'Healing Our Injured Relationships'

 

When we grow older you realize that your friends are not always as loyal as you expect them to be. Nevertheless, they are people and we need to relate with and be around them. Unlike brutes, human beings cannot be in isolation because we are social beings by nature. All kind of relationships are essential for companionship and filling the loneliness gap. To accomplish many of our objectives and attain most of goals, companionship is needed. Genuine companionship can provide answers to our questions, comfort in times of distress and happiness in times of sadness. But what if our relationships don’t last long enough? How can we restore and maintain them?

There is truth in the phrase that time heals everything. When our bodies are injured it takes time for the platelets to form a clot and white blood cells to fight the pathogen till we heal. But when our relationships are injured, depending on the circumstances that led to it, it may take minutes, hours, days or even a lifetime to heal. ‘And sometimes our healing lies in healing others.’ Most of the time betrayals are the cause of our miserable lives, distress and adverse attitudes. Sometimes we are hurt so bad that staying away or breaking up it the most comforting thing to do.

However, after sometime; weeks, months or years we need to reconnect and restore the broken relationship with a new start.  Throughout my life I have had so many heart breaks even from the people I trust the most. As a human person, I thought that I should never reconnect with these people again. Nonetheless, the more I thought about it, I realized that at some point I was not mad anymore, and that before forming new relationships, it would be good to restore the broken ones and do away with expectations. Since the making of that decision I have been able to reconnect with most of them and I am yet to do the same on the remaining ones. Restoring broken relationship is not as easy as I thought it would be, but with the help of some qualities that I learnt I was able to do so.

When I knew I needed to reconnect with my past, I gave myself time. In each one of them I waited till I was sure that I had forgotten what had happened in the past and that I was ready for a new start. Rushing it would have been risky. It would have probably made me bring the past in my present and hence my restoration would not last long.

I started by showing that I still I care. Cultivation of any relationship requires hard work, time and love. By going back to my old commitments to them, I was able to get back their attention. This was great for a start. It automatically send an expression that I was willing to reconnect. It did not cost me too much time or energy. I sent texts like “Hi it’s been long I was thinking maybe we could meet over the weekend.”  “Hey I’ve been seeing your posts on Instagram, They are really nice. There’s this place I’m visiting on Saturday and I’d like you to come with me.” “Long time bro, I bet you’ve been great. You know you can visit me when around.” Anything that would make one feel that I was so over the past and I still wanted to be friends.

Humbling myself was really assistive. I realized in some of them, I had directly made the mistake or indirectly by judging too hard. I apologized for both. In cases where it was completely the other person’s fault, I showed that I had completely let go the mistake they did to me. Forgiveness is a consequence of humility. Forgiving and forgetting is a sign of saying that our relationship is bigger than my ego. There is great power in forgiveness.

After ensuring that I had successfully reconnected, I had to maintain the communication. In any relationship, communication is one of the most crucial things. Someone once said that, ‘the longest distance between two people is misunderstanding.’ Lack of proper communication is the cause of misunderstanding between people. The more people communicate, the more they know and understand one another.

However to communicate well, I had to learn how to respect and listen to what the other person is saying. Not to interrupt, minimize or dismiss them before they even finish talking. Keeping our conversations confidential by not telling other people, no matter how close they are to me, to maintain their trust in me. When talking I try to make the other person understand by using the right language, accent and talking less.

Telling the truth is also very important. Lies never bind even when they are meant to. The moment someone realizes that you are not being truthful or not telling the whole truth, in anything than the other, they lose their faith in you in everything. This ruins the communication pattern and it’s the primary cause of the annihilation of your relationship.

The last value that I have learnt to help me maintain the restored relationship, is dispute resolution. There is no perfect relationship. There are always disputes and issues in all. Every time one arises, it is important that it is faced and solved rather than ignored or postponed. In trying to solve disputes, however, one needs to be very careful. Rather than attacking the person, I have learnt to attack the problem. This can be easily attained by use of kind words while avoiding absolute words like never, always, must…For example, instead of saying ‘you never respond to my mail or texts’ say ‘It would be good to check and respond to my mails or text.

Do not forget that a relationship can only be restored by mutual respect, understanding and commitment. A genuine relationship can survive any dispute and competition. Let this year be a turnaround for you; to make peace with yourself and others.

Misplaced Priorities

This world is not a place where we belong. People live lives like they will never die but live forever. And again, there are a lot of people who are alive but do not actually live. Most of us can not differentiate between the two. Being alive does not necessarily mean living! Meaning? Any being with a soul attached to it’s body is alive. Plants,brutes and Mankind have souls,but do plants and bruteslive? Well, but that is a discussion for another day, today I have something more important to talk about.

So I’ll repeat myself. The world is not a place where we’ll dwell forever, it is just a spot where we seek the path to our destiny. What is our destiny? we all know the answer to that, depending on the lifestyle one leads. I’m seated at the end of a huge rock besides the waters of Fort Jesus, dangling my feet as I am writing this piece on my Lumia 520. The music in my ears don’t sound no more,the sense of touch on the screen is not feeling,the roughness of the rock is not hurting to my sitting apparatus. I am completely numb, all that I have are thoughts that are running on my mind. How did get myself here?

It is during the one and a half hours lunch break. As any other normal day, I’d leave the office situated on the 9th floor ofBima Tower and head direct to Tarbush or Barka hotel to have my expensive Biryan or Pilau with some very nice freshpassion or mango Juice. Once I leave the office my mind is focused on how will the food be like on that particular day. But, today I am not hungry, I have been sipping quarters of water that are still in my tummy, so I can think of something else on my way there. If I’m not thinking of how the food will be like then I’ll be thinking of Muthoni, she took a significant amount of my thoughts. But as I had said, today things are different. I’m thinking of how I’ll save money to pay up for my Kshs 50,000 debt I owe to a certain company and raise funds to start investing because I am getting older. So I said to myself I won’t spend the normal Kshs500 on lunch, I will spend less and save at least half the amount

.

No sooner had that thought click, than two young kids in shabby clothes approached me. “Uncle naomba utusaide na lunch.” I indulged in the habit of saying “sina pesa”  even before they expressed their torments and they would shy away. So I sticked to my routine and my heartless words. There is something either wrong or right with this Monday! After thetoddlers left me, unlike the other days, I sat down and started thinking. I first asked myself, “what if I was the toddlerbegging? How would I feel?” I wallowed in my thoughts, I remembered my childhood days. The hardship I went through, the pain and hunger I succumbed when we had nothing to call our own. When we were in hell on earth. Tears rolled down my cheeks, I became insane. I could not hold them so I just let them wash the shame off my face. I stood up and began walking only to find myself here, besides this ocean. I remembered how yesterday ‘we’ went to Bella Vista Sports to watch soccer and spent over Kshs 2,000 on nothing. How Friday and Saturday nights rocked and the amount of money I spent equivalent to someone’s monthly salary. I remembered how lavish I have been living, all in the name of having funbefore my time to start pushing up daises. Tomorrow is ‘her’ birthday, how I had planned to surprise her. I questioned my lifestyle, and realised I was wrong. I need to do things with moderation. I need to set my priorities right. I need to share my blessings with others.

The big question. How long are we going to be here? Then,After we are gone what is going to help us find true happiness. Does this lavish living add value to our lives? Or takes away our dignity? What is important? The short life on earth or the life after, in our places of destiny? These are questions each one of us should ask themselves. We need to start asking ourselves questions. Question our lifestyle and see how we are living. Then I stood up and rushed to the office before I was late.