No Bad Vibes

Happy New Year everyone! It has been a minute since I wrote a new blog. And I apologize for my absence. I haven't been able to figure out what to make videos about and what to write about in this here blog. But my brain has been cooking up some ideas. So now it is time to share.

You all know by now that I do not start a blog without mentioning a herb. And this post herb is Plantain Leaf also known as the whiteman’s foot. Has a magical use for protection; strength; and healing; and wards against nightmares and fever. Its medicinal use is known for skin relief and headaches. I would also recommend it for you I steams but do your research.

I woke up out of a dream about this topic. How do you discern between who is worthy to stay in your life and who isn't? This my friends has been one of my biggest challenges most of my life. And without even realizing that I’ve mastered this I would love to share my advice. Because as a medium I notice this is something that we all struggle with. Not knowing who in our lives we are carrying around as dead weight because of history or some specific attachment. But I am here to tell you that you are not alone. I too have struggled with discerning who has my best interests and who is only here for selfish gain. It’s a hard pill to swallow especially if your heart is already involved. Truth is most times you won’t know that a lot of people are not as aware as they think they are. And that’s okay because we are not supposed to know everything.

I remember dealing with this problem a lot when I just turned 20 because I wanted to take everyone with me. Other factors played a part like abandonment issues but that's a conversation for another day. The reason we are going to discuss in this post is my lack of discernment. I remember like it was yesterday, I had a conversation with my father about this in 2020 about how you know who is worthy to stay and who needs to be removed. That summer I was experiencing a lot of transitions in my love life and friendships. These experiences were triggering a lot of grief and memories of loneliness. So I went to my father for council. He suggested I needed to work on my discernment. I had never heard of that word before and I remember thinking to myself what the hell is that?

At first, I thought using your discernment and following your intuition was the same thing. But they are completely different. To me following your intuition is simply following your body's instincts before making a decision or following through with an act. Intuition is a powerful act of chance or the power of the universe. Discernment to me is trusting experience and facts that protect you from specific consequences. Like cause and effect. One is nature and one other Woman! To me, they're completely different.

I wanna tell you of a time when I didn't use either and I learned a valuable lesson after all of the chaos that resulted from me not trusting myself.

Ironically this situation happened around the same time I had that conversation with my father. But early that year I moved back to Chicago from living in California for college and it was during the pandemic. I was extremely lonely because I cut off all of my childhood friends except one. And the only friend I had lived in Ohio on her school's campus. So I did what any young adult did to make friends and went on a dating app to meet people. By the way, I would not recommend this today but at the time I did not know any better. I met this girl and we clicked right away we had so much in common and had a mutual friend. In the beginning, we did have intentions of being romantic together but we grew to learn it would be better if we were friends. For the next few months, I spent every day with this girl. Like we were hip to hip. We even worked together and it was beautiful in the beginning. But I didn't realize at the time the kind of bond I was creating with this girl was called a trauma bond. Trauma bonds are created between two people who are both experiencing similar traumatic incidents and they are bound based on the shared grief of what happened to them. And a codependency is created in this kind of relationship. For us we bounded on EVERYTHING, lol we had damn near identical wounds.

After a while, I saw how most of our time together was starting to feel dark and stagnant. We would only discuss the negative things in our lives and indulge in drinking and smoking. There wasn't any change or anything positive that would motivate us to be productive. Eventually, I began to explore and push myself out there to experience new things and make new friends because I was focused on doing photography. And I had just experienced a close relative passing suddenly, I was just in desperate need of change. Me making new friends created a riff in our relationship and she began showing signs of jealousy. She would communicate her insecurities about how she would feel amongst new people and new environments. I empathized with her in the beginning because I know what it's like to experience social anxiety. But after a while, I did become a bit cold and inconsiderate. I noticed a pattern of the more we would experience more new environments with people the more she and I would have disagreements. I was tired of her bring the mood down and I wasn't kind about it. After a while our friendship was feeling less and less like a fun time and more like a drag. I would try to communicate but things would almost always end up heated.

I decided to take some space and reflect on our friendships and realized that it was built on a rocky foundation bounding over our traumatic experiences and having a quick passionate start. Quick friendships and relationships in my experience always end in a very messy way. And sadly that's how this friendship ended very messy and chaotic. I was devastated I felt like I had lost a sister and I did I just wanted what was best for her. And I later learned and understood that she was only supposed to be in my life for a season and that is okay. In this situation, my intuition would speak often because I was around someone who didn't at the time know how to respect my boundaries. And I wasn't the most considerate when it came to her anxiety. It was like I was ready to get out of our funk and she wanted to stay. I can see it coming off like I was rushing her to get over her feelings because I got over mine. Honestly I lacked patients but then again I didn't have the tools to assist someone facing challenges with their mental health. This experience has taught me, that any meaningful relationship romantic or planktonic in my life cannot be built on trauma or with a quick start. If I want the relationship to last it has to have a slow born for me to get to know them to discern if they are meant to be in my life or not.

So lets go back to our initial question, how do you know who is meant to be in your life and who isn't?

To me, I feel like it depends. In some cases when you meet someone you know back from your intuition if you should continue talking to them or not. In any case, if you don't get any gut feelings then it will take time to discern if they share the same values as you. And if they are worth your time. I feel like deciding on what your values are and who is worth your time is a personal conversation with you and yourself. Only your personal experiences can dictate that. What I can tell you is to take your time because strengthening your discernment takes wisdom and making some mistakes. I advise you to use your intuition in the process by trusting your spirit and body when they are warning you of something.

I mean, after all, we are here to learn and experience right?

*I do not own copyrights to these photos*