Category: Family

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

Keep TWEAKING it!

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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 · Family · Journey · Life · Uncategorized

Cheerleader

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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! 💖

Chapter · Faith · Family · Journey · Life

SEASONS CHANGE

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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!!

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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 · Family · Humour · Journey · Life · Uncategorized

Lesson from a 2 year old!!

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A few days ago I learnt a very important lesson from my 2 years old niece. She was getting ready for school and her mum needed to quickly attend to something and as such it became my duty to keep an eye on her. I walked into her room with hopes of getting her ready for school myself. She looked at me and refused to cooperate, in her own words “i want my mummy”. 

My niece knew she needed help getting ready for school but when help came (in the form of Aunty) because it was packaged differently she refused. So getting ready for school took more time that morning because little Miss 2 years old “bosslady” had her mind made up on who should get her ready for school. She’d rather continue to wait for her assistance to come the way she had envisioned it in her royal empire (that is her 2 year old brain) than take one that was readily available.

There and then it hit me that we as adults sometimes act like children we refuse an opportunity just because it didn’t not appear in a package we expected. We have set our prayer point and our mind is so fixed on how things should look, what the person offering the help should look like or what the opportunities we are after should look like.

Somehow we meet someone who has the ability to help us get our desired result and we mess it up just because they don’t look like the type of person we have envisioned. We see some opportunities that could change our lives but because it doesn’t come packed like we imagined and hasn’t got the attached perks we have imagined we decide this can’t be the opportunity that will change our life.

 Sometimes your opportunity to meet the person for your next level will require that you take  up an offer to work in a particular office branch that you don’t have your mind set on don’t walk away because if you skip this opportunity you may never find them. Sometimes you may have to take a lower paying job to get to the higher paying position with the corner office you have envisioned. You may have to take that job on the shop floor with longer hours so you can acquire some client relations and interpersonal skills before you get your promotion as a supervisor.

This is not a call to settle but a a reminder that you should be discerning because sometimes God switches things up on us. Don’t expect that because God showed up in a certain way yesterday He will always show up like that. When we don’t understand we just have to pray for discernment and trust that God and You got this. 

Let’s be clear sometimes opportunities will show up exactly the way we have envisioned it but other times opportunities will show up not looking anything like we have envisioned. The fact that some things don’t come wrapped in the kind of gift wrap we asked for doesn’t make it anything less magical.

Don’t miss your blessing because it doesn’t come packaged in the way you envisioned it to be. 

You are never alone

Love and Light 

Tosin 

Chapter · Faith · Family · Journey · Life · Uncategorized

THANKFUL

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We started out not knowing where we will end or all we will face. We were just clad with #faith in our heart #hope for the best and #love that conquers all. There were times we didn’t think we’ll make it but God.🙏🏽 There were times we felt we were at our end but it happened it was the end for a new beginning. With 12 chapters and 365 pages we wrote the best stories we could have on a daily basis and it’s safe to say the story of our lives in the book 2015 is EPIC not perfect though😉 

Even though we tasted pain and had a face off with disappointment I can tell you we also hugged closely to our hearts VICTORIES. For prayers answered we say THANK YOU LORD 🙏🏽 For unanswered prayers and situations that didn’t change we say we will continue to GO HARD IN FAITH AND KEEP HOPE ALIVE 👊🏾✌🏽️

For opened doors, divine interventions and opportunities that took us higher and made us better we are ETERNALLY GRATEFUL 🙏🏽💃🏽We will forever be grateful also for the closed doors and people that left us because we are more confident now that our future isn’t tied to people that walked away or locked behind divinely closed doors.

 We are eternally grateful for family 💗💃🏽that double up as friends and friends 👯 who have become family. May we go hard in FAITH in 2016 and May we write the most EPIC STORY of our life yet! Get ready for Book 2016 chapter 1-12 pages 1-366. We will WIN with GOD on our side.

 To all the Kings 👑and Queens👑 in my world I LOVE YOU continue to watch the throne and no matter what don’t let your crown fall. 💗💗💗🙏🏽🙏🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽

It’s been real but I remain THANKFUL! 

Faith · Family · Life

You Changed my Life

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Today 27th October 10 years ago, my life changed, my world shook and a defining moment was birth. It was school holidays and I had plans to enjoy my break as best as I could but little did I know that my journey for the rest of my life without an earthly father was just about to begin.

Daddy and his girl took a drive out of town, the motorway wasn’t busy and like every other time my dad wowed me with his sense of precision in driving. He took every turn carefully, overtaking when necessary and easing off the accelerator gently to avoid going over the speed limit.

We were enjoying our ride until someone’s mistake happening outside found its way on our turf. Dad did the bravest thing with the little time he had left, he managed to swing the wheels…. but how far can you swing the wheels to avert evil in a sudden moment to save your life? Dad was brave in that moment and as I’ve grown and processed that episode I gleaned a life lesson that “Giving up in the face of life’s sudden twist is not an option, you must continue to do all you can do”.Had my dad not done what he did based on the God given wisdom we would have ended up under the trailer and not one soul would have made it out of the car alive.

Standing at the edge of the motorway covered in blood and watching my dad struggle- my life flashed before my eyes and a sense of purpose was further drummed into me and I knew again with more clarity that “people are the only resource that matter and family will forever be the greatest asset we are blessed with”. At that moment wisdom explained to me that I can’t continue to major on minors and no matter how high some things may scream they just won’t make priority list and I must learn to choose my battles and focus my strength and cherish every moment I have with the great people I’m blessed with.

My faith in God was rebirth through that incident. My dad lived his life telling me but more importantly showing me God dependence and as this episode played out I knew it was time to stand and be a faith girl, knowing God for me. I knew if I was going to make the rest of my life’s journey without bitterness, depression and a sense of loss hanging heavy on my shoulder and holding me down from my God ordained destiny then I needed to make God my anchor. God continues to wow me and he stands true to His word as the father of the fatherless.

Can I quantify my dad’s life- NO, not here, not now, not on this page and definately not ever. His death reminds me everyday that we are time bound on this side of eternity. We are individuals on a mission and we have to continue to live on purpose adding our unique individuality to the human race, touching lives and giving back in ways that we are empowered and inspired to. We can’t just exist as a completion to balance out the Eco system. We were created to make impacts in our families and in the lives of those around us.

Dad the whole world may not have known or heard your name but in the course of doing life you touched the life of the many people you were opportune to meet. You touched your family and prepared your little girl for life even before she was ready to face it. I’m stronger because you lived and taught me faith.

Saying my dad is one in a million is saying I’ll meet someone like him someday and that’s a lie. So i put it this way He was one in a GENERATION and nobody will ever be what he was. I speak for his queen,prince and princesses …….Dad you changed our lives and we have grown to understand God, purpose, faith, love and life.

Thank you for living your life the way you did. Even time cannot erase what you said, who you were and the impact you made on us. We continue to pass on your legacy of giving and helping in the ways we can. Amidst all the challenging things we face living without you is most challenging but God’s grace continue to lead us as we live everyday. Dad you may be gone but you will not be forgotten .