Insight By Jael

 Briefly, Perfectly Human is a book written by Alua Arthur. Its such an amazing book on death and Mortality and how Alua rose from being a depressed  Lawyer to death doula  I know most of us are not familiar with the word doula because it is not used as much here in kenya and in Africa at large. A doula was originally(and still is) a word used for midwives who took/takes care of women before, during and after birth. That's a birth doula and they are many here in Kenya we don't just call them that. Death doulas are also many in Kenya and we also don't call them that. A death doula or an end of life doula takes care of someone in their last stages of living before death. This is common in patients with terminal illness. It's what most care givers do, they also don't realise that it has a name. Doulas work with these people to fulfil their last wishes, talk about the life they lived, help them identify what they need to do before death so they don't burden their lo...

It's interesting how seasons works and they for sure do not last. Especially the bad ones. First quarter of the year was that bad season for me. Hospitalised with anaemia of 4.6 due to extreme blood loss during my periods and Open myomectomy surgery in the same month. Let's not talk about the experience in theatre and in that twenty days post op. My healing journey has been so smooth and I am really, reallyyy questioning my whole menstrual health situation. I might have suffered for far too long for far too many years. I think my situation only escaleted about two years prior the surgery but started around the years that I first got menses. Being a girl is hard and tiring. Especially a girl with menstrual health issues. We've seen how endometriosis is becoming a thing now especially since a lot of women are now openly talking about it. Fibroids and cysts are also very common and it still shocks me how many people I've met and talked to who've done either open myomec...

 I am back again after I stopped reading books in March because my life almost ended. Since I'm now healed, lets get back to business. The Kite Runner  This book is phenomenal, amazing, thought provoking and everything good. It explains trauma well, has all sorts of violence and i never knew I'd be so intrested in historical fiction especially one that is based on Afghanistan history. Now my new interest in books is on historical fiction. I've loved non-fiction for long because you get to learn a lot especially since I'm big on self-development, and personal growth and also since my career as a psychologist expects me to read a lot of that. So, the kite runner. I love the author of this book Khaled Hosseini. I love how he brings out his characters. The story is based in Afghanistan from a boy called Amir, talks about his baba and their servant whose son happened to be Amir's step brother. The book is full of grief, trauma, violence, including sexual violence, war, p...

 I'm four months post myomectomy now, please clap for me. I never saw myself past week three post theatre. Those first three weeks were overwhelming especially the third week.  Today, at month five, the pain is long forgotten and i even almost forgot the name of my OB-gyna that tells me that I've really healed. First of all, let's all shout BETTER DAYS!  No, infact let's chant BETTER DAYS! BETTER DAYS! BETTER DAYS! I'm definitely in my better days and in my most perfect days. You know what I love the most about being fibroid free? Freedom... Free from anxiety, free from overbleeding, free from over spending money on pads and painkillers, free from more than 4days of blood flow, free from the mental and physical tiredness that comes with heavy menses, free from counter checking if i messed up, free from taking impromptu taxis home after heavy clots that flow freely past clothes, free from planning my fucking days around my period Free from a miserable like that almos...

I can't believe I am now a full adult member of the society. I'm twenty-eight... just like that. I'm two years away from turning thirty. My 23 and 25yr old self must be amazed at how I changed. The dreams and goals that I had changed so much. I gave up on some dreams and took up others. I am way more exposed than I was before. I now dream even bigger because i know that I can aim for more and get it. I am more self-aware and I made peace with who I am. I stopped questioning God on why he made me like this and not like that. I love who I am now and I am more linient on myself when I feel threatened by someone else's personality and capabilities by reminding myself that I am equally an amazing and incredible person like them, maybe not in the same way but in different ways. My career is more firm than before, I'm not there yet but I am almost there. I decided to focus more on grief and trauma and mental health advocacy cause that's where my strength is. I'm ea...

 I honestly never knew I would ever reach this far into healing post surgery. I was so fixated on the experience I got in the hospital pre theatre, during and post theatre. Now none of those thing matter anymore because life went back to normal and I am healed but I keep feeling guilty for forgetting such an experience yet it was a big part of my life. At 12 weeks post op, my menses went back to a perfect normal. I now have a three day period and my period flow reduced by about 80%. I am more productive on my second day of my period and my quality of life improved by far. I am now questioning my whole menstrual health because I cant remember the last time I was this productive. My menstrual problem seem to have started way before I thought it did.  My scar is now more like a scar and less like an incision. I can now jump, run and move around more. Now I feel like my dreams are valid, like I can go after what I want without constantly thinking about excessive bleeding, seven to...

 I can't believe I made it this far in my healing journey post a major surgery. This can only be God and it really does get easier with time. I did myomectomy surgery to remove apparently a 12cm fibroid(considered big) that almost took me out with severe anaemia beginning of March. I never saw myself as someone who would one day go to theatre for anything leave alone hospital admission. I was okay on that Wednesday morning and was admitted by the end of the day. Life has been good, I am now more stronger and more independent. I've resumed my normal routines and even went back to work. My incision looks more like a scar and a permanent mark of the battles I had with fibroids. I can now comfortably use matatu, cross roads, walk more steadily, get in and out of bed comfortably, sleep on my stomach, wear trousers, shower comfortably and move around comfortably. I had a very good surgeon, the surgery went well and my healing hasn't been hectic. I've had a smooth healing proc...

 I am 3 weeks post open myomectomy surgery and almost a month since I was admitted for severe anemia. March has been a bittersweet month for me. I got hospitalised/admitted for the first time in my life and had a major surgery which is crazy. Life has taught me that things could change any minute and death is not as far as we think. Life can literally end at any minute. March has been bitter because I've had to endure peak pain and discomfort from my struggle with heavy and painful menses, to the many injections and blood transfusion in the hospital to the quiet and cold room moments before theatre, the epidural injection and the anaesthetist that i hated so much, the discomfort during surgery, another cold waiting room moment after theatre, the journey back to the ward after surgery, the pain minutes before every next dose of pain killers, the first night after surgery, the removal of the catheter, the first trip to the toilet, first pee, first long call, the pain of sleeping on o...

  “In those days, people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,  and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’” — Jeremiah 31:29 I came across this verse in both books that I read in February. Initially, my goal was to finish four books by the end of the month. But the first one I picked up,  Bittersweet by Susan Cain, was so rich and layered that I found myself slowing down. Every page carried so many ideas and insights that I needed time to sit with them. That book, together with the next one I read, unexpectedly made me fall in love with the topic of trauma. For a long time, I had avoided anything related to trauma because I saw it as overwhelming, too complex, too wide, too mentally demanding. I assumed it required a kind of intellectual capacity I wasn’t sure I had. But instead of feeling intimidated, I found myself drawn in, curious, reflective, and wanting to understand more. Now I think I want to be a grief and trauma therapist.  These two bo...

It is crazy to think about how grief can be inherited, just like trauma. This is definitely an interesting topic that I've been thinking about, and I have done a lot of reading around it.  I know we've all heard the phrase It ends with us . Most of us even read the book It Ends with us by Colleen Hoover (very amazing book, would recommend). We have also heard about generational trauma, which many therapists and counselors talk about here and all over the world. Back in school, one of our core units in my first semester talked about the different factors that influence us, our personalities, and character. The most common obvious answer was always nature and nurture: genetic inheritance (nature) versus environmental factors(nurture). The two play a big part in who we are today and who we become. So, generational and inherited grief? This type of grief, just like generational trauma, is not a grief that we experience firsthand. It is unprocessed grief that our parents, their pare...

  PC:COUNTRY CLUB CHRISTIAN CHURCH   I am not a catholic, but Ash Wednesday interests me a lot. Arsh Wednesday, to my understanding, is a reminder of human impermanence. The guiding verse is  "Genesis 3:19 for you are dust and dust you shall return." This blog post is inspired by a book I am currently reading titled  Bitter-Sweet by Susan Cain .  It's an amazing book that talks about how sorrow and longing make us whole. In the book, Susan Cain dedicates an entire chapter to mortality, grief, and impermanence; her words are so well put and very informative. What I find fascinating about Catholicism(is this an actual word?) is how rich it is in tradition. It is a faith filled with rituals, systems, celebrations, and structured practices that seem to hold people through every season of life. A few weeks ago, I came across a TikTok video explaining how some Catholic communities have groups of sisters who stay awake at midnight praying specifically for mothers with ...

This January was quite special for me. I had set out to just live life and not to focus too much on goals that always end up not being fulfilled. Maybe the goal is to let things just unfold(I don't know)  My highlight of the month was def reading one book each week and I loved the books that i randomly chose of course with the help of ChatGPT(what could I do without AI?) The books are amazing, I loved the stories and the lessons in it. I love the growth that came with reading them and I just love me for being such a consistent girlie. Is reading a hobby? These are the four books that shaped my January and the lessons they left behind. 1. Tuesdays with Morrie  : Learning How to Sit With Mortality This book felt like being invited into a very gentle classroom. Morrie doesn’t teach through theory or advice. He teaches through presence, through honesty about dying, loving, forgiving, and letting go. What stayed with me most was how calmly he speaks about death, not as somethi...

  Grief — I have come to accept that it is one of the most painful and complicated experiences anyone can face. The feeling of losing someone to death is unexplainable and extremely heartbreaking. For a couple of years now, I have worked alongside loss and grief clients in therapy and offered first aid and emotional support to the bereaved during burials. Most families hire first aiders to help relatives and the congregation in the morgue while viewing the body, when they read the eulogy, and when their loved one is being buried. This is the work I have been doing for a while now. Because of these experiences, I have come to appreciate life more and to be more gracious and empathetic toward anyone who is grieving. It doesn’t matter what relationship you had with the person or how close you were — grief is grief, and there is nothing more painful than knowing they are never coming back. We will never hear them talk, walk, work, breathe, or even open their eyes again. Grief is a pain...

I think there comes a time when you stop blaming unemployment and start examining your own contribution to being unemployed. It has now been almost two years since I graduated, and I haven't been lucky enough to get a psychology-related job. But I am not the problem. The counseling psychology job market is very small for various reasons, mainly because our country is yet to take mental health seriously. There are no jobs because therapy is still seen as a luxury, and therapy is not cheap. Ideally, we should have counselors in every school, hospital, and corporate organization, but we are not there yet. The last time I checked, one psychiatrist serves at least three hospitals, and the only hospitals that have their own counselors and psychiatrists are level 4 hospitals and above. When this year started, I swore to work on building myself as a brand and to start sourcing personal clients. By March, I had identified a niche and had already started building my online presence, marke...

  Three years ago, I wrote a blog titled  Where's my voice . This was back in 2021, I was so passionate about knowing what my purpose in life was and what my voice was.  Three years later, I am not a hundred percent sure about what my purpose is, but I am not where I was back then. I have a rough idea of what my voice is and where my purpose in life is. In the beginning I had a plan that was going to help me figure out this big question and I even wrote on the blog; I can publicly admit without shame that I have done all the hard work. I have joined communities, and I have been part of different organizations. By doing so, I have over the years discovered my strengths and my weaknesses. I know that I can be a good leader but I need to work on my leadership skills. I know that I can lead projects and organize events. I know I can mobilise people for an event, I can create a safe space for people, I can be a fun moderator, a good host and I can be a good public speaker. I n...

I will never forget the night my mother said this to me... " Jael, I've noticed you've been quite of late. What's wrong?" Not her exact words but something similar and in Kalenjin(my native language).   Growing up, my mother always had us all in the living room after taking our supper for a short bible reading session and a prayer, these were the times she would do some sort of house keeping by addressing different issues in the family.  She still does that till date. I used to hate them a lot but I now see what it did to us as a family.   So, a few days before that, I cannot exactly remember what happened but I was mad at my parents for something they did, or something they did not do. I ended up going to our farm down hill where we have a borehole and contemplated jumping in but I some how went for the tall grass around. I burried my face in the grass, tightly grasped a bunch of it with my hands and let out I silent scream. I let go of the grass seconds...

  I slept for ten hours yesterday. Sleep has been so helpful the last few weeks. I love the fact that the brain and the body gets to rest for a while before getting back to the battle field. I've been sleeping a lot lately, the main reason is because I've had more stressful days and my only way of dealing with stress is by sleeping. Last month was worse. I almost drowned into depression. I had one particular week that I never made my bed in the mornings, never cooked solid food, I just ate spaghetti and indomie, my utensils lived in the sink and my room was just messy. I only took out the trash when they started having a foul smell and I did not even bother to lock the door for the night. The only thing that remained consistent was taking a bath, it's the only thing that made me feel alive. When they say you never know what people go through before they achieve success, I think this is exactly what they mean. The bad days when you have no motivation, the days filled with an...

It's been six months now since I moved to Eldoret from Nairobi. I expected several changes in all aspects of my life, but not this extreme level of change. The fact that I am still sane and alive tells it all. I was always the type of person who is scared of change. I still hate change (which always amounts to growth), and I would do anything not to cross paths with it.  Source: Google; Fine Art America  I always desire growth, but I am not a fan of the process that we are supposed to go through to achieve it. I am even a big pursuer of high levels of growth especially growth in all aspects, in all aspects I mean mentally, spiritually, emotionally, financially, and even character-wise. This level of growth, from my POV, can be explained with the analogy of how gold is refined and purified by fire. Eldoret is a near-beautiful town(soon to be a city). It feels more like home than Nairobi, one is because my parent's house is not far away from town, I can always travel anytime and...