JOURNEY OF SELF-LOVE
“Brendon came into my life when I had met a few people through dating. It just didn’t work out with them – it’s either there was something I didn’t like, or we didn’t gel. With Brendon, however, I liked everything about him. Before I met him, I said to my best friend, Nomndeni, about the dating world: ‘I keep meeting people but there is something that doesn’t click or something doesn’t feel right.’ She said, ‘Most of the time when we meet people that are not complete, it’s because you’re not complete yourself so maybe take time off dating and focus on yourself.’ And so my journey to self love began.
“I went through this self-affirmation process by reading the right books and listening to the likes of T.D Jakes. I read this one book that talks to women about the things we have made normal, which are not right but as women, we convince ourselves that things will be okay,” says the DJ about that time of her life.
She continues: “I also started journaling and blogging a lot about the things I’m grateful for. It’s the little things that bring me joy, like picking Kairo up and seeing her laugh. I also have reminders on my phone that pop up at 1pm everyday, which say ‘Zinhle, you are beautiful’, ‘you should be proud of yourself’, ‘look how far you’ve come’, or ‘you have a beautiful smile’. They remind me to focus on the positive, even when things don’t go my way. I also have gratitude prayers, which improve my work ethic and personal outlook. We [women] usually forget ourselves in the process of things happening.”
“For me, the bridge between healing and getting to a space where I could love and trust again, there had to be a lot of self love and finding myself because as women, we are not kind to ourselves. Small things – like missing a turn when you drive and then calling yourself stupid, or saying you’re ugly because you’re fat – get to us. How can you use the word ugly and have you in it? We neglect ourselves a lot because we were not taught self love. It’s something we need to learn now – from raising kids and building our careers to taking care of the family, now we have to learn about self-care, it’s difficult but worth it,” says the entrepreneur.
“Whenever I speak to women, I tell them to be selfish. We always want to be superwomen and take care of everyone else but ourselves. It’s time we set aside time some ‘me time’ and just do the things we love and make us happy, for a change.”