Seven Lessons Along The Way.
As I walk towards self-awareness and away from brainwashing and teachings that do not serve me, I have found lessons that I now live by. Today, I want to share those gems I found with you.
In this article, I'm sharing seven lessons that I have held on to, if you find them helpful you may apply them to your life, otherwise, just ignore them.
This is my personal experience and this is how I lived my life at the time of this writing, I hope you find something meaningful in it.
1. To Choose Me.
This is the top and constant lesson that I keep learning. It's now also a thing that I live by. I am the firstborn in an African household, I am a woman. These identities determine to a very large extent what kind of lessons are instilled in me.
As a woman, I was raised to cater to people against my wish. As a firstborn daughter, I was parentified, made to become a parent when I was a child.
I was made to nurture and care for and take care of other people like I have no other choice. And so I grew up thinking that if I just please people and do everything right by them I'll be good.
As I grew up, I had go unlearn the messiah complex, the need to choose other first, I had to unlearn silence and I had to unlearn what is expected of me as a woman.
I choose to always choose myself. To be me. To choose all parts of me. To stop setting myself on fire to keep other people warm. I have learned that at the end of the day, the only person I have is me.
I have learned that I deserve beautiful people in my life just as much as I deserve to be a beautiful person. I have learned to not lose myself and to choose myself. To desire and build community and simultaneously be comfortable with being alone
In 25 years, I have learned to live unapologetically. To be the hero I need. To choose me every day, to stand up for who I am. To be patient with me. To be compassionate with me. To hold myself a little more and give myself more grace, just like I give to everyone else.
2. My voice is important.
Being raised as a woman often means being raised to stifle your voice, to keep quiet, to whimper, and to swallow your opinions because you don’t want to appear too bold or too intelligent, you don’t want to make men and adults insecure and angry.
Throughout my teen years into adulthood, I was constantly called stubborn, wicked, heartless, and rude, because I asked questions, stood up for myself, and refused to do things I was told to do that didn't make sense to me.
As I get older, I have learned to raise my voice higher, to stand up for myself, to stop shutting myself down, to always remember that I owe it to myself to take up space, to advocate for my life, to use my voice, and to demand for better.
My silence will never be found. I have a voice and I am not afraid to use it. I will use the tools I have - my voice, to share my thoughts opinions, and demands because my voice is just as important.
3. Family is not everything.
I know we grew up hearing people say stuff like "family is everything" and all that. But I have learned that family is not everything, and that blood also doesn't make a family. I have no relationship with my father and I don't want to have any.
I have learned that "blood" is only DNA and there's so much more that we need as people to help us be actual human beings and survive.
We need love, respect, acceptance, kindness, safety, and more, Whoever can offer these things to you in the same way you offer it to them or even better than you do, is family.
4. Growth Is Normal.
I am a very different person, from the person I was 5 years ago. Sometimes I find pieces of writing I did years ago and I smile because, in all honesty, I don't recognize that girl.
I am now an entirely different person. My dreams are no longer the same, the way I live my life and relate with people have changed
In 5 years I have gone from being a very religious woman to an atheist anti-religion person. I have gone from accepting and believing that women are less than men and should submit to husbands to chanting "Submission is slavery and oppression".
I thought it was normal and okay for boys and men to catcall girls and women. I grew up hearing that if boys and men are not stopping or calling you on the streets it means something was wrong with you and you may not get a husband.
Now, I know that men and boys should not be catcalling women and girls because that is nothing short of harassment
For context, I live in a very shitty religious and patriarchal country. I didn’t hear the word feminism until about 5 years ago, I also didn’t know it was possible for people to not believe in a god until I was an adult, over 20 years old.
5. Different is Okay.
I have been quite comfortable with who I am as a person. I don't remember being a person who wanted to feel among or feel desperately accepted by other people.
I am very okay with being alone. With being the only person who walks a different path and so when I found myself taking the activism road, I was okay with it. Loved it even. But I was scared. And my fears happened. I lost so many friends and acquaintances.
I am an Igbo woman living in Nigeria who is also a feminist, atheist, queer, and child-free, I tell you, it takes great strength to be this different in a country like Nigeria.
When I left religion, the friends I picked up from religion left especially after they tried to change my mind, some of them I had to stay away from. When I started using social media to talk about feminism, I lost online friends.
Every day, people, including my family, are hell-bent on making me get married to a man and have children, even when I keep saying that I want to be single and child-free.
I have learned that different is okay. It is okay to be the only one walking that path, and as long as I am happy and doing the right thing, not harming anybody, It's okay to be alone.
It's okay for people to call you names because they don't understand what you know and do. I have learned to never be afraid of being alone, as long as I am doing what I want for myself.
I have learned to walk alone on empty paths and lonely roads, I have learned to sit still with myself in solitude, to find joy in being alone, and to cherish friendships and people in my life but I also know to always leave when someone tries to make me feel like I am doing and being too much. I walk away because I understand how much fire exists within me, I will never turn it low to please people who do not understand that fire keeps warm too.
6. I am Enough and Okay.
This lesson keeps me in check. I live every day believing that I am enough, that my existence and presence on earth are enough. That my humanity is enough. That my body is enough. That my queerness is enough.
I try to rest, even when I have a restless ADHD mind. I try to pause because my brain is always at speed.
The days when I wake up feeling doubts and weak, the days when I criticize myself so badly and hate that I am alive. The days when I reminise how calm death feels. The time when I once again want to cut off everyone in my life because I am having another breakdown.
The night when all I see is darkness. The many days when I felt like a failure because once again, my ADHD brain couldn't make me "productive" in a capitalist world. A world where they told us that our self-worth and value depend on how much "productive" we are.
Those times when I’m down, having anxiety and panic, I always try to look out for myself.
I remind myself that I am enough and I am okay. I say it in the way I hold my breath, I say it in the way I hold myself and give myself hugs, In the way I hold compassion and space for myself, and in the way that I give myself permission to feel my feelings and sit with them I owe myself the same love, compassion, and empathy that I would give other people.
I am enough and I am okay.
7. My Darkness is Perfect.
It wasn’t until last year or two years ago that I started claiming the dark parts of me. You see, I have always wanted the light, the beautiful, people pleasing, kind and loving part of me because that’s what Christianity taught me to live by.
Philosophies upon philosophies on why we have to only do good and be kind. So many teachings on why we have to be forgiving, accepting and peaceful.
I have now learned that the darkness is beautiful too. The part of me that wants nothing to do with an abuser no matter who they are to me, the part of me that wants a real-life Robinhood, that part of me that recognizes mistreatment and feeds me rage, the part that refuses to be brainwashed by forgiveness manipulators because I will not be enabling an abuser.
The part of me that knows that sometimes the only way to have peace is to call down thunder and storm. This part of me that will not hesitate to unalive rapists and pedos, I have learned to hold it tightly and never let it go, just as much as I hold on to my light.
