Discovering beauty part 2

Hey how have you all been?
 Today I'm going to continue on our journey to discovering beauty.. (I'm sorry for letting you wait this long) If you haven't read the first part please check it out before reading this one, so that you can understand this one better. Click here.
Now I'm going to go on with part 2.

So I had to start accepting myself as beautiful.. I think it was the hardest thing i ever had to do. How can you just start loving yourself after hating yourself for so long? Honestly it's just impossible or maybe it isn't..
Let me give you guys a few tips on how to actually gain confidence. Some might seem stupid, but trust me they actually help.. A LOT !!

1) Surround yourself with the right crowd. Whether you like it or not people influence you constantly. If you're around people who are constantly talking negative about you, how do you expect to become positive? Again it's not impossible, but negativity will just make it harder to stay positive. It shouldn't be the group of people with the newest make-up or the people with the strictest diets, it's the ones with the positive mindset. The ones who will encourage you to achieve your goal at all costs!!

2) Never give up!! I know this is obvious and we all know this one, but actually try to do it!!

3) Wake up every morning stand in front of the mirror and call yourself pretty. I know this is a very childish one, but it does work.. if you do this for some time, you will start to believe it..

4) IGNORE NEGATIVE COMMENTS!!! They're all lies. The people who say negative things about you are usually jealous or they're just being childish and most of the time they don't even know you, so don't let they're comments affect you.

5) Please don't try to hide your face behind layers of make-up!! I know make-up is nice and we like to use it, but girl: you are also beautiful without it!! if you're using make-up to "cover up flaws" lemme tell you this: it's not working and you're waisting time and money! If you want to wear make-up: okay, but make sure your reason is not to "cover the flaws".

Okay so here are  tips to start with.. It's not always an easy journey, but the journey really is worth it!
I wish you all a lovely and blessed Friday!!

~Musa

BACIB part 9: Dealing with unsolved emotions

Omg it has been too long like seriously. I haven't written for so long, because there was one thing that kept me occupied. My unsolved emotions.. Before reading this its best to go and read the quote, because I’m going to refer to it a few times..

While thinking of what to write today I was overflown with different emotions and thought well let me write about that.. It has been an extremely busy few months for me and I wasn't really sure if I was dealing with it right.

The beginning of this year was quite busy. It’s our last few months in secondary school and we need to get our school projects done and make sure to keep giving it our all, but I just couldn’t. It was really hard to stay focused. I would slack off sometimes and procrastinate a lot.

I suppressed so many different feelings that I couldn’t tell which one I was sad or angry about at a any point. Suppressing unsolved emotions is like forcing a bird to stay in a cage. It wants to come out, but it can’t, because you want to keep it in.

It has been quite tough for me to actually accept the emotions I had and try to solve them.. I kept telling myself that if I keep them to myself no one will be hurt and there will be peace, but actually there was no peace at all. The longer I surppressed the worse it got. I felt sad, guilty and suffocated and I didn’t really know how to solve it, because I had kept it to myself for so long that I started feeling really bad. I had been living a life full of lies and I had been telling myself and others that I was okay, but I wasn’t. I had been trying to keep peace, but actually created tension. People around me started noticing when I was in a bad mood and it became worse and worse until I kinda shut myself out..

After that I realised how bad it was getting and how keeping it to myself was getting me nowhere I started exploring other options.. I started talking to people and I realised what I had to do. I brought all my problems to the Lord and started praying. I started focussing on building my solid relationship with God so that I would stop doubting myself and actually be me. They were a few verses that reminded me of who I was an actually helped me to get back up..
The first one was from Matthew..

Matthew 15:18

But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.

Proverbs 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.

I realised that me acting the way I was, was because my heart was full of pain and the pain was reflected through what I was saying and doing. The pain in my heart that was there was all because I had stopped guarding my heart, I let negativity enter it. The verse that kept popping up during this period was a very well know one from Psalms.

Psalm 139: 14
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

This verse in combination with a conversation I had with Mita really changed my mindset.. It reminded me of who I actually was. So to all of you out there who are suppressing how they truly feel: it’s not healthy.. Pray about it and find someone to talk to and I know it isn’t really easy, but you gotta do it for yourself!

~Musa

                                 

the little bird

Trapped..

 In a cage.

Not knowing how to escape the cage. Yet I keep trying..

I managed.

Next thing is to get to the window.

I get caught again and put into my cage..

I don’t give up and keep trying.

I try again and I manage again..

This time I get to the window.

I try to open it, I can already smell the fresh cold air outside, 

I’ve almost opened it,

 but I’m too slow…

I get caught and put into my cage again.

Third time, good time…

But how?

How can I escape my cage?

How can I break free and fly along with the other birds?

When will I breathe the fresh air outside?

For now all I know is that one day I will break free and fly with them,

But when?

Discovering beauty part 1

Hey everyone, how have u been?
Okay today I'm going to talk about beauty and self love, but before you continue reading this one, make sure you've read the story that came before this to understand this post. To read the story klick here.

Now that you've read the story you can continue reading this post...

Now this seems like a really silly story, but we actually experience such stories every day. 

We ask ourselves: 

Why are my legs so ugly? Why is my tummy so big? 

Why isn’t my nose shaped like that other nose?  Why don’t I have the perfect eyebrow game? 

Why don’t I hardly have any eyebrows?
Lol, for the people who go through this one: I know the struggle is real.

Why doesn’t that dress look good on me like it did on my friend? Why can’t I be like this one? 

And I can go on and on with questions, but you guys know what I’m trying to say. 

I remember when I was younger I would ask my self so many on those questions that I listed above. 

I really used to get bothered by them. Even know some of the questions still haunt me, 

but just as my mum told my sister: are we crisps? Does it really matter how we look?

Do we really have to change ourselves to be perfect? 

Do we really need the plastic surgery or the extreme diets?

Okay I understand that when you are not healthy, you need to go on a HEALTHY diet and become healthy.

When I was in 1 year of secondary school (1st year of middle school or in some countries grade 7)I used to feel awful about myself.
I used to be laughed at very often. 

They would call me fat and ugly.
They would insult me because of my braids and my clothes.
They would exclude me and tell me that they don’t like me, even if they didn’t know me, just because I looked the way I did.

I used to feel so bad. I didn’t have many friends back then.. 

People would be fake to me a lot of times. 

The few friends I had, would be scared to come up for me,

because they didn’t want to get teased themselves and I understood it, but I felt really bad..

It got so bad that in my 2nd year I started binging. I wouldn’t eat at all during the day 

and when I’d come home I’d eat like a horse.. I did that for 6-7 months, I just kept telling people I was on a diet or that I’d eaten already.

 Instead of loosing weight, I gained a lot and the teasing continued.

 I felt so bad at a certain point, 

that I didn’t even want to live any more.I hated school, I hated everything. 

At home they also noticed me gaining weight and my parents
started telling me to watch what I eat, that made me feel even worse.

They didn’t know that I didn’t eat at all during lunch, they just assumed that I ate,

because I used to pack my own lunch and my sisters’. So they thought I ate, while I’d only pack my sisters’ lunch and go to school like that. 

Sometimes I’d pack for myself, but I just wouldn’t eat it.

 By then I made some friends and they kept telling me to eat, but I just couldn’t. 

In my 3rd year I stopped binging.

 They would be days when I’d forget to pack my lunch (like seriously forget, not faking it),

 but then my friends would scold me and tell me to eat whatever was there..
So we’d share lunches very often, because I just couldn’t get used to making lunch for myself. 

In my 5th year I finally started eating normally. 

My class was much kinder, so I wasn’t teased that much and I had more friends..

I really enjoyed going to school and I reflected on myself a lot during that year (this was last year btw).

I really thought about my actions and what was right and what was wrong
and how I could improve myself.
I figured that if I really wanted to loose weight I should do it for myself and do it properly! If I really wanted to be happy I had to get myself together and start looking at myself differently. I had to try and convince myself of my own beauty, but how?

But okay this post is getting too long, so I’ll write a part 2 soon. :) 

keep this in mind though: 

 

Lots of love,

~Meli, Mita and Musa

BACIB part 8: Did I jinx it?

Hey everyone,

How have you all been? It’s been long since I wrote a BACIB, I know.  Today I wanted to share something that really made me think and happy at the same time! Recently a lot of things have been going well for me.. I have been doing quite well in school, in church I’ve been asked to sing in the worship team multiple times, the choir has been doing well, everyone is healthy, the page views of the blog have been increasing, it feels like everything has been going well for me. I can’t complain at all.. Still if I say everything has been going well, won’t I jinx it? I don’t know.. I had a feeling that if I’d say everything is well: that my next report card will be bad or that the next performance won’t go well and I’ll forget lines or that I won’t be asked to sing again,... Is that really how life goes though? Is it really that if life goes well and you start to become happy, that there will be something that will come and ruin it all?
Yes it is true, or shall I say that’s what I used to think and that is what used to happen to me all the time, lol. Whenever I would be happy about something or feel confident, after a few weeks things would go downhill.. But honestly is that how the rest of my life is going to be? Are the bad things that come after the good things really because I was too happy? Should I really be careful when I get happy? Should I start thinking twice before I get excited?
Of course not. Honestly when things are going well in life, enjoy them. When bad things come after that, it isn’t because you enjoyed the good things. There is nothing like “jinxing” your good luck or happiness. I thought my exams went well this time and I came out of almost every exam saying it went well and people would ask me: “aren’t you jinxing it, I said no and I was right.. My report card came out and my grades were okay, so I was quite satisfied.. It’s not the grades I was aiming for, but hey at least I didn’t fail, right?

Sometimes It’s good to have faith in what you’re doing and in who you are. God didn’t just put you here with no plan and His promises weren’t just words.. He meant what he said..

Psalm 20:7

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”

Thanks to God’s promise we can achieve everything we want. Thanks to Him we have strength and can do all things..

Philippians 4:13
”I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

And when something good happens, be happy and praise Him for the blessing instead of talking about luck..

Exodus 23:25

Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you.

🎶  Song of today 🎶

There is power in the name of Jesus,

there is power in the name of Jesus,

to break every chain, 

break every chain, 

break every chain..

Break every chain ~ Tasha Cobbs 

God bless you all,

~Musa 

YEARBOOK 2016 !!!

Soooo, I hope everyone is having a happy holiday !! We're only a few minutes / hours before the new year. How exciting is that ! Because it is the end of the year we decided to make a year , you know to look back on everything we've done this year and we wanted to share our year with you guys! I hope you guys can look back too and smile about it all !

We wish everyone a happy and blessed 2017 !!

March 2016
We're starting in March, because in January and February nothing special really happened. In March I, Musa went back to my homecountry: Zambia. I spent 3,5 weeks. It was really refreshing to see my family and friends again after 12 years.

 I visited a lot of different places with huge gardens and my aunt tought me how to plant vegetables.

April 2016

So our journey together begins with Paris.. In the beginning of this year we went on a 4-day trip to Paris with school. We had so much fun. We walked a lot so we were also pretty exhausted in the evenings. In Paris we really became more exposed.

      

💗💗VERSAILLES💗💗

With Katherine, our little bestie !! She hates pics, but we managed to convince her to pose and smile for this pic, jeeej mission complete !😉

(Day) The Eiffel tower (Night)

Somewhere in the middle of Paris ( can't remember the name tho, it was a very cool place)

OMG do some of you know the K-Drama DOTS??? If u do, you will know why this picture was taken like this. For the people who don't know: DOTS is a shortcut for Descendants Of The Sun, a Korean Drama that came out at the beginning of this year. It is about a soldier and a doctor who do a lot of interesting and exciting stuff. If you want to know more you can look it up and watch it online. This pose is one of the famous poses in the drama..

 When u ask the squad to pose for a quick pic

In Musee d'orsay, we wanted to look cool and copy the statue of liberty, after trying a couple of times we finally managed to take a good picture.

It  was such a nice time with these people in Paris ! Since Paris this group has become so close and they are really amazingly cool people to be around love them lots !! 💓

 On the last day we had the opportunity to have a drink with the whole class !We weren't allowed to have alcohol, so non-alcoholic coctails it is ! 

April vacation
Mita's grandfather and grandmother from her mother's side visited Europe for the first time, so she went to a lot of places with them during the short break.

Their first visit was in Spain, Her uncle lives there so he showed them a lot of different places. They only spent four days there but they had a lot of fun !









Her grandfather poses for the pic !😎😎


Her next visit with her grandparents was in Belgium itself. They went to a lot of places and visited many relatives, but she lost a lot of her pics because her phone broke a month ago, so these are the only pics we have. These pics are  from Waterloo.

For their last visit, they went to Holland to look at all the beautiful flowers in Keukenhof !

Her grandparents are so hip with their poses ! 

Mita didn't deny that she requested them to do the DOTS pose for the last picture !

May 2016
Our next stop is Antwerp:

In May we went to Antwerp with our class, yes, last academic year we went to quite a lot of places with school. In Antwerp we were allowed to walk around freely and explore the town..
 

Stadhuis Antwerpen   

                         Begijnhof Antwerpen -->

Then summer vacation came.. The big adventure began.. We started our blog.. I remember the first post we posted, we had soo much fun !! After that we started doing photo shoots and got together to write blog posts ! It was an amazing experience. Starting a blog really brought us closer together.. Although we were already quite close we got even closer..

We also worked at a kids daycare. If you want to know what happened there u can check out  Working with kids for a week. We had so much fun this past summer...

We started our summer vacation with a campfire at a friends' place.. We were celebrating her 15th birthday !!

The second of July we finally uploaded our first blog post !! It was called "My fight against time"

It was deleted from the Blog due to personal reasons..

First pic of Mita without braces ! 

 

 Our very first photo shoot.. Musa didn't know how to dab back then, so it was sloppy !! 

Here are some other pics we took for the first photoshoot ! 😄

August 2016

Mita had another grandparent visit Belgium for the second time. This time she was from her father's side. She couldn't walk for a long time so she didn't go to as many places as the other grandparents, but here's a pic of a place she did visit with Mita. The Atomium in Brussels.

Our second photo shoot ever ! We really had a lot of fun doing it all !! 😀

Even at chuch we had a lot of fun ! I (Musa) became closer to them during this summer, we strenghened each other when we had problems and helped each other growing in faith.

September 2016

Then school started.. Life got busier and more complicated.. But we kept going, we tried our best to keep up with posting, but it got hard to post regularly...

School had started but Mita was still in a festive mood ! These are photos taken at the traditinal Nepali festival called Teej. She also had a mini photoshoot with her Nepali friends. She tried a lot of poses from the hindi movies she watched when she was little !

October

In October we had a friends' birthday ! She turned 17. All the girls were invited for a sleepover, we had sooo much fun and no sleep lol !

The Girls Gang

😎😎😎

We also went on a 3-day trip with school called "bezinning". It was really an awesome experience and we had a lot of fun !!!😂

November 2016

In November Mita had another traditional festival called Tihar. It's a festival to show your love for your siblings with gifts and flowers. Her brother didn't want her to post his photo so here's a photo of her alone. 😋

December 2016

December is a very festive month for everyone. We have school vacation, Christmas, New Year's Eve and also Mita's birthday. December is obviously her favorite month, specially because everything is decorated with lights and it's all so pretty ! We HAD to do another photo shoot with our city being lightened up so much !

We hope everyone had a great Christmas this year ! We hope Santa gave you what you had wished for !😊💗 Musa and Mita spent Christmas together this year and it was very exciting because it was the first time we spent it together !

Mita spent her birthday in Antwerp with her sisters from another mother !

They had a lot of fun together !

Another year has ended yet again, and we begin a new year. Every year has been a blessing for us, but this one was special because we started our blog this year and we got to meet some of you guys through social media. It is very exciting for us to meet you guys so don't be afraid to approach us through whatever source you can ! We thank you all for your support we've received this year and all the other years to come. We hope you can all welcome the new year with a smile on your face, wherever you may be, because we will be smiling with you too. :)

~Meli-Mita-Musa