How Does It Feel To Be YOU Today?

Think about it for a moment, how it really feels to be you today. Firstly, I don’t think you can get to know how you really feel today, when you don’t know how you felt 3, 5 or 10 years ago.

I was watching a TV programme when the host asked this question. It was a thought-provoking question that left me desiring to reflect on it. As I took time to explore this question, it was frightening to realise how most people don’t pay attention to themselves. “Self-awareness is the rarest trait human beings have.” I have met people who have gone through most years of their lives ‘absent’ from it.

A fact is, things happen in life that you learn the skill to switch off. You switch off to protect yourself; or at times it is to escape from the current reality you are in or, the past that you want to forget. Before you know it, it is as if you get awakened, and you can’t even recognise yourself.

You can’t afford to lose yourself!

Secondly, as you reflect and answer this question, try to strip off things that might clutter your view. B and I recently bought a car and moved into a bigger home(we thank God for that). It’s easy to look at those reached goals and think it feels great to be where I am at this moment. And as much as it is amazing and a goal ticked off our list, it doesn’t necessarily answer the question of how it really feels to be me today.

Let’s put aside the materialistic things and the relationships we are in (because your contacts, your job position or your house don’t define you). The focus is you. So, how does it feel to be you today? Here's what some of my friends shared...

Trapped

“I always feel I have to put on a mask around my father. Going home is an emotional rollercoaster. Its draining to have to switch in to an identity that makes me feel trapped yet my loved ones identify with.”

You know that feeling of anxiety when you have an exam to write. You constantly try to think which questions they will ask in the exam and if you have covered enough. Now imagine feeling that way every time you visit your parents, Trapped! Always on the edge of trying to be what people want you to be.

Hopeful

“Where I have been and where I am now, proves as testament that all is possible and it begins with a dream. A dream to be more and do more.”

TD Jakes says you have no right in saying Jehovah my Provider when you have never had an empty fridge! I feel the same way with being hopeful. You can never get to a place of hopefulness when you have never went through discouragements. It is the hopeful who have once experienced discouragements, but still came out the other side knowing that all works out in the end.

Overwhelmed

“I don’t know where I am going. I don’t know how I got where I am now. I don’t know how to be true to myself, let alone give myself to my spouse. Life just seems overwhelming.”

Overpowered by life! When all looks like greener pastures until you step in. When you feel like your existence is a stench to life itself and it continues to knock you down.

Still

“It feels as though I’ve been waiting to meet this woman I have become and continue to become. It’s that feeling of expectancy combined with being in the moment.

Embarking in the new chapter of motherhood, I am being introduced to who I am and who I am becoming as each day passes.

I feel today that I can still do the things I want to do in my life even though I need to be cleverer with how my time is spent. I feel stronger and surer of myself. ”

Great

“I’m in a good place. I know that all things work out for my good in the end. Spiritually, I am in a space where I’m secured in Him. I am content yet expectant and look forward to greatness.”

How does it feel to be Temo today?

Naked

Not naked in a shameful way or exposed without my consent. I feel naked in a freeing way.

The end of 2017 came with a choice of ending a 3 decade friendship. It wasn’t an easy choice. You don’t make a decision to end a friendship and move on like nothing happened. It hit me hard! It felt like I had no one to talk to, yet I still knew the choice I made was the best choice for me moving forward.

Being in any type of relationship where you invest emotionally, becomes a soul tie, and it is never easy breaking out of soul-tie, whether good or bad. I grieved my friendship. I felt like I didn’t have friends. Those few weeks I disregarded my other friendships as I focused on the past. Bringing the matter before God, I had an Aha moment. I was holding on to the past and not realising the friendships that God has blessed me with. He has given me genuine friendships that I never really appreciated because I kept holding on to what was with my best friend. I had ended a friendship but hadn’t let go of it. When I did, I opened a door to the impact of genuine friendships I overlooked.

I am free in a sense that I don’t have to sit and wonder what was ever true in my friendship with my best friend. I am free in a way that even when I saw her at an event we were both guests at, I was able to have a general conversation with her and move on without any bitterness. Its so freeing to know that the many birthdays you have, the less friends stick closer than a brother and it is okay, because some people are in our lives for seasons and others for a lifetime.

Its freeing for me to know that she doesn’t have to lie anymore and be who she is not just to keep up with values- values I thought we were both on the same page about but somewhere, somehow, it changed.

Don't get me wrong, I had great times with my bestie and have positive memories I hold close to my heart. She is a special woman and I know she will evolve to be the woman she desires to become. It’s freeing to know that I am not indebted to call and keep in touch.

Coming out of this I reaslised that I am naked. I have always been naked. The Temogo you read about is the Temogo you will meet. I don’t have to put on a persona to fit in.

So, how does it feel to be Temogo today? Freeing! Free to love and be loved. Free to give and receive. Free to open up to honest relationships and also be honest. Free to make a choice and be responsible for my actions. Free to have control of who enters my life and who stays. Free to choose what memories to remember and which ones to forget. Free to let go when it is time.

Life is unpredictable, but you choose how you react to it. Every now again, remember to pause and reflect on how it feels to be you today.

PS: Thank you to all my friends who contributed on this post. Tshepiso; Sinqobile; Phumeza and Lerato. Thank you for your input.