Speaking from the perspective of a coach, I have come to realize that many people's lives are masked and covered like a wall beautified with wallpaper. Behind the cover, there are cracks, dampers, and defects.
Sometimes, to understand an individual, we need to look beyond their actions and search for the underlying causes of those actions.
There are pains that change a person.
For me, after I lost my mom, things changed. I became more consequential and somewhat transactional. The questions behind my actions would always be, "Why should I? What's the essence of doing? What's the stress for ?
Because I feel like the one person I would want to give and do everything for is dead, so what's the big deal?"
She died when I was homeless, with no money, no hospital bill, no land to bury her, no fees, no marriage. Everything was gone.
I can still remember my ex saying he was thankful we had gone our separate ways so that nobody would ask him for a burial contribution. Nobody had my back in the real sense.
For an only girl without a sister or mother – I recently told a suicidal coachee my story and how before and after pregnancy, I would Google what to do.
How to bathe a child, what not to consume during each trimester, what to do when bleeding, what to apply for the newborn baby's umbilical cord to fall off.
So you see why someone like me finds it abit hard to have a large circle because I was a lone wolf in the forest , tried to survive the coldness of the thickness.
So friendship is the least of a threat to my kind and several others who are like me . It is not arrogance, it's the situation that surrounded our growth .
I realized I had a plan problem when I told my supervisor that the salary the company is paying me won't raise my mum back to life .
Up until 4years ago , I found myself in shopping center Aba buying old pattern hollandaise- wrappers. Few of the patterns I saw my mother used ; the openers , the staircase, the twinkle stars etc .
I didn't know why , I guess I wanted to just keep it in my box -
I didn't realize the cut was so deep .
Anyway, that's beside the point I want to make .
The summary is this:
When I meet people, I try as much to listen to their beat and feel the walls of their hearts .
Could there be something that's making this person act like this ? Is there a mask on ? Is there a wall paper that I should pull off ? What exactly should I fight ? Unbelief ? Rape ? Betrayal? Identity issues ?
Some of them don't talk alot,
Alot of them don't express their pains ,
They don't even want to talk their stories ,
but if we are abit patient with them ,
we can fix the crack.
Moreso , We can never fix a crack on the wall ontop of the paper . You know right ?, It takes your time and tests your patience.
We might be fighting with someone in ignorance, only looking at the superficial wallpaper and expecting certain actions or behaviors from them.
Take a step back and look beyond their facade.
Some pains may still haunt them.
We might simply be contending with their past, a voice , their pain, their brokenness.
The real fight might just be the little girl or boy in them that was abused .
It might be a memory that you're contending with .
We might be battling their mistrust, or We might be fighting against the shock that has become lodged in their heart.
We might just be fighting with a recurring scene and imagination that refuses to fade away.
I suppose many of us fight too much.
And we fail to communicate.
Or we communicate wrongly.
You would be shocked that you have been punching against the wall all these while .
It's just like someone coming to fix Nigeria without a knowledge of the root cause of her Crisis.
Ça n'est peut pas marché
Happy Independence