Saving our selves from our self!

HI folks!

 The yuletide season is back again and jolly as the season maybe some of us are already working on our New Year resolutions. Did I just catch you make that face? The one that says, ’I have been there, done that’... [lol].

Honestly, my take on New Year resolutions has been the same for the past four years

We never keep them!

 In the next few days after promising to change this or stop that, we find our selves towing the same line...old habits die hard, so what’s the point?

 Instead I consciously make efforts to work towards achieving personal growth by striving to become more tolerant, loving and in control. I believe that once I master this act, I’d be a better person, my life will run smoothly, and I can claim to have achieved  a perfect, happy existence and friends I’m at it every day like clock work.

Coming to brass tracks, I am a firm believer in the belief that there are three sides to every individual

[1]The person people think they know: usually this can be colored by events, circumstances and conditions through which these individuals got to know you.

[2]How you see yourself: oftentimes colored by individual sense of self worth. Childhood upbringing/experiences and personal /social achievements, etcetera.

[3] Who really you are: That part of you that is concealed from your social circle yet has control of your actions and general perception to life. For some of us it constantly peeks over our shoulders to remind us of what we naturally are inclined to do, and when it shows itself in a sudden show of impulsive out burst, intense sadness, shyness, or rage, we shamefacedly try to ignore it or better still make excuses like ‘’I have been kind of stressed out this week or we say the usual ‘’that wasn't really me!’’Come to think of it, pretending it isn't there is a major pain in the knee for some of us because it sometimes causes strain in our public lives!

Realizing I could be a modern day Jekyll and Hyde wasn't easy on my psyche and I hated it intensely for the many apologies I had to mouth at being wired that way. My school/work friends could almost be certain I wasn't the girl they were introduced to at that party last week! But what’s a girl to do when the question -‘‘who am I?’’ remains unresolved.

 So, in a bid to resolve my inner conflicts, I stifled  my inner insecurities and years down the line, graduated from the University with the closest answer to that question being Descant’s philosophical quote-‘’I THINK THEREFORE I EXIST’’ [lol]

So welcome today to ‘shy spoken word’ as yours truly, shares with you two of my character inconsistencies: just may be this might earn me the right to claim that pot of gold, hidden beneath the earth at the end of the rainbow.

·        Gregarious  versus  Shyness: 

‘’painfully shy...very quiet...not sociable, marred my report cards from  Junior nursery to my first year in senior secondary school, my Mom used to be so upset, so I decided  to be sociable and earned my mark by being elected social prefect at the start of my final year in secondary school. My parent and siblings still wonder how I got there.

Once graduated from university, my first job was in marketing; on getting home I complained to my family, I had expected I’d be employed as a personal assistant to the managing director. My younger sister had exclaimed ‘oh no! Your recruiters got you all wrong’. Well I consciously sought to disprove that fallacy and at the end of one year, I only gave up that job because it was a strain on my person. My favourite job still remains research! And I mean the sought done by poking endlessly through books, sifting through websites or call centres.

 I once told a friend of mine that had I a choice of a dream wedding, Id be married at 6 am mass,( in the company of select family and friends) and be done with it. At least it will save me the inconvenience of dealing with the usual fanfare wedding favoured by family and my in-laws. I don’t think she believed me one bit!

Recalling the night before the D-day still makes me laugh, I had visions of me playing a real life version of ‘’the run away bride’’ (remember the Richard Gere and Julia Roberts version?).Only the eldest of my younger brother knew this and he talked me through it in the early hours of the morning.

Come the next day I walked down that aisle and almost started frowning the very instant we were out of church, had my mom not stationed my aunts around the hall to be smiler reminders, my wedding pictures would have been ruined for life!

The truth is I don’t like parties that much, I hate organizing them (in comes the planner, if it’s a must) and I see no point in most public functions. I usually have to work my self into an acceptable frame of mind to attend the ones I get invited to(especially if its a loved one/close friend) yet am so scared of being called a bore and worried friends would find my mood swings incomprehensible.

So if any one sees me digging those latest dance moves at your end of the year party [lol because I soooo... love to dance!] it’s because I am in the mood to and that doesn't happen often.

·        Emotional neutrality versus Intense emotions

‘’J, learn to take a joke for heavens sake’’, yelled my brother in utter frustration. He was the mimic of the house hold and I often found his jibes cruelly hard but they were what they were-simply jokes!

The plan truth was this-I have intense emotions. I feel words/actions really deep. I have intense reactions too. I could cry for love of a beautiful sunset or the depth of another’s words.

Try as I wish to change this, I never succeed because no matter how neutral I set out to build my emotions, am naturally wired that way. Stifling my feelings often seem the only way out because I was worried that my intense emotions may scare others away as I am often in constant judgment of it.

So today, I throw a challenge at the girl I see in the mirror: hence forth, she is to create the space to embrace and accept those aspects of her self she is not comfortable with. Yet accept that fundamentally she is accountable for her actions and be ready to deal with repercussions that come with genuine acceptance of her selves, while loving her self unconditionally. It is the ultimate act of self love! For how can we truly love others completely, when we've  never  learnt to love our selves? 

A very merry Christmas,

your gist mate,

Shy