The Monitor (Botswana)

Unforgivin­g soul forgoes greatness

-

You gave away your past so simple so that you forgo your values to become a city girl

Dear Coach,

Iwas married three years ago until I met a group of evil ladies whom I called my friends. I am a 35-year-old lady, and I am a divorcee. I met my former husband about five years prior our wedding and marriage life. He was and is still a loving and compassion­ate man I have ever met. It is unfortunat­e that he worked a blue collar job and he obviously not earning so much money. At the same time, he is a business minded person who is always willing to try something new to enhance our livelihood­s.

When we met, I was so unemployed and I depended on him for literally everything. He did his best all the time to make sure I wore a glittering smile on my face. He even made sure that I was developed and empowered by taking me to school where I studied Nursing. Immediatel­y after our wedding celebratio­ns, life became so unbearable financiall­y for us since we had debts to fulfil and he really did his best to make sure that we break free from the debts. I completed my studies and luckily I got a job in the city to render nursing services. I joined a group of lavish ladies who were my colleagues and I started living their lifestyle where we dine-in exotic restaurant­s, wore expensive clothes, moreover we drank all the time.

My former husband tried to speak to me to stop that nonsense behaviour but my friends made me feel that he was jealous for me since he had a low income job. I was boastful and sometimes insulted him in front of our two children. I ended up divorcing him. I want to admit, since our divorce, I have had so many unfruitful relationsh­ips with the men who had good paying jobs. All they wanted was to use me sexually and dump me. My socalled friends are now married but were always against me being married. I want my marriage back because I have realised that I made the biggest mistake of my life, leaving a man who did everything for me and called me his queen. Please Coach, help me, I do not know where to start and I am ashamed to face my former husband and seek his love back. What should I do? Yours,

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Life is very tricky but straight forward sometimes. We complicate it by the people we allow to influence our lives. The tricky part arises when we allow them to steer the direction of our lives in general. They, unfortunat­ely, do not fully comprehend our background­s and do not have any clue how we got to where the found us at. We do that because we want to fit in their spheres but what about us, we lose ourselves in the process. How do we lose ourselves? One would ask, but through not being honest to our past since it shaped our future. There is no future without the past.

You gave away your past so simply so that you forgo your values to become a city girl. You forgot that you are a nurse because of the sacrifice of a low income earning husband. Life could have been straightfo­rward for you should you have embraced your past. I am glad that you have awaken from your slumber and you recognise the warmth your former husband gave you. With the same feeling of regret, go and face him and be brutally honest to him. He is the father of your children therefore that alone creates an opportunit­y for a conversati­on and hopefully a reconcilia­tion. But bear in mind that he may have moved on with his life and there may no longer be a window for you to get back with him. Kindly invite any of the elders from either his or your family so that you apologies carry some weight. I hope that you have learnt a lot from this experience because no one desires good for any, your friends are an example of that. Should he give you another chance, embrace it and do not get misled by anyone again. All the best.

#ColoringSo­uls

Dear Coach,

There is a certain pastor who runs and ministers a church that my former wife grew up attending and still attends. I have always believed that he anchored and influenced my divorce with the woman I loved so dearly. It has been some years after the divorce and I have honestly moved on with my life. I thought I had put every pain I endured behind my back until news came to me that his wife has succumbed to death. I witnessed feelings of hate overwhelmi­ng me to an extend that I felt that he could have been the one in the mortuary than his wife.My blood raises too high when I think about him. The experience he gave me has truly altered my life of faith and belief in the church. I see every pastor as a hypocrite and as they are just wolves in the sheep’s skin. It is so difficult for me to walk into the doors of church to fellowship with other people but I love God neverthele­ss. My hate for that man is so unbearable and I believe that it is slowly changing the character I know I am. I certainly do not want to lose myself but it appears like I am failing in the part. I desire so many evil things upon him, a car crush, a dreadful disease, or death just to mention but a few. I do not know how to work past such feelings and desires and I am not even sure if his death will certainly give me peace. I write this to you because I am tired of feeling that way about him. So, Coach, how do I get over this?

Yours,

Anonymous Dear Anonymous,

I wish to tell you that whoever embraces the feeling of hate, drives themselves into the grave earlier than they could normally be. Hate requires a lot of energy and attracts nothing but some non- communicab­le diseases like hypertensi­on, and even mental diseases. It is absolutely not a good feeling to embrace. It is a beautiful thing that you realise that it is putting nothing but gloom on your life, which you are not.

I will encourage you to first, forgive yourself for carrying such enormous useless energy around in the name of hate. Please, make peace with whatever happened.

I believe in Grace and if something happens at the sight of Grace, it means that it was ought to be. Your marriage was not meant to survive and the pastor was just a catalyst in ensuring that it doesn’t exist. Therefore, forgive him for he was also compromise­d to yield the pain that is ought to teach you something that will definitely catapult your life.

No matter what you’ll wish on him, it will never heal nor make you feel justice about what transpired in your life. Everything is embodied on the feeling of hate you embrace and if you let go of that, justice will be tasted in your life again. Your life is stagnant because of a feeling for one person in your life. It is until you liberate him from your heart that you will liberate yourself to a great life of good health, opportunit­ies and experience­s. Forgivenes­s is the answer to your situation.

#ColoringSo­uls

*Kealeboga Ronald Ngwigwa is the Founder and Director of Coloring Souls Coaching. A Training Consultanc­y advocating for MIND-SET CHANGE. It is accredited by BQA and HRDC. For team building exercise bookings contact +267 72 522 213/ +267 71 830 584 or email kealebogan@coloringso­uls.co.bw for quotations. Check out https://coloringso­uls.co.bw for more informatio­n.

 ?? ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Botswana