Death to expectations

As humans that exist through this journey called life, we are met with numerous expectations that society expects us to fulfil. I see life as a path that we take but no matter how much we plan ahead we do not know everything that will lie ahead. We just have to face whatever obstacles we meet and try to figure out how to overcome them. We may not always make the right decisions, we may not have a clue how to proceed, we may fail at times but all of this is a learning journey. 

Society puts pressure on us from a young age to have everything figured out, to have a solid plan for our lives, and to know where we are going at each point of our lives. It's like taking a map out and figuring out which path to take from point A to B. No matter how much you plan this path, the map won't show you when it will rain heavily, or if there are wild dangerous animals you will encounter which can affect your journey. This shows that regardless of how much you plan, something can always happen which can completely change your plans. We don't plan for sickness, we don't plan for betrayal, we don't plan for loss, we don't plan for bereavement, we don't always plan for failure. These things can happen at any time.

We all go through hardships but we live in a society where it has been normalised to hide these and only show our successes, which promotes a false narrative to others that you can be successful without going through any difficulties. When people do fail they struggle with how to deal with this and feel that they are a failure in life, not knowing that failure is part of the learning journey and that life is a series of failures. Every successful person I have ever researched has stated in their life story that they have failed so many times, but the difference is that they never gave up despite these failures. They will simply try again and again and again. 

Sometimes we want to be able to control every aspect of our lives. Yes, there is a lot we can control, we can choose our friends, who we listen to, which path we want to take, and the places we visit. We can even mitigate risk in our lives, that's why insurance exists, in the event something bad happens insurance will pay out. But we have to let go of the idea that we can control every single thing because we can't as there are circumstances that will come up that we can not control.

This links with society's expectations. You may be expected to earn a certain salary by a particular age, but this may not take into account the socio-economic background you come from. You may be expected to be married by a certain age but this doesn't factor in the environment in which you live in which can greatly impact this. You may be expected to have children by a certain age, but this doesn't factor the health of your reproductive organs which can affect this.  You may be expected to "look" a certain way, but this may not take into account your genetics. Many of us are currently in life situations that we may not have expected to be in, we thought we would be further in life than we are, but circumstances beyond our control have affected this.

I wish society normalised failures so that people will know that it is a part of life so that they can feel encouraged to find ways to navigate this without feeling like a failure themselves. I wish society didn't put unrealistic expectations on people who end up thinking that due to them not being able to meet these expectations placed on them they are failures. I wish society didn't put pressure on people to have everything figured out because we can't. I wish society gave people more grace when they fail. We are humans, we do not know everything, and we never will. We will grow, we will make mistakes and we learn. Sometimes we may not know what decision to make and may feel lost in our journey. This is totally normal. So whatever point in your journey you are at currently at, know that your jouney is unique to you and step out in faith to carry on into the unknown.

Healing the inner you

This year I’ve been doing a lot of inner work and focusing on healing myself. This has been an emotionally challenging journey as it means facing unhealed traumas, being 100% real and honest with myself, understanding the roots of my negative thoughts and challenging this. This is a process where you have to be fully vulnerable with yourself as you have to take a deep reflection of your whole life, including revisiting painful memories. Healing is a journey, not a destination. It is something we have to keep working on. We live in a world where social media is prevalent and people are constantly showing us the highlights of their lives. It is easy for us to think that everyone else is living a great life except for us. One thing I've learned is that what we see on the outside of someone's life is not always a true reflection of what's going on in the inside. Contrary to what people show on social media, most people have silent battles we will never know about and are going through struggles in life. We all need healing.

I've spoken about mental health before and going to therapy. I will always advocate for therapy and if you are able to, I would recommend doing it. I am glad we live in a society where people are more open about their mental health issues as this is a topic which has previously been taboo. 

I've learned a lot during this journey and have made a list of things I did that you can apply to your own life and healing journey. 

• Forgiving myself and others for past mistakes
• Addressing my unhealed traumas
• Visiting my inner child
• Unlearning detrimental things I was taught to believe
• Challenging the negative beliefs I have, especially towards myself
• Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones e.g. instead of saying 'I am a failure' say "I am a success"
• Not comparing my life to others (this is a struggle!)
• Understanding that titles, finances, status and people's opinions do NOT determine my value.  I am valuable in the eyes of God
• It is ok to fail, it is ok to struggle, it is ok to cry and it’s normal to find life hard
• I don't always have to be strong
• It is ok to not know things, you don’t always have to know what is next or have the answers for everything. Sometimes we just don’t know. It is ok to not have life figured out
• Be picky with who to share things with, some people will speak negativity over your life and try to stop you from progressing
• Not to live my life trying to meet the expectations of others, it is draining, plus it's not my responsibility. 
• Prayer/meditation
• Listening to high-frequency music without vocals 

Here are books I’ve read to help me on my healing journey:

      

Remember that everyone goes through struggles that no one knows about, so whatever you are going through, you are not alone.

They Cloned Tyrone

 

About a month ago I watched "They Cloned Tyrone" on Netflix and I can honestly say that this is a great film. There are a lot of themes in this film which I would like to delve into. The main character in the film is Fountaine, he is a drug dealer who lives in the hood called Glen in America. He lives with his mother and his day-to-day life is pretty much the same routine, he gets up, goes to the liquor store, buys a scratch card, gives some alcohol to a homeless man and exercises. One of his clients is a pimp named Slick Charles who has a prostitute named Yo-Yo. One night Fountaine gets shot and killed by a rival drug dealer and Slick Charles and Yo-yo witness it. The next day we see Fountaine wake up, and do his daily routine as if nothing had happened. The crazy thing is that he has no injuries and no recollection of the previous night's events. It's apparent that something strange is going on and during the film, the trio go on a quest to investigate this and make some very interesting discoveries.

One of the discoveries is an underground laboratory full of white scientists who are surveilling and studying the black residents of Glen and their behaviours. This is not too far off what happens in real life. In history when European explorers would go to Africa, they would study the native people and their behaviours. Part of the reason they did this was to colonise their lands and to control the people. In modern times spending behaviours of black people are monitored for marketing reasons so big brands can make money. Western powers also watch what is going on in Africa so that they can continue to rob Africa of its resources and will take action against any threats. The whole notion of monitoring black people is for control. 

Another discovery made by the trio is a powder which is used in products primarily consumed by black people. One example is fried chicken, in the film the chicken is addictive and those who eat it laugh uncontrollably.  I believe this is an analogy of what happens in real life. When I visited America a couple of months ago, the food tasted a lot better than the food in the UK and was somewhat addictive. However, when I looked at the ingredients list there was always a very high sugar content and it included a number of ingredients I had never heard of. Many ingredients in the food in the USA are banned in Europe and other places. These ingredients have negative side effects and are not good for the body. You could argue that the food is basically a form of poison to make people sick which in turn makes a lot of money for Big Pharma as you have to pay for Healthcare in the USA.

Another area is music. There is a club scene where music is played to control the crowd. In another scene in the lab they play rap music about violence in a pod with two black men who are fighting. Once the scientists change it to mellow music about hugs, the men then stop fighting and hug each other. It exemplifies how music can control human behaviour. To a degree this is true. A lot of rap music that is pushed is violent and degenerate which promotes negative behaviours. Lord knows the amount of rap songs there are about killing 'niggas', taking drugs and degrading women. There are men who have been murdered due to rap music (particularly drill). Female rap is hypersexualised, the majority of female rappers just rap about sex and their vaginas, there is hardly any real substance in their music. Recently I heard a song with the following lyrics "My pussy pink, my bootyhole brown" which is from the song Poundtown by Sexyy Redd. Degenerate music like this gets pushed to the forefront. Even the City girls who promote using and scamming men for money actually became a popular culture among young women. As much as some may disagree I believe music does have some influence over people's behaviour.

The main theme in this film is cloning. The trio find clones in the underground lab. To keep the hood the way it is, the scientists clone people who are not good for the community. Fountaine (who is a clone of the original scientist) and Slick Rick find their clones, due to one being a drug dealer and the other being a pimp. The scientists do not clone Doctors, lawyers or successful people from the hood that will benefit the hood, instead, they clone those who are rather regressive. I believe this is done on purpose to keep the black residents of Glen stagnant and controlled. In the end we meet Tyrone, who is a stereotypical black man from the hood who is also a clone of Fontaine. In American history, there have been instances when white Americans have been involved in practices to "keep black people in their place". One of these is redlining where those living in black neighbourhoods were denied access to loans, mortgages and insurance, thus preventing them from progressing financially, thus keeping their neighbourhoods poor.

There is a lot more to the film I didn't discuss but the above points are my main takeaways from watching the film. I believe the film was a creative way to show the things that go on in society.  

Hi Barbie!

When I was a child I was obsessed with Barbie. I remember when my mum used to bring home the Argos catalogue (those of you from the UK will know about this catalogue), I used to open it and go straight to the pages near the back where the Barbie products were and show my mum all the barbie toys I wanted. My mum only ever got me one Barbie doll as we didn't have much financially (I recently saw an interview with Nicki Minaj who pretty much said the same thing about only having one Barbie growing up). 

Despite being in my thirties, when I heard about the Barbie film I was so excited! The inner child in me was screaming with joy! Though I didn't know what the storyline of the film would be about I knew I had to see it regardless. I saw so much marketing and promotion of the film everywhere. I read online that $150m was spent on marketing the film, which cost more than actually making the film. There were numerous companies that had collaborations with Barbie including Zara, Forever 21, Primark, Nyx Cosmetics, Air BnB, Burger King plus many more. I kept seeing the colour Pink everywhere, plus the numerous Barbie related Reels and TikToks all over social media.

My friend bought us tickets to see the film on the opening day. We all wore something pink to go with the theme. As we got to the cinema many people of all ages and genders were wearing pink. I loved it! All the Barbie fans knew the assignment. The film surprised me as it had deep messages that I did not expect. I'm going to discuss the themes in more detail.

Diversity

One of the key points I took from the film was about diversity. In Barbieland all the women are called Barbie and all the men are called Ken. The Barbies and Kens come in all different skin tones and sizes. What this showed to me is that any girl can be a Barbie, you don't need to have Blonde hair and blue eyes to be a Barbie. I think this sends a powerful message to little girls that they can also identify themselves with Barbie regardless of how they look. There have been past criticisms about Barbie pushing unrealistic beauty standards on little girls which can be damaging, this topic is discussed in the movie. In the film the main Barbie played by Margot Robbie is known as the "stereotypical Barbie", she is white, slim and has blonde hair and blue eyes. This is the image of Barbie that we all know. This film did a good job of pushing away from this narrative and making Barbie inclusive.

Feminism

Barbieland is a feminist's heaven. The Barbies run everything, the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and all the professions. There is the President Barbie, Doctor Barbie, Lawyer Barbie, writer Barbie etc. The Kens are more so background characters that play a supportive role. I believe the message of this is to show little girls that they can be anything they want to be and can aspire to have high-level careers which are normally dominated by men.  I see Barbieland as the inverse of reality where men dominate in positions of power.

Patriarchy

Another theme that is discussed is patriarchy. When Ken goes to the real world he discovers patriarchy and for once he feels that he is important as a man, whereas in Barbieland he didn't. He takes his new knowledge into Barbieland and brainwashes all of the Barbies and Kens. Now the Kens run Barbieland and all the Barbies are subservient to the Kens. What was Barbieland becomes Kendom. What was once a matriarchal society has now become Patriarchal. In the film Mattel, the company that created Barbie is run by men even though their products are for girls. The board of directors are all men and there is only one female member of staff (Gloria) in the whole company. For Mattel, making money is their priority, they don't care about the impact their products have on girls.

Womanhood

There was an emotional monologue by Gloria about womanhood and how difficult it is to be a woman in modern society. As women we are expected to adhere to a lot of unrealistic expectations such as beauty standards, always having to be selfless and putting others before ourselves. If we are bosses then we can't be assertive otherwise we are seen as being mean. Dealing with the difficulties of motherhood without complaining because we'll be seen negatively. We have to be humble about our accomplishments so that we don't make others uncomfortable. We are sometimes blamed for the bad behaviours of men. We have to be likeable. We are not allowed to fail. Being unable to keep up with these standards can make us feel like we are not good enough. The monologue hit deep for me because the experience of being a woman is very complex and nuanced. These are real challenges women go through and this monologue will resonate with many women.

I don't think the Barbie film would be for everyone, especially if you are not a Barbie fan already or a little girl. Overall, I do believe this film will leave a positive message to the viewers especially little girls.