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Tuesday, 15 November 2016

TOLERANCE, AN IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP VIRTUE

*walks in, looks around and starts clearing all the cobwebs..lool* Yes i know i have away...dollar is high..that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it.


‘I hate how she presses the toothpaste from the middle and not the bottom’
‘Oh and let’s not even talk about the fact that he doesn’t replace the cap back on after using the toothpaste’

And then what? I ask.


Often times I wonder why is it so difficult for most of us to show tolerance towards others. Like why is it so important to have things go ‘our way’, win an argument or a game? Why does everything have to be a competition? Why do we often have to have the last word? Why do we walk away from a verbal wrestle thinking: ‘oh damn, I did show him/her’! Or ‘good, I’ve really put her in her place this time!’ why do we need to engage in a verbal wrestle at all?

We often talk about Tolerance. But do we really know what it means? Tolerance according to the oxford dictionary, means having a disposition to be patient with or indulgent to the opinions or practice of others.

I believe a lot of us have that strong competitive streak about us, which may have well being part of our genetic make-up but is also strongly reinforced by the society we live in where WINNING IS EVERYTHING.


At what point do we get in tuned to the spirit of competition? Is it at a tender age? Thinking about it now, I would suspect so; especially for those of us who have other siblings. As soon as a sibling appears in our world, we most likely begin right there and then to compete for mother’s attention. We get put out when we realise-somewhere in our first year of life that she has other things to attend to apart from cuddling or feeding us. And so it continues. God help him or her who tries to play with our toys by the time we are 2. Claim Daddy’s knee that we believe has only OUR name on it at age 3; show off the pretty dress to Sandy whose dress is nowhere as gorgeous as MINE at age 4; tell Rob next door that ‘MY’ daddy is bigger than yours, so watch out! At age 5. And it goes on and on. If we don’t have people in our world who have an understanding of these dynamics or who are unable to help us balance our natural selfishness (which is a normal part of child’s growth process) with a level of empathy and sensitivity, the competitive spirit simply grows and grows within us.

School forces us into its own competitive mold. If we do well academically, are the prettiest girl or the sportiest boy you get a lot of positive reinforcement! If not, you simply fade into the background. If you are unable to keep up with the majority of kids, happen to have a wart on your nose or suffer the great misfortune of being covered with acne, you’ll most likely be the butt for cruel jokes. If you’ve been subjected to years of this type of treatment, by the time you reach adulthood you will have absorbed tens of thousands of demeaning messages, and chances are high that you have come to the following conclusion:

‘If I am not a winner I must be a loser’
‘If I don’t conform, I just don’t fit’
‘If I don’t perform to some external standard, I’m a failure’

So then giving all of that, is it any wonder that being tolerant of others is pretty difficult? Not really!
But as easy as it is to understand, it also needs to be noted that intolerance is incredibly tough on our relationships and can be an absolute deal-breaker.

Looking at the example I gave above: how important is it that the cap of the toothpaste is replaced or that the toothpaste be pressed from the bottom not the middle. Who dies if it’s not done the ‘right way’?


Why make such a big deal out of something so insignificant? It’s ANNOYING!  Yes sure but so what? Everyone has their vices but is it worth fighting over NOTHING? I don’t think so.
Am I saying that you shouldn’t address those idiosyncrasies that drive your partner crazy? Not at all! I am only suggesting that you don’t get your knickers in a knot over some habit, personality quirks or other expression of your partner’s need to retain a part of themselves in the relationship because IT SIMPLY IS NOT WORTH THE FIGHT.

Think about it- what might happen if you show a bit of tolerance?
How would it be if you lost the occasional battle?


I would like to challenge you to ask yourself how you feel each time intolerance strikes. There could be a million reasons hiding in your past that may be responsible for why you feel intolerant. Be sure to explore all possibilities and do whatever you can to get rid of any destructive baggage that you carry with you from the past. On that note I would leave you with this:

·         Every so often be sure to let others enjoy the pleasure of being right
·         Pick your battles wisely
·         Don’t major on things of minor importance
·         Always give others the benefit of doubt
·         Remember that people are imperfect
·         Recognise that YOU ARE IMPERFECT TOO……. and realise that the world won’t come to an end if you get things wrong every so often!

Let’s Learn to Tolerant each other. 

Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Who are you?





‘Don’t be too successful and chase the men away’ she said and I replied; ‘if a man is scared of my success then that’s not the kind of man I want to be with’…so I looked at him and asked ‘are men really scared of strong successful women?  He pauses for a while then says; ‘the honest truth is men like strong successful women and every woman wants same from her man but there is more going on than merely a meeting of the minds’.

Hmmm and that got me thinking right! What never really occurs to any of us is that:
We are being evaluated on far more than our most ‘impressive traits’.

Sometimes these traits come with a significant downside that is painful to acknowledge. Take me for example right! I’m a reasonable person (at least I think I am), I’m fairly independent, I’m smart, great sense of humor, I can hold a good conversation and so on; but right behind my good traits are a series of bad traits. Anyone who knows me to a certain level can testify to that:

The flip side of being bright is being opinionated
The flip side of being analytical is being difficult
The flip side of being funny is being sarcastic
The flip side of having moral clarity is being arrogant
The flip side of being entrepreneurial is being a workaholic
The flip side of being charismatic is being self-centred
The flip side of being a go-getter is being impatient

Again, NOT EVERY person who is bright is opinionated, and NOT EVERY person who is funny is sarcastic. But there’s enough anecdotal evidence to suggest a strong correlation. And I’m just talking about MYSELF here. So if my good qualities come with bad qualities, have you considered that yours might as well?

We all have that perception that it’s hard meeting people who would appreciate our qualities. I mean what we think is great and what we’re putting out there, and how people actually see us tends to be very different.

At some point I believed I was unlucky in love with a penchant for attracting emotionally unavailable men and assclowns. I often described myself as ambitious, a go-getter, outgoing, attractive, intelligent, and then some more. Whilst there is no escaping the fact that I did go out with men who acted like assclowns at some point, it was a bit of a shocker to discover that on a deeper, honest, reflection, I was aloof, picky, sarcastic, pushy, and often times difficult where I thought I was having fun and being ‘entertaining’.

It’s always very easy to focus on the surface qualities that we believe are our selling points and totally ignore other more important characteristics and behaviors that may possibly be impacting on our ability to have relationships. It doesn’t matter how intelligent, pretty/handsome or ambitious you are; if you’re afraid of commitment and subconsciously sabotaging anything that may lead to it.
There’s no point in being beautiful/handsome if you don’t act that way or harbor beliefs about your own abilities that impact on your self-esteem. We also have to accept that if we can find faults and flaws with others…that people will find those with us too. No one is perfect.

It’s not about taking the onus off the people that don’t appreciate us for who we are but it is about taking responsibility for who you are and recognizing that not everything about you is that wonderful. I used to be able to list countless faults (infact I could write a book if I had to) about the men I met and dated, but rarely paid attention to my own flaws. It’s so easy for us to mention the faults of others and not look at ours. It’s so easy to blame the ex on everything that went wrong in the relationship and forget we were also part of the relationship (it takes two to tango). At some point in my life I realized that, who I thought I was and who I really was had to reconcile and in that, I hope I’m able to forge far better relationships from an honest level.

So next time you bemoan your relationship luck and list your surface qualities, view yourself from another person’s perspective and even play back recent dates and scenes from previous relationships in your mind.

Could you be doing something differently?

Let me know your opinion

Xoxo Chantel 

Wednesday, 13 April 2016

Blogger & OAP Elsie Godwin, Releases New Photos to Celebrate another year in her life












Blogger & OAP, Elsie Godwin, Releases New Photos To Celebrate Her Birthday

Elsie Godwin, a final year student of Lagos State University, is a Nigerian Entrepreneur who has carved a niche as a prolific Lifestyle and Relationship online and on-air personality.
In 2014 she identified and saw the need to be heard, her strong opinion on relationship and lifestyle in general, led her to becoming a blogger hence the www.elsieisy.com platform. That soon got her the attention of many from her strong and insightful posts on relationship and self-esteem amongst young people.

Today she reaches over 30k people daily online, her fame online has led to her founding the “hangout with Elsieisy platform”; a platform that gives room for her online family to meet her physically to share and discus their life experiences. This has created a connect amongst so many of her readers, built new opportunities for network and businesses within Elsians as she so fondly calls them.




She is currently the host of an online radio show on Happenings Radio called “Crux of the Matter” this is just to add to the responds and answers to the questions of many online.
She is also currently shooting a show on AQC AFRICA as the host of “Making the Stories”; a campus TV show design to introduce admission and requirements, guide students/ applicants through school activities and lifestyle around Africa.
Elsie is a God fearing woman, a passionate and visionary personality, she supports and believes in the agenda for a new and better Nigeria. She believes in freedom of expression and the need for less hypocrisy and more bluntness in the society.

See more photos 









Happy birthday Elsie

Styled by FloDee Clothing (Instagram – Flodeeco)
Hair by Xclusive Salon Wahala ( Instagram – Xclusivesalonwahala)
Make up by Rainbow Artistry (Instagram – Rainbows_artistry)