Today's rhema

This verse has been on my mind this morning. Its practically my rhema for today and I decided to share as it might just be the case for someone else out there.
Have a blessed day Y'all.

On replay...

Entrepreneur minds...

Last Monday as I was rushing out for work, I was composing a quick email to a colleague and my email read "Hi......, please find attached".  As I was about to click the send button, I just felt something inside of me say "elly, its 6.30am on a Monday morning, your email might be the first email she gets this morning. Can't you show a bit of compassion and ask how her weekend was and how her family is doing? and I had to rephrase the email. I have learnt a lot from Jeff Weiner about managing compassionately and if you must run a successful business, people skill is key. Sometimes its the verbal and non verbal cues that make your staff go above and beyond for the business.   

Ellyeleanor Foundation

If you are new to the blog or just never noticed, this blog actually has a direct link to a charity that pays tuition fees for children from less privileged homes. You can find out about all we do @ ellyeleanor.org

We are changing the world one child at a time, and not just a child's life but families too. Last year, we were responsible for empowering 3 women financially to start up a petty trade. If you think, you want to be part of what we do, we will be highly elated to have you join our group of 'life changers'. So if you are thinking of giving to charity, we ask that you please consider us as we are changing lives for good and 95% of our proceeds go towards these children.

ellyeleanor. org

This was last year's video but the message is still the same. 

Dedication + Hardwork =

Well done....

Its been a really tough couple weeks. It always seems never ending with me. The irony of it all is that when you see me, you don't realise what I am going through. I will credit that to prayer and planning.(To be fair my planning is not air tight lol, so I just think its just resting on the holy spirit's help and taking it one day at a time).

I remember a few weeks ago, I was preparing for a professional exam and it involved solving some equations. I sent a friend a photo of what I was doing and she goes "You've still got time to have your nails done and look this good, I don't think the heat is up yet". I laughed really hard when I read her comment. I don't look like what I go through indeed and for that I am thankful!

The pressure at work has been intense for some time and on Wednesday I had a really big day which was a huge success. My colleagues were so proud of me and they gave me these massive orchids the following day with a lovely message. One of them really stood out, in her words... "The first day I saw you, I knew you would be fantastic and we are lucky to have you in this organisation"

Honestly it made me teary as I was not expecting it. I put in so much into work not necessarily to be appreciated but because it is linked to  one of my goals in life and secondly, I constantly challenge myself to be the best at what I do and not because I want to be the boss's favourite! Nah! I have not got time to suck up foolishly.

In all, keep doing your best as people are watching. You might not get a well done, but you might unconsciously inspire someone else and if not, there's no fulfillment that beats the feeling of knowing that you gave your best!

On replay...

9 Most Overlooked Threats To A Marriage

I bookmarked a page and today as I was searching for something else, I stumbled on this write up. I read the entire write up from start to finish and contacted Dr Kelly Flanagan directly who is the author seeking his permission to republish it here and he gave me permission. I am not a big fan of relationship blogs/advice because a lot of times they just sound so cliche. However, the relationship posts on my blog are among the most read and I believe a lot of individuals have been blessed by them. Reading this really enlightened me and I hope you feel the same afterwards. Also check out more from his blog; UnTangled https://drkellyflanagan.com/  Enjoy! 

I feel bad for marital communication, because it gets blamed for everything. For generations, in survey after survey, couples have rated marital communication as the number one problem in marriage. It’s not…

Marital communication is getting a bad rap. It’s like the kid who fights back on the playground. The playground supervisors hear a commotion and turn their heads just in time to see his retaliation. He didn’t create the problem; he was reacting to the problem. But he’s the one who gets caught, so he’s sent off to the principal’s office.

Or, in the case of marital communication, the therapist’s office.

I feel bad for marital communication, because everyone gangs up on him, when the truth is, on the playground of marriage, he’s just reacting to one of the other troublemakers who started the fight:

Photocredit: Linked In

1. We marry people because we like who they are. People change. Plan on it. Don’t marry someone because of who they are, or who you want them to become. Marry them because of who they are determined to become. And then spend a lifetime joining them in their becoming, as they join you in yours.

2. Marriage doesn’t take away our loneliness. To be alive is to be lonely. It’s the human condition. Marriage doesn’t change the human condition. It can’t make us completely unlonely. And when it doesn’t, we blame our partner for doing something wrong, or we go searching for companionship elsewhere. Marriage is intended to be a place where two humans share the experience of loneliness and, in the sharing, create moments in which the loneliness dissipates. For a little while.

3. Shame baggage. Yes, we all carry it it. We spend most of our adolescence and early adulthood trying to pretend our shame doesn’t exist so, when the person we love triggers it in us, we blame them for creating it. And then we demand they fix it. But the truth is, they didn’t create it and they can’t fix it. Sometimes the best marital therapy is individual therapy, in which we work to heal our own shame. So we can stop transferring it to the ones we love.

4. Ego wins. We’ve all got one. We came by it honestly. Probably sometime around the fourth grade when kids started to be jerks to us. Maybe earlier if our family members were jerks first. The ego was a good thing. It kept us safe from the emotional slings and arrows. But now that we’re grown and married, the ego is a wall that separates. It’s time for it to come down. By practicing openness instead of defensiveness, forgiveness instead of vengeance, apology instead of blame, vulnerability instead of strength, and grace instead of power.

5. Life is messy and marriage is life. So marriage is messy, too. But when things stop working perfectly, we start blaming our partner for the snags. We add unnecessary mess to the already inescapable mess of life and love. We must stop pointing fingers and start intertwining them. And then we can we walk into, and through, the mess of life together. Blameless and shameless.

6. Empathy is hard. By its very nature, empathy cannot happen simultaneously between two people. One partner must always go first, and there’s no guarantee of reciprocation. It takes risk. It’s a sacrifice. So most of us wait for our partner to go first. A lifelong empathy standoff. And when one partner actually does take the empathy plunge, it’s almost always a belly flop. The truth is, the people we love are fallible human beings and they will never be the perfect mirror we desire. Can we love them anyway, by taking the empathy plunge ourselves?

7. We care more about our children than about the one who helped us make them. Our kids should never be more important than our marriage, and they should never be less important. If they’re more important, the little rascals will sense it and use it and drive wedges. If they’re less important, they’ll act out until they are given priority. Family is about the constant, on-going work of finding the balance.

8. The hidden power struggle. Most conflict in marriage is at least in part a negotiation around the level of interconnectedness between lovers. Men usually want less. Women usually want more. Sometimes, those roles are reversed. Regardless, when you read between the lines of most fights, this is the question you find: Who gets to decide how much distance we keep between us? If we don’t ask that question explicitly, we’ll fight about it implicitly. Forever.

9. We don’t know how to maintain interest in one thing or one person anymore. We live in a world pulling our attention in a million different directions. The practice of meditation—attending to one thing and then returning our attention to it when we become distracted, over and over and over again—is an essential art. When we are constantly encouraged to attend to the shiny surface of things and to move on when we get a little bored, making our life a meditation upon the person we love is a revolutionary act. And it is absolutely essential if any marriage is to survive and thrive.

As a therapist, I can teach a couple how to communicate in an hour. It’s not complicated. But dealing with the troublemakers who started the fight? Well, that takes a lifetime.

And yet.

It’s a lifetime that forms us into people who are becoming ever more loving versions of ourselves, who can bear the weight of loneliness, who have released the weight of shame, who have traded in walls for bridges, who have embraced the mess of being alive, who risk empathy and forgive disappointments, who love everyone with equal fervor, who give and take and compromise, and who have dedicated themselves to a lifetime of presence and awareness and attentiveness.

And that’s a lifetime worth fighting for.

https://drkellyflanagan.com/2014/10/01/the-9-most-overlooked-threats-to-a-marriage/