Posts

Listening Is Not Passive: Love as the Skill of Understanding

Image
 “Wisdom is not in talking plenty, but in hearing well.” Most people believe they are good communicators because they talk often. Very few ask a harder question: Do I listen well enough to understand, or only to respond? Love does not break down because people stop talking. It breaks down because people stop listening with intent. Listening is not passive. It is an active skill. And in love, it is one of the most demanding skills to master. Why Talking Feels Easier Than Listening Talking gives a sense of control. You get to shape the narrative, defend your position, and assert your needs.  Listening, on the other hand, requires restraint. It requires curiosity. It requires setting aside your ego long enough to enter another person’s inner world. Many of us were raised in environments where listening was selective. Children were told to listen, but adults were rarely modelled listening. Conversations were hierarchical, not mutual. So we grew up knowing how to speak,...

Love Is Not What You Feel, It Is What You Practice

Image
Nigerian proverb: “Love does not sit idle; it works with the hands.” There is a quiet crisis in how we talk about love today. We talk about how it feels, how it excites us, how it overwhelms us, and sometimes how it disappoints us.  We rarely talk about how it is practiced. From movies to social media, love is sold as chemistry.  Butterflies.  Passion.  Effortless connection.  When those feelings dip, panic sets in.  People begin to ask dangerous questions.  Have I fallen out of love?  Did I marry the wrong person?  Is something wrong with me? In many African cultures, those questions were not the starting point of marriage.  Elders did not ask couples if they felt butterflies.  They asked if they were ready. Ready to learn patience.  Ready to work through conflict. Ready to take responsibility for another human being. That wisdom matters now more than ever. Love is not sustained by emotion alone. Emotions fluctuate...

ALIGNMENT: The Morning God Spoke, and the Echo That Followed

Image
I woke up by 2 a.m. Not the restless kind of waking where you toss and turn. This one was gentle but firm, like a nudge on the shoulder.  My eyes opened, my heart alert, my body calm. I knew what it was. It was time to pray. So I sat up in bed, still wrapped in the quiet of the night, and I talked to God the way I always do.  Honestly.  Simply.  No big grammar.  No long speeches.  Just me and Him. “Lord, what is the word for February?” It was the first day of the month. I wanted direction.  Not a goal.  Not a plan.  A word. Something to anchor my spirit. Almost immediately, in my mind’s eye, I saw one word. Alignment. Clear.  Bold.  Unmistakable. I paused.  Let it sit.  Let it sink. Then I did something funny. Out of curiosity, half play, half disbelief, I picked up my phone, opened ChatGPT, and typed: What’s the word for me this month? I wasn’t expecting much. I certainly wasn’t expecting what came next. The r...

WHEN BITTERNESS MOVES IN SILENTLY

Image
She used to be warm. Open. Hopeful. Then life happened. A betrayal she never saw coming. A loss that shattered her sense of safety. A season of pain that felt unfair and unending. She did not become bitter overnight. Bitterness arrived quietly. It sat in her chest. It tightened her jaw. It changed the way she saw people, love, and life. And one day, she realized she was no longer angry about what happened. She was living from it. Let me ask you a few honest questions. 1-Have you ever smiled in public but felt hard inside? 2-Do certain memories still trigger anger, even years later? 3-Do you replay conversations in your head, wishing you had said more? 4-Do you feel tired, tense, guarded, or emotionally distant? If yes, this conversation is for you. A MANTRA FOR THIS JOURNEY 1-I choose healing over holding on. 2-I release what hurt me, not because it was right, but because I deserve peace. 3-My future is bigger than my pain. WHAT IS BITTERNESS? Bitterness is unresolved pain ...

LOVE WITHOUT LOVING YOURSELF

Image
What if much of what you were taught about love is incomplete? What if love was never meant to hurt, silence you, or make you smaller? What if the real problem is not that love is hard, but that we have been practicing a distorted version of it? Look around. Relationships are collapsing under pressure. Marriages are breaking apart. Parents wound their children while insisting they mean well. Couples exhaust each other emotionally and still call it love.  At some point, we have to pause and ask an uncomfortable question. Do we truly understand love, or are we repeating inherited beliefs without examining their cost? This conversation matters because love is not a side issue. It shapes how we choose partners, how we stay, how we leave, how we raise children, and how we treat ourselves when no one is watching. Let us talk about love honestly, without romance, fear, or spiritual bypassing. Love is powerful and widely misused Love is one of the most powerful words in...

Life Is Waiting on You to Slow Down

Image
Happy New Year 2026! It's a brand new year and on the 1st day in the year 2026, I was just home all day engage in critical thinking and studying and these questions popped up within. What if the delay you are frustrated by is not resistance, but timing? What if life has been speaking all along, but you have been too busy pushing to hear it? What if the very thing you are praying for requires less effort, not more? These are uncomfortable questions in a world that worships movement.  We are trained to hurry outcomes, chase certainty, and exhaust ourselves in the name of faith, discipline, or ambition.  Stillness is treated like a luxury.  Rest is postponed until everything works out. Yet there is another truth. A quieter one. Life is not waiting for you to try harder. Life is waiting for you to slow down, listen, and align. The moment clarity arrived. A couple of days to the end of 2025, I stumbled on a video by Reverend Michael Beckwith on manifestation throug...

You Don't Enter The New Year By Force

Image
As the year winds down and there are just two days left, I naturally slow myself down. I always do. This period has become sacred to me. I pause. I breathe. I reflect. I take stock. This morning, I sat quietly in my office.  No rush. No agenda.  Just me and my thoughts. I looked back at 2025 with honesty and kindness. I looked at the highs that stretched my joy. I looked at the lows that tested my strength. I looked at the woman I have become, month after month, decision after decision. I thought about my health, my family, my work. I thought about stepping into new responsibilities on a fresh professional front. That mix of pressure and privilege that comes with growth. I thought about building my personal business, sometimes with excitement, sometimes with fatigue, but always with intention.  I thought about the inner work. The discipline. The days when I showed up even when it was uncomfortable. The days when growth required me to unlearn, not just learn. W...