Dealing with Pain
If you were asked to define the word, Pain, What would you say it means? What would you say Pain means to you? Is it even possible to exist in this life without knowing what Pain feels like? I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of us came out of our momma womb crying and even though we cannot recall the moment, we know we weren't crying tears of joy.. I'm not sure anyone was, I think but that's by the way. We probably were crying out of pain, right?
Pain is such a fundamental part of life. We coexist with it on a daily basis. For most, we lead our lives making a lot of effort trying to avoid it. A lot of times, our avoidance of it can be the difference between us being alive or dead.
What then is Pain? According to Britannica, pain would be a complex experience consisting of a physiological and psychological response to a noxious stimuli. It's also referred to as a warning mechanism. So in other words, pain will not exist if there is not anything causing it. There are several types, degrees and classes of pain but what this article is tailored to explore is the pain that is felt within. The Pain that's not primarily caused or inflicted by being physically hit or touched. The Pain that can feel like it hurts more than a thousand blows without us being touched. In this case, the cause could be from loss, disappointment, or betrayal. It's what I like to call Emotional pain and it's something that exists with us. It has been felt by us at some point or the other. It's also being currently felt by someone right now (my heart goes out to you).
Part of what makes us human is our ability to feel pain and as difficult as it can be to accept, it exists to teach us and help us understand better and make us stronger. Another beautiful thing about it is that it's not beyond healing. There's always relief eventually. But what also matters is how we go about looking for relief. There are positive ways of coping with the pain and there are also negative ways of dealing with it that it eventually ends up with us being in much more pain than we initially felt. There are so many different healthy pain relief strategies that exist for different cases but there are quite a few common ones that sets the baseline upon which any strategy could function.
One of which includes Recognition. One very important thing to recognise in being relieved of our pain is recognising that it is part of life. It is not all there is to life, as the pain may make you think but it just a part of it. As difficult as it is, it helps to shape and influence us. Life is filled with ups and downs. The ups will be seen and experienced so will the downs will be. It's just how life is and it's a reality we need to accept.
Another is Time.There is a saying that goes "Time is the healer of all wounds". Time is at times not given a lot of recognition in its part it could play in pain relief or coping with the pain. Nothing really exists for so long and with time, things change, clarity is seen and healing and moving on can be felt. It is just a matter of patience and constantly choosing to just move on and with time, it gets easier to.
Lastly, Seek Help and A Support system. Pain is the worst feeling ever and being healed from it would feel much easier and better if you spoke to someone about it and you have a very good support system. Having a listening ear and a shoulder to always cry on is really therapeutic.
In conclusion, pain is part of life. It's essential that we feel it if not, how do we grow, learn, adapt and be much better and caring human beings to each other. Also, healing is not as far as we may imagine. Eventually the healing we need will find us and with time, we will be much better.
Thanks for reading…
Stress, Resilience and Grit
Top of the day to you all. I hope we are dedicating each day to making the effort to live our best and peaceful lives. Today, I will be exploring an interesting topic which is going to be majorly on Psychological resilience and Grit. In an earlier article written by me- "Don't Stress Me", I explored what Stress was all about. There, I mentioned that Stress is not limited to a physical discomfort we experience when we are overworked or fatigued. Whatever it is that shifts your mood from a balanced, happy and more peaceful state to a more anxious, depressing, low or aggressive mood, then that's what stresses you. It can be physical and emotional.
So when we talk about Resilience, what are we talking about? It would refer to the ability of maintaining a calm reaction or action in crisis be it physical or emotional. So despite how anxious, scared or stressful a situation can make you feel, your ability to still portray a calm demeanor that doesn't display your feelings is what we call Resilience. According to Wikipedia, Psychological resilience is the ability to cope mentally or emotionally with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly. Resilience exists when the person uses "mental processes and behaviors in promoting personal assets and protecting self from the potential negative effects of stressors". Take for instance, you are up on on stage in front of a crowd and you are about to deliver a speech and you experience stage fright- your heart is beating really fast, palms are sweaty and you are shaking etc When you are able to still deliver that speech as calmly and confident as possible despite how you are feeling within, then that shows resilience.
Grit, on the other hand, quite similar to Resilience, would refer to one's ability to maintain a very super calm internal emotional environment despite the crisis or stressor. Being able to keep moving and doing what you want to do despite the crisis like the crisis or stressor is not there shows grit.
So while Resilience would refer to remaining calm despite how scared or restless you are on the inside in response to a stressful situation, Grit is feeling calm and not restless at all despite the stressful situation. These abilities are very useful because they help with dealing with stress and avoids the negative effects Stress can have on us and our relationships- personal or working. No one is far from being able to exhibit such abilities. It takes time and effort to get to a level which brings me to REGULATION.
When we feel stressed, it has a biological effect on us-our nervous system is "fired up", our heart rate increases, our breathing rate increases too etc. This shows there's a connection between how we feel and how our bodies physically react to these. Being able to calm ourselves physically e.g. taking deep breaths to reduce our heart rates etc can help in bringing us back to a state of calm which can make us resilient. What we do to bring ourselves to calm our nervous system is what we call REGULATION.
We exist in an environment with a lot of stressors- at work, with friends, in school etc. It's inescapable and inevitable. If left unchecked, it can bring out the worst in us. But it can be managed with a lot of effort and time. This was just an introductory piece on those concepts. In more subsequent articles, I would explore the practical ways to achieve these abilities of Resilience and Grit. I also hope to discuss more on Regulation.
Thanks for reading…
Dealing with Pressure...
Good day everyone. I hope we are all good. I want to start by saying a big Thank you to everyone who has been reading, sharing and commenting on my articles. I appreciate you all for the effort. Thank you all once again. For my article today, I will be exploring something really familiar and what I am 100% sure we all have to feel and experience at some point in our lives, even at every point and stage in our lives- Pressure- that feeling that I know has driven me to anxiety and sadness sometimes and has also in a way, at some point, brought out the best in me and made me achieve things that I could never ever imagine myself achieving. But I am sure quite a number of people would agree with me that it is not a pleasant feeling. I will prefer relaxation to feeling pressure every single time. We will be talking about pressure and I will be exploring ways in which it can be handled. Better put, the ways I have tried in the past to put a handle on it.
Pressure, in technical terms, would mean the feeling of force exerted on a particular point or area. The literal or a relatable definition is not so far from the technical definition. When we feel pressured, we feel weighed down or overwhelmed by a very stressful situation or space. In that moment, it can feel like we are literally carrying the entire world on our backs. This then could lead to one feeling really sad, anxious, depressed, aggressive and even explosive. Think about it, when you feel a very heavy physical force being impinged on you, it makes you feel really uncomfortable, tired, weakened and it gets to a point where you can not tolerate or hold on anymore, then you let it go or just react in a way that gets the pressure off. Our minds work and react in a similar way. When a stressful situation feels like a lot to handle for instance, being given an impossible deadline to deliver on a particular task or being given numerous tasks to handle all at once etc in those moments, it will feel like we are pressed down very hard and it gets uncomfortable. One, in trying to let go of the pressure, can get explosive, unmotivated, anxious and uninterested in doing anything again.
Some people find feeling pressured a safe place to be. For them, it makes them achieve things they never thought it was possible to do. For my thesis project, I was to perform about 10-14 experiments on a very large number of samples and it was expected to be done in a very short period of time. Failure to be done at the specified time would have meant repeating the entire process all over again. So there was a lot of pressure on me but in the end, I was done and I didn’t have to repeat the process again(though the deadline was extended). It got me doing extra and undergoing a lot of extreme stress but I pulled through. As beneficial as it was for me to go beyond my comfort zone, that feeling wasn't pleasant at all.
Nothing really good comes easy and as life will have it, we do have to endure a little discomfort and feel uncomfortable to achieve some very desirable things for ourselves. In recognition of the fact, I know that there’s only so much I can do but at least I have to try. So when I’m feeling pressured, what I do is give myself a break to breathe. In doing that, I calm myself down from getting anxious then give the tasks a lot of thought. In thinking, I take an objective look at the task at hand and determine its feasibility and get to work. If I see, I can't handle it then I stop. This is my process and for a lot of people, their ways could be different. So let's share our processes of dealing in the comment section.
Thanks for reading…
5 months and counting.....
Good day everyone. I hope we are all good and fine. I hope we are doing our best to live our best lives and are happy. I also hope we are at peace too amidst the storms we may individually be passing through. I wish for you all the love, light, peace, happiness that life has to offer. So we are in the fifth month of the year, almost approaching the sixth month quickly and it is not looking like the year is waiting for us at all. But as fast as the year seems like it's moving, with most of us in the daily pursuit of our goals, dreams, and our daily bread, it will do us a lot of good to stop, chill, breathe and take a look back at how far we have come, how much we have gained and lost, the mistakes we have made, the efforts we have made towards correction, what we have done and what we have forgotten to do.
We exist in such a fast paced world, always ever surrounded by people giving descriptions about their successes and achievements and what it does for us is inspire and motivate but at the same time, could put a lot of pressure on you to get to such levels as quickly as possible. What it then leads us to doing is working, working, pushing, trying to put our best efforts and giving a lot of focus. A focus that blinds us and prevents us from seeing and appreciating what we have become at the moment and be grateful for where we are and how far we have come. Trying to reach a goal is like a journey of growth. Every step or effort you take in that journey makes you different and more improved than you were before you took any step or made any effort. I think that is worthy of some accolades.
At the moment, it may seem as if we are nowhere close to where we want to be. It can even get frustrating and depressing. But what we should not forget is that at the moment, we are better off than when we started. We know better, we see things much clearer, we are doing well and are where we ought to be. Growth is a process. It is like a marathon and not a sprint. It takes time, effort and guidance. As long as we remain on track, we will definitely meet the mark. But in this process, we give ourselves the break needed to breathe,reminisce and appreciate ourselves for how far we have gone and improved. We are only at competition with ourselves so we will be showing ourselves a lot of love by not comparing ourselves with anyone or anything.
You are worthy of appreciation. You are seen and the work you put in is commendable. There's no such thing as too slow or too fast. You move at your own pace and let no one pressure you. Give yourself a pat on the back, take yourself out, allow yourself enjoy and be happy at where you are at the very moment. You have come a long way and you have done very well.
As fast paced as things can get, giving yourself the time and space to relax, give yourself a break is the one of the most important thing you can do for your wellbeing. It doesn't keep you from reaching your goals at the set time. It energizes you, puts you in the right frame of mind and makes you enjoy the process. The destination is also important as the journey.
Thank you for reading..
When Life Offers you Lemons.....
As we grow older and become more self aware, we begin to develop dreams and expectations of our own that we set for ourselves( some of the expectations are set for us by society). We set goals to make our dreams reality. In our minds, we have a clear picture of what we intend to achieve in a particular amount of years and where we see ourselves at a particular position in those years’ time. For some, it would be to get a particular grade in a subject; for some other person, it could be done with a particular learning program at a particular age etc . The interesting thing about these goals we set for ourselves is that they are ever-changing and we are always making them consciously and semiconsciously. When I was in primary school, I remember my goal in life at that period in time was to always take the first position in class. Actually, to be more precise, the goal was to always get called out to receive a prize on the prize-giving day. Those were easier times indeed. In secondary school, the goal was to always do very well in several subjects so as to have a very high average score. One time, I set a goal to get 90% in Mathematics. I never got it..lol but I never failed the subject as difficult as i found it.
Then, I remember saying to myself that by so-so age, I will be done with school, buy a car, build a house and get married and have kids. For some reason, That seemed to be the picture of success for most of us growing up.Better put, it is like as young as we were, we were socially conditioned to think making it in life meant having a house, car and a family. Having all that meant that you had made it in life and anything short of that meant you are still on your way there. Knowing what I know now, making it in life is more of a function of what you as an individual really wants to make out of life and not a social condition. At the end, all that we want is to be happy, so whatever makes you the happiest is what one should go for and not society's definition of happy. The point being that our orientation on the certain goals we set for ourselves changes as we get to know better. Personally, I wish I set many different goals for myself when I was much younger.
One thing worthy of note when we set goals is that they can be affected by a lot of factors that are beyond our control. Goals we intend to achieve at a particular period in time can take much longer to achieve or due to an unexpected event that occurs, the goals can become unattainable. For instance, in my case, I expect to be done with school by a particular time in the month but due to the government 's refusal to fulfil his part in an agreement she made with the university staff in 2009, I will be spending more time than usual in school. That would mean all I intend to achieve at a particular period may take longer to achieve than usual and it’s sad.
But such is life a lot of times. Life can be unfair and things that we do not deserve can happen to us. A lot of times it can seem as though things are designed to completely disrupt the trajectory of our lives and completely stop us from reaching our goals. What we can do is accept that it is not the end; try to make the best out of the worst situation and not allow anything to leave us down for a very long time.
When life gives us lemons, make lemonade.
TED talks.
We are all a product of influence and no matter how much one may try to deny it, the fact still remains that we are the way we are as a result of what we see, hear, experience and learn. You probably like what you like because someone you know or look up to liked it. You think the way you do and have these deep convictions and predispositions as a result of something external. Such can be said about me because my thought process and convictions are or were influenced by external forces. One of which I would be telling you about in this article. This one is Tedx talks. In my very first article here, I wrote that one day, it's a dream of mine to be a Tedx Speaker. I would consider it to be one of my greatest ambitions in life.
So what are Ted Talks? Ted Talks take the form of videos and they are speeches that are delivered by experts in different fields and they deliver speeches on Business, Finance, art, medicine, etc almost any topic on any field that contributes to humanity. This was founded by Richard Saul Wurman, who co-founded it with Harry Marks in February 1984. The idea behind the establishment was based on an observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a convergence of technology, entertainment and design. Over the years, it has evolved to include speakers from other aspects of human endeavours and the speeches has gone beyond what it use to be. Now, for a number of speeches I have listened to, they seek to teach, inspire, make you reflect and empathize. Most of what I have listened to has helped in one way or the other to form my deepest of convictions.
I came across Ted in 2016. A teacher in my church sat me down and began to advise that I give myself to exploring apps on the Internet that help to improve and widen the scope of my thought. One of the apps he suggested was a TED app. So the next day, I downloaded the app and the very first speech I listened to on the app was "**The Danger of a single story** " by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (my heroine) and that changed everything for me. She spoke on how that stories we share about a person, a people or place can affect how people perceive those place, people or so. Stories told and spread about a people , most especially the fallacious ones, could encourage an undeserved prejudice, bias towards these people. That speech taught me to be mindful of what I am told and check to be sure before developing a strong perspective or arriving at a conclusion.
The very next video I listened to that literally changed my life was Tony Porter's "**A Call to Men**". A speech that challenged misogyny and sexism. A speech that sought for boys to be taught how not to see a girls as a weaker gender, but to be accorded the respect that they deserve. It was a 9-minute speech and it really changed my mindset back then.
Over the years,I have listened to different speeches that has changed my viewpoints on a lot of things and I will listen to more that will still help me get more viewpoints on different issues as the years go by. I consider myself a lifetime learner. I actively seek different perspectives than mine to help me be more empathic and help me get a sense of a much bigger picture. TED for me is one of the avenues that has helped me with this and I'm forever grateful to the organisation for doing what it does.
So I encourage you to listen and dare to see things from other perspectives. It only helps to inform you and make you have fairer convictions.
Thank you for reading.
My Favourite Teacher...
Hey Everyone. I hope we are all good. I want to start by appreciating you for the time you take to read my articles. I say Thank you. In this article, I will be writing about my favorite teacher in secondary school..(an odd topic right)
I attended an all boys school which is not so far from where my tertiary institution is. I had my six-year secondary school education in this all boys school and in retrospect, I would not say I had the best of times there but it wasn't my worst experience either. I say this because back then, growing up, I struggled a lot with low self esteem so it didn't make me feel great at all times. But there were times, moments and experiences that I treasure the most and wouldn't trade for anything else. In my time there, there were people I met that I wish to never contact again in my lifetime because of how horrible they made me feel and the horrible things they did. I also met people who I loved, who made a lot of impact in my life and people I looked up to.
One of these special people includes my fav secondary school teacher. For the sake of privacy, I will identify her as Mrs OJ.
Mrs OJ was the school's Agricultural science teacher. She was short, dark-skinned, slim, always plaited beautiful traditional hairstyles peculiar to her tribe and had a very interesting dressing style. She spoke really well too and was a very funny person. I loved her. Among her colleagues, she had this lovable child-like character she displayed but with us, she tried to be as strict as possible but among her favourite students (me inclusive), she loosened up a bit. When she taught us in senior secondary school, she would be seated in the class in front of us and have discussions with us. In those moments, it would feel very easy to have a conversation with an adult and not feel like you're being disrespectful. She gave off an atmosphere that made one feel easy to talk with her. She was funny too. I really loved her. I can remember finding it difficult to believe that she was a Mrs..lol..
One could say that the reason I always did very well and exceptional in her subject was because of how much I liked her. In Jss1, I didn't do so well in Agric(what we called it then) but in Jss2( which was when Mrs OJ started teaching me), I did very well and didn't perform any less as long as she taught us. Funnily, It even had me playing with the idea of being a farmer. But I still intend doing something Agricultural related in the not-so-distant future. To testify to how amazing this lady was,I was not the only one that felt this way about her. A lot of us ( her favourite students) really liked her and I would really enjoy her class. A classmate friend of mine studied an Agricultural related course in the University because of her. She was an amazing teacher.
I believe teaching goes beyond just sharing new information with another person and trying to gauge the person's understanding of the subject by conducting examinations. Great teachers create and encourage an atmosphere for students to feel comfortable in that learning space to ask, express their thoughts and be corrected fairly without feeling like trash. Great teachers also inspire students to be better and to strive to be better. Great teachers also make the subject interesting to learn and not feel burdensome and mundane. Great teachers are also like Mrs OJ.
I have been taught by a lot of teachers in my lifetime but none compares to my Mrs OJ. She was an inspiration and I appreciate her for being such a great teacher.
Feel free to talk about teachers in your life that have made an impact in your life in the comment section.
Thanks for reading.
People Skills
Hey Everyone. So today I am discussing how we relate with people and how knowing the right way to relate with people can be of tremendous help to us. So in my school, we have these sessions where we are divided into groups and we are tasked with carrying out experiments and presenting results. So this activity contributes to our grading at the end of the semester so it's important that we do not fail. We are being lectured on all that's needed to know in carrying out the experiments and we, the groups, are tasked with its execution. So at times, we are placed in the same group with people we don't have or have had any prior rapport with, basically people we are meeting for the first time. There's no prior understanding of the kind of people they are, their strengths, their weaknesses, their attitudes or how useful they can be to the success of the group task. What this does is put me in a position where I have to be very careful and mindful in my dealings with them, be conscious of how I address them so there's no quarrel or issue over anything because it could lead to dissention which could further lead to setbacks and ultimately, a failure of the group task and much more ultimately a failure by the end of the semester. So it's imperative that one gets along with everyone. That's why possessing people skills are important.
What are People skills? The Portland Business Journal would define people skills as an ability to effectively communicate, understand, and empathize or an ability to interact with others respectfully and develop productive working relationship to minimize conflict and maximize rapport. At the core of people skills, we take note of three things- communication, understanding and empathy. Being able to effectively carry out these actions puts you in a better position to work well with people, thereby reach team goals and complete group tasks faster and more efficiently. More times than I count, exhibiting these qualities has made me enjoy team work and it has made efforts on a team lead us to to the successful completion of the project.
What I would be more concerned about in this article would be on the ability to effectively communicate. Communication implies more than just speaking and trying to listen. According to Business Jargon, Effective Communication is a communication between two or more persons wherein the intended message is successfully delivered, received and understood. In other words for communication to be complete and effective, there has to be delivery of a message and and more importantly an understanding of that message. So even when you put your message out there to a team member and the person doesn't understand, then effective communication has not taken place. One has to then try to ensure that whatever is communicated is understood by the listener and one way to ensure is always asking for feedback. The effective accomplishment of a task won't be possible if people in a group don't communicate well with each other.
Another thing to put in consideration as regards communication is to sound as formal and polite as possible. No one appreciates being spoken to rudely so one has to be very mindful of tone- choice of words, order of words and how you say them. Saying the magic words as often as possible can help- "Sorry", "Thank you", "Please ", "Excuse me", etc
Also, being able to understand and empathize with people can help you get the most out of people in your dealings with them. When you listen to people express their grievances or make complaints, putting yourself in their shoes gives you an idea of the best response to give them at that point. You get to reply and communicate the way you would prefer to be spoken to if you were in their shoes.
In conclusion, at some point in our lives, we would be put in a position where in order to get something, you will need a person or people's help to get that thing. Exhibiting peoples skills would be greatly instrumental with making your work relationship more interesting and effective and it would help with accomplishing your tasks faster.
Thanks for reading.
Happy Good Friday to you all!!!
Wake Up..
Top of the day to you all. I hope we all are good, happy, still grinding, feeling motivated and are constantly and consistently making the effort to achieve our goals, most especially our goals for 2022. We are in the fourth month of the year and the year is moving and waiting for no one. It then begs the question , how much for ourselves have we achieved? How much of our goals are we currently working on achieving? Progress report? Have we even started doing anything about our goals? Did you even set any goal?
With every new beginning comes expectations we place on ourselves (sometimes society places it on us) and it may require actionable steps to meet such expectations. For some, it could be to finish with a 4.0 GPA by the end of the academic year or to lose or gain a certain amount of weight. Different expectations for different people at different times depending on different needs we may have. In the light of that, we make the decision to set goals and objectives for ourselves to meet these expectations. We map out different strategies and imagine how we are going to get there.
All in all, it starts with a desire to want something for ourselves, then we put in the work to achieve it.
But the thing about setting goals is that they aren't just set like that. A lot of consideration is put into deciding which and which is to be achieved. Take for instance, one sets a goal to gain an extra 200 pounds in one or two days or hope to run 100m in 9.58 seconds in just a week of training. The end points are good and hopefully achievable but the timing is totally off and would it be much of a goal if it is totally unrealistic? Hence, the need for you to even understand what a goal is and how to set realistic goals that could be met.
A goal, according to Dictionary.com, is an objective or target that a person is trying to reach or achieve. It could also be target or aim you have in mind to get to. As simple as it sounds, what guides or greatly influence the possibility of success or its achievement is how much the goal aligns with reality. Like I earlier stated above, to achieve what you have in mind, it has to be realistic. One way to achieve this is by attaching realistic time frames to what you intend to achieve. Like the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day, so things require time to achieve and that should be recognised when setting goals.
Another thing to be considered is that your goal should be specific. It's not enough for you to decide to gain some weight by the next quarter. You have to include the specific amount, maybe 5kg or 15 pounds etc depending on what you want. What this helps to do is make your goal feel more concrete, achievable and helps to streamline your focus. It's easy to focus on a target that can be seen or perceived. In the animal kingdom when big cats hunt for their food, they do so by focusing on just one game and losing sight of the large number of preys that could be in sight. They see and know what they want and they go for them.
Last but not the least, which should have been placed above anything is that your goals should be written down somewhere. For me, I write my goals on paper and paste it on a wall. A lot of times, I type them out on my phone or laptop. For me, this helps me not to forget my goals. I can always go back to monitor my progress.
In conclusion, we all know what will make us happy. To achieve these things, we need to set realistic, specific, time-conscious and written goals. It takes them from being a mere imagination to a probable possibility of reality.
Thanks for reading.
What Depression is....
When we talk about Depression, what are we talking about? Feeling sad, lonely, hopeless or just anti-joyful? These are, what could be characterized to be normal feelings or reactions that everyone or most people have ever felt at some point in their lives in response to something tragic or uncomfortable that occurs at some point in their lifetime. A lot of times, these feelings persist over a relatively short period of time, after which they get on with the everyday business of living. But when we talk about the condition of Depression, it's far more severe and if left untreated or unchecked, it causes a great deal of harm than expected.
Depression is defined as, according to the course on Mental Health on Alison Courses , a mental state characterized by feelings of sadness, despair, worthlessness and hopelessness. As usual and normal as these feelings may seem, they are experienced at a much more severe level, they persist for much longer and it pushes the victim to making, at worst, life-threatening choices. What this means is that the victim or sufferer loses the zeal and desire to live and would display a complete apathy towards living. In a lot of cases, the victim has suicidal tendencies. The drive to live is completely lost and the need to survive becomes not important anymore. According to TedED, if the feelings of despair, sadness, and hopelessness persist for more than 14 days, then such a person is depressed or suffers depression.
What Depression is, is a condition that can be triggered by certain events and/or it can occur as a result of an alteration in one's brain chemistry- lack of supply of dopamine and serotonin. It's characterized by a number of symptoms which include and are definitely not limited to weight loss, suicidal tendencies, retardation in thought, sadness, lack of reaction to the environment ad infinitum. There are a large variety of symptoms associated with Depression and it's very possible that no two people suffering depression may display the same symptoms. So arriving at a conclusive diagnosis, one must be careful. To be on the safest possible side, it's best to carry a professional along before coming to a conclusion.
Now that we have an idea about it, is there a way to come back from the condition? Is there a cure? Can it be managed? Yes and there are quite a number of ways this can be achieved.
Firstly, open up. This is, a lot of times, the hardest step a lot of depression sufferers have to make and it's also the most important step. It takes a lot of courage and strength to admit to a personal issue one has or may suffer from. Talking to someone,a friend or someone you consider a safe space for you would do such a person a lot of good and it's okay.
Another is seeking professional help. Depression is a mental health condition that requires the aid of a psychologist who could provide the necessary tools needed to manage the situation. In more extreme cases, antidepressants could be prescribed and even shock therapy(which involves passing a level of electricity to your brain to help trigger the release of the "happiness" hormones-Dopamine and serotonin).
In a world with a lot of stressors and triggers, our mental health could be at risk of suffering some damage that affects the way we think and feel about ourselves. That's why it best that we take our mental health seriously and for those experiencing these issues, I wish for you all the help that you need. I hope you get better and please speak up.
Also know that you're not alone.
Thanks for reading.
Changes...
Hello everyone and happy belated new month. It’s being a while since I have posted, apologies. But I’m here now and it’s feels really good to have you reading another article from me today. So it’s just the first week of April and unlike other weeks in April,this week held something very special for me. It was a very unique week in my life because *drum rolls* It was my birthday week. Yipee!!!! This person(I) became a much bigger person and I won’t lie, It is exciting and at the same time very terrifying. I know a whole lot of people will agree with me that becoming an adult is not as great as we imagined it to be when we were much younger. Back then, as young and much smaller as we were, it was much easier to have very wild imaginations about who we would want to be when we become much older( some, our parents and guardians imagined for us). I remember wanting to be like my dad, did what he did, had the number of children my parents had. But as one gets older, one gets to realize that what we know and experience shapes us individually and almost 100 percent of the times, irrespective of biology/genetics, what we get to know and experience growing up will definitely be much different from the experience of those we look up to or those that have been before us. Therefore, we are shaped differently to make different choices from those who came before us.
If you think about it, considering how powerful our knowledge and experience are to shape us and the decisions we make, This makes the future; the coming days, the coming months, the coming years, really uncertain, with enough power to maybe affect the goals one may have penned down to achieve today. What if one knows something new in the next two weeks that causes a paradigm shift for such a person and makes one decide to just become a priest or climb Mount Everest or decide to be a cattle rearer(highly unlikely..lol). It goes to show how pliable our resolve can be at times. Personally, over the years, what I have wanted or hoped to achieve has changed over time due to what I have had to experience. I bet it's that way with a lot of people. People having to redefine themselves as they get older; people having to change their styles, habits, goals, perspectives on different things to accommodate the new person they feel themselves becoming. In the end, change, indeed, is the one and only constant thing.
But as much as it's possible for us to be pliable, there are still things worth keeping constant and intact about who we are no matter what we see or get to experience. They include,but not limited to, being kind, showing love and being fair. There are times what we get to see or experience can leave us feeling really sad with a lot of regrets. It can leave us regretting why we chose to be good and fair in the first place. Out of hurt, It can leave us making decisions to not ever show love or express a level of reluctance towards showing love. It's very understandable that such stances are made but one thing worthy of note is that at the end, choosing forgiveness and pursuing emotional healing would make one feel much better.
Nothing in this life is set in stone and change is the one constant thing. It's good and it shows growth. But as good and very important as change is, we do not let things that make us good, loving and kind leave. We should endeavour to keep that part of us constant even though we go through hell and back.
Thanks for reading…
Safe Spaces...
Good day everyone.
How are you? The expected and normal response will be "I'm fine", "Cool", "I'm good", " Alright " etc. But a lot of times these so-called expected responses do not at all times describe how one really is at that point in time. For instance, you can feel like the whole world is on your shoulder but still reply "I'm fine" when asked how you are. Who does that help? Is it fair? It won't be such a bad thing if you choose to go beyond giving the normal response and saying how you really are. In the end, it feels very good to share your current state of your mind with someone who cares to ask you how you really are. It's a thing of relief when you let someone into your headspace.
But is it just anyone you let into your headspace? Is it anyone that says they care, really show this in their words and actions? Do you feel safe around them? Do you even feel like you can open up to anyone?
A Safe space, like the name implies, a space you feel safe in and it's not restricted to just a location but it can be a person or people you feel at home with or comfortable and good enough to be who you are, express your feelings to, share your thoughts with, without feeling bad or judged or agitated or worse off than you felt before confiding in them. That's what a safe space is and that's what it makes you feel like. It takes different forms to different people but what's more important is that you feel the same way irrespective of the form it takes- at peace, sane, happy and safe.
We exist in an ever evolving society a lot of times, whose ideologies and perspectives may not align with our current view on certain things or at a conflict with it such that it doesn't give us the permission or freewill to feel how we want to feel and be who we want to be or choose to be. In this same world, there exist those who go out of their way to put people down to get their own way. There are those that gaslight, manipulate and deceive. There are times where people in your life put you through all of that. There are also times where for no reason you just feel tired, sad and life is weighing you down. A lot of times it gets frustrating, drives you nuts and you just want to rant, isolate yourself. In times like this, for your benefit, you would need to put yourself in spaces where you feel safe enough to just be. You would need to be given words of assurance, shown care, given attention among others.
The need for spaces where we feel safe and sane in such an unpredictable, unsafe and insane world can't be more overemphasized and what a lot of us need and crave is just peace of mind. I know I need this. So my advice to you all is to go out of your way and actively seek out such spaces for yourself. You need it a lot more than you think for the preservation of your mental health. Do a little introspection and become aware of who and which makes you feel safe and give the needed and required time to such spaces.
I hope and wish for you all that you find safe spaces for yourselves. I hope and wish that you are at peace at all times and I wish for you all that you have the strength to weather the storm that life makes us go through.
Thank you for reading..
Don't Stress Me........
Top of the day to you all, my fellow readers. I hope we are all good and are trying to live our best lives as much as we can. I hope we all do and wish you all the happiness and joy in the world. I also wish you something important- which is that you don't go through a lot of stress. It seems uncommon that you get wished that right? Let's talk a lot more about this in hope that we understand better.
Firstly, let's talk about stress. What is Stress to you? How would you define it? Well the first and surest thing I know about Stress is that no one desires it and a lot of work and consideration is put into ensuring it is avoided and/or is experienced as minimally as possible. I know I try to avoid it like a plague. No one desires it.
Another thing worthy of note in our talk about Stress is that there are several contexts and subject matters that gives the word "Stress" its definition. In Phonics and Phonetics, it carries a different definition. In Physics and Engineering, it means something totally different. In the context on which the writing is based, Stress would mean something more relatable to a much greater majority, relatable to me and to you. According to a Medlineplus article on Stress, they would define it as a "feeling of physical and emotional tension". In multiple ways, we have experienced this feeling in our lifetime. You're probably experiencing it now-this feeling of discomfort that you wish you could shake off right now. That's the Stress we are set to explore in this.
One major thing that also comes to mind about stress is that the tension we feel on an emotional and physical level does not materialize out of thin air like that. Certain things can lead to it and that 's what we call a stressor which creates that feeling of stress. A good number of times, identifying the stressor is a major step in achieving a relief from stress. The stressor could be anything ranging from work, academics or even a relationship or a person or groups of people.
There seems to be this unspoken notion that stress is experienced so much more on a physical level that the emotional tension isn't paid a lot of attention to or recognized as much or even seen as worthy of consideration. It is so bad that this notion has made many choose to ignore it and rather than deal with it, they try to go through it like it's not there. All there is to stress isn't extreme work, trying to beat a deadline, experiencing traffic, having to walk a lot of distance or put yourself through strenuous exercises etc. There is also the place of the disappointment, heartache, extreme sadness, anxiety, fear, depression, anger, emotional pain that being with a person or persons or around a situation or a space can continually make you feel. A toxic situation with a person or in a place that leaves you feeling exhausted, worse or sad. This type of stress is valid and it's worthy to be recognized and worked on to achieve a much more peaceful life.
Stress is literally part of life and it can't be escaped but it can be managed and dealt with. One of such ways is identifying the stressor-knowing what's causing it, then there's the place of opening up about it with someone-discussing it with someone is more therapeutic than we think. Having to share your pain, anger with someone that will understand is really comforting. These are the few ways I handle mine and it's different from different people. So I would like you to share yours. Who knows, your experience could be of extreme help to someone .
Thanks for reading.
Haappy International Women's dayyyyy
Haappy International Women's dayyyyy
Point of Correction....
Hello to you all, readers. I do hope you all are doing great and fine. And for those of you not going through the best of times at the moment, I want to say sorry that you are going through what you are going through. I strongly believe in light being at the end of dark tunnels. I hope and wish for you that you see it much quicker than you know and expect.
When I was much younger, in my teens, I was asked to make a request to the then head of my school for the use of a bus to transport an ailing kid to the hospital. I was in a position in school then to have that much access to going directly to make such a request. It was my very first time of ever meeting someone that important in the school and I was tensed….very tensed. I didn’t allow myself be calm. I got to the office where the person was and I was not sounding articulate at all. I was rushing my words and not sounding clear at all. I had finished talking and the man, the authority asked if I was stupid and scolded me for not sounding so clear. That really hurt me very bad. A lot of times I replay that moment in my head and wonder, would it have killed this man to politely tell me to be calm, catch my breath and talk? Would it have killed him to be human in that moment? It hit me for a while but I’m much better now and I have moved on from it. What he did was very unfair considering the fact that he was in a position to correct or teach me in that moment or make me just do it better. Maybe he was and in his mind, calling me stupid and scolding me was his idea of a correction. If you ask me, I think that method of correction- inflicting emotional pain- is not fair at all. Majority of the time, this method of correction does a lot of damage to a person’s mental health (not to talk of having to inflict physical pain to correct but then again that is another topic for another day). It then begs or raises the crucial question- If a method of correction brings more harm, damage to a person’s psyche, then should that method be encouraged? If in correcting me, you hurt me with your words, am I to be appreciative of it?
Another time, just recently I was given a task to submit a chapter of my final year thesis (which I will give you a full gist about soon so stay tuned). I was so scared and even expected a harsh response or comments on the numerous mistakes I made but to my surprise, my supervisor corrected me in a very nice way but she was objective. Through her correction, I comfortably understood something I had been struggling to understand for quite a while. I left her office feeling more confident and very eager to take to corrections (even though she cancelled almost half of my work..lol) but I did not feel bad. That helped me. That manner of correction helped me. It did more good to me than harm.
No one is perfect. We all make mistakes. It is even safe to say that mistakes are necessities of life and I say this because how would we learn if we do not err? But the way we get corrected also matters. Correction should seek to help but not to tear down, build but not destroy, engender confidence but not bring shame and more importantly, correction should heal and not bring pain.
This is just my two cents on this. I look forward to knowing what you feel about this. I apologize once again that it has taken this long to post. I look forward to doing better as time goes on.
Good day my readers. Happy valentine in arrears to you all. So I have been swamped with a lot of activities from carrying out my project to preparing for tests and assignments etc. That is why I have not posted any thing yet. But this week I will be able to post articles. So watch out and have beautiful days.
Gifts
*Photo from Unsplash*
Hello Everyone. Welcome again to another latest post of mine. I have since written just two, making this my third one and so far I am grateful for the comments received ever since. I look forward to writing as much articles as possible here. I could say a thousand but I am choosing not to limit myself. .lol. So the season of love is almost upon us and I’m quite sure you are already seeing brands putting out ads for valentine packages; restaurants, malls and organizations planning dinner specials and events to celebrate the reason for that season which is love. Also for those of you with really special people and significant others in your life, you are probably racking your brains and giving critical thought to what you are going to be gifting them with. That’s why in this post, I will be addressing that and probably this helps you in arriving at a gift idea soon enough.
When the word “gift “or “present” is mentioned, what comes to your mind? To a lot of people, it is something given in recognition of an event, or season e.g. birthday, anniversary, Christmas, etc. I find this arguable because your gift will still be a gift and be appreciated if you gave it a time where nothing is really happening. Another thing that comes to mind is there has to be someone special that will be receiving it e.g. A loved one, significant other etc. Thirdly, the giving has to come from a place of love and gratitude. I mean, would you give a gift to someone you have a lot of hate for? Would you? Bringing all these together, one could say that a gift is anything tangible or intangible you give to a person from a place of love and/or gratitude towards the person in a given time or at any time.
That being said, what then makes the perfect gift? How do I know that they will like it or even appreciate it? This attracts a lot of critical thought and a lot of pressure when giving gifts. I remember when I was trying to get a gift for a person and I thought really much about it...So so much and I really worried that it was not going to be appreciated. I later got what I got and it was deeply appreciated. What a lot of us forget when deciding on a gift to give is that it is the thought behind the gift that matters and not what it costs you. That matters far more than the latter. Recognizing that takes a lot of pressure from you and just makes it easy on you in trying to get one. What is more important is that you do all you can to give or do something sweet and it will and should be appreciated.
What then do you go for in arriving at a gift to give? Do you go for getting something you know they are in dire need of? Do you go for something so lavish and sweet like trip to Hawaii or Santorini etc.? Do you go for something you know they need but they don’t know they need it? Like how someone got me a bag when I didn’t have one. It was something I really appreciated. That was like the first time I was receiving a gift from anyone in such a long time. I felt it was thoughtful and I was very grateful. Or do you just ask for them for what they would like as a gift and just get it for them?
All in all, no matter the option you go for, realize that the mere thought of gifting a person something communicates a level of appreciation and love that the loved one or friend etc. can detect and be totally swept off their feet as a result. So realize that there is no pressure at all. Go for what you can afford. No one wants you dying or suffering to getting a gift. If you want to go an extra mile, that is fine but don’t harm yourself in the process.
I hope and wish for you that you get the gift idea quicker so you can make the adequate plans for it faster. Thank you for reading my post.
Tolerance, Empathy and Acceptance
Hello my esteemed readers, top of the day to you all. I want to start by appreciating you for taking the time to read my last article. I’m grateful for the kind comments. I also want to apologize that it has taken me this long to publish this. From working on my project (which by the way it’s an interesting topic which I promise to share with you all, by the time I’m done) to school work and other commitments, it has been a roller coaster of activities but what this calls for is for me to have a better management of time than usual to keep writing for your reading pleasure.
My bio reads “Tolerance, Empathy and Acceptance”. Words a lot of us are familiar with. Empathy will connote putting yourself in another person’s shoes. Tolerance would mean being able to allow for something despite the discomfort you may feel and Acceptance is being able to fully accept or be at peace with a situation or with someone. The one thing that unites these qualities is that they can be expressed towards people and if there were expressed more in the world by people, the world will be a much better place than it is now and ever.
What makes the world we are in very unbearable for a lot of people is the terrible lack of knowledge and understanding of these principles. If every human being embodied these principles or had always embodied these principles, then a lot of the carnage that took place in history e.g. The Holocaust, Slavery etc. would not have occurred. If people were much quicker to be a bit more tolerant of what they didn’t necessarily agree to but didn’t cause them any harm, then such things as what the Crusaders did in times past, couldn’t have happened and a lot more. If the first thought that came to a lot of people’s mind was to put themselves in next person shoes, to an extent they would understand how certain actions done would make one feel. This realization would in turn guide one’s relation to people, most especially in time of conflict and dissent. Acceptance is beautiful because it frees you from having to hold anything against anyone. It encourages and creates an atmosphere where people can choose to live and do as they please (as long as no one is getting abused or hurt) without any feeling of toxicity. I reiterate once again that this world would be much easier to bear if we all knew what it meant to be tolerant, show empathy and be accepting of people as they are.
What makes up the world is her people. The survival and destruction is totally dependent on us. How bearable the world is for us is totally dependent on how we treat and see each other, how we act towards each other. It starts with you and me making the effort to embody these qualities of Tolerance, empathy and acceptance and expressing them. All these qualities are birthed by love. We express love to each other by showing these qualities. If we didn’t, the horrors of the past would be rehashed and the world will be so unbearable. With the way things are currently, a lack of love expressed will only make things worse.
I appreciate you all once again for taking the time to read this article. I hope I have been able to encourage and inspire you to being more intentional and aware of being more tolerant, showing empathy and being more acceptable of people and certain ideas. At the end what we all want is a world of peace and harmony. It starts with you. It starts with me.
Start of something new....
Photo from Unsplash.
Good day Readers! My moniker is Ken. I’m new here and this is my first official article post on Readcash and probably my first article to be posted on a writing platform! I must admit I feel very nervous but at the same time it feels exciting that I’m doing this because I believe this is a step in the right direction, for me, of hopefully being really good at writing. I appreciate you all for the time you will be taking to read what I hope would be an amazing read for you all.
To start with, who am I? My name is Ken but then, there are millions of people that bear that name so does that answer the question of who I am? As simple as the question sounds, it demands critical thought to give an answer to or it could just demand a simple answer that doesn’t require as much critical thought like just saying your name, what you do, how old you are, your cultural heritage, sexual orientation etc. In another article, we will get to examine more of that but what I’m choosing to say is this:
My name is Ken and I’m a student in a university studying a course I never thought or ever imagined myself studying which to an extent, I enjoy. I have a flair for exploring different perspectives and thoughts which is the reason for my interests in reading non-fiction, seeing documentaries, listening to a lot of TED talks(it’s a dream of mine to, one day, speak at a TED event) , watching interviews and dialogues etc. This isn’t obviously all there is to me. Hopefully, as I post more articles, you enjoy the articles and you get to know me better.
Imagine for a second a world where there was no one who wrote anything? Imagine if writing didn’t exist? Imagine a world where there was no single medium through which people could express themselves, their insights, thoughts, perspectives, resolutions etc. Personally, I hope to never exist in such a universe or reality because how will people learn, un-learn, relearn, understand and know better. How would the future generation learn not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors if there were no records of what had occurred? With all these adduced and a lot more other reasons, the need for the written word can’t be more over-emphasized. This brings to light why writing is really important to me. Being able to express myself in words is everything for me, as it is for a lot of people. It puts our voice out there, let people into how we think and feel and to the benefit of those who get to read what we put out there, provides an inspiration of hope, joy, love, understanding, peace etc. for them. It’s a beautiful thing that one’s words in a medium, be it electronic or written engenders a series of emotions in people and more importantly, gives the writer the satisfaction of just being able to put themselves out there.
This is why I’m here, doing this for the first time; making the decision to put what I write out there; **starting something new this year**, 2022. I hope that with what I write, you find it amazing, enjoyable and it engenders within you the core principles which I intend consciously abiding with, which is my bio-**Tolerance, Empathy and Acceptance.**
I appreciate you all for the taking time to read this introductory piece of mine. I hope you enjoyed it. I look forward to seeing your comments and reactions to this piece. Thank you for reading.
@KenJackson
