By Zethu Zwane
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“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
I’d like to be one of many who say it’s okay to feel like the above quote. To feel misunderstood and that people disappoint you; However, I encourage you to also begin seeing how people don’t always intend to hurt you.
A lot of the times, they have experienced a world completely different from yours. I realized this when my lil sister was in a coma following a car crash. Friends who I hoped would have been there for me weren’t.
Honestly only 2 friends were there for me and in a weird way I understood why. Being in that vulnerable place made me realize I was living under a lot of people’s shadows and opinions.
Wounds from a friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.
Proverbs 27:6 in a weird way it was seeing how my friend didn’t know how to comfort me that taught me I needed to teach myself before them. Plus this group will have your best interest, but you’ve got to know what that is for you
I’ve faced hardships and loneliness as I mention in my course where I say winning the African Queen pageant didn’t take away my loneliness; it exposed how misunderstood I felt. It also exposed just how detached I was from several friendships.
Protecting Your Emotional, Spiritual and physical health through Self Knowing
Previously I always allow people’s emotions to supersede mine. And as a woman, I realized just how intuitive our bodies are to our emotional health. There’s only so many lies you can tell yourself before your body begins to break down.
These lies include thoughts like “OH it’s okay we don’t have to talk about me; My friend is having such a hard time.” These kinds of beliefs are entangled in self-worth and emotional boundaries. And the reality is many people don’t grow up in homes where a healthy idea of emotion is communicated.
Examples of healthy emotions include anger, sadness, failure and fear. Especially anger; from a young age many people see anger as a negative burden, yet it’s quite the opposite. Anger can be communicated passion, and the person or child needs to learn how to translate that passion into constructive words.
However like many, I didn’t get the chance to learn how to communicate certain feelings, and you can’t blame you parents because we’d have to go find Cain and Able to be honest. Now imagine growing up in a family with many children. Or living in a home with busy parents who are career driven; sometimes seeing your parents go through hardships will make it hard for you to say how you feel left out or lost.
Now imagine whole communities experiencing that emotion, and isn’t it ironic the middle class child can’t fry about feeling lonely because her home afforded her everything. Or the rich child or the poor child who’s parents are sacrificing more than sweat to get them this home.
Loneliness transcends all these communities because it knows no boundaries. If you don’t addresses loneliness, will build up in your body. My body had build up enough emotional repression and now it refused to move. Instead it broke down. This is what happens to my body in 2016.
Holding onto all those emotionally damaging beliefs thinking I have to be the strong one in my friend group, lead to my body breaking down physcially. Yet I still didn’t speak up about it to friends because of those complex dynamics in life. How do you communicate something you’re conflicted about?
You know what I’m talking about; that moment you admit you feel sad about something and when your friend stares at you, so you joke about it or brush it off. Instead of doing that each time, own those moments of inner conflict; but I’ll get to that later.
The heartfelt counsel of a friend
Proverbs 27:9
is as sweet as perfume and incense.
For me those moments were piling up with repressed emotions now squeezing their way through. During those months I was irritated with my body. Irritated by the fact it was forcing me to deal with real emotions. Oddly enough it was dealing with those emotions that led to several revelations. A couple of things came into full circle in those moments.
One I understood, you can’t lie to your body. It holds every belief, every ignored emotion and every wrong. As a result this can poison you, because the body swells with these negative feelings. Signs of unaddressed emotions can be weight gain, but soon enough it grows into cholesterol, high blood pressure and other silent killers presented in the form of lifestyle choices.
It is those culminating moments when I was forced to truly look at my spiritual, emotional and physical health. I also realized just how much I consumed my friends’ worlds and relinquished mine. It’s not easy teaching poeple how you need to be loved because first you need to love and understand yourself.
You’ll also need to break certain established habits between these friendships. This includes the idea your friends’ hardships are more important than yours, hence why you tend to be the quiet listener. It’s okay to listen to people, but you’re as important.
Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone.
2 Peter 1:5-6
Then I also realized I had to reparent my ideas about Jesus Christ. Those moments of weakness, and resenting how I was hitting the same walls life made me want more intrinsic change. These same walls include loneliness, depression or anxiety; all forcing me to question just how much I knew God. Why is it so many people in my church had these phenomenal experiences of Him, yet I’ve missed many over the last few years.
Suffocating feelings of Anxiety, and depression lead me to Relearn Jesus Christ
Emphasis on missed many. You see I grew up in a strict church background where I didn’t exactly learn to have a relationship with Jesus. Anglicans mostly read from a standard book, which definitely created a distant idea of God. They made Him cold and authoritarian. A father you can’t question or show emotion to just like many Africa fathers. So in that space of suffocating uncertainty, I also felt defiant about church.
Defiant because I remember experiencing Jesus in real and loving ways. I had to go back to those moments to question how is it that God gained in my darkest and most rebellious moments? If that is the case, why can’t I talk to God like the many Christians I met in Oklahoma; I should just take instructions. So in the whirl of the deafening storm of sorrow and loss, I cried to Him every night.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus
Philippians 4:7
Yet this time, I wanted to change myself. No more holding back feelings because the accident somehow released all held emotions to the tip of my throat. It was a suffocating feeling that kept telling me these emotions are years of held loss. It was years of held misunderstandings, struggling to understand and accept myself.
I also learned I needed to heal, so I could be there for people in a real authentic way. I remember staring at my sister unable to speak because it felt like I was being plunged under deep oceans encased by emotions. I remember wanting to cry in front of her or others, but my face fought me to remain cold and distant.
It’s those moments that made me realize just how damaging some of the beliefs we carry are to our life journey. So if this is you in any way I encourage you to take a moment in your life to ask what’s holding you back. Ask about the little lies you made to make sense of complicated world.
Ask which beliefs are holding you hostage to freely loving people as they are. Which emotions in your life are also paralyzing you, making you believe you’re meant meant be alone, thus limiting your chance for real authentic relationships.
God Speaks to you even when you don’t know Him or have forgotten Him.
I knew in those moments of battling to release shattered beliefs why I had to re-learn God. There was just something about that suffocating loneliness and trying to define my loneliness and anxiety that forced me to see how I was hurting others too by not being able to authentically love without fear. I also wanted to authentically cry without fear, and experience sorrow in a healthy way. It became a journey of communicating feelings, being self present and warm.
It was as if God was saying He is the solution to this deafening sorrow. I had to discover myself, but I also needed to let go of many beliefs. I felt it in those moments because many people around me always talked about seeking God’s opinion before taking certain paths. What I’ve come to realize about those moments is God was always speaking. And He will always speak.
Letting me know this accident serves a purpose, and for the first time in many years, I wanted Him to take full control of the next few years. I was done with hitting walls, hiding, covering my loneliness. I was done with also living on a lonely planet. I wanted to know why over 70 percent of the world’s population is lonely and how is it related to hidden emotions we picked up from disappointed and broken beliefs.
You know which beliefs Im talking about; a belief breathing as a result of mistreatment. You being unable to understand why people don’t like you. Or you trying to make sense of the same pains and disappointment over and over again.
So in an effort to protect yourself from feeling similar pain again, you pick up toxic and broken beliefs about how the world works. We’re constantly surrounded by those beliefs and I wanted none of it.
I decided I’d try drain my brain of all things I’ve learned. I needed to try something new before turning 30, and before hitting another quarter lofe crisis. As a result I had to remind myself of those those intimate moments Jesus shone like the brightest star in my life.
This includes moments when I was scared to moments where I felt deeply along, I wanted nothing else but Jesus in the next phase of my life. I also chose to believe some of the things church has taught me is missing because the church can’t fully escape the influence of society. And Jesus came to save the sick not perfect people in fancy suits.
I’d like to have a burning bush moment like Moses. I mean come on why does he have to have a cool experience with Jesus, but I have to pay 10,000 for prayer miracles? I just didn’t believe that and healing was part of revisiting that experience with Jesus.
Side note; Why hasn’t church ever been deemed a fancy rehab center! Half joking, but think about it; church is where you go to break the chains of arrogance, cheating, anger, sadness, depression,anxiety, no hope, no faith, no confidence, drug addiction, infidelity, abandonment, always competing, idolozing careers, sex addiction… who’s with me here. This is a fancy rehab center, which off course is part of the reason you should go to church…. let me know what you think in the comments!
However, I had to force myself to remember this is part of why church exists. People go there because they may also be tired of hitting the same blocks; walls of corruption, walls of perfection or walls of inferioty. Then when God knows it’s the right for you, He shows you why church exists, but that’s a story for another day too.
Point is having my body break down coupled with my family’s crisis, I knew something better was meant for all of us, and I was sick of missing what it was. I felt discovering my purposes would lead to an intrinsic happiness not defined by people or circumstances.
This became my mission following my sisters accident; relearning who I am through a growth discovery journey. Its been a healing journey filled with many difficult conversations with people I love or don’t professionally need to accomplish a goal.
For instance teaching friends that; “you are not there for me,” can be a muddy path at times because it requires some level of self awareness, releasing your beliefs to understand theirs and paitience.
This is because chances are you’ve never taught them how to love you. And that’s okay, but this is what we’re going over here today. Starting with a new perspective for a better emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6
I was always brushing off my emotions, telling them I have nothing new going on in my life, but I had a whole lotta emotions pilling up. At the same time how can you teach someone to be there for you when you don’t know how to be there for yourself? Isn’t that part of overcoming loneliness; learning how to be okay with being by yourself. Getting to know your emotional needs through “self-exploration,” in the hopes it help you show people how you want to be treated.
What are you values? What are your real dreams? Do you want to get married, but all your friends are done with dump relationships; That’s some toxic stuff you gotta uncover to become the empowered woman you know lives among your emotional roommates… I had to remind you about your own emotional roommates.
As a result I’ve found it’s sometimes it’s easier to talk about loneliness from an artistic perspective. As a story in cascading in a desert than it is to talk about loneliness and depression every day talk. Yet the process of u locking your deepest thoughts to help other’s heal is an ongoing attempt to also find authentic and true forms of healing.
Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.
Psalm 27:10
And this motivates my work; Like every person, I’ve been misunderstood, left out at some point, so I thought I’d combine wellness tips and my reflections. I also hope my wellness newsletters, Facebook and insta Dms are more uplifting to your spirit in believing we all have emotional hurdles to overcome.
In realizing this you can forgive with understanding whenever someone doesn’t treat you as you hope. Or when the world seems not to understand you from all angles; there’s always a purpose behind every season. And every season is there to plant you to become more emotionally brave to forgive another humans limitations.
Where it all begins
Place a Pinterest picture of the Title
Even before we became a connected world, many people have recorded increased loneliness; however, I believe the thing that can you recover overtime is seeing the pain or ignorance in those poeple who keep hurting you. In a lot of ways experiencing hurt from loved ones or strangers is a result of coming across someone who has never understood their pain instead projects it in similar or different ways.
You miss Understand Yourself
That’s exactly right! Have you ever thought for a moment the reason why you’re lonely is because you don’t know what you want? I used to hate those titles with “You’re the problem,”or “Here’s 10 Reasons why You’re the Problem,” yet truth is if you don’t know yourself then it’s very easy to be misunderstood.
Sometimes youll find sporadic moments where you want to fit in. There are moments where you want to be included in events like friends’ games nights or watch parties like Like Scandal. Or you might want to date like your friends while studying, but you find yourself paralyzed by social anxiety.
Or you may be scared of rejection, so in all those moments you change plans and leave your friends. Conversely, you show up, but give off the worst kind of siblings. Have your friends ever told you you become super quiet when they go out? Have they ever mentioned they notice you become ancie and always asking them to leave when they just arrived. As much as you’re frustrated by your emotions, consider your friends are too even when they try to be sympathetic.
The issue with being inconsistent with your friends is they adjust to this being you. Heres another reason you’re self sabotaging your relationships with your many thoughts and feelings Here’s. Your dreams. That’s one of the biggest elephants in the room. Your dreams are so big you fear a day off will ruin your path, so you keep rescheduling time with friends. If you’re ones of these and you make sudden appearances to those game nights before disappearing for 2 months again, we’ve got to talk.
It’s okay to reschedule activities with friends. We all do, but I want us to look over the life narrative deciding when you reschedule. If you have a certain narrative like “people have betrayed me,” you can’t see when you betray your friend’s trust. For instance you may be disappointed because uou finally siked yourself up to going. You’re feeling very social. And you’ve convinced yourself you’re an outgoing person who’s loved by everyone.
So you step out and want your friend to join you, but your friend has a very stressesful assignment at work or at school. You’ll obviously get upset because you have this expectation they always go out. Then you may see that moment as another moment of betrayal as opppsed to a moment where your friend is really stressed.
There’s also a strong reason why you feel they have betrayed you. Intrinsically the one aspect many of us forget is the narrative currently governing your life. Your thoughts and areas tend to be based on family or community. You may feel your family loved you k my based on certain performance. Like your sister in the family always outperformed you, but you were the best in school activities and that was the only time you experienced love and acceptance.
Or you come from a loving home, but your community showed you that Looks gets you love. Consequently you worked for acceptance by doing everything for everyone. This one is hard because a lot of parents don’t know this is happening their children. Eventually your ideals of social acceptance is based on contracts. An idea that will only eliminate all your personal and emotional boundaries.
Now fast forward to your friend not wanting to go out with you. It’s very easy to see them as wrong. You may believe they’re wrong because you’ve dropped so many of your projects to assist them. Your drove to their homes at 3a.m. countless times, so you feel deserving of some reciprocation. Yet the truth is your friends or your community doesn’t always know of this contract your draw on them.
They don’t know these expectations you have. Even though you’ve eliminated all your boundaries for this person, doesn’t mean they believe in doing the same because they just font see the world 10p% the way you do. . Someone who’s grown up thinking love is gained through actions will have not personal boundaries. Yet all healthy relationships are build around healthy relationships ship’s where both understand each each other’s needs.
Then living in a narrative where many have hurt you won’t eliminate that you’re alos a walking contradiction. Remember what I said; there’s a time where some want want go out but are crippled by social anxiety. In those moments don’t think your friends know what you’re going through. Especially if you’re great at making people believe you’re self assured and confident.
That’s when functional anxiety will betray you, because your friends won’t see you as reliable. They might just think you’re selfish because neither one of you explicitly talks about these moments. And they can accept that selfishness as part of you. That can hurt right? To think some of your friends see yiy as self-righteous. Well it shouldn’t especially of there’s no communication of needs.
Don’t assume communicating your needs and Learning to understand another’s needs begins in marriage. Nope. Your friends teach you how to respect people feels and how how teavh people how you want to be loved. Isn’t that the case in many relationships; people hardly discuss how one’s actions is hurting the group. Or your friends hardly confront you about disappearing.
Consequently the best way you can begin reconstructing these moments with friends is by changing your own perspective. Beginning with your expectations. You can’t expect your friends to get you all the way. Yes there are friends who you think should get you naturally. Yet the reality is your friends are not always aware of your upbringing. They also won’t know how deeply your community fluenced your ideas of self acceptance.
First Step Clear Your Mind
During all these kinds of interactions and I believe it’s worth your while to write down what you truly want. If you keep contracting yourself, it’s very hard to see how you’re also confusing those you love. The moment your cold and distant try to journal and figure it why exactly you’re cold to your family and friends. Then when you’re also feeling warm and welcoming write down why. Over time go back each time in your journal to piece together what could be the root cause of your hot cold feeling towards people.
Hurt people Hurt people
Realising this from experinging a tradegy as a child helps me write incredible and insightful wellness newsletters. Yes I put in a lot of research because no adult helped me understand hurt. It lead me to researching human communication behavior, power Dynamics and imagery in creating and fostering reality.
Yet experiencing seasons of deep loneliness helps me see even the most areogant, hurtful poeple are those who carry sad stories, but don’t know how to handle them.
- Reflections from this week
- When Christian Content Creators Fall Away to False Teachings; Why Jugding is a double Standard
- Reflections on Genesis 2:8-9: God Prepares only The Best
- Power of Intentional Living & Submit to The Holy of Power of Yahweh
- Conquering Motivation for the Christian who feels stupid for Being Kind
What do I mean? Truly happy people who are content and secure will NEVER find the need to hurt other poeple. I also noticed in the following year of writing that hurtful adults stem from the same childhood traumas as many.
Up to 44-60% adults experienced a childhood trauma. This is because several adults grew up in a home where bellowing words such “suck it up,” was the family thing. Then somewhere along the line the repressing emotions became a thing. That your teachers would help you heal, or your nannies or the neighbor whose kids are brilliant in school.
Huge assumptions are made thinking healing magically as if it would fall on your laps. And it can; it does, but do most people even know what a miracle looks like. When overwhelmed with the chance to heal sometimes it’s hard because it mean you have hope to look up.
In part I’m here to also address that; only God can heal and that relying on humans; making a human a demi-god is where we go wrong. It took a lot for me to see that. To look past the hurt of my friends to understand I had never allowed them near me, so when my lil sister was in a coma how could they?
Now can I honestly ask you, do you even know when the greatest change of your life comes to your door? Do you even know when when miracles come to your door to finally pull you through and give you a different kind of hope?
With over 60% of people experiencing loneliness, I would say no. It;s not that easy to spot hope when you are emotionally drained and feeling disregarded. It up and down path to healing. And that’s okay.
What ignoring Loneliness creates
Unaddressed loneliness manifests into unhealthy eating habits, hormone imbalance due to accumulating and prolonged stress levels. Constantly feeling abandoned can lead some into becoming what they resented; abusive and malicious students who turn into malicious bosses coworkers or neighbors. You can stop the cycle by seeking counsel from your local clinic, or learning to speak up.
I’m not too focused on government because there is a talented person fighting that good fight. I’m concerned with our present culture. You’ll see me talk light about “spill the tea culture,” but not now. We’re in a remarkable place in history, but also one where we have to fight for love and humility
The internet is not evidence of society gone wrong; however as I’m running a blog, talking about speaking love to extract love is important Speaking healing words only brings healing to anyone’s life. This is also why I feel strongly when I say, growing mental health issues is the absence of love, and not a matter of finding the right pill.
This blog is not only personal, it’s also important to a promise I made to my 10-year old self. I vowed never see someone experience immense loneliness like I’ve met before. I made it a mission whenever I see an unhappy person, I would always reach out with a bright smile or short comforting conversation to boost their day.
However 2 sick people can’t heal each other. I noticed this after joining several motivating groups on Facebook to seek out healing, but I found hurting people advising each other on how to stay in the pain. How to live a life of death. I went from shocked to outrage. Then O noticed there was no wellness practitioner. You see I worked at a wellness place before my current job, so Im used it having a practitioner, doctor there to help people heal.
On these groups, I saw a devasting obsession to replay abuses, replay sadness or replay spiritual deaths! Honestly I was devasted seeing people cage themselves! Cage themselves because too few gave mental wellness solutions, while the majority encouraged the addictions to pain.
There’s a need for more people who will claw to pull themselves out of depression. Then motivate more out of that state of emotional pain. Because I know it’s mask that can be removed. You just have to learn to recognise the miracle. Again bringing me back to when I questioned myself how many here could identify a miracle of healing if it knocked o their door.
And I know if you allow depression for yet another season, you loose more than friends.
So I guess this is for anyone who needs an authentic place to discover messages on healing, forgiving and growth. This is a place where you will grow to understand this is an every day process, and one where you learn to accept personal growth as a lifetime mission. This is for anyone who has never fitted in many places. I am here. God is here
And yes I questioned God’s place too. In frustration I wondered is living in death better than salvation because it is so easy to become familiar and accustomed to spiritual death.
The again our lives were not designed for us to live in self-inflicted emotional abuse post the abuses from others. No one can break your heart.
And 2020 is a remarkable year because anyone who truly believed depression is not a permanent state, I hope you will join me as I exspire to reach breakthroughs. I hope to build a community where people’s self-ideas are not defined my family or community. Break away from those lies and begin your own life.
This is a place of healing, place to find laughter, accept crying 5x in a week is part of breaking bad beliefs about yourself and gaining the Fullness of self-love. This is your path to self-love and self acceptance
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Join me in banning spilling tea
In boosting confidence & Transforming it to Godfidence
In growing your emotional muscle and humility
Because…
You deserve to uncover your truest beauty.
You deserve to be an empowered Female Titan
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