Through adversity to the stars.

I got struck with this title a long while back, sometime last year actually. I have nursed the ambition of the content of it, right from my subconscious mind, now it has transmuted into reality.

It sounds surreal to write this, with this kind of title, because no one’s got to Eldorado yet, not even I. But then, a serial flow of MIP series, each leading into the next would not be a bad idea after all. If I ever mentioned that the LONG WALK TO FREEDOM could be distressing and full of adversity, then you would need this.

Like I had written in earlier MIP series, the date 01:08 feels me with a tinge of a sensational emotion. First, it feels like a race to time, next it feels like an impending eclipse or some apocalypse of some sort – because I have to keep up somewhat with this. Either way, I’m lovin’ it!

This being the ékérin (Yoruba version of ‘a fourth’) of MIP, has filled me with an overwhelming sense of gratitude tinged with accomplishment in its right dose. Year in, year out, there is a dilemma I grapple with, not for want of what to write, but how to go about it. There is usually an avalanché – ideas, phrases, moments, events, occurrences and whatnot, hence writing can be such a daunting task sometimes. But then, you’ve got to do what you’ve got do.

The last one year has been one of many parts, between the last MIP and now, there has been a ton of happenings. In the middle of it, I got shot with one fine little arrow, replete with a finesse a gazelle would be jealous of. Laden with shades of bittersweet in uneven proportions, I can sum up its lessons in a three-pronged manner. One, long term consistency would always, always ridicule short term intensity. Two, the only time it might be okay to give a 100 (or 80) and get far less should only be when you’re donating blood. The third – the most unnerving of the lot, can remain in the shadows for now.

Personally, many waters have passed under the bridge, sweeping in its tide life-changing, hair-raising, nerve-bending, palpitating, heart-racing, eye-popping experiences, including near-death ones. Ones I have had to go through teary eyed and starry-eyed, such that at some point, the only thing that kept me going was the recollection of my name – which actually sometimes only felt like a promissory note. In reality, to say the last one year has been one comfort, bliss and delectation would only have been very valid if today was World Irony Day.

The world over is replete with individuals who have gone through various forms of adversities, each severe in its own right, and have shone like a million stars. For want of brevity, I would restrict myself to traits I have discovered can help come through the process as a refined star: THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION.

First off, is the admittance that adversity is inevitable – there is no way around it: we will all experience difficulties – in varied densities and proportions – we will feel the touch of failure. What’s worse? When you have a thing or two to aim for, you might have to grapple with more serious form of adversity, it’s pretty normal, for if you have nothing to struggle for, you definitely have nothing to struggle against.

However, if (or when) the last candlelight of hope flickers into nothingness, your wisps of soot you might need to work with is the mental strength of your mind. One sure-fire way to exercise your mind to improve your mental strength to be ready to handle whatever life throws at you is the mastery of Principle of Auto-suggestion.

What then is the Principle of Auto-suggestion?

I think the Bible has the best, most simple definition of it in Romans 4:17b; “…calling those things which be not, as tho they were.”

Expressing this in stronger terms, it says; anyone who does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things which he says shall come to pass; he shall have WHATSOEVER he says.”

To start with, you would have to come to the understanding that every single human – with one or all of the 5 senses, uses this principle to get the littlest thing done, albeit subconsciously. If you have ever had to think about seeing a brand of cars daily, and for the next one, two weeks, you actually see (which in your mental realm is “notice”) them, then you have successfully used this golden principle.

You see, nature has so built man to have ABSOLUTE CONTROL over the thought materials which reaches his subconscious mind, through any of his five senses. This of course does not mean man EXCERCISES this control, in actual fact he mostly does not. This right here is the difference between those who go through adversity and rise out of it like a phoenix and those who life pummel to the very depth of its adversity, and they ‘die daily’ in its harsh, spiky misery. This second group go through life grappling with unhappiness, distress, wretchedness, hardship, suffering, affliction, anguish, anxiety, angst, torment, torture, agony, discomfort, deprivation, poverty, grief, heartache, heartbreak, despair, despondency, dejection, depression, desolation, melancholy, woe, sadness, sorrow; not because they chose to, but because they in one way or the other, have applied the principle of Auto-suggestion to a negative, destructive end.

Actually, we all go through any or some of these, but while some reach the finish line victorious, others fall by the wayside. There’s got to be something that separates the two groups.

ADVERSITY OFTEN PREPARES ORDINARY PEOPLE FOR EXTRAORDINARY DESTINY

– C. S Lewis.

OFTEN. Means, (while everyone goes through adversity) sometimes the ‘extraordinary destiny’ doesn’t happen to some people.

To go through adversity to the stars means you must daily and deliberately build your subconscious mind. Using the principle of Auto-suggestion positively will get you no appreciable results until you learn to reach your subconscious mind with a thought system, backed up with spoken words, which have been well emotionalized with belief. It starts with the mind…

“If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t,
If you like to win, but you think you can’t
It is almost certain you won’t.

Belief, desire and other thoughts of the ether, definitely outwits nature and forces it to act in alignment with your thought impulses. One valid proof of this is a doctor who had defied science and nature by curing his patients, making them repeat out loud: “Day by day, in every way I am getting better and better”. Your thoughts, backed by action, can transmute themselves into physical, outward actions and experiences. Furthermore, through the principle of Auto-suggestion, any desire you persistently hold in your subconscious mind will seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will
IT’S ALL IN THE STATE OF MIND.

The subconscious mind is the laboratory where thought impulses are formed and made ready for physical transmutation. The mind has no distinction for negative or positive thought impulses; it would translate all thought impulses as materials fed to it into physical realities. The mind translates a destructive thought driven by fear and anxiety into its physical equivalent, as it would, a constructive thought driven by courage and faith.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

As you read this, understand and begin to see your mind as a glistening diamond of limitless purpose. For all you will live, and when you die, your proudest moment would come from the use of your mind to your greatest advantage.

All the gods, all the Heavens, all the Hells are within you. Pick your spot!

Here’s to;

God – in whose palms I am engraved.

You  – wanting to wake up feeling like a million bucks.

– who sometimes feel like insufficient funds.

– going through adversity, reaching for the stars.

– trying to get ahead in this maze called life.

SuperAkerele – for getting better at this – being SuperAkerele.

Akerele Oluranti;

3:29am, 01/08/2017

E: superakerele@gmail.com

T: @Super_Akerele

IG: superakerele