Your Last Argument

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” – Steve Maraboli

Think back to your last argument, or the last slight disagreement you had. How did you feel after? I always feel confused, unsure if I said the right things, wishing I could have said less and said more.

I recently I had planned out a whole conversation, written out everything I was going to say, so that it doesn’t come out offensive. However, the person took it the wrong way and I found myself arguing over something that wasn’t even the main topic. No one plans to argue, we usually want to express how we feel and we are met with a negative reaction.

I got so frustrated that I just called my elder brother, and started venting off my anger. And he said “Fountain, it’s in the past there is nothing you can do but let go and move on”. I honestly didn’t want to listen, but after a while I accepted the truth. The two things I learnt were:

1)Forgive yourself: Accept that you can’t take back the words that you said, understand that neither can they. Always remember sorry is better said through actions, so next time you see them say hi or go grab a coffee together.

2)Let go of the situation: understand that the situation is over and let go, don’t keep talking about it, it helps you accept that it’s in past.

I really hope these tips help you, to start moving in a more positive direction. See you soon

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” – Steve Maraboli

Dealing with Negative Thoughts

Negative thoughts are not limited to self depreciation or a feeling of inadequacy stemming from work or school, it could be a disappointing situation that happened in the past that you can’t change or an unkind statement that was said about you that you can’t seem to shake off. These thoughts tend to overwhelm us and eventually become a dark cloud over our lives if we feed them and let them grow for too long.
We begin to have random mood swings and periods of anxiety and prolonged sadness.

Here’s what i have learnt from careful observation for a while now, i realize that the more you make a conscious effort not to think about something, your mind ends up going back to that exact thought and you create an endless loop. Its not just enough to say i am going to stop thinking about ‘topic A’ , you’re going to need to actively replace it with ’Topic B’ in order to move on.

Personally, the last few months were really emotionally tasking for me because there was always this constant battle of having to remind myself of my self-worth and trying to deal with problems I knew i had little or no control over. This struggle was frustrating but that period helped me learn 3 major things to practice when dealing with the rampant thoughts in my head

Firstly, NOTICE your negative or unhelpful thoughts. Outline them and take notes of the scenes that you keep playing in your head and be aware of the pattern of thought that constantly builds itself.

What you are saying to yourself?
What words do you use to describe yourself?
What situations trigger you the most?
What fears are constantly living in your mind?

Secondly, REJECT unhelpful or negative thoughts. This is being self-aware and realizing that you have control and power over your mind. You have been given the ability to stop and refuse these thoughts and patterns so use that power. Reject any person or situations that lies about who you are and the potential you carry. Stop people from projecting negative words over your life. Also, avoid any situation that makes you feel worried afraid or hopeless.

Lastly, REPLACE those negative patterns of thinking with positive ones. Feed yourself with only honest and true facts. If you feel that you are always making mistakes, remind yourself of the fact that you are human and not perfect but however if you keep at it you will eventually succeed.
Be honest but be gentle, allow yourself space to grow and heal. Congratulate yourself for the little wins.

These three things have really helped me with my thinking process and made me less stressed and worried. Sometimes share with a trusted friend or a close companion and ask them to remind you of the things they love about you the most. Be reminded of your strengths and wins.

And don’t forget, if you ever need someone to listen you can always send an email and i would be sure to respond with love and kindness.

Happy New year and I cant wait to continue to share more with you.

Take Action

Do you know the feeling after you listen to a motivational podcast, watch an inspiring youtube video or read something that stirs you up? You instantly want to do better, start going to the gym, start reading a book, start taking your goals seriously. But after a couple of days, life happens and everything falls apart.  In no time, you’ve totally forgotten everything you planned to do. 

  Don’t worry you’re not alone, I basically just described myself.
   So last two weeks in my last blog post ( you should really go back and read it if you haven’t )I wrote about focusing on yourself, setting boundaries, doing what you love and learning who I am . I promise you, all it took for me to get distracted was a text message. And I started to down spiral back to my old ways, what made it funny was that I kept on convincing myself that I was alright and I knew what I doing. However, I did not. I only ended up people pleasing, stressed, moody, emotionally exhausted and confused.
  I finally took a drastic step and did took a major break from a lot of things. Some of the actions i took might seem a bit extreme to other people but a girl had to do what a girl had to do. However, I’m happy I continued the way I did, because I know i can be quite naive sometimes. 
So, I did take action finally and it paid off.
       Here are some practical steps I took:

1) Take a leap of faith: if there is a situation or a thing you have been procrastinating on take a leap of faith to start moving. This means just getting up and paying for the gym, writing a sentence for your essay, creating an account for your passion, unfollowing, blocking  or restricting anything that’s stopping you from doing the right things.

2) Create space for yourself : I always love seeing others happy but never put peoples happiness at the expense  of yours. Have your personal time where you reflect and think about your goals or anything new you want to try.

3) Create accountability or a support system: Everyone gets demotivated thats why we read or listen to things to get us motivated again. Get someone who you can be accountable to, not just anyone, some you trust like family or a person you know is working towards the same goals as you. so you can stay motivated.

You can read my blog, listen to motivational speakers but that’s not going to change till you get control and take action. If it means deleting social media, do it , if you need to pay for a work out plan, do it. if you need to get a tutor , do it . if you need to go all out on an apology, do it.  Do it now cause time goes by so quickly. it will not be a smooth journey but start now.

Enjoy Your Own Company

If you had to count the number of times you’ve read the words “love yourself” on social media, I’m guessing you would lose track of the number, same here. But here’s the truth, I always gloss over it and carry on with my day without taking time to understand what it really means to love myself.

This month, I struggled a lot and had to reevaluate how I deal with friendships and my relationships with people in general and this lead me taking time to understand what love meant to me and how important it is to actively love myself first before pouring into others. If you’ve ever met me, you would find that I am a very friendly person and when I consider someone to be my good friend I will literally do my best to make sure they are doing good and to cater to their needs. It is such a huge part of my character that I never stop to think about how far is too far but I recently realised that as I was taking care of others around me, I slowly began to forget about the most important person, which is myself.

I had forgotten how important it is to protect my peace and find true happiness in myself first, I was so focused on looking happy even when I wasn’t and choking on my problems so nobody would consider me a burden that it wasn’t until I experienced complete burnout that I realised how much I’d lost myself in other people. Listen, there is absolutely nothing wrong in taking care of those you love but you must always remember that you cannot pour from an empty vessel.

Making this decision wasn’t easy, I honestly had to emotionally battle conflicting thoughts every day because this was totally out of my comfort zone, Sometimes I would catch myself staring blankly completely lost in my thoughts, I was confused and it seemed like I was learning who Fountain is, what she likes and what she wants out of life.

Here are some things I’m learning on this journey to Self-love:

1. Enjoy your own company: There are so many layers to who you are that you’d never discover if you don’t make time out to talk, learn and teach yourself. Try watching movies alone, listening to music by yourself to discover your interests, go on walks alone, go shopping alone, you may discover that you’re actually such a great sport and you make amazing company and you’ll love yourself even more.
2. Come back to real life: Drop your phone, switch off your gadgets sometimes and have real conversations with those you love. Read a book, write letters to yourself and tell her the things you can’t say out loud
3. Do things that move your spirit: Go after the things that make you feel alive, the things that give you peace, it could be music, football, praying, writing or absolutely anything. Focus on doing these things that bring you the most joy.
4. Remember that it’s okay to cry: Crying is important. You don’t have to wail but if you have been hurt, lost someone or trying to let go of certain things, It’s an outlet to release the pain and you should take full advantage of it. I want you to know it’s not going to be a straight journey ahead and you might find your self falling back to old habits but in the words of the famous Titilope Sonuga, “ Forgive yourself for the backward motion, give thanks for the courage to inch forward anyway “.

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Start Loving

Have you ever looked at someone and wished you had a body like theirs just so maybe you could be a model, or wished you had someone else’s talent so you could do something with your life and get the kind of recognition they’re receiving. Well, I have many times and I’m guessing you have too.

I had always compared myself to my Siblings, I felt they all had a hustle, like a rhythm to their lives and knew exactly what they wanted to be with that perfect creative bone in their bodies. It also didn’t help that they were all so beautiful with slim bodies, unlike mine at the time.

So I always felt like the un-useful one or the chubbier one, I had nothing to call my own, I really felt useless when I was around them. It made me very defensive and extremely sad to the point where tears of frustration would come out and they’d be left confused wondering what had gone wrong.
Then came Instagram and all its perfection, I died several deaths before I realised that sitting in that pit of comparison wasn’t going to help me get any more talented, creative or beautiful. It only made me feel terrible and depressed so I decided to take a few steps to become a better person.
These are some the few steps that started me on my self-love journey:

• Write down what you are good at, or interested in, it took me a very long while to write stuff down but sit there and don’t leave till you have something because the truth is, there’s something in every one of us.
• Write down your insecurities. What don’t you like about yourself? Are there steps you can take to actively improve? Or are you just going to have to accept that those flaws are a part of your journey?
  You have to come to terms with the things that you can change and can’t change. F or example, I can’t change the fact that my legs are not straight so I went and googled models with bow legs, and told myself that if they lived with it I could too ( I know, I’m extra) but it helps.
• When it came to things I could change, I could change my body, so I started cutting back calories, I could change my lack of creativity, so I took my blog more seriously, and I can change the fact that I had no source of income, so I begged my mum to find me a place where I can learn to make nails and make extra income while in university.
• Start working! Now that you know what you can do start working at it now. Doesn’t matter if you fail, my life has always been trial and error, but I am still here and would probably fail at something before the month is over but I won’t die and neither would you.

I still don’t have everything figured out and I don’t think I ever will but I am learning to enjoy the process. Let go of the things that are not in your power to change and embrace and love what you can. The number of times I compliment my self in the mirror might seem insane to someone else but its where I get my daily dose of self-confidence and it helps.

So hey gorgeous, would you like to share some areas where you constantly find yourself making comparisons with me? And maybe we can work together on finding healthy solutions.
Until next time, Love and kisses, Doctor of Happiness 🙂

BIG LITTLE FLAWS

Do you have one of those habits that you feel like you have carried throughout your whole life, constantly made excuses for and made no real attempt to acknowledge or even change them? Yeah, me too.

This week was extremely difficult for me because I discovered that I am a very defensive person, ( and no I don’t literally mean a defense fighter ) but I’m the kind that wouldn’t let someone get a full sentence in without having a counter reply for them. Basically, I noticed this behavior a few weeks back my dad and sister were arguing privately, He mentioned my name and without even hearing what he said I interrupted by saying “daddy I am not an example for weakness”

They looked so confused and irritated because I was totally out of the equation in their conversation. However, it made me realize my defensive mechanism. I am always so quick to respond without even properly understanding the situation at hand. And it is mainly because I don’t want to be seen as weak or stupid.

Everyone has the big or little flaws that can cause damage not only to them but to their relationships as well. I am mainly writing about being defensive because it’s a trait almost everyone shows unintentionally. It has been hard trying to listen, understand and not react as though I’m being directly attacked.

In this whole process, I’ve learnt a lot of lessons along the way and these are a few ways that helped me stop reacting so quickly without any validation :

– Not everything or everyone deserves a reaction from you.

– Listen and understand before you respond, because your replies actually are more intelligent when you do so

– No behavior is impossible to change, if you need to stop a bad habit you can always take it one step at a time

– Sometimes there might be a reason why people do what they do if you react too quickly, you might never know why.

– Rapid reactions could cause bigger issues.

Thank you so much for reading ❤️

I’ll be looking forward to hearing what your little bad habits you are trying to curb and how you do it ❤️

I’m going to be writing more in relation to this and many more amazing Please don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE ❤️and check out my Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/fountain_ayidu/

Become your strength

So right from the beginning, I’m just going to come out and be honest with you guys, I am still learning how to do this but I guess that is the best thing about this blog, the fact we get to share our experiences and learn from each other.

As someone who solely relied on the support of my family and friends for a long time, starting university was different for me because I felt like I lost the sense of permanence that came with constantly having family around. This made me really worried and sometimes upset because I began to doubt how much the people I loved really cared about me, but then I had to realize that people have a lot of shit going on in their lives that could make it hard for them to constantly be in communication with you, and truthfully, that’s fine too. I’ve learned on this journey that the only person who can constantly be with you is the spirit of God.

“… I will ask the Father to give you another Helper, to be with you always…” John 14:15-16

When I discovered this, I realized I had to ask God to teach me how to step up and be there for myself sometimes and in no time I started learning how to :

◦ Go to the cinema to see a movie alone and enjoy my own company.

Lesson: Not everyone is free when you are and they might not want to do exactly what you would like.

◦ Talking myself out of my negative thoughts.

◦ Motivating myself to get out of bed and get things done.

If you’re in my house around 7 am, you may or may not hear me reminding myself that the day is mine and I have to show up and show out.

◦ Developing on whatever little habits and hobbies that give me joy.

Sometimes it’s working on my blog and sharing cool things with you all, other times it’s learning how to do my nails from YouTube videos.

◦ Getting a grip on my social media consumption and stepping back into reality to read a book!!

I don’t know if you have started this journey or this might prompt you to be more self-reliant, but I’m assuring you that despite how great your loved ones are it’s important to learn how to be there for yourself.

Thank you so much for reading loves❤️

I’ll be looking forward to hearing little areas that you’re going to show up and take care of yourself by yourself this week.

I’m going to be writing more concerning this and many more amazing topics so Please don’t forget to subscribe and share ❤️