Opening a bunch of tabs trying breathlessly to get on top of everything you deferred.
Trying to make this person staring back at you in the mirror look more like you; you know, the real you. Whoever the heck that is.
I have always had a staunch dislike for adults. Perhaps I should specify the type of adults that I didn’t like because I’m supposedly one too (welp!). I don’t like the adults that tell you to adjust your dreams or goals, the ones who say you might want to be a tad more “realistic”, or say “maybe that’s not for you”…the Debby downers and hope suckers lol.
Ok, ok, I sound like I am having one of those immature rants and I probably am. As Lorna Goodison said in her piece “For My Mother…May I Inherit Half Her Strength”;
My mother loved my father
I write this as an absolute
in this my thirtieth year, a year to discard absolutes
This remains one of my favourite poems from High School and that line impressed upon me that one ought to outgrow certain beliefs . It implies that as a 30 year old she should no longer believe in anything being universally valid.
I guess with all that life has thrown at me thus far I still have absolutes. I am not hopeless (at least not 100% of the time) and I do not feel as though my faith is resigned to my present circumstances. It had always seemed to me that some adults became so dried up of hope because they didn’t get live their childhood dreams. To each his own I’d say, but I would come to dislike and perhaps even pity those who tried to dispel the hopes of children and youth. Betsey, I understand that you didn’t get to become an actress even though you were deemed excellent at it and cropped many an award in various competitions but it does’t make it ok to tell Joanna to focus on more “practical” career aspirations because they won’t make it as an actress.
I didn’t like that at all. I still don’t. There is something beautiful about believing you will live your dreams but it is even more powerful to believe the same for others. Speak into people’s dreams every chance you get no matter how far off they may seem from said. Persistence always wins.
I don’t think any of my siblings see me as an adult and I am the eldest. Perhaps it’s because of my views on said, but I hope they’ll see the child/youth in me forever.
That’s one of my favourite trait in others; their youthfulness. In this instance, I don’t mean their energy levels, lol because even I in my quarter century often find myself lethargic, lol. I blame this illness ok; depression sucks! In this instance however, I’m referring to their mental vitality, their exuberance and excitement for the things they believe in, their hope.
Perhaps it is the naivety of my youth and if it is, I pray I remain so. I hope to attract more hopeful people in my life. I hope I live a live that rekindles hope in the hopeless.
I wonder what the agnostic does when they feel lost, in pain, alone, sad, scared…?
As of today, I don’t know what I really believe. I was raised a Christian so I pray to God when I am distressed. I believe in God, a higher power, the universe…
I am in distress. At night, I’m barely human. I’m a crying, anxious mess. Guess what I do? I pray, I reach out to something bigger than myself.
I’ll chalk it up to growing pains. Just know your girl is out here trying. Trying really hard to maintain my sanity, stability…
I’ve been feeling things a lot lately when I am alone. I met a lovely soul recently who said “that’s why I stay busy, because people who spend time too much idle time alone think too much”.
I think it’s true. Which is why even though I like being alone I prefer to be be actively engaged in something other than watching a movie because it doesn’t require much if any brain power you know. If anything it slows you down, mentally, intellectually. I think I need to start watching other things than movies alone. I used to enjoy historical documentaries; I am fascinated by revolutions, the impetus behind them and how new eras were spun from them.
Perhaps I am going through my own revolution. There has been a lot of chaos in my life lately but in a sort of poetic, beautiful way. Things fell apart so new things could “fall together” or whatever they say.
Well, let’s see how this goes. I’ll update you on this “revolution” 😄 On another note, I throw around some rather complex ideologies in an attempt to explain the universe between my eyes don’t I? I suppose that is how we are taught to explain our world by using similes and metaphors and drawing analogies. Is there another way? Mmmm….perhaps there is.
I often stray away from sharing my religious views on this platform because truthfully I am still figuring them out.
I now describe myself as being a spiritual person but not exactly religious. I say this because I have had a parting with Christianity in the way I was brought up with it. I was raised in church, went to church most Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays and in my later years I would go out on Saturdays to do street ministry. Being a daughter of God was (kinda still is) an important part of my identity. Our relationship has changed a lot these last few years as I have a less tangible (non physical) view of God and I don’t know how I feel about the whole Jesus story.
Anyhow, I suppose that is a blog for another time. I came here to share this morning about how God pursues me (us). After seeing this picture while browsing Facebook just now it really got me thinking
My relationship with God is a very important part of my identity. I am a praying woman and as I often remind people my given names Imani means Faith and Sonya means Hope. I don’t just pray earnestly, I believe in the power of prayer, I believe it is meditation with ones consciousness and conversation with the universal consciousness. To me, when I pray I speak to the atoms and instruct them to move and to rearrange themselves into what I want. There is nothing more surreal and divine to me than being in that state of communion.
When I am praying I let go of my physical self and step into my astral body; the spiritual realm where I am fluid and everything is possible. I wallow in it; my divinity that is.
This picture got me thinking about how God has pursued me over the years and how he continues to do so every single day. He doesn’t miss a beat. He courts me, sends me gifts, sends angels to commune with me when I’m too far out of touch with him to talk, he’s chivalrous; as he stills opens and closes every door in my life, he’s kind and empathetic towards me and I don’t know about anyone else but he hates to see me cry. I remember distinctly the days after I would cry myself to sleep; the next day he would just open a new door for me and give the grandest gift! 🎁
Honestly, he never falls out of love with me, he still dates me, he still keeps up the spontaneity, I feel safe and protected in his arms, I look in the mirror and know that I am beautiful because he said so. I know that I am strong and competent and that the world is my playground because he said so. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am destined for great things and that I am blessed and highly favoured, that I shall be the head and not the tail, above and not beneath, that my storehouses are full and running over why? Because he says so.
I’m happy I came across that image this morning and that it prompted me to write and to express this relationship I have with God and how much I appreciate it.
I hope everyone comes to this realization that God is always pursuing them and bask in it.
There was this episode in Grey’s Anatomy where there was a ship crash I believe and the doctors had to be on scene to help who they could. Meredith was helping a man who accidentally pushed her into the ocean. She didn’t try to swim, she just sunk and she was at peace for a little while then someone rudely fished her out of oblivion but she wouldn’t resuscitate. She was hypothermic and I believe hooked up to machines for a while. She was happier in the Gap between life and death. I mean; you’re not gone enough to be dead but you’re not alive and get to “live” in your headspace where anything is possible.
Numerous dead people she knew was urging her back but she wasn’t particularly interested.
I’m not sure what it took but she came to some time after and was promptly sent to a psychiatrist for counselling as everyone knew she could swim so why didn’t she?
She refused to accept the label; “I am not suicidal, I almost drowned!”
Well right now I can relate to Meredith, It feels like I’m drowning but it looks like I am just refusing to swim, I saw an opening to oblivion and I took it. Only it doesn’t feel very peaceful…
As usual, I am long winded and perhaps my story is convoluted because it’s easier to write prose than to write an autobiography. I hope some day I learn to write my autobiographies as prose, and create characters so I can externalize my pain.
I am so happy and grateful for God, for the universe and for my higher self. I am happy and grateful that I am able to introspect, reach out when I need help and to actively work on my health. I am healthy, I am happy and I am immensely blessed and highly favoured. The universe is manifesting all the things I have conjured. I am wealthy, rich in love, I have more than enough to give and bless others, I am privileged to the uncorrupted love of a child and God is working assiduously to bring me back to Self (over and over again). I am grateful for my experiences in life and my testimonies.
I am truly happy to have met the people I have met when I met them and I am happy for the parts they play in my life. I fully understand that my success is on the backs of many and that it does not belong to just me. For that I am grateful.
Help me to be patient especially with myself and to accept that I am an ever evolving being that fits no dimensions, transient, fluid and astral.
I am Electra; goddess of the Storm Bearing Clouds; destructive in a manner that brings light and newness.
Dear Self,
I love you whole; past, present, and future. I love the you who has no physical form, the you with great stories of past lives with fulfilling past loves and great successes. Yeah you, I see you babe. *snaps fingers* yaaasss 😄
Way too many women are not in touch with their vaginal and sexual health. Because oral sex us still so taboo in many cultures namely mine (Jamaican/Caribbean/African American). Women are not in touch with their body odour and their vaginal discharge.
1. Download Flo – it’s a great app to log your menstrual cycle and it has a great community for learning about your sexual health holistically.
2. The vagina shouldn’t smell. The vagina’s natural smell is pleasant almost odourless but it’s not, it’s feminine and intimate. It should not be fishy. Touch yourself down their more often and smell it, if the smell lingers you need to adjust something; underwear material, water intake, body wash/soaps, sexual health.
3. Your discharge changes depending on what phase of your cycle you are in. It’s normal to have “egg white”, “creamy”, but neither of these smell. If they do, something is amiss. If it’s cheesecake consistency it’s probably a yeast infection (which is not an STI/STD, just a little imbalance down there). If it’s runny and has an odd smell it’s likely BV. No it will not go away on it’s own. Go to a doctor and get medication. If you smell it others do too. (Same goes for armpit odour)
I find it very unpleasant using public washrooms because going in immediately after another female and smelling what their vaginas smell like is very off putting. If you smell it, we do too. Wear 100% cotton underwear and loose fitting pants. I personally don’t believe in wearing panties all month long; let your 😺 breathe outside of your period. Don’t use strong scented body wash/ soaps down there…
Douching is not healthy. Leave the lace panties and thongs for sexy time with your partner. They were made to be put on and taken off in less than an hour, not for all day wear. Change your sanitary product every 2-4 hours. Honestly, it stinks and I’m tired of smelling it. Get your 😺 together ladies. You can’t be a stinky pussy hot gyal. Pum pum fi fresh and taste good.
The end.
Oh, and have regular check ups with your gynaecologist. Let them poke around and get your Pap smears and breast exams done often. Sex too nice fi have stinky pussies.
