“Everything you have will come to you through a person.”
Bishop TD Jakes
Daily Quote: Bishop TD Jakes
Tag: relationships
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
14 days and counting! I am so excited! My tree is up and my son and I have decorated the house a bit. This is the first time ever that we have our tree up so early and that we have decorated the house. The Christmas spirit is alive and well in my home this year!
This is the first year that my son and I will wake up in our home on Christmas morning. We would normally sleep over at my mother’s on Christmas Eve. This of course meant spending the afternoon locked in my room at my mom’s, wrapping gifts. Ideally little should have been napping at this point so that he could make it through midnight mass, but FOMO is his second name so my dad would distract him instead. He would rather dose off during the mass so that he was fresh as soon as the mass was done 😂. Before church he would put out the biscuits and milk for Santa and then into the car. I would drink half the glass and through half the biscuits in my bag and put the gifts under tree before joining everyone in the car. Coming home to discover what Santa had left under the Christmas tree while we were away has always been my son’s favourite moment at Christmas.
He would always check the milk and biscuits first as soon as he got in the house. The absolute excitement on his face when he sees that the milk and biscuits are finished was priceless. Proof that Santa was definitely there! Yay! Next he would check under the tree and lo and behold…Santa has not disappointed him! There lay all the gifts! In those few moments, his belief in the magic of Christmas is sealed and there is nothing anyone can say or do to shake it. Seeing the wonder and joy in his eyes is gift enough for me.
The past 2 Christmas’s have been very different. The first one, my mom was sick so he didn’t sleep at her house on Christmas Eve and the second, he spent with his father’s family. It was our first Christmas without my mum and I thought it would be better for him to spend it elsewhere to distract him. Luckily, despite these disruptions in our Christmas routine, he still believes in Santa and is looking forward to our first Christmas at home. I am thrilled because that belief in Santa is what makes Christmas magical and neither of us are ready to stop believing in that magic just yet.
I have to admit, it has taken a lot of reinventions of the truth as he has gotten older to keep him believing in Santa. He still believes that I have Santa, the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy’s numbers. The story has now evolved to the fact that there are so many more kids in the world today that these 3 characters need help. They now rely heavily on parents to be their helpers so that little people are not disappointed😜. He also knows that he has to “believe to receive” (one of our directors at work taught me that trick). He is no idiot so sometimes a few doubts creep in but the need to believe is stronger and overrides his doubts every time.
He has received his gift early so he is not expecting anything under the tree but of course, Santa will surprise him. I can’t wait to see the look on his face on Christmas morning!!! Today he was trying to suss out how I would go about buying him a gift without him knowing since I am at work all day and he is with me when I am not working. That brain of his is always busy trying to figure this out. He also clearly refuses to accept that Santa won’t leave anything for him under the tree. He is holding on to his hope. Well…since he believes, he will have to receive.
This year we will start creating a new Christmas routine. We have already started by putting up the tree and decorations early and I am so excited about that. I must admit that I have no idea what that routine will be so we will just do what feels right in the moment this year and build from there every year. All I know is that I can’t wait for Christmas!!!
What are your Christmas traditions? Do you spend it with family or do you prefer to be with friends? How do you keep your kids believing in the magic of Christmas? Do you believe in it?
Looking forward to hearing from you! All the best with your Christmas preparations!
I like who I am becoming
2019 is almost half way through and lots has happened in this time. I find myself constantly learning and am excited by the changes I see taking effect.
I can’t remember the exact incident that brought this moment of reflection on last week. It was a real aha moment though. For once I could sit back, breathe, smile and honestly say that I like the person that I am becoming. I am becoming braver and stronger than I have ever been. I am learning to really trust my instincts and also to push my own boundaries. I am learning that the only limits that I have are the ones that I place on myself. What’s really blown my mind and challenged me the most is learning to accept that what I want is not always what I need and that what I need doesn’t always arrive in the form that I expected or would have chosen
Pushing my boundaries
I ended last year on a month of gratitude. I did that so I could be open to, and appreciate, new and greater experiences and things this year. The height of this has been accepting an invitation to represent a brand I work on on live TV. My dominant introverted side was beside herself when I accepted the invitation. Not only was I going tp be on live TV but I was going to have to do my own make-up as they just touched you up at the studio. I have never been good at doing my own make-up so I was quite nervous about this. I made a visit to the Mac Store in Gateway where the friendly, patient lady helped me find the right make-up for the occasion. An added bonus was that I finally found a red lipstick that I can wear confidently! It all did come at quite a price though…phew! The day arrived and off I flew to Cape Town. I did my make-up and let their makeup artist touch me up. The crew and staff were all so friendly and helped keep me calm. 4 minutes was all the slot was to take. 4 minutes of my life in which I exposed myself to approximately 1 million viewers in South Africa. Thank fully I did not know this stat at the time or I would have been even more nervous😜😂. Well, in those 4 minutes, I felt myself talking. laughing, and even blanking out at one or two moments. Could I have done better…for sure! Does it matter? In the bigger scheme of things…not really. What matters is that I did it. I went on live TV and I did not die or embarrass myself terribly. One thing I did learn is that I need to say more affirmations about thinking on my feet …lol. I know I have it in me if I just believe. Here’s the link to my 4 minutes of the ultimate exposure.
What I want vs What I need
This has become most obvious through my relationships with people and especially my boyfriend. Our relationship is like no other that I have experienced. There are certain behaviours in a relationship that I had always believed should come naturally and, with him they do. I didn’t have to wait for them to kick in, they just happened virtually from day 1. There are others that have gone completely against what I believed the norm is. These have had me reflecting on what’s important to me and what’s not. What compromises do I need to make to make this relationship work? How much of the difficult bits are difficult because our egos get in the way and how much is because we have just had very different life experiences? In a nutshell, I am finding that lessons that I spoke of in a previous post still hold true so I am doing my best to not repeat my past mistakes. It takes a daily effort though. Why does adulting have to so hard😜
The law of non-resistance
I am also learning to not resist. I sit and marvel at how quickly things fall away when I don’t resist them, when I surrender. Of course, my default reaction is to resist but I am getting better at recognizing it and making the switch to non-resistance. I like to use an affirmation which was shared in the book “The Jewel of Abundance” by Ellen Grace O’Brian. It goes like this:
“I am now in my right place. I am happy, healthy and prosperous in all ways. I live in the constant awareness of the presence of Spirit”
Just saying “I am now in my right place” and letting those words “soak” in, makes me feel centered and non-resistant to all that is taking place around me. I feel whole and complete and, very unusually for me, aware that I have the tools required to tackle anything that comes my way. Yes, I am finally developing confidence in myself and it feels good.
The power of forgiveness
At the end of last year, a friend suggested to me that one of the reasons that I wasn’t able to move forward in my life was because I hadn’t forgiven those whom I consciously or subconsciously believed had done me wrong in some way. She was right. I set about forgiving each one and sending them love from afar as well as forgiving myself for my role in the disharmony in our relationship. I then let each person and situation go mentally. I highly recommend this. It brought me a deep sense of peace and opened the door for new relationships to start and for some of the old friendships to be rekindled.
I could write for hours about my year thus far but I will stop here. At the end of the day, I am excited by the changes I see in myself and I like who I am becoming.
How is your 2019 going? Do you find yourself evolving with each new experience? Have you made any major changes or a series of small ones that are gaining momentum? Let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear from you.
Grounded African 