TAKING BACK YOUR "KEY"... "The only way OUT is to go THROUGH..."

I’ve heard it said that those who say “NEVER” almost certainly will……so why do we do it to ourselves? Why do we bother using the 'N' word??

For those who don’t know, I wrote a single a while back entitled ‘AGAIN’ notice the absence of the word that shall remain nameless lol…..and guess what yep after singing/rapping about how i was never going to do it AGAIN!!! from the top of my lungs, in the hopes of gaining some kind of closure, you can guess what happened right?? Yesss people I did it ‘AGAIN’ and not in the Britney Spears sense of the word either lol. I did a complete 360 degree turn and returned to exactly where I left off. Right back to the same equation in the hopes of achieving a different answer…..Why???.

 

It’s just Monogamy Not maths.

It was a simple addition of you plus me,

U know those Promises about starting a family,

Trust me the logic aint hard to conceive

How you gonna build Love on the grounds if they’re weak???

You little cheat,

Trapped! in deceit,

Bet thought you could go and pull a fast one on me,

Till I went and pulled a card out right from my sleeve

And decided it’s time I subtracted me,

Please!!!

You should really comprehend with ease

It’s not something you should need explaining jheeze

It’s not algebra One plus two makes three,

If it’s YOU (plus) HER then (minus) ME

Coz my tables for 2 there’s no party for 3

Ménage a nuttin nah NOT me…..

Because there’s….. 2 many Fish in the sea!!!!

(NIA-JAI ©2008)

#KNOWURWORTH

 

 

Well it has been said that those who can’t do… TEACH and clearly whilst I hold no intentions of slating those among us who are wonderful teachers, rest assured in this instance this statement refers more so to me more than anyone else. I guess I write about love or the lack of it because at present I’m not living it. So if those who can’t do teach then I guess those who don’t have write lool. I have made such a mess of my Love Life in the past, that for the last 3 years or so I have been trying to rectify this problem (correction MY PROBLEM….) and unfortunately whilst I seem to have made significant progress I sure as hell haven’t cracked it yet. I figured that now that I have you guys to talk to, maybe for a change YOU might want to help me out, because anyone who knows me knows I clearly need it.

So todays blog will be the beginning of a much needed role reversal…..I’m going to highlight some of the problems I have been experiencing and you can feel free to enlighten me.

When it comes to me and 'Love' the penny just doesn’t seem to want to drop. Every time I turn a corner or make some kind of breakthrough it only lasts momentarily before I hit another dead end, forcing me to re-evaluate my path. The last book I read was Deepak Chopra’s “The Path to Love” and while theoretically gaining all this insight can’t be detrimental to me…it’s all good when you’re in a good place but as soon as that Black cloud reappears or you find yourself trying to continue navigate through the darkness without a flashlight things immediately get harder. I find myself writing songs, poems and more recently books/blogs on my ever insightful journey TO and THROUGH love but at present it just seems never ending. So how do you really gain closure?? Because from personal experience if a situation continues to persist or resurface from time to time then surely that means that it hasn’t been resolved?? As I am a result driven person you can understand my dilemma. Do both parties involved need to agree that it is over for it to ever really be over? And if that’s the case can you really get any closure by closing the door on a relationship if they still have a key???

Taking back the key to an apartment/house is a great physical representation of drawing a line but how often do we do pack our bags with a pre prepared, magnificently scripted monologue, make our grand exist in the dramatic closing scene …….only to find that actually we closed the door but FORGOT to take the key. And before you get carried away I don’t just mean to the door I mean the key to your HEART. Leaving someone, ending something, or even moving somewhere else does not = Letting Go. I’ve found that the process of moving on sometimes can take longer for others when they aren’t even aware that they haven’t moved on.

 On numerous occasions I have talked to people that truly believe in their hearts that they’ve gone through the break up steps from beginning to end and that they’ve healed and they’re ready to move on but I have come to find that usually people are as reluctant to be honest with themselves as they are with other people (MYSELF included) and with that said they tend to only deal with the symptoms rather than the condition neglecting that if you deal with the cause you wont need to search for a cure. 

Just because you’re mind has processed the end of a relationship and is ready to start again, doesn’t necessarily mean that your heart is in the same place. Too often once we have given away the key to our hearts we forget to get it back and we enter new relationships only to realise that they won't last. You manage to get to a certain point when the other person decides to give you their heart but then you wonder why you can’t reciprocate and give them yours. At first you may think that it’s because you just don’t feel the same but after a few failed attempts and the sudden realisation that there was nothing wrong with the people you were dating, you arrive at the understanding that you couldn’t GIVE your heart because it wasn’t there to give.

Now the hard the journey really begins because as anyone who has ever come out of the other end of heart ache will know,

"The only way out of the fire is to go through it."

And no you can’t go through the flames and expect your flesh not to get burnt but if your spirit is strong you can walk across hot coals and still be ok. I don’t know about you but I’m taking back my key today #FeelThePainBut DoItAnyway. Face your fears or whatever it is that you don’t want to hear and know that more often than not in life;

“ it’s not about avoiding the punches life throws at you BUT taking the hit and choosing to fight instead of quit” (Nia-Jai ©)

 

#ALWAYSLOVE <3

 

 

 

 

**WEEKEND SPECIAL **

Hey hey, Sooo here it is peeps your *WEEKENDSPECIAL. Sorry it wasn’t on Wednesday but as anyone who has ever tried to write knows you can’t force the hand (or keypad) of creativity and I Personally wouldn’t even want to. When I first started this blog it was because I was at a point in my life where my creative juices were flowing in abundance (as was the blossom hill lol) and I just had so much to say so it was easy for me. I would just open my lappy and start typing and in less than ten minutes there it was my blog for the week. But this week was different. Why I’m not entirely sure but if I was to hazard a guess it would definitely be something to do with the mixed emotions I am experiencing right now. So much in my life is going so well right now and I am truly thankful for that but certain aspects are clearly far from resolved and as usual these are what we naturally focus on. So when I began typing on Tuesday night with everything set up minus my #GlassOfVino (which was replaced by a cup of Mauritian vanilla tea instead #MyFavourite) I must have only typed BLOG 016 by the time I had finished my tea L. I just kept starting to write and then drifting off into my head which although usually this would be an interesting place to be (Overactive Imagination) this time that wasn’t the case. It was more like the fuzzed out static that you get on broken TV’s with the annoying high pitched beeping sound to accompany it lol it might as well have had that typical screen voice over saying ‘we interrupt this broadcast to give you nothing but noise”. Ordinarily I’m such a focused person which is why this whole ‘Drifting Off’ thing really doesn’t work for me, so every time I would come back to the screen and try and start where I left off I couldn’t….I had lost my trend of thought……I had lost my capacity to formulate sentences and for the first time EVER I had lost my ability to articulate what I was thinking…..I was just LOST full stop!!! Until, this morning that is. As some of you will know ‘Sunday Mornings’ are one of my favourites. It’s the one time in the week where I refuse to work or do anything work related, I literally take that time to reflect on the weeks activities and how god miraculously got me through them. Evidently it was early this morning when I was trying to understand why it was that I couldn’t write my blog this week when I suddenly had a moment of clarity, I couldn’t express what I was thinking because I WASN’T THINKING!!!. So much was going on in my head consciously or not that I hadn’t been managing to sleep properly, my senses were being over stimulated and my brain had decided to just SHUT DOWN.

This was Something that I used to do all the time as a defence mechanism, when things got too much I would just switch off, kind of like the ostrich in the sand scenario. But this hadn’t happened to me for a long time though because when it comes to matters of practicality and running of my daily life motherhood had brought me up to speed and now I can multi-task with the best of them. I learnt the art of balance and letting go of that which you can’t control a few years ago but for some reason when it comes to matters of the heart these same said philosophies don’t seem to apply?!? I’m the kind of person that is either ALL in or ALL out, I’m either involved or I am not and I can’t seem to find a happy middle ground. I guess that’s my personality all over really I’m an extremist by nature which is why it’s been so hard for me these days trying to live a more Healthy Balanced Life style. I won’t lie I used to live in a black and white world where everything was always so clear to me, right or wrong, left or right, yes or no….but LOVE came and shook that right out of me and right now the world that I live in is a multifaceted tonal palette of grey (not quite 50 shades though lol) but It showed me that no matter who you are the one thing that cannot be CONTROLLED is LOVE.

This week indirectly that’s what I was trying to do I guess. I was concentrating so hard on staying focused on the things that matter so that I wouldn’t think of things that I was feeling… but it didn’t work though L all it did was BLOCK me.  Trying to supress heightened emotions of anger and frustration from the things I couldn’t control, pushing back emotions that were trying to surface because now I didn’t want to face the complications or ramifications of them….all just led to a metaphorical melt down.

The problem with shutting off the love you have for someone else is that there is ONLY one door to love…you either have it open and let it in or you close it and shut it out. I made the mistake when trying to gain closure properly of trying to stop loving the person who I was no longer with and found out the hard way that that was never going to be achievable. If you truly do love someone I don’t think that you will ever stop just because you can’t be with them anymore. It’s more a case of learning to love you, MORE rather than love them LESS if that makes any sense. I reckon when you start focusing on loving yourself more then you will a) recognise when it isn’t reciprocated and b) refuse to accept anything less than the love that you are willing to give and this is when you will get FULL CLOSURE. When you finally learn that moving on is a choice that doesn’t require you to stop loving that person first as a direct requisite.

 “I Love you BUT I Love ME More” (NIA-JAI ©).

When you choose this path you leave the door to Love Open and increase the chances of you finding it again. In the process of my brain trying to ORDER my heart to not feel what it feels it resulted in a civil war between my head and my heart. Loving someone that for one reason or another you can’t be with is just as frustrating as falling for someone who has no intention of falling with you. But the key is to flow with it, allow yourself to feel the emotions both positive and negative but don’t allow your FEELINGS to make your decisions for you. As we all know supressing anything only aids to increase the urge so “Don’t Fight it, Feel it” (Nia-Jai ©)

If you have fallen out of love with someone because they have hurt you badly hating them will not help heal you. You may FEEL hurt but you don’t need to ACT on it. You may like someone very much but find that the feelings are not mutual, or be attracted to someone a lot but know that the situation would not be productive in which case you can FEEL Lust/Love but you don’t need to ACT on it.

“Discipline is the difference between knowing what you want NOW and what you want MOST” I don’t know who’s quote that is but all I know is that over the last few weeks it has been my saving grace. It’s so simple but so effective and I just repeat it to myself every time I’m having a ‘Moment of Weakness’ lol

In other words “never make permanent decisions based on a temporary situation” (Nia-Jai © ) Emotions are Energy in motion which means that they are transient, flippant, ever changing, they are as temperamental as the weather they blow hot and cold at any given moment, is this really what you would want to base your life changing decisions off. Take them into account by all means (they can often be good indicators) but they shouldn’t be the primary and sole source from which you make your final decision.

If you could do anything different now to change what has happened in your past would you?? Wait before you reel off the predictable answer of ‘no because everything happens for a reason’ be truthful with yourself. I know that when I used to ask myself that question every single time my initial response was HELL YES of course I would want to right my wrongs and ease the pain of regret but I now know more than anyone that it’s not about that. “It is what it is and I AM what I AM, I don’t make Excuses I just take a stand” (Nia-Jai ©)

Why worry about changing the past when you could focus on building your future…. “It’s Not how you start BUT how you Finish”

That’s it guys the week in the mind of Mz M@nni hope it was worth the wait J apologies for my writers block.

 #ALWAYSlOVE <3

 

"THE QUESTION ISN'T CAN YOU....ITS WILL YOU"

Hey Hey, welcome back loyal readers, this week anyone who follows me on twitter or Facebook will know that I’ve been reflecting on the concept of ‘Self-Control’ in a few different areas of my life, mainly because for the most part I have always been a caution to the wind, go with the moment and let it flow kind of girl but now that I’m fast approaching the exit of my ‘twenteens’ things have started to change. More importantly I have decided to change.

Since the beginning of the year after setting the infamous New Year’s resolutions, I have been on a quest to fulfil them. One of the main goals near the top of my list was to get fitter and lose weight in the process, so I wrote down my body measurements as they were and set new ones that I wanted to achieve, under the premise that ‘if you look better, you’ll feel better and if you feel better then you’ll do better’ but knowing what you want is the easy step its implementing what you ‘NEED’ to do in order to get it that’s hard. For instance I knew I wanted fabulous abs like J-Lo but after having two children I knew it was not going to be easy and that it would take a lot of hard work and dedication. So I joined a fitness class and attended just once a week at first because that’s all I could fit into my hectic schedule but as I gained confidence and started seeing results it gave me the impetus to do more, However I knew I wasn’t at the stage yet where I could push myself to get the results that I was aiming for so I started doing sessions with a personal trainer and literally before I knew it I was addicted to getting fitter, pushing myself and driving forward to beat my previous targets. It fascinated me because when I first started the prospect of completing a 10k challenge seemed so far removed from my reality and now I’m doing 12k challenges which make the 10k seem easy I guess what I am saying is that things can seem hard and out of reach at first but once you get started and gain momentum before you know it you’ve crossed the finish line and are stood wondering whatever made you think you couldn’t do it in the first place. I have to be honest initially when I began workout sessions with #CXF, I was training to look good with the intention of eventually looking good while training ;-) but along the way my aims and thoughts changed. I realised that all the work I was putting in was actually benefiting my overall life full stop. For example when it came to everyday tasks like walking up two flights of stairs with all my shopping  and my prince in hand I was no longer  feeling weak, out of breath or worst still sorry for myself it was apparent my body had changed because now what was once a nightmare suddenly felt easy, (I’d become stronger). Also random things like, feeling happy and silently wanting to high5 myself for not flying down the aisle when the bus jerks because you realise all the core strength training has paid offJ. I started playing outside with my children more than usual because I had more energy and was no longer feeling lethargic or restless.

The results of trying to better myself physically had actually filtered down through to other areas of my life as I started to apply the same principles that I use in the gym to achieve my outcomes. Basically I realised that just as my Personal trainer would say to me  “Don’t give Up, Dig In…this is where you get results” was exactly the same for real life, you can’t just check out when it gets hard. It’s the decisions you make DURING a challenge that count and how you handle a storm whilst in the midst of it that reveals your true strength. Anyone can make the right choice after the event or with hindsight but the difference between success and failure is often SELF-CONTROL whether it’s in terms of your relationships, your career or your personal life.

I knew that when I embarked on the road to health and fitness somewhere along the line my dietary habits would be called into question but as we all do I put it off for as long as possible. To be fair my diet wasn’t all that bad to begin with but I just had few little things that I liked to indulge in i.e. chocolate, carbonated drinks and alcohol. Luckily for me I get heart palpitations when I drink caffeine so red bull and coffee had already been crossed off the list for me; however it was what was going to have to come off next that scared me the most lol. Needless to say it took me a good 6 months or so to finally set the goal for a 28 day detox consisting of #NOALCOHOL and #NOFIZZYDRINKS. I was inspired by the whole ‘STOPtober’ campaign for smokers and decided it was definitely time. 10 days in and I’m doing a lot better than I have in the past  where my withdrawal symptoms would kick in after just 2 days lol, granted I’m not where I need to be but I’m certainly not where I used to be and what seemed unrealistic six months ago now seems attainable with only 18 days left. I think the key is to start small with goals that are achievable then as you start ticking them off and getting more confident up the levels and test yourself you never know what you’re capable of until you try and whatever you do check your motives. Don’t set goals based on what your peers/colleagues are doing or how they’re living, set them according to your wants and desires. If you set your mind about something and you have a genuine reason as to why you’re doing it, the chances are that you will be more likely to successfully complete it.

Ask yourself are you doing what you NEED to, to get what you WANT???

(If you want a body like Kim Kardashian or Kate Moss, Serena Williams or Kelly Rowland….. is eating unhealthily, not exercising regularly and just generally wishing for it really going to get you that????)

If you want a High powered job or just a job in general….. Is not actively looking for one or not honing your existing skills really going to get you that???

If you want a settled loving relationship……is going out every night and getting wasted going to provide that???

….. Kenneth Blanchard said, “There’s a difference between Interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it ONLY if it’s convenient. When you’re committed to doing something, you accept NO excuses only results”

Commitment to finish what you start shows character. We all want a better life but “The difference between WANT and NEED is SELF-CONTROL!!!” DO what you NEED to even when you DON’T FEEL to and #ALWAYSLOVE <3

'SAME OL' SAME OL' .....JUST A DIFFERENT FACE !!

So is it true do we all have a ‘type’?

How does attraction work?

Are you just attracted to the same gift but in different wrappers?

I’m saying this because if one goes through a series of failed relationships and the only common denominator is THEM then isnt that indicative of whom the problem lies with?? I’m just saying, I bet this is one time when you’d love to hear that phrase… ‘no its not you babes it’s me’  lol.

And is there at least some kind of reset button we can press in case of emergency when a relationship is malfunctioning or as in most cases stuck on REPEAT?

Its official I seem to have all of the questions but barely any answers and these days the revelations that I do receive seem to be somewhat perplexing and subject to change anyway, which I suppose should be expected considering you can’t have growth without it. But this weeks blog was inspired by a situation that got me thinking..... if our 'situations' aren’t changing then are we really growing?

The other day I got a call from a good friend of mine who was once again experiencing  some relationship troubles. So we decided to go right back to the beginning and looked over all of her past boyfriends right up to present date. Immediately I noticed a striking similarity between ALL of them. Although she had decided now that she was done and dusted with always facing the same problems and was going to go for something completely different i.e. not her ‘usual type’ she still found herself stuck in some sort of groundhogs day …. So whilst on this ambitious quest for change, first she picked a boy from a completely different ethnic background only to find that this relationship started and ended exactly the same way too. At which point she was even more convinced that the age old cliché ‘ALL MEN ARE THE SAME’ was right on the money. Then she chose a guy who aesthetically some would say wasn’t ‘conventionally handsome’ i.e. the complete opposite to her usual ‘pretty boy’ type and suffice to say the results for this brief encounter were the same finally she went for a guy from a completely different social circle who’s likes and interests were so diverse and different to her own in the hopes that he couldn’t possibly mirror her past relationships!! So what do you think happened? Yep history repeated itself but not because ALL guys are the same because unknowingly she had actually PICKED the same characteristics in each guy. She was dating ‘The same Ol’ Same Ol’ but with just a different face,' She was trying to change everyone and everything about her situation apart from HERSELF and If you think about it how many times do we do the same. Reflect back on some of your past relationships can you see any similarities?? between the people you dated? I know for a fact my ex can, he definitely has a type and its ‘not me’ loool….no I’m playing but on a real though his last girlfriend basically was the same ethnicity as me, had the same hairstyle as mine at the time, was born in the same month of the same year, literally 2 days before me. (personally I just think he was trying to clone me and lets be real who wouldn’t want to ha!!) But back to the point, what do you look for in a person? What traits are you attracted to both physically and personality wise?? Obviously if you are already loved up currently then you probably already got it right but for some of us who have checked into 'Singledom' on either a long-term or short term residency these are pivotal questions that we need to be asking ourselves because for one reason or another something isn’t working. Stating the problem is the easy part (well for some of us) but identifying the solution not so much. I think personally it’s because we’re not getting to the root of the problem. We’re cutting off branches/people left right and centre, or in some cases cutting down the whole tree, shouting ‘Timmmmberrr’ and rejoicing prematurely because we think we’ve got rid of the problem. Only we haven’t because we didn’t de-root the tree. So then we stand there looking puzzled when to our amazement the same tree/problem has sprouted up again…..really though??

If you want a BETTER life make BETTER choices…..

If you want a BETTER partner, be a BETTER person…..

If you want to BE loved more, then BE more loving……….. basically whatever you want more of in your life you have to be more of.

Take your last 3 relationships for example and try and find the real reason behind/underneath why they didn’t work out because as much as we would all love to blame the ‘other person’ in reality it’s on US and the sooner we start to take responsibility for that the happier we will be and the more likely we will be to find mutually fulfilling relationships. I’m not saying that on the surface the PROBLEM wasn’t THEM I’m just saying that the SOLUTION is YOU. Ask yourself some questions when you’re lying down at night and no one is around and answer them truthfully. If your last boyfriend/girlfriend was a waste then WHY were you attracted to them? Or WHY did you CHOOSE to love them? And if he/she kept mistreating you then why did YOU choose to stay? You may WANT love but deep down do you think you DESERVE it? If you’re constantly running after people who are running away from you then why do you want what is unattainable? Is it just a way of reinforcing your misguided personal belief that you are not loveable? I think the reason why they say Learn to Love yourself is because you have to do exactly that, LEARN to love yourself. I don’t mean just paying the good old lip service of ‘yeah of course I love myself who wouldn’t’ or hiding behind a false bravado/fake confidence, so no one else knows the truth. I mean TRULY LOVING YOURSELF.

Why do you want what you don’t have? Or if you’re in a relationship out of convenience and you’re just choosing to settle then why do you have what you don’t want? It all boils down to lack of honesty with yourself dig a little deeper.

Because the answer is not in what they did to you it’s in what you’re not doing for yourself….’ITS ALL ABOUT OWNERSHIP’

So I guess the moral of the blog is ‘Know that the onus is on you and watch the tree from which you pick your fruits because an apple can look shiny on the surface but be rotten through and through.’ ©Nia-Jai 2012

 

#ALWAYS LOVE <3