Category: New Woman

What happens when you step on emotional toes? Well, that, unfortunately, is Moyo’s predicament at the moment. Slim, tall, with a flawless skin and curves in the right places, she has succeeded in stealing hearts from dusty emotional shelves.

Why not! An eye (heart) for an eye (heart). Scroll down memory lane and you also find that our dear friend was a victim; valuable hearts had vanished courtesy of some emotional shoplifters.

Recently, she ran out of luck and was declared ‘wanted’. She took to her heels and tried to find solace in the emotional jungle. The rugged owner of a missing heart did not give up; she staked everything to have her pound of flesh from the hawk-the one that had caused her so much pain. Strategically, she combed the nooks and crannies carefully and finally found the queen of heart, looking remorseful.

This was not the best time for sermons, and so she was beaten to a state of coma, with memorable scars. Jungle justice! It is the norm and so it is best to tread with caution.

If you do not want to be an emotional prey, then you must be in charge of the terrain. Don’t also bite more than you can chew. Always make sure that cupid’s arrow is on target, there is no harm trying again and again. Arrows? Yes, they are symbols that we see all the time. From the street signs, road markings and markings on the doors indicating direction to a choice location. This also reminds you of Jeffrey archer’s book, a Quiver full of Arrows. Fortunes are made and squandered, honor betrayed and redeemed and love lost and rediscovered. In this collection of short stories, you find the passion that drive men and women to love and to hate.

A good hunter must have a quiver filled with a sharp emotional arrows (strategies). Love birds need different arrows for the different phase(s) in their relationships. Arrows also have their different functions and you must understand the terrain. When you use a wrong arrow for the wrong target, it is not likely to work.

What are you ‘chasing’ would determine the type of arrows required to achieve your emotional aims and objectives. In the emotional jungle, you run into all kinds of hearts. Hearts those are as gentle as dove, hearts that are alluring as well as romantic. On the other side of the emotional divides are lion’s crocodiles, hyenas and antelopes.

Sadly, the emotional wilderness can be a death trap if you are not careful. You are likely to run into trouble when you list expect it to happen. On the prowl are hearts that are as cunning as a fox or hearts that are as wild as the tiger.

If you are unlucky to fall hopelessly and helplessly with hearts in this category, then you must have your quiver filled with deadly emotional arrows. The arrows you chose would ultimately determine who becomes the prey in the emotional jungle.

Without the required arrow in your custody, you are likely to be lily-livered and abandon the heart that you have been longing for, lusting after and wishing you had for keeps. Winners are usually wild with emotions and aware of all the tricks (arrows) in the quiver during the emotional hunting expedition.

Learn the ropes, improvise, as well as update yourself with skills that would give you the sobriquet as hunter of hearts like lions and not just hunting for emotional ants, mosquitoes, cockroaches or rats. The crux of the matter is the hearts in this category are not worth dying for.

Surprisingly, in the emotional terrain, women are better hunters. They have mastered the skills ultimately used it to capture and get what they want. In the woman’s emotional quiver are tears, smiles, patience, endurance, nagging, as well as intrigues.

Having the right arrows without making use of them is as good as not having them at all. In addition, a good heart hunter must know how to put the emotional arrow on the bow and draw it back to meet its target. The further you draw the bow (love), the more distance it goes or covers.

You therefore cover more distance by showing love consistently, sharing your affection and substance dutifully. It is very important to talk nicely to the person you think you love, claim you love or that just makes your heart skip a bit all the time.

Interestingly, the best emotional arrows aim at trust. It is the arrow that controls all the other arrows in your quiver. You can be sure that once this affectionate arrow is missing in your quiver, then you would miss the target. Love without trust isn’t love. Like a doubting Thomas, you are going to see a dove in the emotional woods and imagine that what you are looking at is a tiger.

When you see a rabbit whispering sweet nothings into your ears, instead of turning around to caress this cupid-send angel, all you see is a heart luring you to the rabbit hole, to be strangled, cleaned up and adorned with condiments before ending in the pepper soup pot as ‘bush meat’.

The best things in life are free. You don’t need to push it, you don’t need to force it on others . It just comes naturally and the effect last a lifetime. That aptly capture the atmosphere of true love, it bring happiness that is infectious to people around those involved. That precisely is the what is going on in the mind of Benjamin and Toyin at the moment .

“It great finding a heart that is meant for you and you alone. I saw her and another friend on that fateful day. I like the other girl at a distance but my instinct told me that Toyin was the girl. Thank God that I didn’t make a mistake, if I did I am not sure I would be enjoying the emotional frenzy that is going on right now”, Benjamin recalls happily.

That is what he discovered and he is so happy to have found a heart that is really precious. “ One thing that kept us going was the fact that we shared so many things in common. This is very different from all the relationships that I have ever heard, we spend so many memorable times together and the bond kept waxing stronger and stronger. We had only been together for about two years but it seem like a lifetime already”.

They are experiencing emotional bliss and the emotional drama reaches a climax during the week as they tie the knot together. For the lovebirds, it is indeed the best valentine ever. Four wonderful days to go…..Valentine is here again. The atmosphere is getting magnetic by the day and love has indeed conquered all. Feeling loved and being loved in return certainly isn’t something that can be quantified in the real sense of the word, the more you look, the less you see and so it is better to relax and allow your imaginations to run riot .Helen Kellar aptly captures the love mood this way: “The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard but must be felt with the heart”.

To enjoy and flow, you must travel light and understand that love has its high and low moments. It is like the tides, they can flow or ebb. Imagine yourself swimming in the emotional river, no matter how good you are, there are moments when you experience utter bliss and you just wish that it goes on and on. That would naturally take you through heights and waves of frenzy and those around you will ultimately feel the frenzy. Laughter, tears of joy and kisses galore. Turn the emotional table upside down and you find yourself at the end of the river, everything ebbs out until you find yourself on dry land. An emotional fish out of the river, gasping for survival.

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This is certainly what many do not want to experience and when they find themselves here. The next thing would be to think of how to rediscover their love life again.

Love, commitment, romance, communication and support for one another makes the relationship a nest to remember.

Unfortunately, as the time goes by some people tend to forget and abandon the things that brought them together the two love-birds merely forget those little gestures like texting, complementing and surprising, which are an integral part of the relationship. Physical attraction becomes priority and sex become daily-dose.

But, one thing I would say genuinely, that relationship is not about physical attraction, it’s more about understanding, caring, trust and time. One cannot just underestimate the power of these small gestures. Sometimes, misunderstanding and lack of time lead to breakups. So, if you don’t want to face that situation so, give value to small-small things. I’m not asking you to buy a Versace or Gucci for your love, but pay attention to sweet gestures that will keep the spark of your relationship alive and bring you both closer.

Expert strongly advise that the most critical part of the healthy relationship is communication. Instead of moving out from the issues, talk about it. You must also be ready to go through the challenges and tough times together. If your partner is not ready or lacking behind in sharing your partners, problems, understanding what is going on in his or her mind and encouraging them to forge ahead.

No matter the odds, your determination you keep you going and once you are on this part, you must never let your love apart. If you’re meeting your partner after a long time, a single “Love You” works well with a sweet compliment like “You smelling good” or “You look beautiful”. No matter how difficult things are, you must be determined to keep the flame burning.

IT was her birthday and she had planned an outing with the one she loved. Ibidunni had invested so much on her hair, outfit and the other accessories that made the total package interesting. The environment for the dinner was also great and exciting. The date however turned out to be a nightmare because the dude who was supposed to make it romantic failed to turn up.

What a nightmare! Now that it has happened, the whole relationship and memories comes flowing with stark realities. “I realised at this point that I had been wasting my time investing on a guy who did not deserve my emotions. Along the line, I had noticed that he was not sincere with me, I had suspected at different times that he was seeing other ladies but somehow I kept thinking that he was going to change. I kept thinking that he was going to get tired of his bad habits and then we would live happily together forever.”

Dreamer! The truth of the matter is that you cannot give what you do not have. This is why relationships that are unplanned most often fail. Even though every relationship has its peculiar strengths and weaknesses it is better to plan and invest in your emotional future. The next question would be how to you make core love investments? Are you sure that your investments would be appreciated as well as reap emotional dividends at the right time.

Here we must think of the type of emotional investment that we need to make, responsible investing as well as the costly mistakes that emotional investors make before forging ahead. Next, you need to define and understand the kind of investments you need to make as well as how to going about doing it in the right way.

The love arena comes with a lot of complications and what you think is important may not necessarily be cool for the other party. In economics, investment is the accumulation of newly produced physical entities, such as factories, machinery, houses, and goods inventories.

Interestingly, in finance, investment is a different ballgame entirely. Here it is putting money into an asset with the expectation of capital appreciation, dividends, and interest earnings.

However these parallel lines meet at some point. Like financial investments, emotional investments also involve some risk. This includes investment in equities, property, and even fixed interest securities which are subject, among other things, to inflation risk.

Investing in your emotions as well as in the emotions of the one you love is not a short time strategy. It is about making a success about the relationship in the long run and you must have the goal of wanting it to work out. It is only when you are sincere with the heart that you treasure that you would be ready to make core love investments.

To have your emotions given, or “invested,” towards someone or something sounds like a great idea but it requires a lot of hard work, dedication as well as perseverance. It requires the focusing your emotions on to something or someone that you care a lot about.

No matter how hard we try we are still likely to run into emotional and economic depression. They are phases that we pass through in our finances and our emotions. The phase should not be a hindrance, setback or stumbling block. The most important thing is to understand the tools to make use of as you pass through the phase. On the other hand, the assets and investments that you have stored up over time would definitely help you to pass through the raining day without tears.

Experts would readily tell you that it is only the rare couple that doesn’t run into a few potholes as the journey through and from the emotional in the road. Some even run into emotional gutters, somersault on the emotional flyovers many times and still survive because they have saved lots of emotions which they use to replenish each time they are in emotional distress.

So, if you recognize ahead of time, what those relationship problems might be, you’ll have a much better chance of getting past them when they finally show up.

In spite of the fact that every relationship has its ups and downs, successful couples have learned how to manage them and keep their love life going strong. Some actually use the problems as a stepping stone, launching themselves to emotional heights they never imagined existed when they started out together.

. They gain success in marriage by hanging in there, tackling problems, and learning how to maneuver through the complex issues of everyday life. Others also get assistance  by reading self-help books and articles, attending seminars, going to counseling as well as observing what other successful couples do to enrich their emotional bank.

It is also good to set up some rules that would guide your relationship with one another. Even partners who love each other can be incompatible sexually. Mary Jo Fay, author of Please Dear, Not Tonight, says a lack of sexual self-awareness and education compounds these problems.

ABIODUN is a playboy. He likes having adventures here and there. In the process, hearts are broken and mended. For the fun-loving young man, that is the way it should be; no harm intended. No big deal. At the end of each emotional rat race, he withdraws back to the real shell, Doris. That is the girl who makes his heart skip a bit every time; others are just past times. They fill the variety in the spice of life gap and when he gets tired of the counterfeits, then he goes back to the original.

Recently, he ran into an emotional nest that looked very beautiful at a glance. It was mesmerising all the way. This beautiful city chic had what any guy would fall for. Moyo was elegant and intelligent. She had a great apartment, nice cars and the right connections. Her qualities and friends made her magnetic; the kind of girl any man would want to date. In a short while, Biodun and Doris painted the city in colours. They were seen almost everywhere together. At this point, her friends concluded that she has finally captured his heart.

Unknown to the lover boy, Moyo desperately needed Biodun to complete her personality. Her dream was for him to abandon Doris who had been a major threat to their relationship all this while. The agenda here is to get married to him and make this dream a reality as soon as possible.

Even if he decides to abandon her for the other woman, she could just get pregnant and be his baby mama. That for her would be a fair deal. In her late 30s, motherhood is the greatest thing that could happen to her now. Initially, the great lover boy was oblivious of the game plan, but gradually he began to smell a rat and being a smart guy, the best strategy was to withdraw completely.

When he did, he began to untie the emotional web and then took to his heels. The big question here is if he finally escape from her? Not so easy! The babe pursued her emotional captive around the nooks and crannies causing all kinds of messy scenes in the process. The last straw was the day she showed up at a party where Biodun proposed to Doris. The chic-about-town came around with some of her friends and caused a pandemonium. It was meant to be a memorable day, but this emotional spoiler stole the show and Doris cried like a baby.

In anger, Biodun pounced on her like an angry lion. Amid the confusion, one of her friends whispered, “Daku”(meaning faint). So, she fainted and there was great confusion. Surprisingly, Biodun remained calm and went out of the venue. Where is the man at the centre of this confusion? everyone wondered. Then, he came back again. Interestingly, he heard when the girls plotted to faint mischievously and just played along. So, he went to his car to find his cigarette lighter. It took him a while to find the lighter. When he came back, his friend Tope just kept looking at him, wondering what he was up to and why he looked so unruffled considering the mess he appeared to be in.

He lit it and put it close to her ears. Moyo jumped up and it was at that point that everyone realised that nothing was wrong with her. She was only pretending to have passed out. The girls ran out of the place in shame. Thank God it was finally over, now he can be sure that poor Doris was out of their emotional snare.

Well, the crux of the matter here is that it takes an emotional thief to catch another thief. When you move with two pigs, then you must be ready to dance, walk and talk like one. If you are not the emotional character that you are dealing with, then you may just end up being the victim in the process.

We all know that no two relationships are the same. However, some things would help us have relationships that would endure the test of time. The first is that you must be flexible in changing for your partner 84% of the time. This does not mean that you have to sacrifice your core values, beliefs and priorities under relationship pressures. The truth of the matter is that your relationship is likely to spiral downward if you have an “anything goes” policy.

One other way to have an interesting experience is to be a mystery. Unfortunately, some people tend to bore their partners and hang around thinking they would secure them this way. It’s comfortable and cosy when two people know absolutely everything about each other but we’re more likely to be drawn to a partner who has connections and a passion for life outside the relationship. You also need to remember that a long time relationship won’t flourish if your partner is someone for whom sex is an enlivening essential force and you’re too unavailable

SEARCHING for greener pastures? Yes, everyone dreams of something good and wonderful. We all have standards and it’s great if we find what we want or something close to the original.

Unfortunately, Rebecca has been criss-crossing the emotional zone without getting to the proverbial promised land in her search. “Most times, I wonder what is always happening to me. I have discovered that I do not love the people who fall in love with. On the other hand, I find that the people that I love or really admire are already hooked up. They have people that they treasure and they don’t usually care about my feelings towards them.”

Well, sometimes we do not find what we really want. When you get to this realisation, then you just have to move and not stick to someone that you know that you can never have. All you need to do is to focus on the good sides of the person who cares about you and make the love idea reciprocal. If you do not move on and make the best of your emotional situation, then you are going to be caught in an emotional cobweb that may lead to depression.

Fear, love, jealousy, pride, vanity and resentment. These are some of the emotions that we are faced with on a daily basis, whether we like it or not. The mind can be very adventurous when it comes to love matters. While some can stick to a particular relationship for so long and do things that would make it look new as the years roll by, there are others who are very adventurous.

Like the mouse pad, love is just a click away. The person in question is always experiencing some excitements, a burst of emotions at any time. As soon as the present emotion fades away you can be sure that something fresh and new will take its place soon.

For this group, no single emotional response can be permanent. This relates to the other kind of emotions too. For instance, when any emotion, such as anger, is experienced, the person is likely to stay angry only for some time; eventually the anger will fade away and a fresh emotion will arise.

Interestingly, an abundance of good feelings, and emotional satisfaction, become the criterion for a successful life. However, emotions present problems for the mind (which is just the personality). When emotions become intense, they neutralise intellectual concerns. In fact, common negatively-valued emotions such as self-pity, fear, anxiety, as well as moods like depression, actually tend to inhibit rationality – in particular, intense anxiety seems to produce a mental fog in one’s mind, making it impossible to study.

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Experts also advise that it is important to understand the nature of emotions if we really want to forge ahead and make our relationship to work. This is because it has profound implications for psycho-therapy.

Interestingly, a lot of people think that their feelings are the same as emotions. This is not true because there are fundamental differences between feelings and emotions. There are a multitude of emotions, but only three feeling. These include the pleasant one, the unpleasant one, and the neutral one. The importance of feelings is that they help give rise to emotions, that is, the bases of all emotions are the three feelings.

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Sometimes you can keep emotional hope alive in the face of certain odds. “Mid way into the relationship, things just went upside down and I thought it was all over. However, I made up my mind to play along because I loved her so much. She continued to date the other guy who turned out to be a Casanova. When she realised that I was the one that genuinely loved her, she ran back to me.”

So how did he survive during the hurting period? you wonder. “Well, I must confess that it was really tough but I was determined to make it in spite of the odds. I filled my heart with memories of some of the happy moments we shared together just before the emotional crisis. His ever smiling face, sexy eyeballs and loving smile encouraged me to bank on luck.”

When the emotional matter is more than a fling, then you would discover that a lot of people who are busy, successful, inspiring sometimes have issues with their partners in their lives.

The big question, therefore, would be that can being successful reduce the amount of emotional current you give? Are you likely to be selfish and self-centred?

Your environment, level of exposure and age also determine how you feel. A medical doctor explains the state of mind of the young girls going into puberty as anxious and adventurous. “At this age, it is normal to feel curious, anxious and ashamed, especially if you are the only girl in the house. I also have a case of someone who was happy because she was going to wear a bra. Others are ashamed and they wear double vest to cover the bump. Some of the changes include menstruation, pubic hair, pimples, growing by the hips, nipples and other internal organs.”

She adds: “Mood swings also occur and the sex hormones are responsible for sexually maturity.  Here the young ones need information to guide them from irresponsible people who would want to take advantage of them.”

BIODUN is a playboy. He likes having adventures here and there. In the process, hearts are broken and mended. For the fun-loving young man, that is the way it should be; no harm intended. No big deal. At the end of each emotional rat race, he withdraws back to the real shell, Doris. That is the girl who makes his heart skip a bit every time; others are just past times. They fill the variety is the spice of life gap and when he gets tired of the counterfeits, then he goes back to the original.

Recently, he ran into an emotional nest that looked very beautiful at a glance. It was mesmerising all the way. This beautiful city chic had what any guy would fall for. Moyo was elegant and intelligent. She had a great apartment, nice cars and the right connections. Her qualities and friends made her magnetic; the kind of girl any man would want to date. In a short while, Biodun and Doris painted the city in colours. They were seen almost everywhere together. At this point, her friends concluded that she has finally captured his heart.

Unknown to the lover boy, Moyo desperately needed Biodun to complete her personality. Her dream was for him to abandon Doris who had been a major threat to their relationship all this while. The agenda here is to get married to him and make this dream a reality as soon as possible.

Even if he decides to abandon her for the other woman, she could just get pregnant and be his baby mama. That for her would be a fair deal. In her late 30s, motherhood is the greatest thing that could happen to her now. Initially, the great lover boy was oblivious of the game plan, but gradually he began to smell a rat and being a smart guy, the best strategy was to withdraw completely.

When he did, he began to untie the emotional web and then took to his to his heels .The big question here is if he finally escape from her? Not so easy! The babe pursued her emotional captive round the nooks and crannies causing all kinds of messy scene in the process. The last straw was the day she showed up at a party where Biodun proposed to Doris. The chic-about-town came around with some of her friends and caused a pandemonium. It was meant to be a memorable day, but this emotional spoiler stole the show and Doris cried like a baby.

In anger, Biodun pounced on her like an angry lion. In the midst of the confusion, one of her friends whispered, “Daku”(meaning faint). So, she fainted and there was a great confusion. Surprisingly, Biodun remained calm and went out of the venue. Where is the man at the center of this confusion? Everyone wondered. Then, he came back again. Interestingly, he heard when the girls plotted to faint mischievously and just played along. So, he went to his car to find his cigarette lighter. It took him a while to find the lighter. When he came back, his friend Tope just kept looking at him, wondering what he was up to and why he looked so unruffled considering the mess he appeared to be in.

He lit it and put it close to her ears. Moyo jumped up and it was at that point that everyone realised that nothing was wrong with her. She was only pretending to have passed out. The girls ran out of the place in shame. Thank God it was finally over, now he can be sure that poor Doris was out of their emotional snare.

Well, the crux of the matter here is that it takes an emotional thief to catch another thief. When you move with two pigs, then you must be ready to dance, walk and talk like one. If you are not as the emotional character that you are dealing with, then you may just end up being the victim in the process.

We all know that no two relationship are the same. However, there are some things that would help us have relationship that would endure the test of the time. The first is that you must be flexible in changing for your partner 84% of the time. This does not mean that you have to sacrifice your core values, beliefs and priorities under relationship pressures. The truth of the matter is that your relationship is likely to spiral downward if you have an “anything goes” policy.

One other way to have an interesting experience is to be a mystery. Unfortunately, some people tend to bore their partners and hang around thinking they would secure them this way. It’s comfortable and cozy when two people know absolutely everything about each other but we’re more likely to be drawn to a partner who has connections and a passion for life outside the relationship. You also need to remember that a long time relationship won’t flourish if your partner is someone for whom sex is an enlivening essential force and you’re too unavailable.

For Cecilia, the past few months have been chaotic; indeed. The lady in her mid-thirties has had to work on so many projects and family engagements that could not be shelved. Personally, her philosophy in life is that what must be done, must be done well. So, she put all her resources and energy into the activities and made sure everything was in order.

By the time she was sure that everything was okay Cecilia realised that the stress had taken a toll on her health. She decided that it was better to take a break for two weeks. Naturally, travelling came to her mind and she made arrangements to go out of town for a while.

It was fun and Cecilia met new friends. Fortunately or unfortunately two days before the end of this memorable holiday, Cecilia slipped and got a dislocation in the right arm. What a pity! The pain was simply unbearable and the trauma made her forget the sweet memories she had just experienced. She then had to ask for an extension to sort out this silly arm that now became the centre of attention.

Her boss granted the leave extension and advised her to take things calmly. The first few days and weeks were very traumatic for her. The arm ached so badly and she wondered why it chose to happen at this point. As a matter of fact, the strain reminded her about the bitter memories from her last relationship.”Emeka was an ungrateful idiot. When I met him he had no job, no house and had nothing except his degree. At that point, he looked very humble and appeared to be righteous.” She strongly believed in impacting people’s lives and she began to help him open doors that had been closed for so long. “I had some savings in the cooperative society of the organisation that I was working for and I was allowed to borrow twice as much. I gave Emeka to start a business and he was very happy at that point.

Was that a smart thing to do? Well, we can’t really blame her because love is about giving and sharing. “He used the money to start a business and things went well. I also introduced him to a number of friends and acquaintances and he got a number of contracts in the process.”

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Two years down the lane, Emeka”s fortune changed and this was the best time to show gratitude. She was wrong! Just before she realised that she had made a mistake, he began to tell her that she was not fit to be his better half. “Suddenly, he began to complain about my dress sense and a number of other things. I told him that I would change and he agreed to give me another chance.”

Was this lover boy truly going to give our friend another chance? “About six months after I got a letter from Emeka saying that he had travelled to the United States and that he had married someone else.” Poor Cecilia, she was devastated and her heart sank. She promised never to fall in love again. Thinking about this grand betrayal now made her health deteriorate. Interestingly, the doctor on duty took a keen interest in her. It turned out that they were both victims of love and somehow they got closer and closer. He turned out to be the man she has been waiting for all this while.

The big question here, is how do you find your bearing when you are at emotionally crossroads? First, it is important not to play the blame game. Assigning blame will cause the other person to either get defensive or feel worthless. Neither of those feelings promotes peace in a relationship. When blame enters into the conversation, then one person becomes the victim and the other becomes the reason why bad things are happening. Does that sound like a platform for a loving and peaceful relationship?

The crux of the matter is that, you are in this relationship together and assigning blame just creates a separation in your partnership. Resist the temptation to assign blame, bond together, and work through the situation like partners.

One other thing that you need to do is to remember why you fell in love with them in the first place. When you are upset with your partner, it is easy to focus on what we think they did wrong, or even what we think is wrong with them. How productive is that mindset? That is one big question that we need to ask ourselves.

What we focus on expands and becomes more noticeable. Wouldn’t it be better to remind yourself what you love about this person and why you fell in love with them in the first place? If you want a happy and peaceful relationship, apply the life skills of positive thinking and positive focus.

If you find yourself feeling moody and argumentative, focus on the blessings in your life. Focus on the deep value that your partner has added to your life. By shifting your focus, you shift your state away from the negative and towards the positive.

WATER, water everywhere and none to drink. This comes to mind when you compare what’s going on with the fuel scarcity at the moment. A car (heart) without fuel (love) is useless. It can’t go far. Even if it is a brand new car, with gadgets that are fantastic, you are not going to go far if you can move it (heart) at the pace you want.

Fueling (loving) a car (heart) sounds easy but when it comes to the nitty gritty of it all, you discover that it is a very complex (whims and caprices) process. The routine of washing the car, servicing it at the right time would determine if you are in charge or not. In addition, choosing the appropriate fuel is important because this can also mar the process. Adulterated fuel, like adulterated love, takes you to the ‘End of the Road”.

Timing is crucial. It is wrong to do the last things first. Experts actually advise that it is better to fuel the car in the morning and not in the middle of the day because heat creates vapour, which leaves space in the tank. Some people can also be miserly with the way they dole out their affection. Interestingly, fuel experts warns that doing the refueling (loving) once in a while may damage the fuel pump (heart) or wear out the filters (emotion).

The driver of the car should be in charge and know when to fuel and refuel the tank without stress. Sadly, there are times, when those in the emotional saddle discover that their emotional tank has been emptied and they are stuck. That is what ought to have happened to a bride recently. Unfortunately, things just did not go as planned. She dreamt of love, imagined it during the day and looked forward to the physical actualisation of the forever happy-ending kind of tale she had read so much about.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. Just when she thought that she had the emotional world in her pocket, the emotional thief and pickpocket strolled in and had the last laugh. It is worse when you are cruising on the emotional highway with a heart that does not know what he wants. That was exactly the scenario that she found herself.

Her dream man changed his mind and walked away. He chickened out at the last moment and she was back to square one. That is a bad dream and nobody looks forward to this in a relationship. Sadly, it is the reality for many. Just imagine how you would feel like as a bride being left at the altar under dramatic circumstances.

An empty aisle. It should have been love, but it is over. Emptiness, bitterness and frustration. Tears and more tears. The emotional turning-point can be explosive. It starts with a small spark that spontaneously combusts and starts a wild fire that just can’t be controlled. Poor dreamer, you still wish that it wasn’t true. Sometimes, you wish that the flames will die down. But when it ignites just before the most daunting commitment of your life, the blaze seems to blind you from seeing the forest for the trees. All the truth of the matter is that many of us just cannot imagine living a lifetime in that kind of heat.

A bride recently fell into this category and no matter how hard she tried; it was difficult putting this emotional miscalculation behind her. “All this left me with a wedding and no groom.”

The harm had been done but she decided to make the emotional exit memorable in her own way. So she called her photographer in tears and decided to have a photo-session without the groom. Instead of canceling photography coverage, the heartbroken lovebird decided to use the photos to help the healing process.

She was really strong and came to the realisation that she could have a wedding if she turned her mind to it.”What I learned is that a wedding is something entirely different from a marriage,” said Jones. “A wedding is about all the people and things that come together to witness two people get married. A marriage is just about the bride and groom. So when my entire family decided to come to New Orleans anyway and see me through the aftermath, it became evident that all the same people and things that made up my wedding still existed. There just wasn’t going to be a marriage. Truthfully, I couldn’t see anything optimistic at first. I was just grateful I wasn’t alone.”

Interestingly, the source of her inspiration was the photographer. “It wasn’t until my photographer suggested doing a photo-shoot anyway that I realised something truly beautiful happened out of all the ugliness. It was the first time my entire family was together in one place, just for the sake of being together, for over a decade or more. And they all came together to hold me up. Somehow, the solidarity and seeing and feeling unconditional, forgiving love radiate from them made the pain of my ex-fiancé’s decision almost irrelevant. In the armor of my family’s strength and support, I could face the battle of heartbreak without fear or humiliation. I cried. I laughed. I sang. I danced. And somehow, in an indescribable way, I won. Did I get married? No. Do I still have a lot grieving and healing yet to do? Yes. But all of that will be okay in time because, in the end, I got so much more than a wedding.”