The Happiness Project 89-157 (End)

HP Day 89 : To my mother “Bloom”

I am obsessed with watching nature because i am amazed every single time. I just think if humans where more in touch with nature, we would be closer to God and our purpose as a human race. I read this week that barely any wild animals were killed in the 2004 Tsunami disaster. The wild animals sensed the disaster before anything was seen or heard and had time to withdraw to a higher terrain. I also read that prairie seeds need to go through a fire to sprout…just like how a lot of great people who have inspired and changed the world have gone through their own type of fire and had to overcome it to “sprout”. I also thought about how nature just functions, with no questions..with no doubts..no complaints and complete trust in Mother Nature. How roots are hidden in the ground and do their function as roots without being jealous of the beautiful flower blooming out in the sun and fresh air. How a flower surrenders its life by blooming coz as soon as it blooms the petals slowly start falling down and wilting to make way for another bud to develop and bloom.And how in its “surrender” by opening up its tight bud it reveals its secrets(colors) as a flower and how those colors create this beautiful self sacrificing delicate creature and right in its core, the whole purpose of the blooming is revealed. How right in its core and center is new life(stigma, stamen etc). It sacrifices and in its sacrifice its beauty is revealed and when its beauty is revealed, new life becomes possible. I just thought to myself …woooow…we have a lot in common with all this nature and are not really above it. By being so out of touch with nature and God, with all our intelligence and knowledge as a species, we still have weaker natural survival instincts than animals.

Yesterday was my mothers birthday. I meant to post this yesterday but i didn’t get the chance to do so.This post of my HP is dedicated to my mother. Iv always wanted to write a poem for my mother and i thought a poem for her birthday would be perfect. Still i had such a difficult time trying to write it because words just don’t do justice to what i wanted to say. I then thought of something i wanted to describe with the poem that reminds me of my mother and the best description or natural event that hit the spot for me about how i feel about her was the blooming of a flower. I spent hours watching flowers blooming on YouTube to inspire my poem.

Let me post one of the videos so that you understand what i mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgvoNn4U0Tc

My mother in my eyes is a free spirit, shes not really bound by a lot of mental common ideas…she is different…she seems to make and do everything from her heart. She reminds me of how a flower is when its fully bloomed…or those white dandelion flowers that when they bloom, they open up and are so fluffy and light and fly about.She is a beautiful person inside and out and she is so giving. One gift i will always be forever grateful for is her allowing me to be. To just be…to make mistakes…to succeed..to experience life..and i have always known she would be there on my side no matter what hit me in life. She has always been my pillar, has never judged me and i know i will always have someone in my corner…no matter what or who i become, who will love me unconditionally.

One time she came to visit me from UK when i was pregnant with my daughter and i purposefully waited to give her any money until the last minute she was about to board her plane because i knew whatever i would give her, she would give away immediately or spend it on me. So i just wanted her to spend the money on herself, so best way was to give her right before she left lol. My mother is also a woman who has gone through a lot of pain in her life. A lot of it she never says and still leaves me wondering more about her as a person without her being in the role of my mother. What dreams she sacrificed by having me at 22years. What she really wants for herself personally. I also found out her dad (my grand dad) was so disappointed she got pregnant with me when she did, he didn’t speak to her the entire time she was pregnant. I wonder about her personal experiences because i know she just tells us enough not all…maybe to protect us and to concentrate on the good side of it all instead. Her mystery reminds me of how a bud is tightly closed, waiting for the perfect moment to let go and fully bloom.

I could go on and on to explain how the process of blooming reminds me of my mother but i would take forever. So the following is the poem i wrote dedicated to my mother for her birthday, inspired by my mother called “To my mother Bloom” .Mom, you are my heart. I love you.

To my mother “Bloom”

Life sprouts from a burning prairie seed

Seeming doom completing the divine deed

Petals like arms..slowly opening in surrender

Extraordinary beauty..

…in the self sacrifice

Wilting to give life to another

Spirit like the dandelion

Flying…wandering in wonder

The work of God present

…natural…beautiful

If i could give her a name..

I would call her Bloom.

HP Day 94 : Connecting the dots

I have probably owned hundreds of notebooks in my lifetime where i write all sorts.I just love having them…i can never get enough of books to write in. I found one of my notebooks from the time i was in the US. I wrote my feelings in there. The first piece i wrote was on new years day 2009. I went through the things i wrote and im so grateful i wrote them. In the first piece i mention that “something” told me to document how i was feeling from that day. Didn’t know why i felt i had to write it and it had no significance in my life then. I never read that for the past 7 years until today…and i thought woooow….what i wrote answered so many questions i currently had and it gave me insight to myself and gave me some sort of peace of mind. I cant explain exactly what i mean in detail, but im sure the reason i wrote that was for this day…today… 7 years later…..connecting the dots.

Listen, im a HUGE believer that everything happens for a reason. I’m a HUGE believer in looking beyond the surface…whether it be life’s problems…life’s successes…relationships….every moment has a purpose and some that don’t make sense in the moment might make sense a 100 years later. My emotional account 7 years ago actually brought a lot of healing for me today. I then remembered Steve Jobs speech on connecting the dots. I have read it so many times. Here is a link to it.
http://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

So one lesson i learnt from my emotional account in my notebook was that when life repeats itself….stop…listen and learn. Some can relate to me when i say when some things happen more than once in your life, its makes you think…”wait a minute. What am i missing here. How can this tragic thing happen to me twice…or thrice or four times…” It always seems too much for one lifetime. There is a lesson and chance for growth in any difficult situation and if it happens more than once, thats a way of life telling you to pay attention more.. especially inwardly. That our outer life reflects our inner life. God existed before the earth and He made the world out of words…He had a vision and out of His words (vision/ thoughts…invisible world) he created the world. Every object on this planet came out of the mind. People envisioned it and thought about it first and then invented it. So in this way, we invent our own lives. What we dwell on in our minds and hearts, can be created into form or reality. If you hold on to your past, you might be very well be doing it at the expense of your future. If you want to know whats in your heart and mind…look around you. If you lack somewhere physically, you probably are lacking something spiritually. Jesus says in the Lords prayer..”Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” What happens on earth, first happens in heaven…what happens in form, first happens spiritually or mentally.This is my own personal understanding to his words.

The truth is there are just some things that people should never go through more than once but many people who experience such tragedy will probably face it again and again…in a different way…maybe a different face or situation but the core problem is exactly the same. This is enough i think to warrant some self reflection. This doesn’t mean you deserve it or that you are responsible for what others do to you. This just empowers you to realize that you do have a choice to free yourself from whatever “bondage” seems to follow you. This goes for if you find yourself constantly complaining that people keep treating you a certain way…take you for granted for example….if everyone is treating you like this then maybe you are allowing it because you really don’t know your worth and you keep allowing people like that to be in your life for example. So the power comes back to you and then you have power to break the “chain”.

#connectingthedots #trustingtheprocess #stayhungry #stayfoolish

Day 107 HP : De-clutter…and smile

Wow its day 107 of my HP project. I’m impressed iv lasted this long and have been persistent…at what?….im really not sure. I don’t really know if this happiness project has a time line lol. It feels more like a learning period for me and im just sharing my experiences as they wow me or upset or move me in hopes to be of positive influence to someone else. I’m going with the flow and just trusting it will have its purpose. Above all, its all for selfish reasons really….this whole documenting has been amazing for me. I’m pretty sure i enjoy it more than those who like reading my ramblings.

So week 1 i was supposed to de-clutter but i could not even let go of clothes i couldn’t fit until a few days back. This time around i came up with a big plastic bag full of clothes i really like but know i will never wear again or really need, as well as a plastic bag of shoes. I can probably find more stuff in my closet to let go of…but lets take each day as it comes, shall we. This de-cluttering to me is more of an effort to have less attachment to material stuff….to have less attachment to my way of thinking being the only way and to have less attachment to expectations of a type of life i think i want but a life iv never lived to its potential….so why put myself in a box when the future is really truly unknown. This de-cluttering to me means to have more faith in the goodness in me beyond the labels iv always thought myself to be…to just be less attached to life situations and them defining who i am. For me it just means to be….just to be me…and free and be open to Gods will for my life above my own will. It all starts with little things…if i cannot give $10 when i have a $100, it will be harder to let go of $1mil when i have a billion. How can I ask for more responsibility when I can’t handle or give back with the little iv got. After all to give is to get, and to get is to give. It’s really all the same because we are all from one source of life.

I was sort of having a bad day today. Lost track of my instinct and trust in everything having a meaning…that there is a greater power working over our lives. I was just really consumed with stress and worrying about this and that, then i read Strive Masiyiwas recent post. My epiphany really had nothing to do with the exact point he was making in his post but rather on 3 words…”water reticulation system…” Ok so let me explain before i lose you. I worked on a project this week which had to do with a water reticulation system…..thats it lol….thats my explanation lol. So hes talking about a wonderful thing in his post and i was sort of browsing through it coz really i was still stuck on my days stresses and those words hit me. I said, wait a minute…water what? I just did a project a few days ago and i learnt for the first time what that is. And i just smiled. I said to God…i get it. I get what you are saying. It was as if He put something in my view to jolt me to remember that everything has a purpose and above all all, to always remember that we as human beings are interconnected and we are all alike. We all have God in us. Our individual lives connect indirectly and directly to other peoples lives. So every little thing we do counts in ways we cannot understand.

#trustingtheprocess

Day 125 HP : Your Phenomenon

I’m 30 turning 31 in 2 months. I could have never predicted my life and it is no where close to where i have thought it would be. I have been “searching” for as long as i can remember. Searching for something i cannot describe adequately in words. I have lived overseas, quit a job i had just been promoted to with a pretty good salary for a single young student. I quit it because my instincts said so. Half the time iv listened to my seemingly worthless instincts…the other half i have not and i have still gotten to a place i couldn’t have guessed. I sensed that my 20s would be full of trial and error and my 30s would be my discovery years. I was excited for my 30th and knew a lot would happen but i thought of it in a way that was material. When i was pregnant…in the beginning of my pregnancy just after my step dads death, i told God…”This is not it…something doesn’t feel right…” I could not pin point what it was. With help from one of my God sent friends Doreen Madanhire Muzariri, my hair business did pretty well. We could sell hair worth $1000 in a day. But i ran out of energy and my business followed suit reflecting my own state…In the good times with us making good money, i could still feel it in my soul that ..”This is not it.” I prayed one day, did the ugly cry to God and i told Him..”I want to be used but i don’t know how…i don’t even know whats supposed to happen…please shake it up for me …shake my life up if im in the wrong course…so that i can one day die as the best version of myself i could ever be..” And lord did He shake it…in ways i never expected…he shook it so much I knew it must be Him…i remembered every time I went through something…as hard as it was and is, I had to remember I was getting my prayers answered somewhere somehow…that it would all make sense. I had told myself i needed to build this empire and then use my money to do good or do whatever i have always wanted to do.This year for me i think has been the hardest of my life in every possible way you can think of. Its the first year in my life iv ever felt…wow, can i make it? Can i get to me? Can i get to the God in me and let Him shine? Is my life worth much or am i just going through the motions and never going to contribute anything? I would wake up in the middle of the night panicking because i attached my success to material things. I thought maybe if i made this much money, i can now start to give and change the world. I could “fix” my life and everything would be ok. I thought yes, when I get this much…I can finally live!!! And this thought caused so much anxiety because it was as if I was “on hold” or pause until this big thing happened.I was constantly trying to get to the big break that will “change” my life and finally let me change other peoples lives. And this year, although being the hardest has been the best spiritually for me. The absolute best. The things iv learnt by going through struggles have filled me up. I see myself differently. I know now that i need nothing else to become “somebody”, other than myself. I have experienced…through Gods’ “shaking” that the phenomenon i have been looking for has always been in me. I relate so much to the book Alchemist coz this guy had to go far and wide in search for treasure that was already closer to him than he realized and i understand now that i am the master of my fate…the captain of my soul as the poem Invictus states….that my authentic power and phenomenon is already in me…as it is in you. More than ever now i realize how many people are going through their lives on empty. More people are depressed..more people are committing suicide and more people are looking for things that can drown their emptiness be it women, men, alcohol, money, drugs, love, acceptance etc..Now i know more than ever what i have been searching for…it is for my real personality to serve my soul….when you are stripped of your “fake” personality or the things you think make you who you are and you still remain…you realize you are so much more than those things or people or dreams… the real personality shines through and sometimes all sorts has to happen to you for that to actually happen. I am still learning as i will for the rest of my life but i feel sooo enriched and grateful more than ever. Now i see my world as a mirror…my daughter is my mirror, my husband is my mirror, my inner body, feelings, and any distress im feeling..is my mirror…the people around me are my mirror….everything that happens around me is a part of me. I try not to take anything for granted. I’m less “perfect” and im ok with that…but more myself and embracing all that comes with it, I can truly say, im on my way….and i share this with you so that maybe, just maybe, we could be facing the same things. We are more alike than we are different. I just wanted to remind you that your power and your phenomenon are in you. Right where you are is all that you can ever need. #authenticpower #phenomenallyyou #truth #trustingtheprocess

Day 150 HP : The internal compass

Today I thought of what this lady who specializes in mental health once told me. She said the eyes do not see, they allow light in for the brain to perceive and thats why we cannot see in the dark. I did science in high school…and im sure iv learnt this in a scientific technical way…but the way she said it made me realize how much wonder there is to the human body and how much more is beyond the eye. Sometimes i live in a world where i see so much magic when i allow myself to be in tune with the magic…and i think everyone has that capacity…to see the world beyond form. For example, I am constantly fascinated by water…it has no adequate mental conception…we know the science behind water existing but if you really look at water, you realize it has more of a spiritual quality than anything else. It has the power to move and carry virtually anything…carries ships, can wash away houses, people, animals, huge trees…then it has power to give life and nourish..it has power to cleanse and heal…yet its so light and so still and transparent. Now look at the wonder of your own body..what it does on the surface and the silent intelligence beneath it for it to function…all those cells…your heart beating…your lungs breathing..your fingers moving…even science alone has not been able to fully explore the body and its wonder….i wont even go to the wonder of endless space and the universe beyond the planet earth…there is just undeniable magic to say the least. Why are we then so consumed in the “smaller” aspect of our lives…in our little box when there is obviously something bigger happening. This is not to dismiss anything that is of importance in your life but rather to make you realize that there is so much more to your life, your problem and even your happiness.

One of the things i expected when starting this happiness project was to find all the answers externally…maybe find this happiness that is out there, waiting to be found hamenowo ikoko…my happiness was quantifiable..but everyday has taken me in a different route…its taken me back to myself. And where is this me? Certainly not in my mind or thoughts, coz my thoughts are waaaay smaller than who i really am. Everyone has thoughts…thoughts are really just a conditioned way of responding to information and stimuli…if your background and life experiences were different, you would have different thoughts therefore thoughts are not authentic..they are just a carbon copy of your history, environment and society…4 people will have different thoughts about the exact same situation and that alone should make us see that truth “in our thoughts” is only but half truth…its not absolute. We are entitled to our truth and entitled to value our way of life but its so relative, tomorrow it might be different….so why kill because of a thought?…why hit someone else because of a thought?…why judge someone to be of less value than you because of a thought?

Certainly the real me is not in my heart or emotions or passions…not in any physical aspect of what constitutes me, which is only a tiny tiny aspect of the whole. But rather…i think, i now realize…im my SOUL…in lack of a better word to describe this dimension of who i am. Its that part of me that is still…that is content…that knows…that part of me when God is not “out there” but God is in me and when i am Him…the part that knows all there is, is love and abundance…that part that always just KNOWS even when my heart is pounding in fear and my body is shaking or sweating in uncertainty or my thoughts or mind is confused and swirling in all sorts of direction of whys, hows, whens, that are always subject to change…that part that knows amidst all that, that everything is ok, that everything will be ok and always will be ok…that all phases in life have EQUAL weight and that they all have purpose and ALL are good..just as God saw the world when he created it…it was good.That part of me that can never change and that is timeless…the part that will continue even after im physically gone…everyone has that part and that part is the real me and the real you and our duty in life is to serve that part..thats is us and essentially that part is God.That’s where our true identity lies and its as vast and unbound as space…the wonder and magic of the tangible world…our bodies…water..air..flowers..space..nature..moon and stars..is all an expression of that part of us that is in everything..Our bodies, our personalities, our thoughts and creativity…is just a small part of who we are therefore differences in those things should not matter coz essentially at the core, we are all the same. That “soul” is a part of God expressing Himself through you and once we understand…deeply understand that we all have that part in us, just expressed differently…really, why should anything else matter? Any lack, any pain is due to being out of touch with that part of us because essentially when you are in touch with it, you know…you just know you are abundant, you are eternal…not even death can touch you…you are worthy, you are capable and you are beyond…you are absolutely out of this world…divine magic!!!!

#stilllearning #trustingtheprocess #divinemagic #thetruth

HP DAY 157 (END OF PROJECT) : HONOR THYSELF

I have been feeling like my HP project was coming to an end for some time now and i initially wanted to end it on my birthday but today feels right.

I’m just grateful for it 🙂 Doesn’t make sense i know, but i was actually learning from the things i wrote. I was my own student and i hope sharing it with you gave some of you some real life and some real truth in your own life.

The reason im ending it is because i feel i have learnt and given all there was to learn and give in that particular time. When i started this project, i was going through some things i thought i could never come out of or overcome..i was overwhelmed by life and knew something had to give…i was forced to look within….I believe deeply that “seek and you will find” so i began to seek for what i could not explain…only to realize that all that was in my head that was overwhelming me and manifesting in my life was truly self inflicted.

Funny example on a small scale is…i started doing an Executive Masters in Business Administration program a few months back. My goal from day one was to excel…honestly i have noticed i am a bit OCD when it comes to excellence especially the older i get. Back then in highschool i was the dorm dweller, the joker and playful student who made comments to make teachers feel uncomfortable and make the whole class laugh loool. Nowadays i really take it to “another level” of crazy lol. One day my husband came to pick me up from the gym and he said i made everyone look bad coz i would be tooo lazer focused….from a HARD gym class that i would have slayed, id go straight on the treadmill and run non stop for sometimes a whole hour lool. I had some guys try to join me to nurse their egos for being beat by a woman and have them give up halfway or earlier lool. And ooooo i loved that!!! I guess i am a bit power crazed…so i took the same disease to my program.

Early on..i had it all planed. I decided i would do my Phd after my Masters and already knew i wanted to get a scholarship to one of the best business schools IN THE WORLD!!!! LOOOL…How?…i dont know…coz i cant say im super super top 10% of the world smart but that was the plan…and this was so, so that i use my new top range knowledge for a consultancy im planning to start with a friend. I had it all figured out. So i gave it all i had and some more and before long i was starting to feel drained and over worked. The other day we had an assignment for Financial and Management Accounting and i had pretty much completed doing the assignment. All my figures balanced but i was sooo obsessed on getting the “maximumiest” mark i could possibly get. So i had set my alarm for 5am so that i could go through my work and polish it up. Instead Luke woke me up around 4am with his snoring and i couldn’t go back to sleep so i figured…chance given!!! I woke up and slowly went through my assignment…i googled and i ogled over it to make sure i did not leave any info, dot or comma anywhere….im not even exaggerating lol. I swear i have no idea how those 4 hours went by so fast. I had an inclass group test that morning in another different class but we were supposed to submit our Finance assignments to this lecturer. At 7.45 i realized i hadnt bathed and hadnt finished rewriting this assignment neatly and i ended up scribbling to get it finished. I was so late for class, my Quantz lecturer had to call me to tell me that my group-mates had already started the in-class test without me and he wanted to leave and needed my Finance assignment for submission. I pretty much had to rush through everything and ended up not submitting my best work as i intended to coz i was too obsessed with the final product which was 7 years later after my Phd loooool. I could not believe id let that happen and i was probably going to lose a lot of marks from a poorly presented assignment and had affected my performance for the other subject as well!!!!I sacrificed my present for a future that was unknown..I had been so out of it, I even found myself at some point obsessing whether i should do a Phd in Organizational Behavior or in Strategic Business and Entrepreneurship in the middle of me doing a report at work loooool.

To sum it up, i have learnt that happiness lies in this very moment…excellence and greatness will depend on this little step or little moment and how fully present i am in that small step. A good quality step will lead to another good quality step and those are the ones that determine the quality of the journey. I learnt thats how i can truly honor myself and my life. You know life is just funny. When i started this HP, i really started to feel like i was in this life class. I kept meeting teachers…people who would give me life lessons in simple conversations…my mistakes…my environment became my teachers. One afternoon i was spending some time with a good friend of mine and some of her friends. One of them said to me…In life, whats important is to know yourself, know what you want and know how best to articulate that to others and never compromise that for anything or anyone. In essence thats how you can be truly yourself and also best serve others. That piece of advise hit me to the core…i had a few tears in my eyes but i was fighting to push them back coz i would have looked insane…or too drunk…i couldn’t let them drop down…i had had some wine by then lol..It was a simple but powerful piece of advise that i think i needed to hear and one that i will carry with me for life….i figured i had not learnt how to honor myself…my worth…my dreams…the sacredness of my life. I was passionate but half the time i was too impatient…i was also too scared to show who i really was in fear of judgement. I was afraid to make mistakes or to be seen as imperfect and so my personality was one that worked to please others rather than honor myself.. By 30 my life was beginning to feel i was in this looong battle…i fight one thing, then the next comes up…i fight the next and another comes up and so on. The toll of this fighting and winning and losing was taking its toll on me and i couldn’t figure out what it was i was doing wrong…i started to feel defeated and exhausted. I learnt that when you plant a seed in a season that is not conducive for growth…the quality of the yield will be poor…i learnt a lot by just revising how nature works…i learnt to be patient…to swim with the current and i learnt that only when i swim against the current of my life, thats when i cause a lot of distress. When i stop fighting my purpose…when i allow the God in me to come through, the God in all will support me… and everything will be aligned. I learnt that was the gold!!! Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things will be added unto you…i had the map but just didnt know how to use it. I learnt when i give what i feel im lacking, i in-turn will receive it. If i don’t like what im doing…i shouldn’t do it. A lot of bible verses came alive for me through my search…the deep truth in them shinned through. I have started to feel like im becoming myself…learning myself…being true to myself. Perfection and excellence is great but the magic is in the mistakes and the pain. Growth comes from that. Evolution sparks from that. Diamonds are made from carbon under a lot of heat and pressure…flowers are examples of evolution of plants…thats just how nature works and we realize that as humans…we admire these diamonds and flowers and see their beauty but we have failed to apply these concepts to our own lives…we quote nice quotes…we live on the surface of theory but have failed to live as deeply and fully as we are intended to live… I realized there really are no mistakes…There are no mistakes…and pain and stress comes from resisting whats there…not being patient and not accepting things i cannot change and also not honoring myself by being true to myself. I also learnt that pain and stress are also an act of grace from God in hopes to get us in the right path. Thank God for your adversities…really thank Him and accept them…only then will you see the real reason for their presence…I mean.. its still a process…im still learning…but funny thing im starting to love this…all of this…this thing called life and truly…reallly truly living. “When you become comfortable with uncertainity, infinite possibilities open up in your life” Eckhart Tolle

#lovingit #thankyouHP #GRACE #ENDOFHP #TRUSTINGTHEPROCESS#ONTOTHENEXTONE!!!!!