WOMAN, LOVE THY SELF

I made a post on a topic Woman, Know Thy Self, this is a follow up on the post. Now that you have known a little bit more about yourself, the next step is to love yourself as you are, right now. Then look at your answers and tell your self some real truth about things you would like to change about yourself, you alone are able to change it and then love yourself some more.

Now when I talk about effecting changes in your life, I mean behavioural changes, that will bring about self improvement not physical changes.

It is not safe or advisable for you to wait to attain certain physical spec before you begin to love yourself. Love your body as it is now and If you feel you need to lose weight or have a low hair cut or grow a long hair, or have an acne free skin, do it because of yourself alone not in the hopes of getting anyone else to love you for those physical attributes. This is because we as human beings are subject to physical changes and we do ourselves a great disservice when we try to keep up to a loved one's physical attributes expectations of us. It is wrong and we deny ourselves the liberty of living in our TRUTH.

When you love yourself, it becomes easy to accept another person's love for you

It is important to love yourself to be able to love others. The Bible even attests to the fact that loving oneself is the greatest commandment. Mark 12 verse 31- Love your neighbour as yourself. So loving someone else more than you love yourself can be considered deceitful and a lie.

For instance, staying in an abusive relationship or marriage for the sake of children, family members or the thoughts of what people will say is a sin before God because it goes to show you love and put others first before your self.

Iyanla Vanzant made a statement in one of her Life class sessions with Oprah Winfrey and it just puts things to perspective for me - 'How you treat yourself is how you treat God, so you are putting God last when you put other people ahead of you because you are the representative of God in your life'
She went on to add - 'When you give to others to the degree that you sacrifice yourself, you make the other person a thief because they are stealing from you what you need and they don't even know it'

I hope this becomes an Aha moment for someone reading this today as it was for me when I first heard it.
So the excuses people give to justify staying in an abusive relationship is wrong. Love does not hurt, It liberates, it encourages peace of mind and wellbeing.

Love yourself without expectations

Love yourself enough to be able to take charge of your life

Love yourself enough to avoid putting yourself in precarious situations.

Love yourself enough to pursue your dream, to live the life you desire.

Love yourself enough to be content with what you have, knowing fully well that as long as you are alive, you can get what you want eventually.

Love yourself enough to walk away from toxic people and friendships.

Love yourself enough to be able to walk away from that relationship that threatens your sanity and life.

Love yourself enough to walk away from any riches or fame that puts your life at risk - Tina Turner is a case in point.

She had a choice of either staying in the abusive marriage with Iyke Turner or to walk away. She would have continued using excuses such as ; she worked her socks off to get them all the money they had at that time, bla bla bla but she walked away from it all - The financial security and fame. Tina Turner chose her sanity and wellbeing instead.

I am sure you have heard this popular statement  'Love makes the world go round' - It is true. This world will be a much better and safer place if we all as individuals come from a place of love and It is possible, we just have to start loving ourselves right now.

Choose Love, make that conscious decision right now.

Best Wishes
Bola Awe

WOMAN, KNOW THY SELF.

Knowing one's self is imperative especially for women in this day and age. We are constantly barraged with societal and cultural expectations of us, the media too constantly shows us how a perfect woman's body should be like, Pastors and older women constantly remind us of how we are expected to behave and how if we fall short, we are bound to end up alone and miserable.

And because we have an innate desire to please people and to be accepted,we tend to conform to these expectations there by living a lie and having an unhappy life. We literarily allow other people to define who we are.
When we allow people to define who we are, we allow them to put us in a box. A limited box, because no one will put you in a box and still allow you to fly and freely express yourself.

Our first job in life as women is to get to know ourselves. - Michelle Obama

This helps us in making life decisions to suit us, and standing our grounds on not conforming to expectations, we also get to know our self worth and self value.
It is impossible to know yourself in one day, It is a continuous process, just like learning.


How to know yourself -
Through self reflection, think about your actions regularly especially the ones that you know, you should or could have done better.
Ask yourself questions regularly and answer truthfully. It is futile for you to lie to yourself. It does more harm than good.

Questions like these are helpful

When were you born?
What do you feel about your age?
Do you consider yourself beautiful?
What part of your body do you love?
Do you hate any part of your body?
What do you love to do?
What do you do for fun?
What upsets you?
What Scares you?
What motivates you?
What is your preferred method of communication?
Do you love to debate on issues?
Do you take those debates personally?
Are you a sensitive person?
What kind of person are you attracted to?
What are the qualities you want in a partner?
What are your talents?
What are you passionate about?
What career or business path are you interested in?
Do you like to set goals for yourself and work towards it or just go with the flow?
How do you take feedback and criticism?
When do you want to retire?
What do you want to do after you retire?
How do you learn and How do you teach?
Are you comfortable in your loneliness?
Are you a morning or evening person?
Do you love your present Job?
Are you ambitious?
Do you care about what people say about you?
Do you suffer insecurities or are totally confident in yourself?
Do you desire validations from friends and family?
What is your relationship like with your parents?
Does the type of relationship you have with either of your parents influence your career path or love life?
Do you want to get married?
Do you think marriage should be a partnership?
Do you desire children?
What does compromise in a relationship mean to you?
Do you forgive easy?
Do you offend easy?
Do you like being around family?
Do you love to do house chores?
Are you an outdoor or indoor person?
Do you think financial responsibilities should be shared between couple?
Do you think household chores should be shared between couple?
Do you think Childcare should be shared between couple?

You can add more questions.

If you are able to answer some or all of these questions truthfully, you are well on the right path to knowing your self.

Self knowledge leads us to live a happy and fulfilled life and lack of it opens us to constant mistakes and a life filled with drama

For instance I trust easy, I can be annoyingly naïve when it comes to relationship. I give my best in every relationship and expect the best from people. In the past I have been cheated on right under my nose and I didn't even know. I don't do conspiracy theories well and I am not good at being a Sherlock Holmes, so I always wanted a drama free relationship with a honest partner who has my interest at heart. That singular knowledge was able to shield me from making a huge mistake in my love life.

The root of every dysfunction in the life of a woman is always in the lack of self worth or value - Oprah Winfrey

Lack of self worth or value stems from lack of knowing one's self

I encourage every woman, girl to get to know herself to avoid living a life of deceit. Society, Culture and Religion do not mean us well and are not obliged to. You owe it to yourself to live in your TRUTH


Anybody pretending to be anything other than who you are , you will never ever reach your personal potential - Oprah Winfrey

Is it your desire to reach your personal potential? If your answer to this question is YES, please know yourself.

Best Wishes
Bola Awe

JULY - My Month of Peace

During my prayer and meditation session on Friday morning (1st of July), I felt in my spirit that this is my month of peace. I pondered on that for few minutes, saying to myself that I needed more sign reaffirming the declaration that this will be my month of peace.

While still in my meditation session, I opened my Living word book (It is a book for meditation) for the first time since I got it and the first page was a morning prayer and a Bible verse I love so much was tucked at the end of the page. This verse calms me whenever I am anxious, afraid or feel a sense of hopelessness. The verse is Acts 17 vs 28 - 'In God I move and breathe and have my being'.

This verse has a way of making me be at peace and makes me surrender all to God. That was a great sign and I felt really good that Friday morning, ready for the day.

That same Friday, something happened in my personal life that attempted to ruin the euphoria of peace and joy that I was basking in. This dragged on till the next day and I kept saying but July is supposed to be my month of peace, why is this happening?

On Sunday during my prayer and meditation session, out of the blues I asked myself this question
How do I even expect to go through life without any form of challenge? Things happen, it is called life. So instead of whining about things not going my way, why don't I just ask for grace to overcome whatever challenges that comes my way. That I did on Sunday and I felt at peace within. All is well now, I overcame.

Challenges are not intended to disrupt our peace, but to strengthen us, to develop our character, to cause us to persevere, teach us the benefits of discipline and sacrifices and to make us a better person. - Joyce Meyer

I spent most of this weekend wondering what book to read this month. I finally got it - Like a light bulb in my head.
I got an excerpt of a book from my friend Ese last month and on reading it consciously on Saturday, the realisation dawned on me that this is my book for the month of July. The excerpts got me really excited. It is about self discovery and awareness.

The title of this book is - The Breakthrough Experience: A revolutionary new approach to personal transformation.

I hope it lives up to expectation and as usual, I will be sharing excerpts of this book on my Facebook wall.
I wish you all a peaceful month of July

Best Wishes
Bola Awe