The Vigilant Butterfly

After years of drinking negativi-tea you may decide to drink positivi-tea everyday.  Just because someone else ritualistically consumes cups of negativi-tea, in your presence, doesn’t mean you have to stop drinking the tea of your taste. 

 I feel as though the God of justice is faded into the background by those who overshadow his righteousness with a cheap and naive version of ‘love’. Welcome to my long rant about what many people in the church have gotten wrong.  Humility One of the notable traits that Jesus Christ (God in human form) embodied is humility. Though he was perfect and the epitome of morality, he still positioned himself to suffer the consequences of all of our sin. The word ‘Sin’ translated means to ‘miss the mark’. And as we all know, no one is free from making mistakes. The gospel message is all about a just God , coming down to receive a death sentenc e on the behalf of us humans who are so unjust and unreasonable. We are called to follow suit in administering justice , whether that be calling out people for their evil openly or standing up for the voiceless, widowed and orphaned (there are so many examples, which I will probably address later on). The Imbalance of Love and Justice  No...

  Some people keep you alive in their minds by talking about their curated version of you. The version of you that they need to sustain so that they stay the victim and you stay perpetrator.  It’s hard to hear that a loved one of yours has dragged your name through the dirt.  Rather than fighting to change their perception of you; continue to evolve and maybe they’ll catch up. If they don't, that's on them not you.

  In a world full of many questions and answers it’s important to know your why. Nihilism is so easily succumbed to as life is full of suffering and injustice. For example, anyone can be quick to critique the cons of capitalism, notably working to the detriment of one’s wellbeing.  Though it’s easy for one to pinpoint the difficulties that society presents us with, we ought to recognise that our lives would not be as they would be without people working systematically. Working in vain is unsustainable and demotivating. I can recall during my GCSES, not being a tenacious student as I didn’t recognise the utility of what I was studying. I thus forth settled for last minute revision and caffeine rushes resulting in mediocre results (though I was predicted to be in the high percentile of grades.) I didn’t know my why. I was studying because it was prescribed by the law that I had to. It was when I extrapolated meaning from the subjects I studied that I saw a genuine and sincere im...

  I had such a beautiful conversation with Josiah today and it was about our desire to tap into our internal power source more. When you go through a lot, it can be so easy to lose faith in your ability to thrive.  I remember this one time that I was on the rugby pitch playing in a game against another team and I was playing as a winger. Despite the fact that I’d played most of the game and had been absolutely fine throughout it, I ended up pleading my coach to come off as I had a strong cramp in one of my legs.  We paused the game so that I could sort out the cramp in my left leg but after it went from the left it transferred to the right leg. My coach, having the utmost faith in me, told me to push through as we were in the last minutes. I stood up with the little strength I had, managed to turnover the ball which was in the opposite side’s possession and immediately scored a try. I will never forget that moment. It felt like an actual movie. Whenever I ponder on that m...

  Hope deferred can make a heart sick but one can choose to persevere. I just watched ‘The Pursuit of Happiness” and it was a story I absolutely resonated with. Notably it was a story of resilience and endurance.  The truth is we can plan and strategize our lives all we want but things can happen. It could be the cost of living crisis, it could be the death of a loved one or even bad weather.  Such catastrophic events have the capacity to destroy our hopes if our minds aren’t grounded on a firm foundation.  We must teach ourselves to be adaptable and open to working through all the challenges that life presents us with. Why? Because it is never over until we decide it is. I’ll give one notable example in my personal life. I had applied to do a law degree to 5 different universities which were all in the AAA range. It was advised that we diversify our university choices; having some with higher grade expectations and lower. I had radical faith and ignored this advice....

  Wow. I never thought I’d reach this place, where I recognise that the majority of my friendships may only last seasonally.  I observe that many of us live (or have lived) under the narrative that we must be friends with people who agree with us or understand us. It seems rational to desire this, as we tend to gravitate towards people who look like us or have the same interests as us. I typically am accustomed to befriending fellow creatives or people who have experienced similar traumas to me and this has had its obvious benefits but often had its cons. I have certainly grown in zeal and deeper understanding when I have been in friendships with people in the above criteria, yet in the grand scheme of things feel as if I have boxed myself in at times. In some seasons, I have found myself to be highly neurotic, constantly singing and playing the keyboard, dressing fashionably and simultaneously neglecting my intellectual mind.  I have been in circles that have been more ...

  Quite often I feel this unshakeable pain that strikes me out of the blue. Whether it be a series of repeated conflicts or a blockage in my throat, anxiety pops up and reminds me that something is unresolved.  Desperate to alleviate the tension in my body, I start to unhealthily ruminate on memories and dreams gone wrong. It’s so ironic right? That my initial solution to stress is to add more! What the heck? Well, I’m sure you can relate to this.  Research shows that feelings of anxiety and stress can be addictive. Picture being used to a sound playing in the background of your mind everyday and it suddenly fading out. You’d probably question where the sound is going and what’s causing it to go. You’re accustomed to its frequencies and perhaps would be more comfortable with no changes. Just sheer familiarity. We can assimilate this to the process of healing. It’s one that is rather uncomfortable and messy. Songs of sorrow and pain that our body is used to, start to los...

  I write with my sword , the one I was about to lay to rest for the evening. I’ve set myself the challenge of writing a blog every day and in all honesty I couldn’t be bothered to do today’s. I’m in agony, I’m exhausted and it would be easier if I quit my daily mission and slept but that would be self-sabotage (my goal is to grow in consistency as a writer with the intention to serve people with my writing). As much as I am aware of my physical and mental state, I’m aware how there is a voice of perfectionism attempting to lure me into procrastination away from my discipline of writing. It tells me that what I write is not of value and may not even be read so I should just give up and try again another day. I dare not give into this fearful agent. I ought to wholly love myself by pursuing my ideals even if it costs me my comfort. The truth is writing is one of the most powerful weapons I am privileged to have for myself and ‘some greater good’. I must not neglect it. What is ...

  Jean Paul Sartre, French Existentialist famously wrote that “Hell is other people” in a play called “No Exit” where three cellmates are in hell, trapped with the constant judgement of one another. I wholly understand the picture of his painting but I would argue that Hell can also be found in ourselves! There is a tendency for one to be caught up in self-condemnation and self-hatred when they aren’t living up to their ideals. I can recall recently feeling miserable because I had just gotten a new fast-paced job that my postpartum ass struggled to keep up with. I swear the stress could have caused me to book a GP appointment because I was being incredibly hard on myself. I guess on one hand I could give myself a round of applause for seeing a challenge and reaching for it but what does that matter if I ignore my efforts because of not having met my expectations straight away?  This is just one relatively trivial example, but it’s so easy to punish ourselves when things ...

  I am the epitome of a social butterfly and I still ferociously battle with the fear of missing out. As I write I’m missing the birthday jam of a very loved one by reason on honing in on our house search. Though I decided that I wouldn’t attend the party, I continued to feel several tugs towards London where this party was taking place. Music, people I love, vibes and dancing. What more would I want? It felt like me declining this one invitation was the equivalent to the world ending. That I might miss out on a once in a lifetime opportunity and even more so I may lose my close friend.  That thinking was obviously quite irrational. And that is the point: fear is often irrational. My intention when writing this is not to annihilate the existence of FOMO, it’s to remind myself and you that we do have the ability to combat it.  The truth of the matter is that attending an event just on the basis of FOMO, is an extreme misuse of your time and energy. Though said event could ...

Emotions come in all shapes and forms. Whether that be happiness, anger, jealousy or ecstasy. As simple as they may seem, they act not only as indicators of one’s internal state but if given power can be a driver of one’s actions. If one is happy they may exhibit a high, loud and vibrant pitch and flamboyant body language (of course this is not the case for everyone but it is the most easy example). It is rational to presume that a person acting in sincere happiness is able to do so as their thoughts are light and positive. This is called reflectionism (your words and behaviour reveal your inner climate). In contrast, an individual may be stuck in a cycle of inner conflict and thus forth speak pejoratively with a slouched stature and dull tone. Not only is this person communicating that they are suffering from great turmoil, they are negatively shaping their future through continuously reaffirming their emotions in deed and language. This can be attributed to determinism. Of course, ea...

  Conflict is an event I grew up despising as every time it occurred even in its mildest form, I’d feel like the world was caving in on me. If someone were to honestly tell the truth about how they felt about me or an action, I’d automatically go into hedgehog mode and never be seen again. This was a protective mechanism, my silence would piece you and hopefully exhaust you to the point that we don’t ever speak sincerely. As opposed to being a rhino who would charge boldly and loudly into what I would consider war, I felt powerless when it came to confrontation. If a stranger or a friend was to give me feedback, I’d see it as an attack rather than a call to growth and understanding. Though it’s necessary to build fences sometimes to keep the bad things out, it’s not okay to build walls to make yourself exempt from any correction. It’s unhealthy as it’s a serpent-like form of self-sabotage.  The absence of reprimand may feel bliss and comfortable for your ego but the consequenc...

My Perinatal Experience of Homelessness I was homeless and pregnant.  I grew up in numerous different houses that were vibrant, big and never void of basic necessities. My parents are the epitome of hard-working and I have thus far never gone without food under their care. Despite the privileges that I was immersed in growing up, in 2019 I was more than eager to start my journey away from home in the city of Birmingham. As someone who had grown up in relatively rural areas, I wanted to experience urban life on the quest to expand my life experience. Back then I didn’t know what drove my explorative desire, yet now I know that it was driven by my 98% openness to experience (one of the big 5 personality traits).  During my time away, I found the world to be a fountain of both wisdom and folly. In the first year of University, my hall of residence felt more like the Devil’s Playground than a safety haven. I underestimated how much of a challenge it would be to live healthily in a...