PLAIN RADICAL HONESTY

It's April dear readers, and while I'm not so enthusiastic about seeing what the second quarter of the year has in store, I'm writing this article in hopes that you learn something from my newest discovery. 

Let's talk about honesty, and not just any form of it. I mean plain, radical honesty in relationships. To be frank, I've been seeing someone for the past few months, and while I haven't been so public with the whole experience, it's been wonderful and unlike anything I've experienced. I found not just a partner but a friend.

Here's why: In the past, I've often had to prove myself. I've had to make people want to stay just because of what I could give or offer them. I didn't mind, especially when it came with self-inflicted inconvenience. All I needed was for them to stay, and it was my way of holding onto the said friendships. I was also afraid of what speaking my mind could do to those I called my friends, and it was a huge internal conflict within me, especially because I don't believe in telling people I call friends the same BS they want to hear just because we are friends. So, in whatever they did, I mostly held my tongue or looked the other way when I could. In other cases, I spoke my mind, and it led to the end of the friendships. 

Not to derail from the subject matter at hand, but those experiences have somewhat made me understand that people don't really mean it or flat out don't know what they're asking when they say they want you to be honest with them. 

Here, the big question always is: can they handle honesty?

The harsh truth is that they can't. I've learnt this the hard way, and it's brazen in the walls of my mind now.

With this person, I'm in awe of not just their personality but our relationship when arguments and modes of reconciliation play into the dynamic. It's mind-blowing how we're so eager to understand and get to the bottom of the PROBLEM and not just who said this or who said that. We're intentional about US, and we leave no misunderstanding unaddressed. It's a game-changer, and I'm starting to see how deep a relationship can actually be when you're just being yourself.

This blog post has no definite direction other than me just sharing my mind-blowing discovery, and I'm afraid you might be confused as well as I am as to where this is going, but whelp! Having the right kind of people, "intentional people" in your life, goes a long way and adds nothing but positivity to you. I've not had to pretend or tune down my thoughts, I've not had to make over-the-top sacrifices just to keep a relationship, and to me, that is bliss. The fact that a person chose and loves me for who I am is more than I could ever ask for.

Anyways, why am I ranting about PLAIN RADICAL HONESTY so much?

Ever thought about what not having honest discussions with someone you consider a friend, partner, sister, heck, your whole family does to you?

 

Avoiding what needs to be addressed leads to building up a silent resentment towards them, which could ultimately destroy the relationship you have with that person. It's something I didn't realize until, of course, I experienced it, and I understand it more now.

So let me just say, plain radical honesty can transform your relationships and make them more fulfilling. It's essential to have people in your life who are intentional, and with whom you can have open and honest communication. Trust me, it's the way to go.

As a special 'Thank you' to my audience, and for the massive support I have received over the months. I'll be taking monthly blog topic suggestions. Let me know, if you're interested, in the comment section below. 

XOXO 

"Love and Individuality: A Delicate Balance"

 Author: Odugbemi Darasimi

It could be difficult to love someone and not forget who you are or who you want to be in them. Many times, you could get so invested and committed to loving a person (romantic relationship) that, without conscious and intentional efforts, you are likely to lose who you are. You begin to lose hold of the things that often excited you before they came around. Sometimes, you start to like the things that they like and even hate those things that they hate. Which is fine, it’s the peculiar thing about love. However, the downside to it is when they do leave or when it is time for you to leave. The investments you have made in them and the person you have become in them, as well as the influence they now have on you, could stop you from leaving them or making efforts to pack up and leave. Obviously, I mean when the relationship has now become unhealthy or toxic. It could even be bad to the extent that their opinion about you totally cancels the opinion you have always had about yourself, and I mean not in a good way. You may no longer be confident in who you think you are or who you know yourself to be. You would often seek validation from them, and when you no longer get positive validations, you take on the job of transforming yourself into the person that they would want you to be.

Also, when you begin to have recurring issues, talk about consistently complaining about a certain person who you don’t feel comfortable about the way they relate to your partner, and it becomes frequent that you start questioning whether you are the oversensitive one or the one with the problem. Summarily, when you can count an uncomfortable number of issues to the extent that your mental health is taking a very bad turn.

I’m no relationship expert, but you’d agree with me, or you should at least, that love should and can help you find who you are. When you are with a person that supports you, who drives you to be your best person, who helps you see beyond your weaknesses and shortcomings, someone who just fires you up, they don’t allow you to get lost in their shadow. They give the right amount of support that you need. But this same thing- “Love” can make you, like I said before, get so consumed in loving someone that you can be blind to the seemingly glaring things.

What is the way forward? I don’t know 🤷‍♀️. But what I can say is, no matter how much you love someone and how much they mean to you, you should love yourself more. Take time to weigh all the differences that they have made since they came into your life. Check to see if you are on track with the person you wanted to be before meeting and loving them. Do you still know what you like? Do you have a favorite thing to do that doesn’t revolve around them but still makes you happy? Just do a thorough check-in to see if you still recognize who you have become.

"The Cycle of Stupidity: Why Some Youths Never Grow Out of It"

 As I was scrolling through my WhatsApp timeline, a particular phrase used in a caption by a friend caught my eye. It said: "Stupid youths grow up to be stupid adults."

In my own words, I would say that the term "stupid" in this particular context is not about IQ, but more about lacking common sense, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence — You know...those things that help us navigate life and make good decisions?

Now, let's address a few reasons behind why some youths might end up being "stupid" adults. The environment we grow up in plays a massive role in shaping us. If there is no support or encouragement to develop our critical thinking, education, and emotional intelligence, we're going to struggle as adults.

The choices we make as youths also carry serious consequences. For example, if you're into drugs at a very young age, it can mess up your brain development and make it harder to think straight when you're older. This means that drug abuse can impact the brain’s ability to function in the short term as well as prevent proper growth and development in the long term.

Furthermore, the company we keep can also influence us greatly. If we surround ourselves with people who aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, we're likely to adopt those same traits.

But let's not forget that not every "stupid" youth ends up being a "stupid" adult. Some can overcome their upbringing and make serious positive changes in their lives. However, realistically speaking, habits and behaviors are hard to break once they've taken hold.

I would say that "growth is intentional." A person can only change because they want to. 

Now, here's a mind-stimulating question: what happens when a person isn't aware that they are the problem? Do you throw it in their face with aggression and frustration or approach them with diplomacy, empathy, and kindness? Think on this and let me know in the comment section below.

Additionally, I think you should check out the blogs I love to read listed in the right column. They are worth the read, I assure you and are amazing writers.

XOXO 

Perfectionism — A trauma response.

 Author: Amaka Babundo (Alias: Full-time Baby girl 😌💅) 

Recently, it dawned on me that most of our mental health concerns are related to past traumas. As a result, when I heard someone on a podcast say, "We're all adults facing childhood trauma," it really resonated with me.

Now that I've given it some serious thought, I realize how accurate that remark is, and how true it actually is.

Perfectionism is easily one of the worst traumas affecting many adults around the world today. In the face of it, a person thinks, “well, if it wasn't about doing everything right, I'd have been worried.” But the hard part is, perfectionism doesn't end at just that. It's a whole lot more. Think about doing everything right to the point where you're literally sick and depressed because you missed one mark out of a hundred in an exam? Think about wanting everything to go your way all the time?

See now?

What makes it even much worse is, the trauma that's the root cause of this behavioral anomaly, is usually in some past event which makes solving the issue two times harder. Not only because one might have forgotten which experience exactly but also because it's become an albeit seemingly indelible habit.

I guess that's why they say, “old habits die hard.” Yes, because you've come to recognise it as a norm and it's in the blood and the brain is now used to it.

Although the thoughts of attaining the level where we do just about everything perfectly is alluring to every human, it is equally rather ironic, that our greatest strength lies in embracing our imperfections and in making peace with the very fact that absolute perfection is not within our domain and so, all we can do is only try. 

Perfectionism stems from desiring everything in your life to be perfect but as humans, the only perfect thing in our life is our imperfection.

  

Trauma on the other hand is a disturbing experience and it could be as a result of sexual assault, child abuse, death of a loved one, among other things.

What perfectionism does is to give you the impression that for you to heal in whatever trauma that happened in your past, you have to ensure that everything in your life is perfect. 

There is no problem with this but the fact that your actions are tied to a negative and strong emotional wound from the past provide a tiny opening for an extreme obsession in relation to the quality of your actions. 

 So, you're simply pulling so much emotional baggage from the past, like a heartbreak, which corners you into a corridor where you think and accept the fact that if you, maybe, clean your house a million times a day, then it will be clean, and maybe, that will heal your heart. 

Only problem is that it won’t. Cleaning your house more times over is a temporary distraction to keep you from the actual cause of your emotional hurt. 

“What you need to heal from trauma is to go through it.”

Allow yourself the chance to cry, eat, rewatch the same movies over and over again and pretty much do anything that makes you happy, then remind yourself that there is only one “you” in the world and heartbreaks are only a part of life, not the end of it.