My week has been clouded with thoughts about almost everything, I was in a constant state of deep thought trying to make sense of how I have evolved as a person, How I have grown to appreciate certain things now, that I didn’t necessarily pay attention to a year or two ago. And one of the things I have grown to appreciate especially in my daily interactions is the concept of emotional intelligence. This could assume different definitions depending on your point of deconstruction, but how I introspected with the term was from a point of “having the personal ability to identify and manage my emotions and that of others”. Living in this online world, more people in their numbers have shared personal trajectories they’ve had to endure in suffering a type of mental illness. This has brought me to light on the prevalence of people battling with a type of mental illness in isolation with no one to confide with or rely on for emotional support. Truth is these people are all around us, from our friends, our colleagues, relatives and even our mothers. Yes! It’s that real. Yet we know very little on how to deal/ respond to each other’s feelings, often feeling overwhelmed by the next persons emotions, (which is a natural response in some instances) but sometimes responding with the urge to give advice when it’s not due in an attempt to make things better or give general simplistic statements which undermines the complexity of the situation. Truth is you will not always have the answers to a person’s problem or know their situation better than they do, sometimes all we ought to do is honestly admit to not understanding the next person’s situation. However ask questions that will make them feel understood. Asking specific questions and Probing are definitely not easy skills to acquire but something we can definitely develop. I think we can all, in our personal capacities learn to respond better to people experiencing heartache, emotional instability, or a type of mental Illness.

I was moved further into thought subsequent to the SAWIP session on decolonisation. The key question we had to reflect upon during the session was “What is our personal idea of a decolonised institution?”

To relate it back to my initial thoughts, my idea of a decolonised institution is that which indigenises its curriculum. Coming from a psychology background, where most of what we learn is premised on Eurocentric theories in understanding the African mind, my idea of a decolonised institution, is one that centers African thought, knowledge and practices as vital in our growth and advancement as a nation.