Be Inspired by Miss Stone

Unless you have sat with pain, don't think you can walk into my space and try to suck the air out of the room, in the hopes that I will suffocate. It is your own lungs you are damaging. Unless you have been to the centre of your soul and confronted your demons, spoken to them and fought with them, don't think you can try to awaken mine and not expect a full on war. It is your tortured soul that will suffer a loss. Unless you have experienced loss, sat with it, kept it company, asked it to leave so you can heal and be whole, don't try to take things from me and think that it is I who will suffer the loss. I've learned to plant where the rain has washed away. And what I plant always blooms. Unless you have been degraded and broken and torn to shreds, don't try to crush me and think you will not be the one who walks away with broken bones. My bones are not brittle. I have experienced pain. I have confronted it head on. I have talked to pain and asked pain to le...

I have come to accept that I may not be your cup of tea... Instead, I am a strong cup with some milk. You like yours weak. My strength cannot be watered down for your taste. I will remain strong and sweet. And you may not like it that way.   Neither am I your favourite meal. I cannot be served in portions and discarded when you have had enough to eat. I am rich in flavour. I am spicy yet kind to your taste buds, so that the one who may have me, will taste in abundance and even when sated, will continue wanting more of my flavour. But not everyone can eat. I am not your favourite soapie with a story line you are able to predict, that merely provides 30 minutes of entertainment and leaves you wanting more. Waiting for the next instalment. Although you already know what is about to come. I am not here for your entertainment.   People will enter your life and think they know you. And when they realise you are not to be boxed in, or do not taste the way they had though...

When I was younger and people saw my freckles, flat nose and diastema first, commenting on that, I felt a bit insecure. Not because of the things they said, because it really wasn't bad, but because I thought to myself, 'Is this truly all they see? Can they not see that inside, I am amazing too, despite the gaps I may have?'  As I left adolescence behind me and became a woman, and my breasts bloomed and thighs became fatter, men commented too. They would speak of this thickness and all its glory. They would talk of the arch of my back and my plum shaped derrière. And even then I would think 'Can they not see the richness of this heart? The fullness of love it carries? The thickness of my care? Are they so blind that they cannot see my Soul and all it has to offer?' And then the Clinical Psychologist title became synonymous with my name, as I entered the professional world, and people would talk about my tattoos and how my body looked like a canvas. They wou...

I didn't fall in love. I didn't even stumble into it. It was more like a casual stroll.  You know those walks you take on a warm Summers day, just admiring the flowers in bloom, listening to the birds chirping, watching the clouds float away from and towards each other... and then suddenly you bump into someone you haven't seen in years and start chatting and laughing? And it ends up being the best conversation you've had in a while and you really don't want it to end. You want more of it. And at the end of it, you walk away feeling like damn, can that happen again?  Yeah, it was one of those casual strolls. I walked into it slowly, admiring its beauty at first. Listening to its musicality, trying to take in every note and lyric. Observing its dynamics, how it deals with both the good and bad. And then, when I least expected it, I was captivated by it. I hung onto love's every word, it's laughter was music to my ears. I felt I could talk forever wit...

I've fallen hard... This year started on shaky ground. Moving to a new town, everything seemed scary. Different. Leaving what I was comfortable with and having to find a new rhythm seemed like such a difficult task. And it proved to be just that. I stumbled a few times and I fell hard too. Many nights I was awake and spoke to God, but the answers never seemed to come. I questioned so many things. I struggled to comprehend even more. On the floor, in my solitude, I thought this might be the best place for me, because I was in the perfect position to pray.  I was tested in relationships too. I fell quite a few times there too. I was made to believe that I was unwell. And I believed it. I actually did. I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the person looking back at me. I was an empty shell. Hollow. Lacking substance. I allowed someone else to drain the life from my precious body and leave me questioning my self worth. How ironic? A Psychologist who prides herself i...

Young Girl, don't you ever lose your wonder...   I remember many times, in this so called new South Africa, when I was treated differently because of the colour of my skin or the language I spoke. I cannot remember how many times I walked into a store in this city and was mistreated because I spoke English. As soon as I spoke Afrikaans, I was greeted slightly louder, the barely there smile grew bigger and the below par service I received was suddenly on par. Because I changed the language I spoke. Now, Afrikaans is my mother tongue, so I have no problem speaking it, but this behaviour shows me that to some, Afrikaans is superior. Better than. Higher than. Dominant.   This morning when I woke up, we were faced with more problems. Hair. The Afro. When you Google 'Afro', the first definition you find is this: 'A hairstyle consisting of a mass of very tight curls that stick out all round the head, like the natural hair of some Black people....

Look in the mirror, what do you see? For a moment in time, this is what I saw: Hair. Straight, but not quite straight enough. Curly, but not quite curly enough either. Not quite. Eyes. Brown. Not hazel or any other colour that would turn heads. Just brown. And when I smiled, I looked almost Asian. Almost. Just not quite. Nose. Round. Not long or pointy. Not quite as nice as those I saw in the magazines. Lips. Full. Full of colour, full of life. Too full maybe. Not quite as perfectly shaped as that fashion model I saw in the pictures in the Cosmopolitan magazine. Teeth. Gap toothed. Why didn't my parents ever consider braces? They are way too skew. Not quite perfect. Far from it. Arms. Not quite as toned as that star athlete at school. They are actually a bit saggy. Not quite good enough actually. Oh honey and those breasts. Certainly not quite as big as they should be. They don't fill those cups as they should. Quite frankly, they are not what the boys like. They are q...