3 Things that I have learnt about healing as a child of divorce.

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I would be lying to you if I told you that our parents aren’t the biggest shapers in our lives. I would also be lying to you if I told you that we ever really heal from trauma that occurs when we see our parents interacting with one another because that is the first romantic relationship that we will see and leaves an imprint on us for the rest of our lives. 

As like with other families, as much love and warmth there is; there is also hurt, resentment, jealousy and anger in mine. Which can be equated to love vs. fear. And, most of us struggle with loving because we are in a constant state of fear. Passed down from generation-to-generation. At some point, we have to take responsibility for our lives and set healthy boundaries for ourselves and others. 

On my journey of healing which actively started a decade ago, I have learnt over-and-over that life is about healing. We are not meant to be perfect because perfection is a façade. True healing is from bringing the broken pieces into whole. And, most of that comes from being honest because once we acknowledge something, we can match our actions to that. 

So, in the spirit, of honesty, here is what I have learnt about healing through the eyes of a child of divorce: 

1. Forgiveness is key. 

I recently lashed out at some loved ones in my family and I could spend my life blaming them. However, that would be unfair to me and to them. You see, becoming whole doesn’t mean that we won’t fall down but it means that we get back up. And, when we have gotten back up, we can look back and forgive. Forgive ourselves, others and the situation. Which, I am in the process of doing. 

We are multi-faceted beings and sometimes a part of us is brought up by a situation that we might not have thought was possible but that moment doesn’t define us, it is a stepping stone to real healing and progression. For when we are truthful, that is when we can move forward. Sometimes making a mistake will show us what we need to work on. 

This moment showed me the role that I play. The one of perfect as a result of being a child of divorce. You see, all kids take on a persona which becomes our way of surviving. Mine was, act perfect and have everything together so that life can be perfect and things won’t fall apart. It put immense pressure on me and I cracked. When I cracked, I decided to redefine how I had approached life and people in my life. And, who is coming with me along the way forward.

2. You can’t force people to change. 

I grew up in an African family where pride helps us keep our last name in dignity. That idea comes with many great qualities. It has taught me to keep going no matter what, to always look as good as I can and to give off a persona of strength even if I am not strong on the inside. But, with all facades comes the negative. Related to the pride, I have always felt the need to take on more than was expected of me because I felt like if I didn’t, I wasn’t doing enough and ultimately, wasn’t enough. I noticed a pattern in relationships that I would be as perfect as I could so that they would never leave. Sacrificing myself to be loved and when I wasn’t, I would flip and get upset. 

I have learnt and am practicing that when you love someone, you don’t want them to mess up, for the relationship to be over or manipulate them into never leaving you or being who you want them to be because then we are never really present. I have accepted that just because I love someone doesn’t mean that they have to be in my life or love me back. I can love them from far away especially if being around them is not healthy. I don’t need to hold on to anyone for the idea of perfection or that I have everything together. I don’t have it all together and I am not meant to- that is the journey of life.

3. My parents did enough. 

I once heard one of my mentors say that he believes his parents did their best and I would be lying to you if I agreed that mine did because I think there is always room for growth within us. However, I have come to see that my parents have done enough for me. As a society, we give our parents power and sometimes, too much power. For they are human just like us and when we are children, it is hard to hold them accountable. 

A lot of my healing is about accepting that I didn’t have a voice when I was child because there is only so much a minor can say without fear of being kicked out, not loved or feeling like they aren’t enough. We create co-dependent relationships in our families by thinking that they have to agree with everything we say and do but love is not about agreeing. Bringing love into a situation means peace. And, sometimes the best way to maintain peace is to forgive and move on with your life with or without people you have depended on before. 

Many of us look at our parents as our leaders and become heartbroken when they aren’t because we expect perfection from those who take the lead. But, we forget that sometimes leaders come into our lives just to show us how not to do things. Parent to children relationship is no different to take that example. 

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The 3 Things that I have learnt from being in an almost decade-long cycle of emotionally abusive relationships.

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As we end the year and another decade, I have found myself having nostalgia of the great memories from 2010-2019. I am (without a doubt) blessed and grateful; however, within these years, I have definitely experienced some deep emotional pain and relationships that were not ideal.

I am here today, proud of who I am because I decided to make the most of what was dealt to me. Sometimes, being in a cycle creates survival; however, I choose to thrive. The two are different. In honour of living the best life that I am able, I must be honest about my past. In my honesty, I hope to heal myself and others by revealing truths that we are usually too afraid to reveal.

Here are 3 things that I have learnt from my cycle of emotionally abusive relationships:

1. I can only save myself.

My first memory of wanting to be a saviour is when I was six and my mom came back from the hospital, after giving birth to my sister, with stitches on her belly. I deeply wanted to relieve her of her pain and kept asking her questions about how she got into that circumstance. I wanted to cure her of her stitches and make her fine right then and there. I was a kid, yes! However, I have always had a need to take people out of pain- hence why I am a yoga teacher and wellness coach. This attribute has been an advantage most of the time; however, it has sometimes been a disadvantage.

I have found myself wanting to relieve people from emotional pain and taking on their burden or relieving them of the work that they have to do to heal (themselves). I am able to influence another person; however, I am not able to do the work for them. We are all meant to work on ourselves, which is karma. Everything, including inner peace and wellbeing, requires our own work and self-healing.

2. I can say no.

In previous articles, I touch on how it has been difficult for me to say no in the past. This has been the most challenging thing to learn in my life because we do not live in a society that acknowledges boundaries. One could argue that we live in a society that promotes the lack of boundaries. As a black woman living in America and often being in corporate settings, saying no comes with a price. In fact, for anyone living in a corporate setting, saying no comes with a price because there might be someone else for the job who is cheaper and more available than you are. Corporations tend to feed into our insecurities.

In a corporate society, our personal lives follow suit. If you say ‘no’ to someone who you are romantically involved with, you risk them leaving you and finding someone else who will say yes. That instills fear within us which continues the cycle of self-doubt and lack of self-worth. It has taken me a long time to be able to believe with every fiber of my being that if I work hard enough, am truthful enough and open enough, everything that is meant for me will find me. This knowing has helped me release people, situations and things that feed off of me not feeling good enough.

3. I always have a say.

I’ve been pretty honest about how my last relationship highlighted how I had been in emotionally abusive and manipulative relationships in the past without even being aware of it. You might be asking, how did she not recognize it? Because when you live it, it is challenging to step away from it. I am grateful for every single former relationship because it had a purpose. Particularly the last one because it helped me heal the trauma that I had developed as a kid. I have also mentioned how I grew up with an emotionally abusive older sibling that subconsciously taught me that abuse is okay as long as no one else knows about it. There were no bruises but my self-worth was compromised.

As an adult, in romantic relationships, I would hide when my fiancé would call me fat, when my boyfriend would disappear for two weeks or when another boyfriend and I decided to get pregnant and, he disappeared. My silence festered this cycle. And, we all know that darkness is the prime location for breeding negativity, toxicity and secrets. It took me being in a relationship with a well-known Producer who would lie, cheat and blame me for his actions for me to see the pattern that had been going on in my life. I had attracted and entertained emotionally abusive people.

It took an exaggerated form like this where I still have to hear the music that he made about me on radio and public places to remind me of the role that I played. Who I am today is very different to the person that I was when we met, two years ago. I used to think that someone who I admired knowing me, being influenced by me and seeing me meant that it was cosmic divinity. However, now I understand that me seeing myself, recognizing my self-worth and my truth is the most magic that I will ever experience in this lifetime.

What my narcissistic toxic relationship revealed to me about what I needed to heal from my childhood.

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It’s no secret that I am dealing with a narcissistic ex-boyfriend who continues to harass me and starve for my attention. To get to me, he has hacked my phone, made a few popular songs about me and has made threats of my financial security without him. *Please read my former love articles to be updated on this romantic relationship.

He will continue to do what he does. I am physically safe; however, his emotionally abuse tactics have left my sanity and well-being threatened.

After I left the relationship, I made a decision to heal whatever needed to heal so that I would not allow this form of behaviour in my life again. In the process of healing, I noticed that I also had a few friends with similar behavior to his. So, I did some research and sought out advice from narcissistic abuse experts who revealed that we often allow abusive behaviour if we have grown up in that environment.

My first thoughts were that my parents were supportive. Sure, they are human but I know that they did the best that they could. Following this thought, I had a plethora of memories of how my older sibling emotionally (and sometimes physically) abused me for many years growing up as a kid and into my early adulthood.

I thought that I had dealt with this person (my family member) by cutting them off and no longer engaging in their abusive ways; but I forgot that the biggest thing that the abuser leaves with the abused is a mindset that they are weak, not enough and should feel guilty for how they feel.

Here are 3 things that have been revealed to me that I need to heal from my childhood.

1. Feeling like I can’t speak up.

Family abuse creates a culture of silence and as though the abused can’t speak up for themself. What elders in the situation often don’t understand or realize is that abuse begins with psychological training of the abused so that they won’t speak up. This is no shade to anyone in my life because I know that I was loved and raised from love; however, when I would let some of older family members know of how she treated me, it was often met with phrases like, ‘that’s your blood’, ‘that’s just the way that she is’ or, ‘I’m sure she could say the same about you.’

This subconsciously trained me into thinking that I couldn’t speak up for myself. I am clearly older now and sometimes still have difficulty being truthful or honest because we live in a culture that silences the abused as opposed to dealing with the abuser. I’m not sure exactly why. However, I am re-learning that my truth is more valuable than keeping people around who try to hush me for it, for my sanity and well-being.

2. We live in a culture that supports abusers.

As I previously mentioned, when I would let some elders know about how my older sibling would emotionally abuse me by calling me fat, inadequate and that I would never be loved, the common response was not to take it seriously. This created a belief system in me that if I was being abused or targeted by someone, ignoring it will help it go away- which is completely untrue. Abusers receive satisfaction from going out of their way to abuse their victims so ignoring it will not stop it- only confronting it will. We are all guilty of supporting some form of abuse and, the most common version of this is bullying. I’ve often heard that bullying is necessary because it makes you stronger; however, when you are being bullied or abused, that is the last thing that you are thinking about. The main thing that bullying does is train the person who is bullied that they are less than and need to make up for it by putting up with unhealthy behaviour because the abuser will leave behind these thoughts in the bullied persons thought system.

3. Abusers are not the same person to everyone.

I was watching a video of emotional abuse by Meredith Miller on YouTube and, she said that the classic traits of someone who is abusive is that they become a different person daily. Not meaning that people have different moods; it is as though you are dealing with a completely different person than you did the day before without doing anything to spark this change. It can make you feel like you are walking on eggshells.

While dealing with my older sibling for many years growing up, I felt like I was walking on eggshells and as though she was a ticking time bomb. In general, when I voiced concern, people would emphasize what she had done for me and as though she would give me so much. But, this is what abusers do: they create a façade to everyone else that they are kind and loving towards their abused so that they can continue their abuse. There are many theories for this but at the core of it is that the abuser needs healing and covering up what they have done or continue to do doesn’t help anyone (including the abuser) because the sooner that they can receive healing, the sooner they can make peace with what has led to them behaving this way in the first place.

*If you or anyone that you know is being emotionally or physically abused, please seek help. Your sanity, livelihood and well-being are too important to put at stake.

The 4 roles that I am done playing in partnerships.

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I’ve been single for the past six months and have had a chance to really dive deep into my thoughts, my own interests and my purpose in life. Not to say that this is not accomplishable if you are in a relationship; however, the type of partnerships that I had previously been in, I gave more to them than what I got back.

I have no animosity towards any of my exes. I love them all dearly and I wish them well. They are fantastic people and they have helped shape me into who I am today. I don’t communicate with most of them, which I sometimes get sad about because I believe if you have shared a beautiful journey with another person, there is no need to be spiteful or resentful towards them. Every relationship has an expiration date.

My last relationship, which ended in June, solidified some of the biggest lessons that I had previously touched on the surface. Part of the reason that it did is because my former partner was well-known and sometimes, with fame comes disorder, toxicity and people attracted to the idea of a facade. Although I still have love for this man, it is very clear that we are not meant to be together for the long haul, which is fine. Not everything significant and life-changing requires long-term commitment. Sometimes people and things come into our lives to teach us a thing or two and then we part ways.

Through these past relationships, I learnt many things. In most of them, I played a role. Whatever title I played came with a sacrifice, of myself. I used to believe that I needed to sacrifice a part of who I was/am to be loved- which is a big lie.

True love begins with acceptance and now that I have found that kind of love for myself, I would be honoured to share it with another.

Here are the 4 roles that I am done playing in relationships:

1. The ‘perfect one’.

It was on my fifteenth birthday that my father called me to tell me that he was on his way and never showed up. Not only did he not show up but I never saw him ever again. He decided that he didn’t want to be a part of our family anymore. This pain I hid for many years in the form of needing to be perfect because, subconsciously, I had thought that I was the reason why he left. I kept what had happened a secret from my close friends because their lives seemed perfect and I was afraid that if I broke the ‘perfect’ mould, I wouldn’t be lovable to anyone. This belief is what I held onto until recently. I believed that if I showed anyone my tears or let my guard down about my true emotions and pain, they would run. Contrary to what I had believed, it does the opposite.

Creating a mould of perfection of who I am, the person that I should be with and, how we should look to everyone else is a lie. One that is not worth living because while we put up facades, we sacrifice ourselves, relationships and the people that we love.

2. The ‘martyr’.

Maybe this is middle-child syndrome or being a child of divorce; however, I have frequently felt like I am the one that everyone needs to rely on. This martyr-type of thinking attracted and entered into relationships with people who were comfortable with dumping their load onto me because I would take it. I would get dumped on, over-and-over, until I would leave or break up with my partner.

I used to believe that true love meant being someone else’s saviour; however, I have come to understand and learn that we are the only ones who can ever really save ourselves. I can support, encourage, influence and leave an impression on somebody else. But, if that person doesn’t want to change, I can’t force them.

3. The ‘cool’ one.

Even though I am very feminine, I have always been inclined to male-driven and competitive activities. As a result, I had a lot of male friends, many of them I would end up dating. Because we were formerly friends, they felt comfortable with me. Sometimes, they were so comfortable with me that they would say inappropriate things to me about how attractive another woman is and our boundaries became blurred because we acted more as friends than as partners. A friendship is important in partnership; however, partners and friends are different. We choose partners to live with, to possibly have children with and, to grow old together- this is not usually the outcome with friends.

A healthy partnership requires boundaries and I am done playing the role that I am okay with a broken boundary or disrespect when I am not. Playing along and not speaking up only leads to bitterness and resentment down the line.

4. The ‘settling- one’.

Maybe it’s because I’m an Aquarius but I believe in freedom and being with someone who enjoys my company, not someone that I have forced to be with me. I fully admit that I have previously fallen trap into the idea that love is jealous, mean and unkind when my intuition has always told me otherwise.

As women, we are raised with sayings like, ‘You need to keep him in check’, ‘He can look but make sure he knows where his home is’ or, ‘He’s a man, he is going to cheat’. Believing these sayings has caused me immense pain and suffering because they affirm that women should settle for less and expect less from men. I’m not sure why I believed these sayings because I was raised by strong women who believe the opposite of this. When I did implement these false sayings into my life, I would always regret sacrificing my self worth and integrity just to be in a relationship with someone who I probably shouldn’t have been with in the first place.

Once I found true love for myself, I released the need to be with another person. Particularly if that person is someone who doesn’t respect me, my values, my culture and what I believe in.

Cher W, (tu vas rendre quelqu'un heureux)

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Cher W, (tu vas rendre quelqu'un heureux)



Nous avons essayé et avons donné tout ce que nous pouvions, mais la seule chose qui nous a été révélée, c'est qu'être dans une relation amoureuse n'est pas pour nous.

Merci de m'avoir montré beaucoup de choses: comment aimer avec passion, ne jamais abandonner, être plus aimant, voir les choses sous un angle différent, et cette romance est bien vivante.

Vous ferez un bon partenaire pour quelqu'un. Cependant, je ne suis pas cette personne. Parce que si j’étais, ce ne serait pas si difficile d’être avec toi.

Il a été difficile de comprendre et de comprendre cette notion: comment je peux aimer si profondément quelqu'un que je crois être mon âme soeur, mais nous ne pouvons jamais nous confronter à l'essentiel. C'est pourquoi j'ai passé tant de temps à vous fâcher. Cependant, j'ai abandonné cette colère et vous ai ouvert mon cœur et ma vie en tant que cher ami que vous avez toujours été pour moi.

Que vous souhaitiez être mon ami ou non, c’est votre décision, mais sachez que je n’ai aucune animosité ni colère envers vous, je veux seulement que nous soyons en paix et que nous soyons meilleurs. Cela n’a pas fonctionné les uns avec les autres, alors faisons-le avec les autres. Cependant, vous avez besoin de mon soutien, je suis ici. En tant qu'ami, pas partenaire.

J'ai toujours beaucoup d'amour pour toi et je ne peux pas te reprocher d'être ce que tu es ou de ne pas pouvoir m'aimer de la manière dont je veux être aimé. Parce que le blâme est une perte de temps, d’émotions et d’énergie.

Je suis désolé d’être si énervé et amer à propos de qui vous êtes. Je ne veux pas vous changer ni que vous soyez quelqu'un d'autre que vous. Vous méritez un excellent partenaire qui vous aime tel que vous êtes et moi aussi.

Je t'aime,

Hali.

4 empowering things that I have learnt from dating

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I've had a few long term relationships and dated in between them. But only since my last break-up have I been able to understand what I did wrong in them. 

After seeking professional help through therapists and mentors, I was shown why my relationships didn't do well. 

It has empowered me. And, whether you are female or male, I would like you to feel empowered too. Therefore, I would like to share what was revealed to me to you: 

1. Don't sleep with someone before 60 days. 

This may work for some people but it definitely didn't work me. I read Steve Harvey's 'Think like a man, act like a lady' and his rule can be applied to both men and women. He says that we should wait 90 days before having sex with the person that we are dating. I think everyone's time frame may be different; however, we all know that when you sleep with a prospective , it may cloud your judgement at a very critical time: the formative stage. I recommend keeping things simple and sex-free in the beginning of every relationship to find out if you really like someone. 

2. Don't make up excuses for someone that you are dating. 

There is a clear difference between an excuse and an explanation. If the person that you are dating's behaviour doesn't align with what you think is acceptable, give yourself permission to ask yourself what might happen down the road if that behaviour continues. For example, someone not replying to your texts or not calling when they say they will could be a symptom of a deeper problem and, as a result, probably might happen again. Don't excuse it in the beginning, hoping that they will see the light and change. See the person for who they are not who you want them to be. 

3. I don't need to convince someone to be with me. 

I recently made date arrangements with someone who I saw as a potential romantic partner; however, he flaked on our first date twice . I have learnt from my past that, if the other person is not willing to meet me halfway, I will find someone who will. Instead of me allowing him to potentially flake on  me again when I am emotionally and physically invested, I empowered myself by blocking and deleting his number as soon as he flaked the second time.Simply onto the next, nothing personal.

4. Love yourself first.

In the dating world, we become afraid to have preferences because I think that we fear not being loved. If you love yourself first, you don't need to fear not getting it back from someone you barely even really know or who isn't treating you with the respect that you deserve. One of my mentors, Iyanla Vanzant says, 'You alone are enough'. If you love yourself, you are able to depend on yourself more than you would someone else and don't really need to depend on others. It may sound isolating but it is very empowering to understand that you are enough for yourself and for someone else and you don't need to desperately cling onto people and relationships that aren't healthy for you to fill a void that you can fill for yourself.