AmyTylda

         2018 was a rollercoaster of a year! When I sit and reflect I realize that this year was quite long because A LOT of things happened. This year I became bolder, more confident, self-assured, vocal, discerning, resilient, tougher, more mature (well to an extent because the petty in me cannot go away so easily). I learnt more about my weaknesses and strengths and how to harness them for good, put myself first more often, put myself out there more, met some amazing people, strengthened some old bonds, became more appreciative of the people I have in my life. I also learnt a lot of lessons some of which I decided to share below: 1. Open your mouth and talk because: i. Closed mouths don’t get fed       Anything you want in this life, open your mouth and ask for it boldly. The same way you will not be able to eat if you mouth is closed is the same way many things won’t come your way unless you open your mouth and ask for them talk to ...

    Hi guys, today's post was written by my dear friend Ehiane in which she talks about Navigating relationships in your early 20s. Read and enjoy!     Disclaimer: I am in my very early 20s and I have very little dating/relationship experience so I’m not an expert on this in any way.       Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I’m going to be writing about navigating romantic relationships in your late teens and early 20s. Relationships are important but not quite as important as accomplishing your personal and professional goals so my first advice is to put off dating till you’re actually really ready to date which for me is going to be when I’m 80 years old. I’m kidding, but not really lol. We’re at the age where almost all our friends are dating/meeting people and most of the conversations we have with our friends now are about relationships and meeting boys/girls. From my writing, one can rightfully surmise that relationships are not my cu...

        We’ve all heard some variation of the above statement. While I have always believed women should have equal rights, I didn’t always want the feminist label. Why didn’t I want the feminist label you may ask? Well there’s a negative connotation surrounding the term “Feminist” and I didn’t want to be identified as such. People see feminists as bitter, angry, men haters who just want to dominate the world and make all men kiss their feet and I didn’t want to be identified as such.             Fast forward to 2014 when Beyoncé released Flawless ft Chimamanda Adichie. I was jamming to the song like any other person and then a snippet of CNA’s TEDx talk came up in which she defined Feminist as: " Feminist- A person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes”            So simple, right? It was at that point I realized that I had never bothered to find out what feminism me...

        Let me take you to the Gospel of Luke for a second, Luke 10:38-41             "As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha welcomed Him in her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat down at the feet of Jesus and listened to His teaching. Martha was upset over all the work she had to do so she came and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!" The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha! You are worried and troubled over so many things, but just one is needed. Mary has chosen the right thing and it will not be taken from her ”              This is one of my favorite Bible stories. When I was younger, it had me conflicted though as a part of me felt Jesus was a bit unfair to Martha. It was her after all, who went out of her way to welcome Him to their home, she went f...

       Often times, people equate a woman being sexually responsible to having only one sexual partner at a time/just a few in a lifetime. I however do not find this notion to be very accurate. To me, a woman can have numerous partners and be sexually responsible while another can have only one partner and be sexually irresponsible. How? You may ask, well I’ll explain below.            A sexually responsible woman is a woman who understands that she has full autonomy over her body and understands the importance of taking her sexual health very seriously. She understands that she has every right to say No to sex if she doesn’t want it and if she wants to, she has the right to decide whom she has sex with, when and how the act is to occur.                              The sexually responsible woman: 1. Understands her cycle       Every woman sh...

        There’s this ongoing outrage on social media concerning the Dencia - Black Chyna Whitenicious launch. A lot of people feel strongly about it because to them we shouldn’t be promoting bleaching creams in this time and age. People then started arguing about what causes people to bleach in the first place and during this argument I tweeted something along the lines of: “No matter how you want to spin it, bleaching most of the time is as a result of low self- esteem. Let’s tackle that first before we start talking of what caused them to have low self- esteem in the first place”              A while later, my friends Ehiane and Josephine saw the tweet and replied that they didn’t quite agree with my view. I maintained my stance and so we decided to take it to whatsapp to argue it out. Now, though my camera and lighting often tend to make me seem lighter than I am, I’m actually dark skinned and one of the major things I’v...

“ The quickest way to get over a man is to get under a new man ” some say.                 I can’t really comment on how effective it is but theoretically it makes some sense. As with all things, I guess people are different hence have different ways of dealing. Now, heartbreak can be really rough, icky, draining, damaging, stressful, painful, gut-wrenching, depressing and you name it. At times though, I believe it can be clarifying, strengthening, help you re-organize your life, give you a sense of purpose, prepare you for the future, help you discover yourself, help you become a better you and help propel you to exactly where you need to be.         As with a lot of people, I’ve been there before and it wasn’t pretty, AT ALL. You hear about so many coping mechanisms but at that point, I only found a few appealing. I had to take a little bit from here and there and add a little bit of mine to figure out how to cope in...

Just in case you have trouble viewing the above image, it says:       “Not everything is supposed to become something beautiful and long-lasting. Sometimes people come into your life to show you what is right and what is wrong, to show you who you can be, to teach you how to love yourself, to make you feel better for a while or to just be someone to walk with at night and spill your life to. Not everyone is going to stay forever, and we still have to keep going and thank them for what they’ve given us”-Emery Allen          For the most part, I think we as humans have been societally conditioned to romanticize the idea of “happily ever after” and so when something doesn’t lead to forever, we whine and complain, feel ashamed, get angry, bitter, pained and so on. We somehow believe that because a connection doesn’t lead to happily ever after it was a complete waste of time. I've come to realize that the fact that something doesn't last doesn't m...

       You see, I really love twitter. Not only is it very entertaining, it’s also very educative. Whether you realize it or not, you subconsciously pick things up from there. I remember one day, I was scrolling through my TL and saw someone complaining of how annoying passive aggressive people are. I realized that wasn’t the first time I was seeing/ hearing of that phrase and so I turned to my brain to remind me of what the phrase meant. My brain stared blankly at me because well, turns out I never really knew the meaning! As I always do when I’m clueless about a topic, I turned to google to explain the meaning of this familiar strange phrase to me.   “ Passive aggressive- of or denoting a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and or avoidance of direct confrontation”        OK Google! The definition made some sense yeah but I needed further explanation and examples and so I dug...

     " If you’re hot for Jesus, nothing can perch on you”         Those words struck me as the Priest (struggling to remember his name) said them that day during the homily. He further went on to explain the need to have an active spiritual life, a burning spiritual life, so hot that the arrows of the evil ones cannot hit you. Just as a bird in the air cannot perch on a hot surface so also can the devil’s work not harm you if you have a fiery spiritual life.        I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve had many periods in my life during which I was really just a dormant Christian. I mean, I can go on my knees daily, attend mass on Sundays, but that’s just it, nothing extra. During these periods, I usually stop reading my bible and devotional, stop visiting the Blessed Sacrament just to spend a moment with Jesus, stop attending weekday masses, stop praising and worshiping God as often as I should, stop investing my time in things th...