Tuesday 31 October 2017

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT FROM THE KENYAN POLITICS.


Unmasking my relationship to politics.

In the past couple of days, I have been an emotional wreck in regards to my country’s politics.

I have been see-sawing from positive to negative energies. I feel wronged, betrayed, suppressed, oppressed, neglected, forced to obey, marginalized, hopeless, sad, angry, vengeful. I see the politicians as having elevated themselves into god-like figures that are untouchable meaning, they can basically do whatever they want and get away with it, be it mass murder, grand thefts, corruption, intimidation etc. I see them as people that listen to no one, people that only listen to those that will support their self-interest ways. They are using all and whatever means to be and remain in power at the cost of a deterioration and even loss of life/livelihoods of others. I find them cold and heartless irresponsible humans. All these points have led me to conjuring nasty thoughts backchats within my mind. My mind as the thoughts, backchats, imaginations etc., is/are full of anger, hate, vengeance, rage, spite because I feel so wronged, so taken for granted, so betrayed and inferiorized like I am a nothing, a nobody, worthless, valueless. I feel I have lost, I am on the losing end and want to hate on and segregate those who do not support my political party.



I while back, I was overjoyed, thrilled and euphoric because politically, things had gone the party I supports way. They were happy and rejoiced over the victory and I rejoiced with them. I however within myself knew that, this joy was going to be short-lived because it was not real, at least not for me, for it was part of the feelings I got and get when things go my way. I felt avenged in a way that, now finally, things are looking better for the party I support. Part of me also knew I was playing with fire and yet, I refused to stop myself in participating within the positive energies. I recall very well just how much my body suffered especially my back because of my participation in the generation of immense amounts of positive energies. What I mean by ‘I was playing with fire’ is that, I know already through experience that, after participating in immense positive energy, for this to balance itself out, a time would come when I would be in the opposite end of the see-saw i.e. negative energies/emotions.

And indeed, this day came and because the party I support did not receive what I was expecting, I broke down almost instantly. I went into depression and immense stress that; I was completely unable to function in a normal way. I was so angry and enraged and I kept going online to see if someone could provide me an answer that I would accept as valid for me, there was none, instead, I became even more angry, enraged, depressed and really sad. I know quite well now how depression manifests, stress as well and yet, despite all the warning signs that I was heading down this way, I still did not stop.



My Self-Honesty points.

Where my country is today, was probably inevitable, this being a playout of consequences that were created a long time ago. So, what is my stand within all this? Who am I within all this?

Well, the political situation in Kenya right now is merely a trigger point of all the similar points I see manifest within and as my country as the people’s minds. I am no better than any other person holding anger, resentment, frustration, spite, vengeance, so much HATE and Rage towards those in a political party they do not support and the people within that party i.e. other tribes. Within me exists the truth of me wanting to hate on certain tribes because they support a political party I do not. I have seen and read many tribal hate points online.  What exists now in Kenya is nothing but a playout of what exists in most Kenyans if not all on an individual level but now playing out on a national scale.



HATE is HATE, ANGER is ANGER, RAGE is RAGE, SPITE is SPITE, etc., and these are all forms of ABUSE/Violence that exist within all of us as Kenyans/humanity. That’s why, I can’t and will not sit down and say, I can’t do anything about the political situation in Kenya because here I will be self-dishonest simply because, where we are today as a country/world is as a result of my equal contribution in the Hate, Anger, Rage, Vengeance, Spite, Selfishness, Remorse, the Nasty Thoughts and Backchats/internal conversations, the barbaric imaginations I/we all hoard towards each other or towards people of a certain tribes, the irresponsibility, the fear, the violence, the jealousy and envy I/we hoard towards one another and so much more!

An example I want to share here is how such emotions can wreak havoc in someone’s life using myself as an example. I live outside Kenya, and yet, all the reactions I generated as a result of my believes and perceptions about the Kenyan politics wreaked havoc in the people around me e.g. my children, Partner, colligues. I normally do my best within a day in terms of taking care of my family, working etc. but since the Kenyan election drama, I accepted and allowed myself to get lost within the emotions and I became overly emotional towards my partner and withdrawn from my kids. I withdrew myself from reality and into depression because., for me, I was looking at points of escape and emotions are the best part to escape to where I hide and blame others and everything for my experiences. I was becoming easily angry and irritated at the smallest of things and at one point, I even shouted at my partner who was always there asking me to step out of my reactions and take responsibility and I refused.

So this is what reactions will do if they are not understood and properly directed, they will rain havoc both within and without leading to violent outbursts, mental and physical breakdowns like depression and stress, hopelessness, sadness, losing the will to live, losing focus of making decisions that will support self and others the best way possible and even worse, violence and extreme cases of it.



Now going even deeper in unmasking this point and how it exists within me and how this political situation was just a trigger point for what already exists within me as well as everyone else.

When I look at myself, I like to win, we all do. Winning here would be in anything, an argument, an opinion, a game, presidency etc. why is winning important to me/us? It’s because of the value I have attached to winning in terms of how I feel when I win and how I feel when I lose. So here, winning is nothing but a belief system within my mind, defined by reactions, reactions based on my perceptions, expectations/anticipation of reality and people accepting my way/going my way.

With winning comes a prize as a defined sense of power and control, a superiority which I have defined as me being worthy/valued and therefore superior than others. For example, when others accept my point of view/opinion etc., I feel good about myself, I feel important, special, needed, wanted, appreciated, accepted, superior in the sense that, I have power, the power to be listened to and people accepting my opinions/advice/points of view etc. so here basically, people that like and accept my ideas, opinions, views, perceptions, expectations etc. are to me very important because, without them, I cannot be these things for myself. without them I have no power and control, I have no value since my value and power and control comes from them accepting what I tell them and them being on my side.

We play this game on an individual level every day, so do we have a right to point fingers? Can I sit here and you sit there and honestly say that others are to blame for the way I/you/we are? If I/you/we play this game on a personal level, what makes me/you/we think that, if we had the chance to play it on a bigger scale we wouldn’t do it? How can I/you/we be trusted to run our country together when running our own lives, WE HAVENT GOT A CLUE and even if we did, we still want to run and hide and justify and excuse our individual winning losing battles on a personal level where we get angry because so and so did this to us/me/You?



Going even deeper to unmask this relationship within my mind between me, my mind and my body. So why do I choose to react so much? It’s because I have been believing that, I have the right to react, that reactions are everything that defines me, that power me, that empower me, that add to me value and worth, make me think and believe I am in control of my life and therefore accepted and that, without reactions, I am powerless, abnormal, disempowered, defeated, not in control, rejected, inferior, vulnerable etc. this means to me that, I feel safe, comfortable and completely accepted by my reactions, why?, because within reactions, I can continue justifying and making excuses as to why, others are to blame and not me. I can keep believing that I have power and control, be it positive or negative energy. Meanwhile, I disregard my body, depicted very well when I am depressing and stressed for example, where, I take quite a while before sorting myself out in regards to my emotions, I run and hide in the comfort that comes with emotions, the comfort of power and control, the comfort of not having to lift a finger to actually take responsibility because apparently, others are to blame and not me. Therefore, my body has to take the bigger burden of sorting this mess out all on its own as I hide away within the bliss of my emotions. When my body shows extreme pain and discomfort, then and only then do I actually move to show an ounce of care of which in the actual sense is still based on self-interest and not real self-care because if this care and regard was real, I would have been more responsible in terms of self-introspection and taking self-responsibility and not waiting until things are really bad and there’s pain in order to do so because then, doing so in such a case becomes an act of self-interest.

So now, here I am, with my self-honesty, seeing and realizing that, the political situation in Kenya is not at all to be blamed for my reactions its role was that of triggering reactions/believes/perceptions etc. of points that’s already exists within me that I am angry towards myself about, I am sad, disempowered etc. not because of Jubilee or Nasa, but because of my own inability to stand and direct my life in a way that supports not only me but others as well, to create myself, my life in a way that, when I look at my creation as myself, I can see a reflection that is not based on self-interest but the principle of equality and oneness, the principle of democracy within myself.

I realize that, political parties do not have to define my worth or self-value and if they do, it simply shows that, I have not, understood, created and lived self-value/self-worth for myself first, it shows that, I do not value nor regard myself, I have not yet created and lived the meaning of self-worth, hence through not having these points existent within me, means I will always yearn and thirst for them outside of myself by doing anything and everything in my power to have others give the value and worth to me through actually playing very well calculated manipulative games i.e. self-politics.

I realize that, me feeling marginalized, oppressed, abused, misused, cheated disregarded etc. is actually me showing myself that, I am marginalizing myself, oppressing myself, misusing myself, cheating myself, disregarding myself etc. within myself within and as the very relationship I have towards my mind and yet, I choose to completely ignore this about myself, I instead participate within and as my mental illusions by joining forces with my mind and oppressing my body, making me the very manifestation of all the things I am busy blaming the politicians for. I am the ‘president’ within myself and yet, all I have done is allow my mind to run rampant and oppress, disregard, disrespect, abuse and misuse the body etc. while I too take part within this abuse towards my body. Same exact things our politicians represent, they are playing the very roles we play in our everyday life but just that, they are currently on the spotlight. Let’s not forget that we are our own spotlight. Our politicians are a real representation of who we all are on an individual level. We are all power/energy hungry beasts who will stop at nothing to get what we want in order to feel powerful, superior, recognized, accepted, to feel good etc. even if it means that others have to lose their lives/livelihoods, exactly what we do towards our bodies everyday as we shift between positive and negative energies and all that’s in-between.

I realize that, the events unfolding in Kenya politically are consequences of our past MISS-takes, Mistakes that I am equally responsible for creating, we all are. But we have an opportunity to learn from the MISS-takes through understanding of self first where each takes a moment and reflects on the truth of self and each realizes that, each has a given PRESENT opportunity to TAKE RESPONSE-ABILITY onto each’s own hands and make decision that are not based on self-interest but based on what’s best for all. what’s best for all is best for self. Buts it’s not always what’s best for self means its what’s best for all. Be honest with yourself, change must be who you are, not what you believe.

In as much as it seems terrible and twisted, I am grateful to both Jubilee and NASA, for they have been my gift in disguise, they have triggered me to see my relationship towards myself and politics and a chance to actually correct it. They have supported me to see and realize that, they are not the problem, I am, I have been all along and the beauty of this realization is that, I can and will me my own solution first, before we even get to bigger solutions. So, a question to all Kenyans, how has the political situation in Kenya of late supported you to shape/change you? Are you/have you learnt something about yourself that can support you to create a better version of you or are you still holding on to the politics out there and forgetting all about the politics within you? It is within all of us that politics are born, shaped and brought to life as what we see today. So for us to change out outer politics, we much get to see, know, realize and understand our inner politics and how it creates our outer politics.

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