This year was extremely difficult yet dramatically profound.
I started it in a state of social bitterness, nursed and sheltered safely within the confines of my heart and mind.
Kenya can be a very cruel, merciless, shame-based and confrontational context. It can kick you further when you are down and abuse you for attempting to exist, and you will find more than enough people to condemn you for complaining about any injustice. Sometimes, you can seek solace in human beings only to receive encouragement for self-destruction. The lack of social support can be astounding.
In such a context, a positive mindset can die instantly. There are little to no incentives to be kind, contented and peaceful. So, I fought and fought to regain my dying mindset. I felt emotional and social energy dissipate.
At some point, I began to ask myself what I could do to recover. I looked for coaches and experts online.
Some visualisation exercises worked ( Dr Tara Swart’s book The Source ), and a matrescence expert sent me select links on mindfulness, wellness, breathing and meditation. I found some meditations(more like positive affirmations) calming but short-lived. I felt they helped to renew fading hope and faith.
However, they never pierced my inner confines to produce enduring happiness or contentment. Instead, I perceived a strange territorial heaviness that cannot be explained in words. It would settle and hover like a cloud.
Any time I attempted to explain my emotional flatness and heaviness status to people, they brushed it off. Reminding me of my PhD, How can a PhD be discouraged and hopeless?
Others were too busy social climbing to take note. They were so concerned about my phone connection book and expired connections to government officials. They were preoccupied with their upward social mobility and transitions.
2023 was an extremely heavy year until a climax of emotional and mental overwhelm made me reach for an old Bible. In an abyss of overwhelm, I read a verse that made me feel more alive than months of positive affirmations and visualisations.
In the words of St Paul,
Philippians 4:6-8,
“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
I meditated on the verse and replaced my many affirmations that were starting to flatline in effect. Then, I miraculously found myself here:
Immaculate Conception
O Most Holy Virgin, immaculate in body and spirit, look kindly on me as I implore your powerful intercession. O most Holy Mother, receive my prayers as I present them to God. O Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother, you intercede for us with your Son. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
After a simple prayer, the familiar bitterness, anger and discouragement seemed like a distant pang of pain, not a chronic overwhelm. I found myself with a supernatural space to report my strange heaviness. I found a non-judgemental intercessor who would not refer to my self-will and capacity in the form of a PhD. One to take even the little but stinging fails, embarrassments and hurts. The ones too trivial to tell anyone about.
After basking in a strange freedom of the heart and soul, I felt a different tug to store away and renew failures, broken friendships, lost friendships, downward mobility and paralysing fear of men(and women) or the loss of reputation.
I found……
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
O Jesus Divine Master, I thank and bless your loving Heart which led you to give your love for me. Your blood, your wounds, the scourges, the thorns, the cross, your head bowed in death, all speak to my heart. No one loves you more than the one who gives his life for the loved one. The shepherd dies in giving his life for his sheep. I too want to spend my life for you. Grant that you may always dispose of me for your greater glory. May I always repeat, “Your will be done.” Inflame my heart with your holy love for souls, so that I may be prepared to make the utmost sacrifices for them.
Sweet Heart of Jesus , make me love you more and more.
This is the season of the Holy Family.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendour of true love; to you we turn with trust.
Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too
may be places of communion and prayer, authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.
Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized find ready comfort and healing.
Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family, and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
Finally, we arrive in a space of endless POWER, love and acceptance
Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done,
on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.
May everyone find a place to take all their hurts, sufferings, and failures with no judgement or condemnation.
