If this message is not for you, maybe you know someone that might find it useful, maybe you are sharing a house or bedroom with a person who may need to hear this.

At a certain stage of my life, I experienced a lot of misfortune, better known as bad luck. My life revealed one disaster upon another. Nothing I planned seemed to work out. Although I felt alone in this dark world, I knew from experience from working with people my whole life, that I was not the only one going through these experiences.  I knew that life happens and with the right support, I would get through this. Great was my surprise when I started to realize that my wheel of fortune somehow became stuck, and no hope was approaching me from the horizon. Clouds with silver linings only showed up in nature and storybooks.

Perfectionism took its toll, it showed to be devastating rather than contributing to my life and those around me. My wife looked at me calmly when I told her I cannot face myself in the mirror anymore, not even when I comb my hair. She saw it happening but even her loving support could not get me through this form of depression experienced. Not even prayer and faith could heal this dark patch. Don’t get flaky on me now. I have been serving people since my grade 11 year, that was in 1987. I am graduated in Ministry and Spirit-filled. How in the world does it make sense, even remotely? 

When you are at this level of stress, a lot of things around you are affected. Sleep deprivation, lack of understanding, inability to express me verbally. I mean, I am an orator, how is it possible that I cannot find words to articulate my thoughts. Many a time I had to be reminded about commitments that I agreed to and merely forgot about it. I think the worst part was losing memory. I would be sitting in a family meeting, my wife and two sons recollecting a fun event that we all were part of, and I sat there having no recollection of me even being present at all.

I realized that I did not have control over the things that got stuck in my mind, and I am talking about situations 42 years ago. To mention one instance, the effect it had on me when my dad, who was a policeman all his life, had to perform duty on the borders of South Africa affected my performance in school and the way I reacted to life. I was physically strong, a leader in many areas, Head boy of my High School, Commissioned Officer in the South African Police Service, and running my own construction company at a later stage. I ended up working for friends, who wanted to support me, but I was not following my dream, living an unfulfilling life. My creativity hit zero.

I needed help. I enrolled in a Life Coach program, and very skillfully, my coach peeled the layers from my eyes. My personal coaching experience has a lot to share, but I am sharing it as it happened, so bear with the following details. One day, after finishing up in the toilet, I for some reason turned toward the mirror and audibly uttered these words, “The world needs you”. It came as a surprise to me. I walked to my workstation contacted my next client and started changing the world one conversation at a time.