10 + 1 Tips on Dealing With Difficult Breakups and painful Losses

When it comes to grief, and heartbreak there really is not a ‘silver bullet’ to dealing with it. We are all different. We hurt differently. Some more than others. Others a little less. Some people have learnt to better deal with it. But the reason for this post is that, when you are hurting, you can’t say what you don’t want to do or what you want to do. You really want to know and do the next right thing that will help you feel better. These are 10 practical steps:

1. There are five stages in grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I am not saying you should ‘come to terms’ with what has happened yet, What I’m saying here is that you should come to terms with your own emotions and be honest with yourself and where you stand. You can’t trick your heart into caring less or not caring at all. Admit you’re hurt, you’re broken, you’re not okay.
2. Express your emotions. This is a lot easier for some other people than for others. If you need to cry, do so!
3. Share your grief, with someone or with a loving community. You cannot afford to carry some hurts alone. You have to let people know that you’re not okay. You have to let someone know how you feel. You should be able to have a trusted person who you can ‘let it all out’ to or who you can vent to. A loving community like a church group will help at this time.
4. There are five stages of grief, and some quickly find acceptance soon enough. Well for others it might take a little while. It’s okay if you’re not okay yet. Know that this might take a little while. But on another note, God didn’t mean for us to continue healing our whole life. At some point you actually should’ve healed. It’s amazing what a year can do to your life (I am not saying it will take that long!)
5. Love rejected shouldn’t be suspended. It only has to be re-directed. They’re so many people out there that need your love, and daily, people are there that you can be a blessing to. That you can give that time, attention. When you understand that love is selfless, you will gain more fulfilment from life. You have to get over yourself and your own pain to be a blessing to some other people. That’s your purpose! And purpose might not totally remove pain, but it will definitely reduce it.
6. Be careful what you do in your period of grief. Grief can drive a lot of people to make lots of dumb decisions that they’ll tend to regret all their lives. realise that this is a very vulnerable point for your life. Do not do anything you wouldn’t be proud of; don’t go seeking sexual gratification from all the wrong places, don’t go into into alcohol and revelling, porn, there’s just so many temptations that the devil may bring. This is not the time for that! You shouldn’t throw away your life, destiny, morals, standards because you’re in pain.
7. Do not quickly jump into another relationship with somebody after a huge breakup. This is a time to hear and learn from God, so that you’ll know why the last marriage, relationship, or what have you, didn’t work, and how the next one will be much better. Don’t hang with the wrong people just because you’re lonely!
8. Forgive! This seems like the hardest, but yet the one to bring the most peace. And the best way to do this is to start by praying for the person that hurt you, anytime you start thinking bitter thoughts. Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person. You’ll hurt a lot more, and for longer if you still decide to hold grudges in your heart against them. Hate is a huge burden to bear. i am sticking with love! you should too! and P.s you don’t have to prove anything to anybody!
9. DO NOT lose your individuality to someone else. Do not lose ‘you’ because of us. You have your own life too! your own dreams and aspirations! you are an individual! Be inspired and get excited by your life. God has great plans for you. Do not give yourself so into somebody else that you lose you! Your pain can also prepare you for your destiny. Some people have monetized breakups by singing songs, putting the pain into words, and now they’re millionaires. I am saying you still have a great life and future irregardless. That should get you excited. Let your pain prepare you for your future, not stop you from it!
10. Do not become a bitter person. Life’s experiences should make you better not bitter. Do not carry a truckload and baggage from how you’ve been wrongly treated, and allow that to change your view about the world, about helping people. There’s still people out there that are great! there’s still people out there that will love you selflessly, there’s people out there that don’t have to pay for what someone else did to you. Be kind, loving, still. Don’t let the world kill your smile, your happy.
11. Finally, God is ever close to the broken hearted.Cling to Him! Draw near to Him and His word, even in this painful moment of your life. He’ll lead and guide you and comfort you. He’ll always tell you what to do next, He’ll help you heal, He’ll take the pain away I know this!

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10 Reasons Why you Should Meet the Boy Your Daughter is Dating

It all depends on what you would define as 'dating' and many parents would have many many reservations on this topic, but I think you should want to know more about the boy your daughter is 'closest' with. Why, you know and could have met her closest female friend right? Not everyone is interested in the opposite sex at a young age, but the period when the hormones start shouting, you should be right by her side, and create an atmosphere of candour, and openness, whatever you do. Your daughter should be secure enough to know that you're okay with her hanging with a boy as a very 'close friend'.
So, reasons why you should meet this boy:

1. You have to know the boy to his house, parents, school and all. Trust me this will come in handy some day
2. It is easier to judge the intentions of people from up close! Now it is good for him to have such interest in your daughter provided the purpose is good. You can judge that when you meet with him.
3. Knowing that you are aware of their relationship will make any boy treat your daughter, with far more respect.
4. You can always set the guidelines, rules and boundaries for the relationship with them from the beginning. Of course purity is the key word here.
5. Knowing and accepting your daughter's relationship beats the alternative; not accepting, and not knowing! really now.
6. It develops a closer relationship, trust and respect for daddy from daughter, and now she can tell you anything about the relationship, and you could always intervene.
7. If your daughter can let you know about her relationship, there's few things that she won't let you know about. And as a father, you want to know a lot about your daughter trust me.
8. The relationship with a girl and her father builds her self esteem, because a father is not someone that would ever decide to walk out on his daughter. A girl would definitely realise this more when you're involved in this aspect of her life.
9. It saves your daughter the stress ( and it's a whole amount of stress) of living a secret life, making furtive and clandestine moves and unacceptable secret meetings.
10. It is important to be by your daughter's side, guiding her through the period of infatuation or maybe it could actually be love. It doesn't help when you just make rigid rules and laws and bans. Chances are that she won't listen, because feelings can be real...yup! they could get real, and the advice she should get from you she'll get from the wrong crowd; bad friends, rappers, musicians e.t.c and when you're more concerned about dropping rules and laws and not knowing how your daughter actually feels, hearing her out, talking to her honestly and gently about it, you create a real struggle for her. And the story doesn't just end because you gave a law. I'm being real.

Well this is all I have. My opinion really. This blog post should have been, do you allow your daughter date? at what age? what do you mean by dating? that's really up to your instincts at the end, after you've read this. What do I know? I know a lot! It isn't healthy to give your daughter a wrong impression about the opposite sex, or no impression at all. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is that you should be able to talk about this and many other things with your daughter in a calm and loving atmosphere. Of course I'm hoping that by the time she would have reached this stage of wanting a relationship, or whatever you'll call it, you would have trained her well enough to know the sort of people she ought to hang out with! and so you can trust her decisions. Of course, mums are colossally important in this process, but that might have to be another blog post! :) peace y'all.

What I just talked about is in the ideal world of course, and this is how I'm definitely going to go about it when I'm a dad! :)

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The Story of A Birthday Card

It was a Sunday evening. Sunday the 2nd of February. I was out trying to buy a gift wrapper and a birthday card for a very dear friend. Got to this supermarket, and asked for the gift wrapper, and went to where the cards are stacked to pick one. There were different sorts of cards, the ugly ones, home made ones; and I say home made because for some of them, they actually used a black pen to write some of the characters! That was just plain weird. So I tried to sort out the different ones, mostly wedding and birthday cards, till I finally saw a good one.

So I chose this one, and I made to the counter to pay for it and at some point the card flipped over and there written very boldly is ‘Selective’. It doesn’t seem like a huge deal though, because selective is just the name of the brand of the card I bought, but to me it meant so much more! at that very moment, being the person that I am and having the photographic memory that I do have, meaning that stuff tend to stick, my mind went way way back, over 12 years ago…

There was a girl… we were both in the same class and that was primary two. She had a foreign accent, but she was Nigerian. So we didn’t talk much then, I don’t even think I ever really talked to her and vice versa. Back then I really didn’t care about girls, or if you look at it she didn’t really care about me?…lol . We really used to keep it low key with girls at such innocent age back then lol. I wasn't a very social person as well, then. Not necessarily shy, or maybe a little of both. But there were still various things about this girl that I still knew. Her family wasn’t the average Nigerian family, that would give their children rice, beans and stew for lunch. Ah no! they kept it real classy; most times she would just come to school with dates, sandwiches and juice! which was pretty standard I guess. I heard her once tell the teacher that her mum said that she could eat that in school, but eat proper food when they got home.
So just incase you’re wondering where I’m going with this, and how this relates to what I was talking about earlier, relax. This is how. She did come from a very wonderful family because during the Christmas season, she would bring cards to school and give EVERYONE! addressing the cards personally, writing each person’s name on it, even though apparently, she didn't know every one personally. I don’t think it was only Christmas she sent out such cards because, as far as I can remember, she gave them out on more than one occasion. That was the first and last time since I started going to the four walls of a school that somebody gave cards to EVERYBODY. Everybody is the key word here. It turned out to be that her mum made her do it, but you gotta give her the credit for that one irregardless and her mom of course!

So let’s go back to the super market where I was about buying that card. It flipped over and ‘selective’ was boldly written behind and then suddenly it came! something clicked! DING! It was the same ‘selective’ cards that she used to give out then! The name is Ivie, Ivie Etomi! She’s the girl that I’ve been talking about. And before you begin to get all over me, I did ask her if I could write this, and she said it was okay!
So when I got back home later that day, I was so hyped, and took to my twitter:

today I bought a 'selective' brand card immediately I remembered the girl that gave the whole class cards for christmas in primary 2
— Uche Emordi (@Emordiphilip) February 2, 2014

It was the same 'selective' brand she used to give us then, the WHOLE CLASS. I'm shouting out to Ivie Etomi, she's the girl that did that
— Uche Emordi (@Emordiphilip) February 2, 2014

you know, it's doing stuff like that, that would probably make people remember you for something worthwhile later on
— Uche Emordi (@Emordiphilip) February 2, 2014

So what is the moral lesson of this? it’s all about being appreciative in retrospect, acknowledging the little kindness and the spark that it can create even years later, of what seemed like a minor gesture. I agree this could've been a bit mushy and emotional and stuff, but I tend to attach a lot of sentimental value to some little things. I told Ivie that I hoped this would make her smile and I guess that I've lived or written up to expectation in this case. So this is a tale of the ‘selective’ birthday card and a very nice person, Ivie Etomi! she's pretty too ;)…I really wanted to put her picture on here, but maybe it’s about some of you guys that would unnecessarily start ‘checking’ on her! ( I kid I kid lol).

Disclaimer: This is not a marketing tool for the 'Selective' brand, although it wouldn't have hurt for me to make a few bucks off them for this scintillating piece.

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