VOAA Ep1 The New Year

The speaker reflects on the concept of the New Year and how it symbolizes a spiritual journey. They discuss the Earth's movement around the sun and marvel at the complexity of God's creation. They also complain about a neighbor who grinds pepper loudly nearby and share their reasons for not using grinding machines. The speaker introduces their theme for the year, "Euloia," which means beautiful thinking, and expresses their desire to embrace positive thoughts and not let negativity affect them. They mention their plans to study the Bible and improve their understanding of scripture. The speaker acknowledges their tendency to overthink and shares their intention to focus on thinking positively. They mention their struggles with journaling and their plans to discuss vision boarding in a future episode. Hi, let's talk about the New Year. It's 2004. Happy New Year. It's beautiful, it's a beautiful feeling to cross the world to the New Year. I know many people have argued that it's a spiritual thing because, I mean, it just goes from 12am to 12.01 but you have moved 365 days across. The Earth has completed its movement around the sun. Wow. So the Earth takes, excuse me, yes, the Earth takes 365 days to revolve around the sun. So the Earth is moving as I am sitting right here on my bed. No wait, it probably makes sense. I'm a science student. I never fancy time. But the Earth moves like that, at that speed. Or is it slow? Is it slow? Or is it fast? Physics didn't help me. I never did physics, okay, right from all the schools I attended. Right from SS1 you get to choose your path. It's either science, commerce or art and I was a commerce student because I read accounts. But the Earth moves around the sun and it takes 365 days to complete that turn. Hmm. God is really different. He really is awesome. Well, you know, the more you think about how God is, the more you think about his magnificence, the more awed you get. You get a feeling. The more you try to understand how God works, how the universe functions, how the Earth grows seeds, how babies are formed, the more you think about how did water get into coconuts? How does the watermelon have such hard back and such soft, sulky, watery inner and all of those things? How does a small seed become such a big fruit? The more you think about how children grow, the more you think about how you speak words and they affect your life. You should not doubt that there is a God. There is a superior, greater living thing, living being that controls the forces of the universe. It's such a beautiful thing to think about. I live in Lagos, Nigeria where you could be in your house and every sound you hear or everything that happens outside, you can usually hear it in your bedroom. You don't hear a lot of zi-zah in the background. I just hope the woman grinding pepper next to my house does not start her engines while I am speaking because it infuriates me enough that she is there. And before you come for me, this woman's house is like three buildings away. Three buildings, yes there is a school, there is a church and there is her beauty. So she literally grinds her pepper in front of her house. And from my bedroom, I can hear her machine when she puts it on there. So imagine what it sounds like right in front of my bedroom. So my room is out facing the window and so is my parlor, there is the balcony and then it faces the road. So this woman just woke up one morning, I think it was Christmas morning and she is there with her machine. And I am like, well maybe it is someone else or maybe it is death. And you know that today is Christmas, people are going to be cooking so they are trying to take advantage of the time and just make quick cash because of the festivities and all. Well here she is. It is this woman. I have to ask my husband, who is this? Who is this person in front of the house? And I am like, oh he doesn't know, maybe he suspects that it is that woman because he saw her child. And I am like, no, we cannot accept this. So we have to speak to him, he has to speak to the neighbor who now puts it up on the street group. And he said there are tendencies for like, she really gets down in this house because she gets too comfortable. Because sometimes I hear them hitting stuff like carpenter is working and I am like, I keep telling my husband, hey this woman needs to move out of here before she gets too comfortable and builds a shop. Because there have been shops around the house before and they have all been told to relocate because such is not condoned. Now mind you, there is a mosque right just literally on the same fence as the woman. So the woman is on the fence outside just after the mosque. So where the mosque is, the mosque building and then where the mosque building ends, that is where the woman puts her shop. So she is literally next to the mosque. And the mosque is already loud enough. Every time they have to do their hourly, I don't even know, I think it is 5 or 6 times a day they do that thing. It is already disturbing enough. But I know it goes on for like a minute or two and then it will stop. But this one, you know how grinding machine goes. And it will not go, it will go on for as long as whatever she is grinding is done. And you know maybe if you are grinding more and more, you are grinding pepper, a lot of the times people don't grind once. They have to pour it back and grind it a second time. Why a blender? Why a freaking blender? Why a solid blender? So this blender my mother in law bought. It is one of those ones advertised as sterile. It is called grind bottle. But it is black. And it is not that same brand. I don't remember what the brand is. And I used that ever since I came in contact with that blender. I don't take my beans outside to grind. For starters, I am not comfortable with grinding anything with those grinding machine because one, they are metallic. So they rust. And you get all of those rusty taste into your food. And so every time I grind tomato with that machine for instance, I have this sloppy metallic taste in my stew. I like the hack there where you can use baking powder. Is it baking powder or baking soda? One of the two. Add it into your stew. You don't get all of that sloppiness. It also works if you use thin tomatoes to cook. So you don't get all of that. It is how you use thin tomatoes to cook and it tastes funny. It tastes sloppy. If you use that baking powder or baking soda, you can just apply a very tiny portion of it into your stew and you won't get all of that sloppiness. And the third reason why I don't like grinding pepper machine is because they grind everything. And I don't trust the water that they use. So like where do you get the water from? Do you even wash the bucket where you put the water? And that bella, some of them use the bella to do like every other thing. And that bella you use to scoop water to put into my food. And then most of them just pick this stick. So instead of buying like a pestle or a rolling pin, you know that thing they use in pressing it, they just pick a stick. I've seen where a woman just picked a stick from somewhere. I've had a chance to like pick a stick on the road. You know how maybe carpenter has finished doing some work and there's this like long stick just hanging around. And the woman picked it from the floor. She looked around. I saw her. I guess she picked it and hit it on her and she bang bang. I gave the child to go and wash it. You know children, they're never going to understand this, the hygieneness in food. So they just do do do do do do because they want to go back to the place. I don't want to complain about anything this year. So back to talk. I don't want to complain about anything this year. I just want to be thankful. Right? I was talking about how it's a beautiful thinking. It's a beautiful thing to think and be mesmerized by the beauty in the world as created by God. So that brings me to my theme for 2024. It's a Greek word. It's called Euloia. I hope I pronounced that correctly. It's E-U-N-O-I-A. It simply means beautiful thinking. And that is what I want to embrace this year. I mean you're open to join me. You're welcome to join me. Let's think beautifully. Let's not let our hearts be bothered about anything. You know I'm trying to study my Bible and I want to be better at it. Sometimes I guess I could quote scriptures but I couldn't quote scriptures. What I mean is I know what the word is saying but I cannot remember where to find it. So I do not know where to find it. I know the Bible says somewhere in Philippians it says whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely da da da think on this thing. And those are the kind of things I want to think about. I want to harness beautiful thinking. I want to synchronize beautiful thinking to my heart, into my workplace, into my relationships, into my marriage, with my children. Oh I have one boy but I always say children because I need siblings. Related with my siblings and my in-laws. I want to embrace beautiful thinking. I don't want to think the worst of people. I don't want to overthink. So I find myself, people say introverts are overthinkers but I like to think of myself as an extrovert but then again I'm an overthinker. Like I could create things in my head and create possible worst case scenario and what my response would be like. Like literally having an entire or live an entire life in my head. Oh this is going to happen. My husband is going to do this to me. This I'm going to respond. This is what he's going to say. This I'm going to give him back. And then if he doesn't act like I want, I won't. I would do this. I would act like this. And maybe he's going to give me. And you're like literally writing a script. Literally writing a script in my head. I know there's some people like me. You do their thing too. They're human. It's okay. I forgive you. You don't have to own up to it. But then again this year, this year, this year, you're thinking beautifully. I think I deserve a round of applause for that. Thank you. Thank you. So how to go about it in the year? We have like a whole line of topics I want to talk about. Not because I want to talk to you. Just because I want to talk to myself. So I find that people journal. The people who know how to like write their thoughts down with all of their emotions and their plans. I try to write my plans down. In fact I drop my vision board. We'll talk about this in the next episode. Vision boarding. One thing I cannot do is journal. I can't. Because my thoughts are just running wild in my head and my hands are not moving at the speed of my thoughts. So I'm not jotting down. And I don't know how to apply the break. I don't know how to say okay step on it and then let's take it slowly. And if I get interrupted, if someone comes in and tries to say something to me or talks to me or touches me, my mind just switches off. I will not be able to go back in. And it's not immediately. I need to assess every other thing I need to do and make sure that my mind is blank. Like in a blank state. And then I can read through what I've written and start again. And I'll find that oh I need to insert some other things. I can't do that. So I just talk. Which is the essence of Voice Over Ninja. Not because I want to talk about essence of it and teach you how to do anything. I mean I'm a business analyst. I'm a business consultant. But I'm not here to give you PowerPoints or LinkedIn carousels on how to be happy better 2024. I'm not here to do that. So moving on. If you're listening to my podcast, I dropped one episode. I call it episode. More like a trailer. Where I'm like testing out my microphone. I've been testing my microphone for like 2 or 3 months now. So I dropped an episode where I'm like you know what? We're doing this. Let's do this. So I've dropped one where I talked about what VOAA is, how it was started, how it came to be, how I wanted to start a podcast in 2021. But 2023 was my you go girl year. And something happened to me in 2022 that really threw me off balance. I'm still recovering. I trust God that I'll be fully recovered. This woman has come with her granny pepper machine. Oh dear Lord. Dear God of Moses. Dear God of Isaac. Dear God of Elijah. Give me patience. Give me patience to deal with these things. Because I hate when I'm in my space and there's some sort of disturbance. That brings me to my biggest prayer point for 2024. Relocation. Relocation. Take off. Whether it is Jaffa. Whether it is just moving out of this place to an estate. Where you know that they won't allow this kind of nonsense to happen. Where there are no commercial activities. Where you won't be running up and down. Move me to another estate. When someone is coming to see you, you have to call the gate that they let this person in. But I hate it when people get up and just go and visit someone and you don't tell the person you're coming. I find this very disgusting. Stop it this year. Stop it. In fact, if you're too used to it, begin to stop it. Don't just spring up on me. Hey, I was in your neighborhood. And so what? Go to where you're going to. If you ever wanted to come to my house, maybe you would call me. You know, I've been missing things. How far is the house? Can I come and visit you? Can I stop by? Even if you're in my neighborhood and oh, you remember, hey, she lives here. Text me. Alpha, babes, are they around your side though? I feel dropped by. Don't just come and because you know where I live, you come and knock on my door. Do you know if I want to see you? I'm an extrovert, but sometimes, I mean, adulting teaches you how to embrace your space and appreciate being in your space better. I used to think my husband was always rejecting me and not wanting to be with me every time he did that. But now I understand. I understand. It took me just one year. I've known my husband for like four years now. We've been married for two, going on three. It took me a year plus to understand that this man is not pushing you. He just wants to be in his head space. And there are times when he wants me to just be there but not say anything. There are times when he wants me to be there, engage him, you know, cling to him all around. There are times where I just want to be in my space. Like right now, I want to be in my head. I mean, I'm literally building a schedule for myself here. I'm telling myself, oh, between this time and this time, we should be doing this. I'm trying to build, I'm trying to invite quiet time into my life, into my schedule. I'm trying to invite quiet time into my everyday. I want to do it between like 7.30 and 8.30. This is because my child goes to bed at 8.30. That's his bedtime, so I have to stop whatever I'm doing and put him to bed. And for me to put him to bed when he's not sleepy, I have to switch off all of the lights. And sometimes I may just sleep off as well. And 7 o'clock is when he has his bath. So between 7 and 7.30, he baths, he will eat, and then I'll leave him to like watch cartoons or something. Maybe do something, stay with his dad and stuff. So I want it to be a consistent time where I have to meet my creator. So at that point, I don't even want any disturbance. That's my proposing time. I'm going to see what works best. If it's morning times that work best, I mean between like 8 and 9 when I'm taking my kids to school. Because 8 to 9 will not work on a Saturday or a Sunday. It has to be towards evening for the weekends. But I want a time where God knows that he has an appointment with me. I know that I have an appointment with God. I never miss it. I set my alarm and I go there and I say, Hey God, I'm here, let's talk. Because I want to know God. I want to go into a deeper walk with God. I want to converse with him like I'm conversing with my microphone right now and hear him speak. And for you to hear God speak, because God is so gentle. For me to hear God speak, I know that I have to be quiet. My surrounding has to be quiet. My mind has to be quiet. Oh, he's such a loving and kind father. Like I imagine every time I have to speak, like I imagine it in my head. Oh, this is going to be such a blessing. Then before I started working out, I started working out in January of this year, of last year, excuse me. Before I started working out, I used to have it in my head a lot. I used to even work out in my head. So I watch a lot of Instagram reels of people working out. And there's something that you got to do to work. Not me doing surgery, girl. I'm going to go to the gym and burn it all. Okay. I don't go to the gym, but I'm going to get my mat and my dumbbells and my laptop and YouTube. I mean, thank God for YouTube. I will work it out. And I did because I lost 28 freaking kg. 28 kilograms. I didn't even feel like towards the end of the year because I relaxed. Look at everybody's praising me. Ah, baby girl, you've done so well. Ah, you look so sexy. You've lost so much weight. I did not praise. Maybe it works. Maybe it's not just you. Or maybe it's just me. I now begin to lose all of my motivation. My husband kept saying, Oh, you're fat. Oh, fat girl. Horrible. And he wasn't saying that to put me down. He calls even my sister fat girl. Horrible. For me, I knew I was fat. I was heavier. I was a size 18. 105 kilograms. When I'm walking on the floor, I'm dragging myself. When I'm not, what do they call it? There's this show on DSTV. My fat pound, my 600 pound family or something like that. Then I'm not one of them. I reject them. So, the new year. What are we doing better this year? Everything. Everything is what we're doing better. Everything. And I like it. So I'm aiming at a promotional work. I don't know what the next rule is, but I feel like she has to promote me. She needs to promote me. I'm aiming at four steps or four levels higher than mine. I just got the judgment level. Then again, it's nothing but energy, right? And I'm good at what I do. All glory to God. So promote me. Give me more money. I'm also aiming to get toned abs, arms, thighs. I keep my back without fat tires. You know those things that come out of your bras when you wear your backless dress. There's like four that is. No, no, ew. My back was straight up until November when I started relaxing on my workout that time. Then I found myself eating. I don't even know why. Because at that point where you're good and God adores your body because it's his temple and he wants you to keep it well. At that point where you're maintaining it, he will not come. He will just take a bite with his cookies. Just take a bite. So you know you're craving it. Your body is craving it. Oh, I love it so much. I want it. I want it. You're craving it. And you find yourself eating one, two, three. It cuts off. The devil is a bastard. I feel like if you're doing something and you do not have the devil coming after you, then you're not doing it right. Maybe you share my thoughts as well. You would agree. If you're doing something and you're not feeling discouraged at some point, then you're not doing it right. And I take that as my cue. So for every time I feel discouraged while I'm doing something, I'm like, yes, I'm getting it. I'm hitting the nail on the head. So this is the time to now put in more effort. This is what I'm doing this year. What I'm choosing to do. Beautiful thinking. Oh, the negativities are coming. The discouragements are coming. Girls, get in there and get your A game on. Ace it. Slap it. Ha ha. We're down for it all. Oh, a friend of mine just got engaged. She got engaged like last year. We're not friend twins. We're like ex-co-workers, ex-colleagues. But she's a sweet and charming person. We keep in touch because I like her. And she's getting married to a hot girl. So I told her, please invite. Like I cried when I saw her. I'm like, God, thank you. And I tapped into that night for all of my girlfriends. You guys are getting married. Engaged. Like, ah, let me be spending money buying a shreddy. Planning on how to sew for myself. Planning to buy makeup. If it's a Lagos wedding, we are in it. If it's in Ibadan, I will travel for that one in Ibadan. But if it goes to Akanpuja, what's that called? Abia. Don't lose me. I'll just send you money. I'll just grab people I should be to support you or just send you the money because if I don't wedding, I should be to your wedding. When am I really going to wait? Okay, yeah, I'm also starting to go back to church. So, um, I've been praying for God to direct myself and my husband to a church home. And by church home, I mean a place where we feel welcome, where we feel at home, where we feel God, where we feel blessed, where we feel refreshed. And I'm not going to disclose, but we found one. Uh, I've been scouting a few. I like it with the pastor's preach, but beyond just the pastor's preaching, I want like the whole service. So I feel connected. And we'll start going to this one from like next Sunday, which is the 7th of January, which is the first Sunday of the year. So good to go. Um, I like my husband because he has such an open heart to this thing though. He's Catholic and he told me before we married, like Catholic I am, Catholic you will be, it's Catholic to you. But then I asked him one time, we had some like really hard time in October of last year, September, October, I should have said it as like February, but it's been like off and on, off and on, you know, dealing with sleeping under the carpet, sleeping under the carpet, but not really dealing with it. Right. And then like there's this outburst and God really just want to take us through that phase. I'll talk about this in one of the podcast episodes. I mean, you don't know me, so I think I can as well say what my life problems are. And this is exactly what he told me. I'm telling you this is one of my podcast, you'll have to listen to it. Ah, this girl has gone back to your house. Man, here is a no judgment zone. So what was I saying? Happy was open to trying out to new church. So after we had that fracas, we did talk about, um, if you're open to, I know I want us to go back to church because I want my kids to know like Bible study. And you know, these teachers in the Sunday school, they do know how to break it down to like different children level. And I appreciate that. So I want my child to relate with people beyond school. I noticed that my kid, before he turned two, he was not really very social for a small child his age. So I was really going to put him in school when he was three, but then by the time he turned two, by the time he was turning two, I started scouting for schools. He turned two, his birthday is in September and his first term starts in September. So I had to go to school and I told God, please lift your hand, guide me. God directed me to school on my child's love day. So like I was going to go for a church home and he's directed us here. We'll check it out. We'll see if it aligns with our faith, if we enjoy the service, if we see God and we feel God from the ministration of the church. And this includes our praise and worship and the word. And then, so we'll go to church every Sunday for Bible study and others we can do online. I really want to have a good spiritual walk with God this year. So yeah, this is a 30 minute podcast. I always said I didn't want it to be 30 minutes and it's been six minutes and a few seconds on the clock. So I'm going to wrap up here because I know that I'll talk to you again. I'm always excited to speak with you by the way, just so you know. And by you, I mean my microphone, not you. I truly am. So yeah, who speaks? I know people, because I enjoy talking to you. Thanks for listening to my jargon. Thanks for listening to me talk nonsense. Ask for teasers. I definitely do. you