PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION WITH NKECHI

Today is Mother's Day, and to be honest, it did not really occur to me that it was a special day until I stepped into church this morning. At the entrance, some of the Spakle team members were standing there as greeters. They welcomed everyone walking into the building and handed small love notes to the mothers.  One of them gave me one.  I opened it and read the message. It was simple, but it was thoughtful. I smiled. That was the moment it sank in. Today is Mother's Day. And in that small moment, I felt seen.  Being acknowledged as a mother felt warm and comforting. Later, when I got back home, I kept thinking about that moment. It stirred something deeper inside me. I began asking myself a serious question. Have I truly been a mother to my children? I am not talking about the usual markers people use to measure motherhood. Not just raising children who do well in school, get good grades, and go through life appearing successful.  Those things are good,...

Why Love Grows When Two People Stop Performing and Start Telling the Truth There is a quiet lie we tell couples, especially men. We dress it up as wisdom and pass it off as humour. “Just keep the peace.” “Do whatever your spouse says.” “Happy wife, happy life.” It sounds harmless. It sounds mature. It sounds like sacrifice. In reality, it teaches emotional self-erasure. Peace that is bought with silence is not peace.  It is postponement.  It is resentment waiting for language. If love is a skill, then boundaries and conflict resolution are not optional extras. They are core competencies.  You cannot build intimacy without friction. You cannot grow trust without disagreement. You cannot sustain desire where one person keeps shrinking to make room for another. There is a Yoruba saying: “ Bi a kò bá jà, a kò ní mọ ara wa.” If we do not disagree, we do not truly know each other. Marriage is not sustained by avoiding conflict. It is sustained by learning how to fac...

A Nigerian proverb: “The mouth that speaks in anger breaks the pot of peace.” Many relationships do not fall apart because love is absent. They fall apart because emotions are unmanaged. Love hurts not because people do not care, but because they do not know what to do with what they feel.  Anger, fear, disappointment, shame, insecurity, and unmet expectations pile up, and when they finally come out, they come out loud, sharp, and destructive. We often excuse this by saying, “That’s just how I am,” or “I was only being honest.” But honesty without regulation is not maturity. It is emotional dumping. Emotional regulation is one of the most important skills in love, yet it is rarely taught. What Emotional Regulation Really Means Emotional regulation does not mean suppressing your feelings or pretending everything is fine. It does not mean silence, endurance, or swallowing pain. It means being aware of what you are feeling, understanding why you are feeling it, and choosin...