Chapter · Faith · Journey · Life · Self-Care

Life and Lessons

OluwatosinLeave a comment

Happy Holidays everyone…. I hope we took some time to rest and enjoy the festivities as best as we could given the whole event of 2020.

A week ago, I was at the dental office to take out my wisdom teeth and as the dentist dentists were struggling to get them out, I let the situation speak to me. At the beginning of the year, I had gone for my routine dental appointment as part of what I wanted to do right this year. I realised that I didn’t maximize my dental benefits in the last couple of years because I never went for my appointments……a girl could not be bothered plus I assumed I didn’t have no issues with my teeth at all. Yes, I had some nagging pains every now and again but nothing that was concerning atleast in my opinion.

So, at my initial appointment my dentist highlighted a plan for the year and part of that plan was to take out my upper wisdom teeth. The wisdom teeth had to go ☹ no date was set but I got my instructions. Interestingly this was instrumental for me in setting my intentions. It wasn’t even an intention I set consciously but every time I felt a toothache, I would look in the mirror and tell God that I needed to take the teeth out in the course of the year. I didn’t create a ritual around this and that’s why to me it’s some unconscious intention but now when I look back, I realize that I had several times in the course of the year that I said those words out loud and I can see how even when I wasn’t paying attention I was setting my intentions for what I wanted. It took months before my insurance claims approval came back but interestingly, I got to get the wisdom teeth out before the end of the year. The lesson for me in this was don’t be so fixated on the “how” and “when” keep going and don’t waver just trust that God will make things happen when it should happen.

Last year my upper wisdom teeth wasn’t giving me unbearable issues as a matter of fact I could go on several months or even years prior without feeling any kind of pain but any time I would feel pain it was quite unbearable. I asked the dentist why the wisdom teeth had to go and if I don’t extract them it shouldn’t matter those where my lines of questioning lol…. The dentist told me they were not of any use to me and they will continue to grow because the set below them was missing so nothing will stop the ones at the top from growing further and it will cause me issues in the long run. There was no lie in all that was said because months down the line while waiting for insurance approval one of the teeth broke and I was also told I had cavity in both. My wisdom teeth belonged in my mouth they made my dentition complete but the fact that something has been in your life for so long just taking up space and causing you occasional pain doesn’t mean you leave them there without evaluating their usefulness. There are so many things we hold on to that we should be letting go off.

On the day of the extraction, with every pressure I felt my mind was set on the relief that was going to come, knowing that I won’t be waking up to tooth ache caused by my wisdom teeth again I endured the pressure and afterwards the pain that came with the extraction. In life we need to always count our cost and remove from our life things that are just occupying space so that we can free ourselves of some unnecessary shackles. Let’s be honest yanking anything off whether a bad habit, an unproductive relationship, leaving our comfort zone or moving on from a dead-end job is not going to come painless but we need to cut unnecessary attachment to stuff that’s occupying space without any real added value.

Don’t be so addicted to deadweight that you decide to stay loyal to it under the guise of “it doesn’t bother me”. Be brutally honest with yourself set you intentions for a better you whatever that looks like and face the deadweight with every sense of honesty and take steps to let it fall off. You can’t travel with a bag load of chaff and lie to yourself that you have a bag full of gold. If you want gold you need to go find it and be intentional about finding it. Gold in this context is metaphorical and it means anything that’ll bring you joy and spark the fire in you.

As we push forward into another new year take a good look at yourself ask yourself pertinent questions set your intentions on what you want, if there are things that need to leave even if you think they are not a discomfort now but you know they are holding you back from being a better version of yourself then you need to trust your life in God’s hands and be ready to put the work in to uproot and let go. God will always meet us at the point of obedience don’t hold on to anything longer than you should especially when they are not serving you in any way. There’s a lot of freedom waiting on the other side of letting go.

You deserve to be the best version of yourself that you were created to be. Declutter and travel light.

Love & Light

Chapter · Faith · Family · Journey · Life · Self-Care · Uncategorized

Keep TWEAKING it!

OluwatosinLeave a comment

Working in 2020 looks a lot different from what it was less than a year ago. This year has required some type of adjustments from us humans. At the start of Covid-19 it became apparent that I needed to start facilitating online workshops and somehow, I got everything right but couldn’t get my lighting issue right. This bothered me and lot, I played around with different settings and I even contemplated spending additional money to get a new lamp just to add additional light to my workstation so that I can have a well-lit background for my online sessions.

After several months of thinking about it but ignoring it I decided over the weekend to rearranged my workstation and bam it clicked….. my sitting position has been backing the light and my lamp was positioned on the side and even though I had enough light in the area I needed to make some adjustments to maximize the effect. The little adjustment of repositioning my lamp was all I needed to make to change everything. I did not need to spend any additional money for anything or do any major change to my workstation.

What this lesson taught me is that sometimes the answer we need to help us move up and start operating on a different level is hidden in plain sight and if we are not living in the moment and operating at a level of mindfulness we may miss what we need to get the result that we want.

Secondly, you can decide to stay in the same spot because you feel helpless and you feel like change will cost so much and instead of making the little adjustment you decide to continue to live with a mediocre version of your dream when all you need to do is tweak a  bit and you will unlock your next level. Don’t stay the same because you feel you can’t afford what the price tag that change presents.

I learn majorly from little things like this. This lesson brought perspective and also taught me yet again never to settle for less when I’m made for more. I don’t know what you need to tweak… it may be the business idea, it may be your exercise routine, it may be your diet, it may be your willingness to stand out of your own way… don’t be afraid to make the little adjustments that may end up making a big difference in your life.

You may not have all the answers you need to make your adjustments but don’t box yourself into believing what you have right now is the best version of you. Be open minded enough to tweak as you go in life.

Love & Light ❤

Chapter · Faith · Journey · Life · Self-Care · Uncategorized

Empowered in the WAITING

Oluwatosin2 Comments

We live in such fast world now and the word “waiting” is beginning to sound alien to many. We want what we want, and we want it now. Social media isn’t even making things better with all that we are bombarded with daily. People never talk so much about their grind and grit or the bts of their journey, but we see posts that shows a lot of balling it out and luxurious lavish living. Giving off the impression that this sort of life was achieved overnight.

This is not to say that people need to explain how long they’ve had to wait or what they’ve had to endure to get what they have. But there should be an unspoken caveat for everyone scrolling through social media posts and feeds that reads “it’s OK to scroll and enjoy this posts but it’s not OK to compare your real life with someone else’s highlight reels that never tells a complete story”. Having this at the back of your mind will guard your heart against comparison that robs you of joy while you are in your waiting season.

The waiting process for anything in this life can be a lot whether it’s us waiting on the right partner, to get a job or change jobs, to get a promotion or to have a baby. Waiting requires patience and trust that there is a process to everything and there is capacity building going on in our lives preparing us to be able to handle what we say we deserve.

While we wait on our greenlight, to ensure that we are waiting well and building ourselves in the process there are a few things to consider on this journey of purposeful waiting:

Gratitude: we can complain from now till the end of ages about how nothing is working in our life or we can switch it up and take a long hard look at our life and show gratitude for those things that are working. Gratitude fills us with peace and centers us in ways that complaining never will. With gratitude our heart becomes open and readily able to see possibilities and potential opportunities. Cultivating a heart of gratitude when nothing is working will take a lot of practice. Every day make up your mind to look for one thing to be grateful about and write it down. This would become your pick me up on days when it’s really hard to see anything to be grateful for. You can create for yourself a gratitude jar or journal for this activity. If you can’t see an open door, make up your mind to praise God in the hallway.

Be open minded: while you wait don’t assume that you’ve seen it all and you know it all. This is the time to learn new things to broaden your perspective. This is your time to network with different people. We only get results based on our level of revelation and exposure. There are some ideas for your progress that will not come if you are not open minded enough to meet people and face situations that will challenge your old ways of thinking. Somebody you meet, an article you read or a training you attend while in your waiting can equip you with the answers you’ve been looking for to solve some problems you are facing. Don’t do yourself a disservice by holding on to your own point of view alone.

Don’t rush the process: While you may be itching to get out of a job or find the right partner or get that promotion don’t rush the process. If a door isn’t open yet there is every possibility that what you need to dominate your next level, you have not yet unlocked on this level. Give yourself time and be patient in whatever season you are in. Don’t get so upset or have your ego so bruised because of what is not working out that you settle for less than you deserve.

Waiting can be hard but if there is anything I know so well, it is that all good things will eventually come and in time you will understand that there was purpose in the waiting.

Don’t give up hang in there and know that I’m part of the people in your corner rooting for your success.

Chapter · Faith · Humour · Journey · Life · Self-Care

Dealing with REJECTION

OluwatosinLeave a comment

The word rejection is not a new word and it is not new territory to anyone. Whether it is the fact that you were not picked for the job or the date didn’t call back after you felt everything went well, or you were overlooked for the promotion. There isn’t one person walking the face of this earth that has not felt the sting of rejection and the disappointment that comes with being overlooked for something that was so important and that you felt you deserved.

It can cut deep but rejection is not the end of the story because better is always in our future regardless of how we feel in the moment. As I sat down this morning with the feeling of gratitude and contentment, I appreciated my own growth over the years, and I would like to share some tips to help you deal with rejection:

Acceptance: For us to heal the first thing we will always have to do is to accept the situation. Don’t try to gloss over it or push it aside. Accept the situation for what it is, embrace it and get up from it. We don’t heal from what we don’t accept. Acceptance is your first step to moving forward. We can’t live in denial and act like we didn’t hurt in the process. For it to be termed rejection it meant something to us to start with. So, accept things for what they are and move on from it.

Mindset: This is an important aspect; we need to do a mindset check every now and again. There is a belief that we reproduce in real life what we think about. If you are dealing with a constant bout of rejection, it’s time to check your thought pattern to know what you are constantly looping. If you always have the mindset that good things don’t come to you, you are not good enough, everyone gets it but you and you find yourself rolling this reel of negativity, it’s time to fix your mindset. This will take a lot of work because there’s a root cause for this kind of mindset. Don’t be afraid to face your mindset and work to break patterns of negative thoughts so that you can start seeing different results in your life.

Let go and embrace the next adventure: After you have accepted and addressed your mindset you need not internalize rejection. Always know that what is meant for you will find you and what you missed would not have been able to fill you up. Let it go and believe yours is coming. Go out there and be ready to face the next adventure with open hands and heart.

Be Positive: Know that you are ENOUGH. Whether your rejection came from a job you din’t get even though you interviewed well, a relationship break-up, or a promotion you didn’t get. Know this, you are built right for the right opportunities and you have all it takes to win and excel. Forgive the people who overlooked you and know that you are enough for the right person, job, or promotion. A better door is in your future and great things are still on the way to you. Stay positive and don’t give up.

Rejection can be painful and make you second guess your significance but don’t ever feel like a failure take the lessons you have learned and continue on your grind because one day you will look back and be thankful for all the times you felt the sting of rejection. Use everything to build yourself into a better version of you.

Everything will work together for good!

Chapter · Faith · Family · Journey · Life · Uncategorized

Cheerleader

OluwatosinLeave a comment

Blog image

Earlier today I was watching a clip on social media from a TV show I follow on and of because your girl is busy and can’t keep up with TV.😀😉  In this clip that I watched the players were divided into 2 groups. They had a game to play that required a participant to be blindfolded and kick a ball into a goalpost and one of their team mates was chosen to pick the ball and place in front of the blindfolded person who will then kick it into the goalpost they were timed for this game so the pressure was on.

When they started the coordination wasn’t great and the ball kept missing the goalpost and the blindfolded individual kept asking the other person picking the ball… how am I doing? is it working? and even though it wasn’t working the person placing the ball for them kept telling the blindfolded team mate you are the best, you are doing wonderful, you are doing great. After a while, the blindfolded person started kicking the ball in the goalpost and their team eventually won the game. 🤩🙌

I sat back and even though it was a short clip, I had tears in my eyes because this clip reminded me of life and the quote above from Maya Angelou. In life, we are all involved in different games things that always require our best efforts. Sometimes even when we are giving our best, we are not sure we are doing well because there are too many things stopping us from seeing the results of all the work we are putting into this dream or work. Other times we tend to be too critical of ourselves and we start second guessing our own talents and gifts.

So as we journey in life it’s important to have the right people in our corner cheering for us letting us know that even when we feel like we are losing we are not alone. We need to be surrounded by people who will call us to our greatness and help us see it even when we can’t really see it.

I am all for having the right people in my life and I am a big believer of keep the circle small with the right people. But I am a bigger believer in “be the right person for the people in your life“. Before you compile a list of what you want “in your friends” I hope you reflect what you have on the list “to your friends”. I do not believe in asking people to be what I am not prepared to be to them.

That said, I hope we learn and show up each day to be a voice that let the people in our life know when they need to get their acts together and step up. I also pray that we do not do it in a critical, malicious, or judgmental way. I hope we step up and cheer loudest for the people life places in our path and continue to root for them until they are able to believe and see the greatness that they have on the inside of them. I hope when the pressure is much and it’s hard to see through the tears, we are that calm voice that let the people in our lives know they are doing well, they are the best and they are not their circumstances. I hope we are the people who call out other people’s victory alongside them even when they are having a hard time seeing it in the moment.

Continue to put goodness in the world one life at a time! 💖

Faith · Journey · Life · Self-Care · Uncategorized

I’m ZOOOOOMED OUT

OluwatosinLeave a comment

Blog 2

It’s interesting that with quarantine which is meant to isolate us and give us more “me” time the world managed to invent a new avenue to have us bombarded whether it’s by work meetings or by people who just feel like they need to release content on all social media platform and we need to learn some more.

At the initial start of the whole lockdown your girl realised she had some time on her hand 🤣and she was ready to get on that whole “learn something new” train that was moving and making us believe that if we don’t come out with content or products by the time quarantine was over we might as well count ourselves failures.

Listen i’m no lazy human and i look out for ways to learn and also improve and develop myself. I’m startegic and i prioritize my personal development. But this time we are not home on a vacation we are dealing with a pandemic and we all deal differently and it’s important to remember to show grace to ourselves on days when we just can’t take it. Nobody has been down this road before and we are all taking it one day at a time with the help of God.

At the start, your girl was always clicking on IGLive and i was receiving links upon links to several zoom meetings to attend, catching up on myriad of messages on whatsapp group chats then to add onto this work kinda had their own team meetings on a daily. When i say it was crazy it was crazy. 😣

This got me thinking about life and how we allow ourselves to be bombarded with commitment to others and things that don’t even serve us just because we let ourselves believe we can’t say NO or we are just not a good steward of our own time. We get so committed to the motions that we start to lose ourselves and we start neglecting our self-care.

One of the biggest gift you will ever give yourself on a daily basis is the gift of spending time with yourself.💗 I mean really seeing yourself for you. You need to get to the point where you drop everything and just sit with yourself. Even if you get one hour everyday to say no to everything else and pick yourself you will gain a lot from this. God has shown us grace and it’s important that we bask in that grace and show ourselves grace.

I’m grateful work finally figured out a way to not have everyday team meetings and also your girl scrolls past any IG live or zoom link that’s not within my alloted scheduled time for external things. It’s okay to let people do what they do and you miss out without having any FOMO.

Don’t lose yourself trying to be everything to all people. Look after yourself and show yourself grace everyday.

Continue to stay safe.

Love & Light! 💖

Faith · Journey · Life

Almost SUMMER

Oluwatosin2 Comments

blogHow is everyone doing on this good Saturday day? This is a question that i ask a lot these days and when i ask i mean it. When i make calls and ask my family or friends how are you? i am very attentive and open to hearing their responses. It’s not that i was never attentive before now it’s just that now i’m more intentional about asking and receiving a response. One thing your girl is working on this year and one thing that has been my take away from Covid-19.

The world has changed on us this past few months and when we arrived in 2020 on the 1st day of January with all of our hopes and aspiration packed in our imaginary duffel bags none of us could have looked and saw what our world looks like today. The pandemic has been so devastating to say the least, and now our outfit ain’t complete if we don’t mask up and our beauty/health routine now includes washing our hands several times in the day and wiping down areas. If you open any purse you are sure to find hand sanitizer and our grocery shopping looks something like taking calculated business risks but all in all our God is still good.

At the start of the year i actually created my vision board that i strategically placed across from my eye view from my bed so that i can see it every time my eyes open and i can talk to God about it and also go to work on it. I realised that with all the things that has happened i have kept blogging at the back burner and i told myself this year i will get to this again and just try as much as i can to encourage and uplift someones faith.

So, this is me getting back on this road to pen my thoughts and to just add value to my world. I hope you are preparing for the summer even though there isn’t much that can be done but make sure you still do some fun things with family and friends but not neglecting the safety guidelines in your country of residence.

Let me know in the comments what interesting things you will be getting up to now that the sun is coming out.😁🥰

PS: i just realised my last blog post was about a year ago there must be something about spring/summer that makes my heart glad. But seriously your girl gotta do better.😊

Peace and light❤ continue to stay safe out there.

Chapter · Faith · Family · Journey · Life

SEASONS CHANGE

OluwatosinLeave a comment

Wow it’s been forever and a decade since I last wrote anything on my page. Your girl has been busy with life. I won’t even lie I’ve lived between overwhelming, exhilarating, amazing and just there moments. But in all I couldn’t have asked for a different version of what is my life right now. 😂🙌🏽

That said, a few months ago I moved to a new country and a new city and for a bit i forgot what seasons and changes felt like. I forgot the fuzzy feeling I get when spring makes its entrance and how just moving from winter to spring gives me that renewed hope. Your girl be acting brand new in this streets 😂😂😂

But hey as I walked my way through my not so new city yesterday even though I know spring is been here for a minute I got my message yesterday and I thought I would encourage someone with it. That message is clear from the above picture and it is simple “SEASONS CHANGE”.

I took the picture on the right by myself just yesterday and juxtaposed it with a picture I took in winter. This is the same route and a few months ago all we saw was snow day after day and week after week. The type of snow that make you question what your life purpose is 😂😂😂 now in the present we are experiencing some good spring weather and I can testify to the goodness of the Lord. 🙌🏽🙌🏽

The same way seasons change is the same way we need to look at our situation and circumstances and know for sure that the hard times and dark moments we face are only temporary. We can’t lose our faith just because we don’t see a way out. God is faithful and he won’t let pain and trouble be the only story your life knows. Be encouraged in this moment that every storm eventually runs out of rain and things are going to shift in your favour.

Even when it’s difficult to trace God know that He’s working. For our God is faithful and weeping may endure for a night but joy is going to come in the morning. Don’t give up you are closer than you know.

Stay blessed 🙏🏽

Faith · Family · Humour · Journey · Life

Find the Root!!

OluwatosinLeave a comment

  
This weekend my sister’s house witnessed a minor flooding to her living room and dining area. Coming down those flight of stairs you will never notice what was waiting for you downstairs. It took a couple of falls (thankfully no injuries) for us to actually realise that the we were getting flooded and as we tried to determine the next cause of action for clearing out the water that was already in the ground floor it occurred to us that if we don’t find the source of this flooding then our efforts will be wasted because the water will continue to come through. We went round the building and in a few minutes we were able to identify that the root of our problem was a plumbing issue in the restroom of her home office. The whole home office was already flooded and through an adjoining door water was coming through to the main house. If we didn’t tackle our root/source we will continue to clear the water in the main house only to continue to recycle our experience.

This hit home for me, some of us saw through the branches of our issues instead of attacking the roots of the issues. We’ll rather take a look at the surface and deal with a few causal factors than take the time to do a full scan through using a root cause analysis approach. I guess cutting branches is often faster, cheaper, non-invasive and less time consuming and it affords me the opportunity to get on with life really quickly. 

I mean no need for drilling down to find the root of my problem since I pulled out a branch and I feel really relieved already. I already stopped the bleeding which is what was scary so if the bleeding has stopped why should I find the cause of the bleeding??? The truth is sometimes the bleeding has stopped on the surface and you seem fine but if you don’t know what’s causing you to bleed you stand a chance of facing the same recurring situation in the future.

So I’ll use relationships as an example but it’s not only limited to relationship issues. You are angry because someone hurt you bad in a previous relationship, you dealt with it by breaking up and moved right along without dealing with your anger. You meet a “new person” and somehow you ruined things for yourself because you couldn’t let go of your past. Truth is your anger may not even be against the people you were in a relationship with your anger may be way more rooted in several other issues such as a parents divorce or maltreatment that you witnessed growing up that has left you broken. But you have not dealt with it but what you’ve done is to acquire a thinking pattern that tells you that a relationship with a “new person” will fix your brokenness. You need to fix the root cause before you bleed out on another perso and you stand the chance of recycling your experiences all over again. Sometimes others are not the cause of our problems but we are the ones who refuse to do the work and find healing for ourselves.

It’s ok to stuff the face with all of the ice cream in the world and get the pyjama party going to cheer ourselves on while we get over a heartbreak but until you look yourself in the face and ask yourself some truths that bring you face to face with nobody but yourself and call for a change until then you will always recycle your experiences. 

I know they say broken people break people, hurting people hurt people but they forget to tell us that healed people also heal people. Don’t watch your brokenness cause you to bleed out on others because you are too afraid to deal with the root of your situation. You can change your narrative if you want it bad enough. 

You are never alone 

Love and Light 

Tosin

Faith · Journey · Life · Uncategorized

Finding your way to better!!

OluwatosinLeave a comment

  

Say what! January is just about wrapping up and I hope you’ve done good with your new year resolution so far. I’m not a huge fan of resolutions because I know we only write them to break them. lol! What I believe in though is having vision statements and mission statements that are more detailed and one can go over their life holistically and appraise ones self and also set achievable goals that help in fulfilling the vision and mission.

 We all want to be better humans. We want to do better, feel better, act better and just generally deal better in life. We are not talking perfection because that’s just you setting yourself up for failure and frustration but you want to work on yourself so that you are always one step closer to the best version of yourself there is.

It’s easy to say I want to change and even start on the process but then we lose steam and fall back to old ways because staying the same is just “easy” and it doesn’t require us to stretch in any way. But the risk with staying the same is you will always achieve the same results that stops you short of being the better version of yourself. There is an upgraded version of who you are that is worth birthing but you have to be willing to put the work in on a daily basis

Let me share just 4 steps below that you could consider to help you stick to your plans through this journey of finding the better version of yourself:

1. Understand your WHY– it’s one thing to want to change, it’s another thing to really understand why you need to change. If your why isn’t strong enough your passion for the change will not hold. So to sustain your process you need to truly understand why you want to change. Why do you want to lose the weight, why do you want to change your career, why do you want to relocate, why do you want to find peace within yourself. Understanding your why will let you know how much this means to you and what your life will look like when it finally happens. Your why will also let you know if you are doing this for yourself or for other people’s approval. If you don’t want change for yourself you won’t be motivated enough to follow through on your decision.

2. Give yourself a call to action: I’m sure we have all clicked on some websites that have requested us to commit to something by filling out a form it’s the same way you should view your journey once you’ve written your vision. Set for yourself a daily call to action that you know you can stick to but still challenges you and requires effort from you. 

3. Hold yourself accountable: so now you understand your why, and you have drawn your call to action. It’s time to hold yourself accountable to ensure that you follow through. If you don’t trust yourself to deliver on your daily promise to yourself you may want to find an accountability buddy that will help you by providing support to you and also telling you the truth when you are not living up to your own expectations.

4. Celebrate your small wins: some change take longer than others to see results. Some things you want to change may take you several months before you start seeing the return on your investment and some may take just a few days regardless of how long it takes don’t be so hard on yourself don’t think of how far you have to go, think of how far you’ve come and how committed you are to yourself on this journey of becoming a better version of yourself. Give yourself a pat on the back for sticking to the plan and continue on your journey. Celebrate the small wins but don’t quit before you achieve your results.
The better version of yourself will emerge as long as you don’t give up on yourself. Even if nobody is rooting for your better version make sure you are rooting for yourself. You are the best you’ve got.
You are never alone

Love and Light 

Tosin