A Successful Relationship: Healing Heartaches- Part 1

If there's one fact that we all know, nobody is perfect, we're all human beings and we don't always do the right thing, no matter how hard we try to. We make mistakes and sometimes, we make mistakes that affect and hurt our loved ones. In the way we act or in the words we speak, we may unintentionally hurt our loved ones. This doesn't make us bad and it doesn't mean we don't deserve to be happy, it only means we are human.
Relationships are quite frankly a paradox, they lead to the greatest happiness and also to the most terrible heartaches.
When we do things or say things that hurt our partners, we cause them terrible heartaches, these heartaches are consuming and a very serious burden to bear and could lead to unexpected reactions from them. It doesn't mean they don't love you anymore or that your relationship is doomed but you cannot ignore the fact that your partner feels wounded and vulnerable and worst of all, this feeling is being caused by someone he/she loves. The simple truth is that you have to fix it, you have to help your partner to heal and come back to you. The difficulty of this task varies, depending on what has caused this heartache, but the concept itself is straightforward.
The first step is to apologize, as much as you need to, until your partner knows that you are sorry. This will help your partner understand that you accept your fault and you want to make it right by them. Now, many stop here and assume all will be fine, but I don't agree, A wound doesn't get healed just because you apologize, you need to tend to it.
To start the healing process, sit down with your partner and let them express themselves, tell you how they fell, talking about it with you will really speed up the healing process, but please note, they aren't telling you for telling sake, they are telling you so that you listen and understand their feelings. This will really help in rebuilding any connection that may have been severed. It is then up to you to ensure you avoid making similar mistakes in the future.
As a catalyst to the healing process, you could do something for your partner, give them a gift, take them on a date, do their chores for some time, anything! This communicates to your partner that you care and you really want to make things right.
The last part is not easy, because it requires patience and humility on your part, you have to wait, wait for your partner to make the choice to forgive you and move on, to let go of the negative feelings and move forward. This must not be forced, they have to make the choice to do this, because that is the only way you are sure that the healing is complete.
I hope this makes sense to somebody and I hope it will be of help.
                                                                                                                   T.I.L

A Successful Relationship: Communication

 First, I apologize for not posting for so long, secondly, I'm going to be doing a bunch of posts on "A Successful Relationship." I am not an expert or anything like that and this isn't a blog about relationships, however, I was compelled, so here we are. Today's topic is communication and I just hope everyone who reads this learns something, enjoy!

Communication is very vital to every relationship, it opens doors to everything. You need to be in touch with each others' needs and understand each others' expectations, don't ever make assumptions.
Constantly communicating is one of the most important secrets to a successful relationship. Couples need to open up to each other and be completely comfortable with each other. Talking about everything is a way to make a relationship smooth, it removes all potential awkwardness. Talk about your hopes and dreams, your fears, your likes and dislikes, it helps you both to understand each other and and get closer. Also this can lead to personal enlightenment. Take turns to talk and listen about everything. Communicating like this can help you understand each others' personalities better and even discover parts of each other that you never knew existed.
It is also very important to communicate your needs to each other, don't wait and expect your partner to attempt to guess because nobody is a mind reader. Speak your mind at all times but do it in a non-offending way. Let your partner know how you feel per time, let them know what you need and what you want.
Listening is by far harder than speaking, but it is absolutely necessary, we need to learn to listen to our partners and respond according to what has been communicated to us. Listening means you are willing to accept the feelings and thoughts of your partner, this will make your partner feel emotionally safer with you. Please note that the true art in listening is not in hearing the words but catching the emotions behind them, practice this and as you get better at it, you'll find your partner is more and more willing to express themselves with you
In my opinion, in an argument or discussion about an issue, men should try to listen more, because it's not about solving said issue on the spot, but talking through it and solving it together in the best way possible. 
Hope this was useful to someone...
                                                                                                                                                T.I.L

Why Am I a Christian?

I recently came to the realization that religion is geographical. This basically means that your "religious" beliefs are a function of where you were born or raised or the ethnicity of your family. If you were born in an American family or in America, you will be a Christian, if you were born in Northern Africa, you will be a Muslim, India, you practice Hinduism, the list goes in with different places around the world as you can see above. This is one of the factors that makes even thinner the line between spirituality and religiousness. Someone asked me a question once, why am I a christian? Is it because I was raised by a christian by a christian family in a christian home in a side of the world that is majorly christian? No, It may be a major factor to consider, but the point when I realized my true reason for being a christian, it had nothing to do with any of that. The reason why I chose to be a true christian was because I happen to strongly believe in the one thing that just so happens to be the foundation of Christianity... Love, the God kind of love. The love that hopes, that trusts, never gives up, that serves, that is patient, peaceful and kind. The love that is joyous and full of passion, the love that is forgiving and slow to anger, the love that is not proud nor self-seeking. The love that inspires honesty. This is the kind of love I believe in, the kind of love that the bible teaches us... the perfect force for good. That is why I believe in Christ.

Man In The Mirror

Some days ago, I was listening to the song "Man In The Mirror" by Micheal Jackson and it was basically saying that if you want a change to happen around you, it has to start with you making a change to yourself in favor of making this change around you, for example, one who wishes to stop corruption around him would be required to live a lifestyle free of corruption, because he is standing for something and he has to stand without wavering, even the bible says that it is either you are hot or cold, if you are Lukewarm, God would spit you out... but that isn't where I'm heading to.
As it would be, around the same time, I happened to be reading a book; "The five love languages" by Gary Chapman and he said something in his book; that you need to give your love to get love back... and it's even said that a giver of a thing can never lack that thing.
All of this made me remember a few weeks ago while I was in a meeting and the speaker was talking about leaving your comfort zone and she said that for you to get a different result in something, you have to change your mentality towards it.
My point is this, If you do not like the relationship you have with a person, change your mentality. If you are in a situation where there is no love between you and someone, then rather than wait for the change, be the change. If you're a man who is in love with a woman and you sit and wait for years for something to happen, rather than making it happen, sorry, not going to work, you have to take the initiative and make your feelings known and take steps to secure her heart, because she isn't going to get up one day and say "marry me" out of the blues. If you're someone with a terrible relationship with your parents, and you wish it were better, then take the first step and show them love and hope and pray that they will learn to do the same. If you're a parent with a troubled child and in your bid to help this child, he/she isn't receptive, work a better angle, with love and put more effort into it, and pray for the best.
Basically, if you love someone and you dislike the state of your relationship with said individual, then you have to take steps to change the state of that relationship, or the status, as the case may be. Express your love to your loved ones freely. You may have to leave your comfort zone and do or say things you are not exactly at ease with, but it's a small price to pay to have better relationships with loved ones. So take the initiative, give your love freely and leave your comfort zone and I believe that you will find all your relationships to be full of joy and happiness

Order versus Peace

I came to a realization about the laws that communities are often governed by and the general idea of the law and order system in most countries and communities.
This realization is that the system is one based on fear. A system where punishment is attached to guidelines or rather, disobedience of said guidelines.A system where everyone is made afraid of the consequences of particular actions so they rather not perform said actions, however, there are even greater fears than getting caught in a bad act. Fears that can consume a soul such as fear of death, poverty and most importantly insignificance. Even fears that one would see as minimal may rise up in some minds to consume them like fear of rejection, or more commonly referred to as peer pressure. While these consuming fears exist, there may be order sometimes and sometimes there may be anarchy, but peace will never reign, why? Because these people having these fears don't have an understanding.
Now, many countries decided while trying to come up with their laws that their foundation would be based on biblical laws and all well and good, but either there was never an understanding or along the line, understanding was misplaced, because we find that many people keep disobeying the laws, so much so that even the lawmakers no longer have respect for both the laws they themselves have laid down, and more importantly the laws their predecessors lay down before them. As a matter of fact, leaders in places like Nigeria now come up with laws based on a whim or a fleeting thought which is quite sad. Now, laws are written based on many different things while placing fear as a driving force for people to obey these laws but the main factor that is supposed to be the foundation for law-making has been lost along the line. The foundation of the biblical laws are no longer considered when said laws are being thought of.
According to my understanding of the bible and the laws in it, for example, the 10 commandments given in the old testament, they were given to the people of God and they were told to obey them to the letter, else they would find the consequences highly unfavorable. They never really understood the laws or why they had to obey them but they did and where they didn't, they would have to suffer.
However, in the new testament, Jesus was sent down and he gave us understanding and one commandment: To love. This understanding makes us realize that to love is to have God in you and also that when you have the love of God in you, these biblical laws will be a part of you. Now being that many countries decided to base their laws on these biblical laws, anyone who has the love of God in them will respect and abide by these laws at all times. I guess what I'm trying to say is that for peace to reign anywhere, the people have to unite under the cloak of the love of God. Only then can true peace reign in any place. My opinion.

True Beauty

The thing I realized about beauty is that it isn’t simple, it has multiple expressions and manifests in many wonderful ways. From the facial beauty to the artistic to the natural and of course the inner beauty.

I’m going to give a two quick scenarios so as to bring understanding of what I’m trying to say.

Scenario 1: You see someone for the first time and at first glance, it feels like you just fell in love, this person is so “beautiful” and you’re beginning to think, I have to know this person, he/she could be the one. But on getting an opportunity to experience who this person is, what you experienced doesn’t match the profile. Upon experiencing said person’s behavior several times, and after getting disappointed several times, the story changes, and who was once a beauty to you starts looking less beautiful, you start seeing every flaw he/she has and what was probably love at first sight becomes something much less.

Scenario 2: You see someone for the first time and at first glance, you don’t even take note of the person because, really, there is nothing fantastic to take note of. Now by chance, you happen to meet said person and upon meeting, you still see a random individual. After meeting this person, you happen to have a long conversation with him/her, thus enabling you to learn a little about who he/she is and you like the conversation and you make a mental note about this person like “not bad” or “he’s cool” or “she’s alright”. You then kick it off from there, and see each other regularly and you get the opportunity to know this person even more and you like who he/she is. As far as I know this person stops being “a random individual” and becomes that interesting friend and who you thought was nothing fantastic starts to look amazing to you and a glow begins to emanate from said person towards you. I call this the Inner Beauty Effect.

I have had these experiences several times and I didn’t get it at first but after some time thinking, it came to me. Anyone who is beautiful inside will find that their beauty will manifest, always. They may say that this person is ugly, but anyone who knows who he/she is will find themselves believing that this person is beautiful and the more you experience the person, the more beautiful they seem to be getting. I happen to know of someone who manages to get more and more beautiful, my mother.

Not just to me, but to everyone around her, she actually truly is physically beautiful, but what astonishes me is how she gets more beautiful, then it clicked, she’s beautiful inside. Now the question is how do you know who is beautiful inside, and the answer is simple, the beautiful people are those who have love in them and of course, we know that means having God in you because God is love. Love is the most beautiful thing ever and if you have it, you’re beautiful, at least, that is what I believe. The best part about it is the fact that the more you understand what love is, the more beautiful you become. 

So love and be beautiful because you are meant to be beautiful.

One Step At A Time

The thing I realized is that nothing good can be rushed into working or happening, and if you want something to work, you have to be patient and take steady and sure steps to make it work.
I find that we humans, once passionate about something or someone, we let our emotions lead us and we end up doing some rather stupid things that we ought not to do. When you care about something, you have to be patient about it and take conscious steps to make sure it works. Nothing rushed into ever works, you have to feel with your heart, talk with God then think with your head before taking any step, cuz when you care about something or someone, every step counts, so you can't afford to misstep. Our actions go a long way to define every situation, therefore, I believe that we must win every battle inside, by thinking, praying and feeling it through, before taking the step for real.
So whether it's a project you are embarking on, or a step to take in a relationship or if you're trying to get in a relationship, no matter the situation, feel, pray then think before acting... one step at a time, and believe me, its gonna happen if it's supposed to happen.
The race isn't for the swift, neither the battle for the strong!!!!
So remember, one step at a time, it does wonders!!!!!