The Difficulty of Saying Yes to Yourself

... it's an art.

and it is hard.

I used to constantly negate my life by beginning my sentences with, 'No, and -  but..' And maybe you do too - just that you don't notice..

What cut with my constant negation is that I kept taking little bits and pieces of my self-esteem out of my life box, ending up with a shell of who I am, who I was, who I HAD THOUGHT I was going to be.

Last year was desperate for me and you know I speak the truth, for those of you who've walked with me, or should I say STAGGERED and STUMBLED because I certainly didn't walk last year. My fine sassy, hip-swinging swagger is new, my head's now held high and my feet -  shod in boots - stomp the hot African dust and make it rise,  as I Nyakio-Walker (Not Johnny Walker) up and down Nairobi's pavements.

I'm in the YES realm. In the Yes mode, switched on and ready to GO GO GO!

It takes a lot.

Despite being told that sometimes we have to shed stuff and start all over, I found out in my dark journey that the real difficultly lay in what I had to pick up. And still have to. Yes, we get broken, yes, we fall and break into a million shattered pieces. That's okay from where I stand and in fact, it's EASY.

It's easy to let go and slide into debauchery and laziness and alcoholism and being an addict and telling the world, IT'S MY LIFE but  that's such a - (excuse my language or close your eyes or stop reading) - MINDFUCK statement. It's the same as constantly saying NO.

It's effin hard to fix that shit that you've laid down for yourself. And no matter, we all do, all of us have made our beds, looked at the made bed and decided, 'I'm not sleeping on THAT'  - and that's okay, you don't have to. But, starting over and buying new sheets - that's the tough bit.

That's where you have to start saying YES.

Start believing in yourself. Despite having horrendous images in your rear view/side mirror - images that you know YOU have caused, you still have to find the ability to say YES to yourself.

Picking up the broken pieces and glue-ing them together and starting all over, heck, don't let anyone tell you that it's easy. It's not. And to make matters worse, as you begin saying YES and putting yourself together, being positive and stepping out and purchasing glue for your parts, that's the point at which your 'friends' depart, you may have NIL support; and Halleluyah! - count on the Nay.sayers collectively joining into a huge fan club to explicitly and purposely put you BACK down, either to your face, or behind your back.

Say YES to yourself anyway.

Invest in yourself anyway. IT'S YOUR LIFE. (lol)

You ARE your best future business bet.
So, INVEST in yourself. Support yourself, begin by doing what is good for you, drop the bad habits whether it's ADDICTIONS or just a simple thing like staying up late.

Watch your language and remove the negative and minuses, unless of course, it's someone who is negating you. In that case, let them negate themselves right out of your life.

But stop negating yourself with; No, I can'ts, It's not for ME's and similar killer statements. Remember, if you were to invest eg, in ManU, and wanted to support them, you'd buy a ticket to go watch them LIVE in the UK, right? That single seat in that club costs money to sit on, and you pay THEM for seating rights. Right?

So, invest in yourself. Cheer yourself, say YES you can score, scream and shout and spend money on FAN CLUB  __________________<------- your name there. Buy yourself your own VIP SEAT.

Get it?

Don't settle for less. It's hard work but one day leads to two leads to three leads to three hundred and sixty five days which is a year.

I KNOW you've heard of the bucket and tap STORY so I won't dwell on it for too long, but yes, if you leave a bucket under a leaking tap, a drop a minute, eventually that bucket will fill. So with your moral, learn to say, YES, I can (duh, sounds so boring but it's true) and YES I WILL, and MEAN IT. Don't say Yes I can! Then mutter a few seconds later, 'aki, but how.....' and end up [al-shabbabing] yourself.

Throw out your terrorist thoughts, police your mind, and reach for the stars, after all like the poster says, there are footsteps on the moon, so whoever says the sky is the limit is a bloody liar!

Nyakio-On-Full-Throttle. If in doubt, flat out.

Nyakio J. Munyinyi for the XpenSieve Report© 2014

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Headline banner design by NJMunyinyi.]

Suicide ISN'T selfish

I was having this intensely furious debate with a friend of mine who took the stand that suicide is selfish, and I was pulling out what little hair I have, trying to explain that it’s not.

Committing suicide is not selfish – and nowhere near selfish. Why do people use words so randomly? Selfish is a word that connotes a deeply venal person who is mean, nasty and hateful.

Suiciders are gentle, loving, broken people who’ve reached the end of their inner hurt.

Let’s take a walk down the Pain Road:

‘Mafia style’

They’ve sent a collector to you because you haven’t paid your … loan/debt/whatever. If you’re a guy, imagine getting hit in the balls. No, not hit, kicked. Hard. With one of those steel capped boots. Really effing hard, then, when you’re down, the collector bends down and grabs them in his huge meaty hand and squeezes your nuts while he’s grinning at you with his bad silver plated teeth.

I don’t know what your pain levels are, but I’m going to bet that that’s a bad pain, severe enough to make you run like Flash Gordon in the opposite direction if you ever set eyes on that collector again. In fact, if he wasn’t a ‘collector’, you’d bloody look for him and kill him.

I recently heard that in Kinoo Area in Nairobi, robbers and thieves smack watchmen repeatedly on the wrists, knees and shins, with thin pieces of wood. They don’t draw blood. They don’t mutilate. But apparently the pain is so bad that watchmen are found hobbled in the morning, curled up like infants, knee to chin in pain, unable to uncurl themselves let alone walk.

We hear of torture chambers and the evil things that happen in there that are all to do with PAIN. Breaking MEN with PAIN. Breaking men’s souls and spirits with physical PAIN. Wretched physical pain. The ‘good’ thing is that most of those who ended up in those cells, well, a while ago, not in the modern day – were spies - and dudes who had been trained for years on how to resist pain. And if all else failed and they felt the pain was unbearable and that they might give away ‘government’ or agency secrets -  they had a way out -  the cyanide filled ‘tooth’.

If things got too painful, they crunched down hard on the hollow below the fake tooth and burst the cyanide filled capsule and – well – committed suicide. Note: a Cyanide death is a painful death – it’s really painful. And yet the irony is that a cyanide death is less painful than the torture being meted out.

Now, I know pain.

Unfortunately, I was introduced to severe pain at a very young age and it’s dodged me most of my adult life, but nevertheless, I know what I’m talking about regarding physical pain. Something twists in the mind and goes ‘Pop!’ when physical pain is unbearable, hence in hospitals they hand out liberal doses of weed – sorry – morphine - to block the agony because the mind cannot bear certain pain levels and it shuts itself down.

People HAVE died of pain. The best thing about physical pain of any kind, the most FANTASTIC thing about PHYSICAL pain is that people give you sympathy. If you have crawled home with broken nuts after the collector beat you up on the street, your wife or girlfriend will sooth you, make crooning noises, get you hot water to bathe, heat your dinner, etc, and she’ll probably be relieved and sing ‘Halleluyah!’ to Jesus, because for a couple of nights you won’t badger her for sex.

But what if your pain was an EMOTIONAL pain?

In the article I dubbed the ‘Art of Kintsugi, I mentioned that the body cannot differentiate between emotional and physical pain. That’s a major truth. The other mind-blowing reality show is other people’s attitudes when friends have emotional pain.

Those other people disappear. . .

Or.. Those close to you become so like the collector up there, you can hardly tell the difference - they gloat in your face while you’re on the floor writhing with pain. It generally sucks like pure unadulterated stinky crap when you have emotional pain and 98% of your friends do not understand and write you off. Literary. ‘Deal with it’, ‘what’s your problem?’ , ‘do you think you’re the only one with a problem?’

No. I don’t. But right now, I’m hurting. Be kind.

Who can feel me? ADULTS are nasty. Sometimes I found hanging out with kids was so beautiful because they sit next to you and say absolutely nothing. Just sit and stare with you and feel with you and give you strange objects like stones or flowers that are half crushed and say simple words like , ‘you feel sad’, but they don't run away.

Adults can be mean.

Let’s take a 1 minute silence to think of that.

In the short description up there at the beginning about the Mafia hood, the collector is avoided. If you  see him walking towards you, fear rises up your throat like bile, and heck, your feet develop wings like Achilles and you zap round corners and out of sight! If you see a man walking down the road towards you with an aim to kill and mutilate and rob and rape you, what do you do? You run if you're wise - ask war torn refugees in any refugee camp.

Depression isn’t so easy to avoid.

Those prone to depression try. They really do. They try so hard, especially when they see depression sauntering towards them with an evil look of glee on it’s face. Punching meaty fist into it’s other equally meaty hand. Some of us can’t avoid depression. We try and run, we dodge, we hide, but we’re not good at holding at bay that capital D - you may, but those prone to depression sometimes don’t have the necessary tools, gadgets, apps or weapons to avoid depression. So, we try everything - we pay our debts, we do good in society, we clean and cook, we work hard in the office and leave at 9pm, we become overly religious, we’re fixers, jokers, the really ‘nice’ people who care, the ‘looser’ that goes the extra mile, we get a hobby, and if those don’t work, we turn to drugs, or alcohol, or substance abuse, or capsules, or cutting ourselves with razors, or . . . . anything. . .

We try anything and everything to flee from Depression.

But it keeps coming back.

Odd hours. Odd days.

Odd moments.

Sucker punches out of the blue.

And one day, when the pain is too unbearable, when the pain is too great and the heart breaks and there is NO HOPE of bouncing back, when one cannot take it anymore . . .

Suicide is not selfish.

When someone you know wants to talk, and all she or he needs is an ear -  Just give it.

Why you? I don’t know, but if they have reached out to you be honoured and take the time to listen.

Sit with them, don’t give advice, simply sit and give an ear.  

A kind word,

a hug,

 … empathy and your time may just keep one more person away from suicide.

Nyakio J. Munyinyi for the XpenSieve Report© 2014

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Headline banner design by NJMunyinyi.]

it's a TRUST issue

So this week the general panic amongst women has been all about men behaving badly at Sports Events, and the same women asking the Government to ‘ban’ all forms of drinking and entertainment, so that their men don’t go out and misbehave.. Pshhh… seriously?? Ok, the Machakos Sevens was shock-on-all of us, but, does that really determine the future behavior of our adult men? 

p/s Alcohol consumption was banned during the Kababeri 7’s this weekend, and during all future sporting events.

So I’m sitting here, and pondering, heck, how does one get to that point of desperation over your man/housebound/BFF, whatever… that you SERIOUSLY think that banning scheduled sports events is going to keep Dick in his pants? Let’s not even joke here, I throw my hands up in the air because, frankly, most relationships are so so so… let’s face it – hypocritical.

How many of your friends don’t bitch behind his or her back and say that they wouldn’t trust their partner out of sight?

I heard a woman comment recently about how she trusts that her Long-distance-Boyfriend hasn’t, to date, and won’t sleep around,  and if he does, he would tell her – and she got shot by automatic gunfire from 4 different angles – it hurt to watch, it was a massacre. She couldn’t put in a word edgewise – rat-a-tat-tat, despite trying to defend herself, she was caught defenseless, her arguments shot down, the onslaught continuing, the automatic gunfire so vehement and ferocious, the woman was bleeding in minutes and left to die on the ground.

One trust statement = Death.

And yes, there was the final parting shot that was meant to finish her off, and the woman in question who spat it out gyrated her neck and uttered a loud ‘nkt!’ and promised the poor woman a future full of STD’s.

Yes, we should be careful, but at which point do we as women dig down and destroy a solid relationship that thrives on a foundation of trust and love?

Ask yourself the following:-

Is this then what we do as women, do we sow seeds of hate, rather than of love and admiration?  Do we take isolated Machokos7’s events and throw the mud all over those who weren’t involved, simply generalizing sports fans, then crying Wolf to the authorities?

Desperation makes strange bedfellows, and most consenting adults in Nairobi live together out of – well – desperation. Either she got pregnant, or she had to get married because a.b.c.d.e.f.g…etc, or the parents hounded them with YOU MUSTS.

Few relationships are built on a LOVE thing. Or based on TRUST. When I counsel couples , most say that they cannot have TRUST, whether it’s the emotion, or the condom, both are rarely used within the marital home–  apparently TRUST does NOT factor at all in marriage. I find this truth, sad.

It all falls back to the silliness of suspicions, superstitions and listening to archaic stories or mother-in-laws bad mouthing their sons’ girlfriends and brewing hate. Men, tell your mothers to stop sowing hate seeds, any children from your union with your wife will be your mom's RELATIVES, NOT BY MARRIAGE, BUT BY BLOOD. (yes, you can read that again – children are blood relatives, Mother’s aren’t. So, emotionally, who belongs MORE TO A FAMILY? BLOOD or a legal sanction?)

Moving on….

I can count relationships based on true love and trust with both my hands and unfortunately, the men concerned have been Out of Africa and gotten ‘European’ or ‘Mzungu’ habits….., they are sometimes ridiculed by friends for being ‘kaliad’ like chapatis, and everyone gives strange nasty advice to these fortunate few, advice meant to destroy relationships and not build it up, advice that comes from a background of deep fear and mistrust of the opposite sex, where the opposite sex is the enemy, never a friend, where secrets must be kept and never discussed, where holding hands in public is a sign of being a wimp and where leaning on your spouse for financial, physical or emotional  strength is ridiculed, where the word trust is an oxymoron and where laughing together until your ribs crack and you rush to the loo before the canal bursts is considered idiotic behavior for teenagers.

So, let’s do the next thing and give rotten advice. This is what I hear:-

He did what? Punish him. Give him nil by mouth and jilock sex.

                  Lie to her, don’t tell her you dated 20 women before you met her….

Don’t enjoy sex after marriage  – he will think you’re a whore

                   Why you running home? You’ve been kaliaad like a chapo

You don’t go through his phone? Haiya… you must!

                  Give her money for shopping, Budda, isn’t she working?

Cook him dinner and buy ati a what, ka ‘negli’ who? You’re a mother, throw those things away!!

                  Go out with her WHY? NO! It’s a BOY’s hang, wives not allowed. Take her out next week, if you must…

Girl, why are you ALWAYS with your man, why do you tag around him, don’t you have a LIFE?

                Hugs, kisses? In public? Wifey? Dude, next you’ll be tweeting  #no homo

And the list goes on…

Hence, I can count those I call my irresistible happy couples with both hands. Less than 10.  And I love hanging out with these happy couples. They are so undeniably in love with each other, hardly unable to keep apart for very long. I’m sure you’ve seen them. At some point during the [evening] these love-bird couples re-attach like magnets, coming together from polar ends of entertaining guests, either twinning hands or touching shoulders, or he draping an arm around her chair. It’s a lovely joy to watch.

I once walked round the corner of a homestead where I had gone to celebrate and take photographs at a traditional ‘ngurario’.., Camera strap round my neck,  I was playing ‘hide n seek’ and chasing my niece down a path on the side of the house, and rounding a corner, I bumped into a couple, married for years, in the middle of a kissing tangle. Embarrassed, I made a rude noise, and he looked down at me and said,

‘Nyakio, what’s your problem, I’m kissing my wife!!’.

This then is what we should aspire to, and if we do not attain that level, we shouldn’t become like Lot’s wife and keep peering back over our shoulders in jealousy, or hurt, at those who have been lucky or blessed, or worked their butts off to get such beautiful relationships. Because unfortunately, those that keep looking backwards turn into good-for-nothing pillars of hard-as-rock-salt. Petrified and calcified, these women look nasty, give bitter advice and are sour to the core.

With house-rules that make sex a weapon of war instead of a pathway to love – isn’t it a wonder that their men run-off, looking for peace, joy, and a warm breast to lay their weary heads on? And a copious amount of alcohol to drown the guilt, because, in all honesty, why would a man go looking for samosas with hyena-meat fried in Transmitter oil, nje -  if he has marinated steak at home, served on a table that has good cutlery and with a good chilled wine to boot?

What? In your home you don’t serve wine? Get real. Fine, she will serve him wine. And clap. (pun intended, since there’s no Trust in your home}

BTW: Please explain to me why ‘good cutlery ‘ is ‘only for the guests’ and not for THE HUSBAND?? Why is that DRESS worn only when you’re going out and not worn, braless and pantyless, FOR THE HUBBY?? Doesn’t he have appreciating eyes and wandering hands?

Women, it’s not the government that will stop your men from straying. It’s you who shall rectify that particular problem. It means being real, letting go of situations that are out of your control, reining in that which can be brought into control, accepting what you can change and what you can’t. It’s repeating the Serenity Prayer daily if not every other minute.

Guys, and Honey's, keeping up with the Joneses/Kamau’s is a fake ideology that will ruin your marriage. Don’t let people interfere, no. never. It’s not their problem, it’s your problem so keep THEM ALL out of it, from Pastor to Mother-in-law to best friends to psychiatrists to busybody aunties and interfering nagging grandmothers….

In fact, the less you discuss your problems with others, the stronger that relationship is, the deeper and more beautiful.

And go see a sex therapist while you’re at it. For a deed that’s performed at least 3 times a week, it’s amazing how couples refuse to discuss this-oh-so-intimate subject, yet they will go for courses in mundane stuff like IT and gloss them to perfection to glean points from employers who will sack them at the blink of an eye, but refuse to receive Sex Counseling or attend programs for a lifetime Marriage.

eerr….. NO.

Watching Porn doesn’t count as ‘instructive teaching’, nope.

Ladies, in conclusion, if you despise your man’s touch [and men live to touch], then walk away from that relationship. We’re in 2014, don’t bring archaic rules into your house.

Hate will never ever seduce Love to enter a room.

Neither will lies.

Or selfishness.

Or a lack of trust.

I often say that we were instructed by Christ, to love ourselves FIRST. Only then can we treat others well – for the rule is – treat your neighbor as you would yourself. If you hate and despise yourself honey, you will, underneath it all, hate and despise a whole load of people simply because your foundation is built on hate, desperation and dismay. So let go of the hate and pride and get rocking into a love mode.

As for men who are full of crap and treat women like junk?

Simple.

Nyakio’s Out Of The Box Advice

Yap, there are those guys who are just plain bad. If he keeps going out and messing around, no Government law is going to stop him. No pastor, family friend, counselor, mother, father-in-law or lawyer is going to stop Domestic Violence, Alcoholism, Sex Addiction, Emotional abuse, Breaking Promises, Lies,  Un-forgiveness or a lack of communication… change comes from within a person, not from without.

And like I said up there, if you despise your man’s touch, then why ARE you there? – and don’t hold your children up in front of you as a defense shield.

…. the solution for men who are full of crap and treat women like junk?

Girl, dump It.

Seriously.

Constipation [being full of crap] is bad for the Heart.

I kid you not.

[Constipation is bad for the heart]

further reading: [http://marriage.about.com/od/marriagetoolbox/a/harmfulbehav.htmHarmful behavior in marriage]

Nyakio J. Munyinyi for the XpenSieve Report© August 2014

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Headline banner design by NJMunyinyi.]

Men Shatter Too and The Art of Kintsugi

 

The Art Of Kintsugi

I want you to think of a glass. No. GO. Get a glass. Drop it on a tiled kitchen floor.

Will it break?

Will it shatter?

Women.

Men.

All shatter. And it hurts. Horribly and dreadfully, and if it feels like your heart has been ripped into three, then it FEELS like your heart has been ripped into three. The brain does not differentiate between ‘physical’ and what is now being called ‘social ’ pain. IT IS ALL PAIN.

So when she doubles over in emotional pain, holding her stomach and crying her heart out, and is unable to move from a fetal position on the floor or bed – it is PAIN. Him too.

They call it Kintsugi –

The Japanese have an ancient and charming art form called Kintsugi.

This is when they aggrandize, add value and glorify broken ceramics with a gold-filled resin.

It made me pause and I asked a question, What if we all took this simple mending and apply it to the souls and spirits of human beings? Mending hearts and souls with gold?  The thought stunned me in it’s simplicity. It’s simply beautiful and heartwarming – because, by mending a broken ceramic dish with gold - the belief is that the object has added value and is more beautiful when repaired, even though in the past it once was ugly.  Broken, shattered, use less (not useful) and ugly.

Think about that.

We often reject broken people, and if we’re the broken person, WE are rejected – this habit is so prevalent in our society that I’ve noticed of late that people who are broken also reject THEMSELVES. I know I did.

Have you?

 Wait, think a bit…

 Hmmm…

On a scale of 1 – 10, if you have been broken or shattered, how BAD do you think you are as a person, are you a good person or a bad person, is your past full of crap, are you full of shit? What do you think of yourself?

1     2       3       4       5       6          7       8        9        10

Choose a number before you read on…..

Yes, we reject the horror of people’s pasts and ask them, ... No. Scratch that - We demand of our friends a silence concerning their past hurts and failures, bundling and allocating them all to the kingdom of ‘It Didn’t Happen’ and ‘Ignore It’.  We do not want to KNOW the stories about how they were dropped, broken and shattered, and unfortunately, if we do know or hear a story, we exaggerate and pass on their story in the form of a Breaking News broadcast.

 So when we ourselves are broken, is it a wonder that we tend to swallow the sharp shattered pieces of glass and pretend to hide them inside our soft bellies? I say pretend because they aren’t really hidden -  because, we bleed continuously, internally, destroying ourselves on every level, physically and spiritually, we maim our souls, our finances, our relationships, our emotions, our thoughts and our minds  - ALL - become affected and - we break down on one of those levels. Something gives. Choose one, either someone breaks down physically – their health just goes whack, or emotionally, or spiritually, or relationships break, or finances are affected……..

We think we’re hiding the shattered shards of glass by swallowing them, when instead each bit of glass slashes and slices our vulnerable inner beings into frayed raw slices of flesh.

Broken is broken.

Whether our breaking was accidental or unintended, whether it was deliberate or cruelly measured and meticulously planned out – we need to accept that our hearts are broken, we need to talk about it in a safe environment, shout it out from the depths of our cores, scream it out in a vast open field where only birds can hear, or wrench it out like vomit from the depths of our stomachs where only bitter bile survives – we must release our brokenness from our inner selves.

Shout out the ugly truth, release the hurt.

If a friend approaches you and shares that their  heart hurts -  please  please for the sake of Donkeys in Limuru - don’t murmur meaningless platitudes and mumble, ‘it will be okay’ … because it won’t be.

The glass that you shattered up there at the beginning of this story…

Now say sorry to it.

Okay.

Did it go back to the way it was before?

Duh…Nope.

Do you understand now?

Being Sorry will NOT HELP  a broken person. Saying Sorry will NOT HELP either.

 

Nyakio’s out of the box advice

Either:      You caused the shattering and breaking and hurting.

Or :            You’re the shattered one

Or:             You’re a friend of either the one who did the breaking or the one who was shattered.

Question: What do you do?

ANSWER: Accept that you’re already involved.

1. If you hurt someone and you want to make it okay, you have to take out the Gold Kit and help them stick the pieces together. That’s called responsibility, don’t hurt someone and simply walk away. People who do that are called Cads with a capital C and Bitches with a capital B.

2. Stop CAUSING hurt and leaving smashed wrecks behind you. 

IMAGE from Matt CHANDLERbtw…    NO is a full sentence.

Don't give your phone number, Don’t answer the phone call, don’t approach him/her, don’t send a text. It’s better NOT to start a relationship and be called ‘cold’ and ‘unapproachable’ rather than breaking a soul.

(A lack of sex never killed anyone)

You have been hurt.

1. If you’re the hurt person, don’t swallow a single piece of glass in denial. If it hurts and you’re RE-acting in any form, from crying to withdrawal to over spending or abusing alcohol or substance abuse to becoming over religious or fanatical in any way - find a network of friends or join a self-help recovery group immediately.  I honestly find that those who are in self help recovery groups and who regularly attend meetings are far healthier and happier individuals than those in religious establishments. Kweli.

2. Healing takes time. Accept it. Don’t try and ‘be okay’ by next week.

Involved friend.

Performing the Art of Kintsugi

The glass has shattered. The plate is broken. The pot is fractured.

In the place of platitudes, pick the pieces up slowly by listening – use the two appendages stuck to the side of your head (called ears) instead of using your one and only mouth – God really did give us two ears for a reason.

So. Don’t advice. Just shut up and listen.

Don't give advice. Shut up and listen. Let them talk
out their pain.

Why do I know this with a strong and certain assurance?

Because last year, I was broken. Implausibly, irrevocably and irretrievably shattered – fragmented beyond my wildest nightmares, I was almost taken to the institution in Muthaiga Heights… ya, MMH. I had also swallowed so much glass, I was ugly inside, good for nothing and foul. What changed, you ask? God sent an Angel to me who ministered to my shattered wounded heart. 

So, if you care deeply for a friend with a broken heart and a messed up past, get out the Gold kit. The Kintsugi. You’re a Godsend. You are their Godsend.

Do exactly what you would do if they were physically hurt in an automobile accident and had shattered limbs and punctured lungs.

Listen.

Don't condemn.

Give: Vitamins (buy them if necessary) rest, sleep, give love, funny stories and understanding. Good words, empathy, gentle encouragement. Smiles,  hugs, gentle touches, holding hands, giving a shoulder, encouragement, positive language. Perform the ART of Kintsugi on their broken hearts. Aggrandize, add value and glorify  the broken person with a gold-filled resin. The resin? Your best, your love, your time, your words, your friendship, your HUMANITY.

It’s for a time. It may take 3 but not more than 6 months, once or twice a  week.

When the person is aggradized, they can go back to the business of life and living and look for a good self-help group. If you’ve done a good job, be proud that you were a good fundi. People often say, but Nyakio, I can’t get involved without letting go.

Since when, seriously, did you take a car to a mech, he repairs the problem, and then tells you, ‘but now that it’s working, and it’s good to go, ni yangu!!’ Or a tailor, he repairs your outfit then tells you, ‘this is gorgeous, now it’s mine?’  DUDE!!! WHAT THE HELL??

Hahahahaha….

What's in it for me, you dare ask?  Duh. Make the world a better place. It's YOUR world. Plus. If you’re a Godsend, God will repay His Debts. He Always Does. Go ask God. Seriously. Don’t bug the person who you repaired.

Lastly, hey:

Don’t Fear Being Broken or Hurt

Live, fall in love and love deeply. Don’t hold back for fear of being hurt. And here I’m talking to those of you who have been hurt severely in relationships so as a stop-guard against further pain and hurt you ‘stop loving’ and put up walls and boundaries.

Stop it.

Take time. Heal.

Get out of 'hosipital'.

Bounce back into life with a PASSION.

People often remark to me, ‘gosh, you look stunning.....'

And inside I smile. Because my beauty has come from being broken over and over and over, and God continuously filling my cracks in with Gold and aggrandizing me.

I repeat:  By mending a broken ceramic dish with gold - the belief is that the object has added value and is more beautiful when repaired, even though in the past it once was ugly.

Alone and whole, we do not have Gold. You have to be broken to get aggrandized.

Nyakio J. Munyinyi for the XpenSieve Report© 2014

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