Personal Growth & Resilience

I am a girl who puts so much value in self love. I have been raised single handedly by a single mum . She has played a great part in what and who I am today. Growing up,she always kept on telling me to love myself and believe that I can make it. Her mantra was and still is, *you can have whatever you want as long as you put your mind,heart and efforts into it*. She reminds me that I am worthy of everything my heart desires and there’s no better person than me in the world regardless of the race, nationality, social and economic class. We are all the same,human.

Her words have kept me strong and made me have such a high self-esteem. Having a high self-esteem doesn’t mean that I don’t get affected by people’s opinions. There are people who are mean and get under my skin to an extent that I become extremely rude and speak my truth,then there are instances where I just look at someone and smile. Some time back, I worked at a certain place where the senior employee was always on my case. She used to just state negative things about me trying to be funny and to make me appear less appealing to my colleagues at work. She’s the kind of person who will look for the smallest mistake in your grooming/dressing and call it out Infront of people. Everyone was fed up but they couldn’t stand up to her. One time, I had a rough morning but I still had to go to work less I get fired. My tolerance was low and I didn’t want anyone stepping on my toes. I had worn a new blouse which I fancy alot. She looked at me up and down then asked *Kwani umevaa nguo ya mama yako?* In my head I was like,oh wow,this is gonna get interesting. I asked why the question. She said that it looked oversize on me. I looked at her up and down,asked her who is wearing the blouse and I walked away. Since that day she never asked me stupid questions again and I didn’t hear her state her negative opinions as she did before.

It feels really sweet to give people your piece and put them in their place. However,this should not always be the case. You shouldn’t let your emotions get out of hand coz you may speak back to people who shouldn’t be talked back to. If the opinions are from your friends,just search deep down to see whether it is meant to make you grow or it’s just to dim your shine. At times,you’ll hear comments that are only meant to see how mad you can get.

Bottom line is,people have their own thoughts of you and you can’t control that. What you have control over is your reaction,thoughts and words. It is not everyone that deserves your energy and response. You are way better than the one trying to bring you down.

By Ambitious Val.

An opinion is a belief,thought, vague idea or a judgement about something which is not necessarily based on facts or knowledge.We say that everyone’s opinion is valid but still there are people who are too opinionated. They think their view is right and that it is a must for them to comment about everything and anything. Mostly,such people are often wrong or say negative things and things they should have just kept quiet about.

People say their opinions for different reasons 1. They think they can help or can give advice that will make your life better. 2. To feel like they are superior because they have more knowledge. Our close friends can point out on how we are dressed,how our haircuts/hairstyles look like. They will both compliment and critique how we look. Friends tend to look out for us so that we don’t go out in public looking funny and end up embarrassing ourselves. However,there are certain characters who never point out any good thing about you. I know there’s a person who just popped in your thoughts after you’ve read that statement. This person doesn’t ever shut up about the things that are negative and where everything appears to be perfect,they’ll choose to mention that little insignificant wrong thing.

How do you actually deal with such kind of a person? Well,one thing is that we all handle people’s opinions differently depending on our self esteem. There are individuals who are affected to an extent that they feel intimidated and actually revert to hating themselves. As someone who loves themselves,you shouldn’t take everything to heart. Some people out here actually have no sense of direction and no purpose. They now reflect their insecurities and failures on others by making mocking remarks and criticism so as to feel like they are relevant. If you let their remarks affect you then they feel they have won and they’ll get some type of satisfaction. Others feel uncomfortable coz of how great you are,your potential,your popularity,your excellent relationship with those around you and everything you are made of. They now want to tear you down through insults and demotivating comments. These are the people who will talk ill about you to others and behind your back just to try and dim your light or make you appear less appealing to others. You should just let such people be coz you are way better than them and they are not used to such greatness. There is a saying that dogs bark at people and things that are strange to them, in the same way your ilk is not an everyday thing to some people.

Your reaction is not needed in everything that will be said to you or done to you. For example, On social media there’s alot of criticism and you find the individuals being critiqued are well established in their careers and have a lavish lifestyle yet there are people saying lots of bad things to/about them. At times I read the comments people write on people’s posts and I feel outraged. There are comments that can even lead someone to commiting suicide. But do you see our celebrities taking their lives simply because there are people insulting them and even their families at large? No. Learn not to respond to negative comments. The ones making such comments want to see you make a fool out of yourself by responding to them,feeling sorry for yourself,hating how you look and everything that’s related to you. Remember that their opinions can’t have an actual effect on how you look or on the things you’ve accomplished. Nothing will change. You can be perfectly fine but you won’t lack that person who is there to always tear you down. It can even be the person you call best friend. There are friends who want you to live behind their shadows. They want to be seen like they are doing better than you hence they’ll tell you some things pretending to be correcting you yet they are killing your star and self-confidence.

This post is long already however,there are things I’ve not said yet. My next post will be a continuation of this. Thanks for reading through my article. Let me know your thoughts.