Finding the beauty in YOUR process!

When Notukela approached me and asked me to be a guest writer for her blog and write whatever was on my heart I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to get home and put pen to paper

But here I am, on the edge of my bed… I am blank, the smart idioms, articulate sentence structure and ideas I had have seemingly vanished and I am left without a ‘profound’ message to share except the utterance and the whispers of my heart, just the truth that is mine…

I’ve realised after a very long battle that I have been fighting the wrong battle, I have been fighting my own process. As hard and painful as labour is, a woman never fights to keep the baby in her womb during delivery, neither does a caterpillar fight the process breaking out and becoming a beautiful butterfly to stay in it’s cocoon. So why did I fight my process? Because I didn’t realise what it was giving birth to, I failed to see the beauty in my pain and strife. Don’t neglect to see the beauty that will come out of your process.

This may be a difficult pill to swallow. I mean, how do you love your process if you had a sick and alcoholic mother, how do you love it if your father walked out and you had a low self – esteem. What is there to love? You may ask. I love it because it is not the end,  I love it because it is transporting me to a better ‘me’ , because it is MY testimony and story to tell and most of all, I love it because it is MINE and when God is finished with me, I will shine. 

A lot of times we question God and ask him why all the bad things had to happen to us, why we had to suffer the loss of a loved one, why God allowed us to be a victim of pain, abuse and heartache. A lot of us have a past we’d like to forget, things we wish had never happened and mistakes we’ve made – let me tell you, they’re all a part of your process and they are building you to become a better person.

There is something strangely beautiful about each and every one’s journey, if we look carefully, the process of being molded, being refined through the flames of life and being shaped by the hardships and storms we’ve faced. Though painful, there is an unspeakable and pure beauty in it as it allows you to enter into the secret place, into Gods tabernacle, where the broken are healed and made whole, a place of intimacy with God.

It is in my process where I have felt the love of my Father, where I have had the realest me accepted, when I was shattered, wounded, I was carried to the table, swept away by my Fathers love, I was carried to where I don’t belong. A place where I didn’t have to be cute, where I could cry out bitterly like Hezekiah did to the Lord. A place where each tear I cried had significance. God caught and kept each tear, they never fell into a shallow place.

Each tear you’ve cried in the process of your journey has watered the garden of your destiny and it will bloom. Never despise the tears you’ve cried and never look down on your process. His eye is on the sparrow and he watches over you. 

Love, always
Odwa Sonti

Twitter: @OH_Sonti

(Guest author)

Converse to inspire

I’ve been thinking about a wrist watch I was given together with a poem called Refrain by an old lady who used to visit my mom’s office – I used to call her “granny”. So I went to our store room to see if I can’t find my Refrain anywhere but with no luck. 

It was on a Friday afternoon in 2004 when she came to my mom’s office with a gift wrapped up in pink paper and with an A4 laminated page and in it was her poem to me – Refrain.  She walked in the office and was excited to see me there and said to me “I have something for you”. She sat me down and said: “I love both you and your mother as my own. So I thought I should buy you this watch.” 

Astounded me sat there and couldn’t stop smiling. She gave me a box wrapped in pink paper and said: “open it”. I opened the box to find a beautiful gold watch. I just couldn’t stop smiling. Tears started rolling down my cheeks as she said “I also have a poem for you and I will read it out loud so everyone would hear.”  She started reading and the words that stood out and were engraved in my heart that moment were: “never lose yourself by trying to be someone you’re not.” It is that day that I embraced being me – a woman.

Refrain has been the cornerstone in my life. It has helped forbear from many things that could have been the end of me. I am the woman I am today because of that poem that was given to me nine years ago. I am a woman of honour and trust. I am hardworking, uniquely different, smart individual who’s passionate about inspiring young girls to become women of great calibre no matter what their circumstance.

In this month dedicated to celebrating women, I challenge all women to have at least five young girls to inspire and be there when they need someone to talk to. I engage quite frequently with young girls who just need to vent about what’s happening in their lives. All they need to hear is: find something to keep you motivated and you will be okay.

 

So for every girl you will be talking to this month, remember India Arie’s Talk to Her lyrics:

Now when you go to her
Speak truthfully
Honest as you can be, from your heart
You're in a situation
But you're losing patience
Take your time and look her in the eyes
When you just can't find the words you want
And it's hard to reach a point
Where you both can understand
Don't just tell the truth
But tell the whole truth
It'll make a better man out of you

Come on hardworking ladies, talk to a young girl and save a life – your task for women’s month.

Much love!

Bottled Truths

One day I was going through my Facebook account when I came across a status update by Zintle Nxazonke saying: “I do not judge people who commit suicide, for I don’t know the pain they were going through to decide to kill themselves” – that status bugged me.

People say the cruellest things about someone who has resorted to suicide to the extent that I often ask myself have they never been through unbearable pain. Pain so unbearable that the only way you see out is by taking your own life.

When someone we love passes away, it is the most painful feeling to bear and you keep asking why God had to take them so soon. But when they commit suicide, the questions we ask is what did we do wrong and why didn’t they say anything.

I like, from time to time, to have conversations with young girls from my church and my neighbourhood. I’d ask them how are things at home, school, community and life in general. You’d be surprised to hear things that young people go through.

As humans we are at our most vulnerable when in our teens because we are overwhelmed by growing up, adolescence, peer pressure and many other factors that we don’t want to share with anyone – most of the time we never have anyone to share our deepest secrets which bug us the most when we are alone.

One of my favourite girls sent me a message on Sunday 16 June informing me about her fifteen year old friend and classmate that had committed suicide – she was devastated. I asked her what had happened. She said her friend had overdosed herself with her mother’s depression pills and she did not even leave a letter to say why. 

I was so heartbroken to learn about her passing because then it reminded me of myself and many other people out there that succumb to suicide and the bottled truths we have. 

I often say it is important for parents to have a very close relationship with their children – be able to share everything with your child. Because there is no great advice that a child will get from friends as they are of the same age and haven’t been through many hurdles in life. 

I myself am a survivor of suicide but I don’t talk about it much because I don’t want to be judged. However, I share my story with many young girls I converse with. 

As teenagers we often think we know everything. I come from a good home where my family only wanted the best for me but I always saw their disciplining me as them being abusive towards me. 

I was only sixteen when I overdosed myself with my grandmother’s pain tablets. I hated how strict my family was. I couldn’t visit friends; I couldn’t have friends over at my house. I couldn’t do anything my peers were doing. I hated being the only one who didn’t have a weekend story to share with my friends at school. I hated not knowing brands of alcohol. I just hated being that boring girl whose grandmother would come fetch her at the Friday disco and cause a scene. I thought my grandmother hated me – when only she knew what’s best for me and what she was saving me from. But because I was caught up in my own world, I decided I was tired of living my life, tired of being controlled by my family. I was tired of being dictated to what I must do. 

So one night after watching “Castle Loud”, my grandmother fell asleep on the couch and I went to her bedroom and took her pills. I tried writing her a note but I just couldn’t get the words right – I was scared. I took so many pills and the only thing I remember was waking up in hospital where my family gathered around my bed. I couldn’t look them in the eye – I was very ashamed of what I had done. That was the most painful thing I put my family through and when I think about it I still shed a tear (like right now as I am typing).

Since that day, I told myself I would share anything regarding my life with my family whether they will feel disappointed in me or not. I had put them through a traumatic ordeal. 

When I hear people talk about suicide, something in me always feels guilty and I relive my estranged thoughts that I have filed right at the back of my head of that day. 

Suicide should be everybody’s business. People shouldn’t be at a position where they don’t have anyone to talk to.

Below are facts I have picked up from the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG):

·         According to World Health Organisation (WHO), a suicide occurs every 40 seconds and an attempt is made every 3 seconds

·         In South African, hanging is the most frequently employed method of suicide, followed by shooting and burning

·         Risk factors for suicide among the young include the presence of mental illness- especially depression, conduct disorder, alcohol and drug abuse; previous suicide attempts; and the availability of firearms in the home. In South Africa 60% of people who commit suicide are depressed

·         The suicide rate for children aged 10-14 years old has more than doubled over the last fifteen years

·         In South Africa the average suicide is 17.2 per 100 000 (8% of all deaths). This relates only to deaths reported by academic hospitals. The real figure is higher

It indeed it takes a community to raise a child; let’s take care of one another and always to try to lend a helping hand. People shouldn’t be afraid to voice out how they feel. We need to make one another understand that you can talk to anyone who has time to listen.  There are things we needn’t go through alone. No matter how bad you feel, find someone to talk to. As SADAG says: “Suicide Shouldn't be a Secret.”

For more information on suicide and suicide programmes in schools, please visit http://www.sadag.org or call the suicide crisis line on 0800 567 567. 

*This piece is dedicated to Lusanda Bara. May her soul rest in peace.*

One for the road!

You’re probably thinking: she’s going drinking. LOL! Not just yet. This piece (not beer) is for the road. Have you ever felt like running to the middle of nowhere just to get away from society? Or to that one place that gives you comfort when you feel like you’re trapped in a box and there’s no way out? 

We often stay in suffocations because we are so used to it and we fear what we don’t know might happen when we decide to breathe a little.

My business mentor once said to me “the thing that prevents us from doing what we want is FLAGE – Fear, Laziness, Anxiety, Greed and Envy. I always try my utmost best not to let FLAGE dictate to me on living my life. Out of all these five, fear always gets the better of me. I don’t like feeling like I am trapped – like there is no way out. When I start feeling trapped, I feel claustrophobic and start getting anxiety attacks. It is an unpleasant feeling that if I had a choice, every time it happened I’d just zone out and not feel it at all. 

The one dangerous thing that can kill a human being is not having hope or vision. When I start suffocating, I like hitting the open road – the longer the distance, the better. It gives me time to have some intra personal communication. I start debating with myself about what is the positive and negative about myself? 

Travelling helps me put things into perspective and I believe I need to take another trip because once again fear has gotten the better of me – I’m afraid. I’m afraid of living life. I’m afraid of taking each day as it comes because I’m not sure what exactly it brings.

Maybe I need to stop complicating my life with always trying to make sense of each and every thing that happens around me and just live. On Wednesday 3 July, it will be two months since the passing of my sister-in-law. Not a single day goes by without me thinking of her. I’m so caught up in my thoughts of her that I forget to live in the moment, so much so that life seems meaningless to me. 

 

This is the major reason why I need to hit the open road and just find a way of dealing with her passing. Sometimes I miss her so much that I want to talk about her all the time but then I don’t want to bore my friends with talking about someone that has passed. It hurts every day. I can’t watch TV without spotting something that will remind me of her and not shed a tear. I guess sometimes that’s how life gets – overwhelming.

My deepest fear is going for a pap smear, because I fear that I might not like what I hear. You are probably thinking “are you stupid?” – Prevention is better than cure, right? Maybe! I’m just not ready to relive the pain I went through watching my sis being brutalised by cancer.

Marianne Williamson says “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”. To be honest, I sometimes wonder are we really powerful. And if so, what does it mean? How are we powerful? – When every bit of strength you have is used on fighting the negative than embracing the positive.

I feel like I’m in a catch- twenty-two and I need rescuing. This weekend I’m going to the Northern Cape, Prieska. I’m going because I’ll be on the road and that’s something I love :)  – but mainly because I’m going on a healing trip. I’m going to get my spirit revived and I’ll come back having made sense of all that is troubling me right now.

A friend of mine once said to me that storms are there to clean up the mess in our lives. Once the storm is over, all the dirt (troubles) is washed away and the rainbow shines beautifully. So I’m patiently waiting for my storm to be over. In the meantime, Prieska – here I come.