LEAVE IT ALONE

One of my greatest challenges is knowing when to help or fix things and when to leave things alone. I'd like to believe I'm the jack of many trades and this self-perception often results in me making matters worse. Recently, my kitchen sick decided to fall apart and we couldn't figure out what exactly had happened. We continued trying to run the water without looking under the sink. Me being me, I decided to put on my " Mr. Fit it" hat and did a little investigating under the kitchen sink. To my unfortunate surprise, the entire cabinet was now flooded with water!! Instead of calling an expert, I decided I knew what to do (boy was I wrong). After hours of pulling, screwing, twisting and turning, I decided to give up. I gathered myself from the kitchen floor with my pants and hair now saturated in water. I'm not sure why I thought I had the answers and in fact I'd probably made things worse. Why didn't I just leave it alone and call the maintenance experts?

Many of the disappointments I've faced in life have simple happened because I thought I knew best. Have you ever been too prideful or too full of yourself and thought you had all the answers only to discover you were absolutely wrong? I'm not sure if in these times I'm most disappointed to discover I was wrong or discovering that despite my efforts, there was still no resolve. Perhaps maybe I'm just too impatient to allow things to work themselves out... This mindset is most prevalent when we have experienced hurt and pain at the hands of another individual.  We set out to either fix it of fix THEM and when I say fix them I'm referring to vengeance. If you've lived long enough, I'm sure you've discovered nothing positive will come out of trying to FIX others simply because it's not our job or our right to seek vengeance on another. In fact, by doing so you put yourself at a much greater risk of making matters worse. What is our discomfort with leaving things alone? Perhaps if everything was in our ability to fix then they wouldn't have broken to begin with... We often identify ourselves as "broken" after a relationship has ended when the reality is YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE BROKEN BECAUSE A RELATIONSHIP HAS BROKEN... Far too many times we've spend unnecessary time harboring on the impacts of a broken situation. We spend far too much time trying to fix that which was not meant to be fixed and this results in the feelings of brokenness. By doing this, we never get to see the benefits of leaving some people and or things ALONE.

All the time I spent trying to fix my kitchen sink, I could've consulted with an expert and had an entire new sink... We can never experience an upgrade trying to fix a downgrade... I've encountered many women who identify themselves as broken from a bad relationship, and despite the fact that an upgrade, be in within themselves or someone new, is right in front of them, they end up missing it harboring over something that's broken and cannot be fixed. It's almost like giving CPR to a person that's been dead for years... There is no alternative to DEAD because once something's dead, it's DEAD. I've learned that it's impossible to fix everything and everyone. In fact, it's not our job to fix many of the problems we face in life but to learn from those things, which in many instances requires us to leave it or them ALONE... The reality is, it's no secrete what we end up discovering about others. In fact, chances are we knew all along. We will end up saving ourselves a lot of unnecessary hurt and pain and MONEY if we learn to simply leave some things ALONE...

The GOOD in Goodbye

As we navigate this season of growth, I'm sure you will find that everyone that started out with you won't always end up with you. In fact, many begin the self love work after experiencing a hurtful breakup, betrayal from a trusted friend or hurt from a loved one or family member. If we are honest with ourselves, when you come to a place in life where you've committed to this journey, it's most likely because you've had enough of life and people mistreating and mishandling you and you realized that your only other option is to do something different. Not many make it to this point because we become so comfortable with the ways of other and things in our lives, particularly those people and things that mean us no good. Despite knowing that the relationship is abusive or that your involvement and or connections with people, places and things only cause more damage, we are like addicts addicted to that which will eventually destroy us if in fact we allow it.

Then there are those of us who push a little further and entertain the idea of growth and change and even make the attempt to do the work to evoke changes in our lives. However,  just as many addicts, they find themselves relapsing. This usually happens when we've made excuses and we all know excuses lead us right back to where we started or better yet in a far worse position than when we started. Often times when I've spoken to women in abusive relationships or women who have been cheated on I find it interesting that after sharing the horror of what their hearts, self esteem and self worth have endured, they conclude something positive about their abuser or heart breaker to ultimately excuse their behavior which commonly results in them staying and missing out on the GOOD in just saying Goodbye. Why is this? While I have no real rational reason, I'd like to believe that for many reasons many of us have convinced ourselves that better isn't possible. We've become so accustomed to mistreatment that it becomes the norm. Others may pour their hope and faith into believing that the individual or circumstance will change when in reality the change actually starts with self.

When one truly knows self, we will find heart break easier to handle and we are less likely to walk away broken. Knowing self means not accepting abuse of any form. Knowing self is not allowing individuals who have hurt us power over our lives and current and future relationships. I've had many people ask me how it's so easy for me to let go or get over past hurts and it's not the fact that it's easy but I realize that it's necessary. I often tell my friends, we all have our one and sometimes we discover that person we fell so deeply for isn't our one so instead of wasting time trying to fight for something that's over, the effort should be put into self so that when my one comes along I don't miss it. Many of us right now are unhappy because we are still begging and pleading. We are either addicts or in a constant cycle of relapsing. While I don't believe that you can't necessarily be friends with an ex, I don't believe an ex has a place in your present or future relationships. You cannot be fully present with new boo still stuck on old boo.. You also cannot blame new boo for the mess old boo took you through. We tend to allow the actions of others to define who we are and who we become. I had a friend tell me "well I'm still broken".... well of course you are because that's how you see yourself. The actions of others may at a point in time break you but it doesn't have to define who you are and what you see yourself as. "I'm insecure"... well that may be because you've defined your self worth based on what he/she said about you... Do you even know yourself or is who you are defined by others?

This is a topic I could probably blog about for days but my overall thought in this post is simply this, perhaps you will never know what GOOD is because you've never given good a chance because if in fact you did, saying GOODBYE would've happened already...

-Nique

KNOW BETTER

I must admit, growing up I was always the child that found herself in some sort of trouble. Often times before committing some sort of foolish act, I knew that the results would be me getting into trouble, nonetheless, I declined to make the right choice and so I frequently had visitations from my mom and the belt (no abuse involved). Before my mom gave me my punishment, I often heard these words "YOU KNEW BETTER, but you did it anyway". I had no comeback or refute so I was left to deal with the consequences, which was in no way shape or form fun! I'd lay in my bed at night feeling sorry for myself and trying to come up with some sort of explanation of why I did what I did when the reality was, I allowed the foolishness to transpire even though I knew better.

Before I move on any further, I want to speak factually about the term "foolishness". The root word of foolishness is FOOL. The dictionary defines the term fool as a silly or stupid individual who lacks judgement or sense. To be foolish is the result of responding or acting out from a place that lacks wisdom.

I believe that as a child, it's more likely you'll find yourself being foolish due to the limitations of wisdom that children aren't able to access or comprehend, but as adults I believe being foolish or allowing foolishness is purely a choice.  As an adult,  I have been able to escape those unwanted visitations from my mother, however, not the unwanted visitations of life. Far too many times, I've encountered undesirable visits from life as a result of the foolishness I'd given access to my life. I don't know about others, but I can recall several accounts in my life where I knew the decision I had decided to make was one that would result in disappointment, shame, heartbreak, financial distress, etc, however I neglected to utilize this knowledge and ended up being the fool one too many times.

It's interesting that even as adults we still try and find ways to make sense of our foolishness or find someone or something to blame, when in fact our foolish decisions were well thought through. The problem with foolish thinking is it results in us abandoning and or acknowledging the consequences we will eventually face for foolish choices.  When we allow foolishness access to our lives, we abandon foundational morals that result in us pretending we don't know better. Earlier this week, I was engaged in a conversation with a few of my friends about the "side-chick revolution".  We chatted about how social media and many women in the entertainment industry have cosigned on this new revolution resulting in many more women finding it acceptable to be girlfriend or wifey #2. I commented on the fact that not even influential women in the entertainment industry are exempt from being played and in fact many of them have written songs about it as if there's real humility in staying in a relationship where your worth is not valued. It further saddened me hearing multiple perspectives, which goes back to the fact that when we accept and cosign on foolishness we abandon foundational morals. We live in a time where we are told we can live our lives however and with whomever we want, even if that person is married or has a significant other. We are told that our worth is defined by how much money we make, how thick out booty is, how light our skin is and how many likes we can rack up on our social media pages. Somewhere along the way, we have lost sight of the many prestigious women who have set the example of what it means to be a respected and virtuous women. We have accepted the foolish thinking that WE ARE OUR BODIES and we are free to explore them in anyway and with whomever we desire. IN FACT,  FOR SOME OF US OUR BODY COUNT IS SO HIGH ITS A MIRACLE WE ARE ALIVE...(IJS).

If we are so easily persuaded to reject WHAT WE KNOW, we will always fall victim to being and staying a fool. The danger with fools is that there is no truth in what they stand for. Many of their customs and ways are created from a selfish and self-centered place. Selfish and self-centered thinking often results in failure every time. At some point in time in your life you will have to acknowledge your foolishness one way or another. It makes no sense to seek wisdom and have the wherewithal to live a full like and end up a fool because you decided not to KNOW BETTER...

-Nique