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January 3rd marks my 2 year Canniversary (Canadian Anniversary). In 2018, I took my boys, packed our lives in 6 suitcases and headed to distant shores. I guess culturally this is typical for a Jamaican searching for fresh opportunities but no less intimidating.

For me, a fresh start was a need. Jamaica carries bitter sweet memories. I love my country and my culture but violence had me restless and honestly fearful. I also didn’t want to keep being the lady who people, having heard my story, did that pitiful head tilt to when they saw me. I didn’t want to be the lady who’s work and input was being measured by what she was going through rather than the work itself. I also did not want the boys to grow up in an environment where this horrible thing that happened to them always overshadowed.

Anyway, since it’s been two years I’ll share 2 major lessons I’ve learned.

The first is that seasons are a real thing. I know what you are thinking. As children, along with ABC’s and counting to 10, we learned the days of the week, seasons and months of the year. But when you grow up on an island where the coldest recorded temperature in the capital in history was 18°c, the word season becomes a foreign concept that you understand in theory but not so much in reality. Yes, there was a dry season and a rainy season. However, Jamaica’s weather is really an endless summer by Canadian standards.

More important than the fact that there are four seasons is how much those impact culture, moods and perspectives. Short of a proper storm, Canadians are not defeated by weather phenomena. They dress for it and move on. Oh I long for the days when a light shower of rain was a perfectly normal reason to not show up for an event. Canadians have found ways to celebrate every season. When it’s summer, everyone from the young to the old, makes the most of every minute of sunshine. Outdoor play, barbecues, beach, water parks, hiking you name it. As winter draws nigh, winter sports and family get togethers become the norm. Your neighbours disappear into their homes and indoor playgrounds become the place to take your children.

The real lesson though is that just as seasons in nature change, they do in your life too. No circumstance is permanent. In fact change is inevitable and stagnation is unnatural. Every other occupant of earth, even rocks, embrace change. As humans why don’t we? I feel like God has been orchestrating a major life lesson in change management since 2015. Let me summarize; in 5 years I have changed 3 jobs, been married, widowed, single mom, dating and married again. I have lived in 5 homes and 2 countries. I became a certified project manager as well as certified insurance broker and now I’m returning to my first love of writing.

How do I remain sane, focused and relenting? I have to anchor to something, rather someone who is constant, always present and never changing. “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” Malachi 3:6. To keep thriving I am learning to be pliable. I try to find something to enjoy in each season and if I can’t find the joy I try to at least be grateful for something. Rest assured, wintry seasons turn to spring, spring turns to summer and summer to fall. The good news is that no matter how dark and cold the winter, spring is coming.

The second is the importance of community and networking. I suppose I took this concept for granted because my core support network was always with me. Jamaica being the way it is, someone knows someone who knows you and vice versa. When I came to Canada I learned quickly that it’s almost impossible to live isolated lives and survive here. I need my family they need me in a real sense. I needed to connect with organizations that offered help with settling and employment. My Jamaican community in person and social media groups all helped to soften the blow of homesickness. My new church family means so much to me. I’m honored to walk with them as we discover God’s purpose for our lives. The scripture says it this way Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 10 “Two are better than one because they have a more satisfying return for their labor; for if they fall.either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and does not have another to lift him up.” Get connected my lovies!

Thanks for joining me in 2020.

Write Fully Yours

Lady Kavan

Hey, have you ever watched the show Brain Games? It delves into cognitive science, focusing on illusions and psychological experiments. In a few of the episodes, it highlights how much of your observed environment the human brain excludes from conscious thought in the name of efficiency or protection. I’ve been mulling over this phrase and the more that I do I realize that our definition of control can keep us in an unsafe illusion.

Control is the power to influence or direct people’s behaviour or the course of events. As a driver, I control the vehicle I drive. As a mom, I have the power to influence the direction of my sons’ lives. At work, I have control over my areas of responsibility. However, we know all too often that things happen outside the perimeter of our control. Sometimes life blindsides us. The unexpected happens and we are left grasping for the semblance of normalcy again. 

 For instance, true story… It’s 6:30 a.m. It is freezing outside and I’m in the morning zone with the boys. Coats, check. Boots, check. Hats, check. We get into the car, seatbelts on, car warm and I pull of out the driveway. By the looks of things, everything seems normal, I was in control of my day. Unknown to me a thin layer of ice was hiding on the road surface and for a second the car started to head into a direction I was not intending it to go. For those 2 seconds, I was not in control, the ice was. Very often, life lays that thin layer of ice and we do all we can to get back to safety.

I think with all the responsibility adulting lays on us we can get the false sense that every detail of our lives is up to us. It’s the illusion that we control it all. The illusion of control convinces me that my input and my effort will always lead exactly to my outcome. This can cause us to process life’s happenings incorrectly. We plan (as we should) but how many variables are truly ours to control? Can we as individuals’ control someone else’s choices, the global economy, or the weather? So how do I account for what I can’t control? What do I do when circumstances throw my plans through the window or splinter them into a thousand pieces? On the flip side, when grace and favor adds flavor to our efforts and throws doors open that you know would have been unlikely with your effort alone, who gets the glory? Do you attribute that to luck, is it just all you or is Christ lifted up?

I remember battling with thoughts of blame after my first husband died. I retraced our steps over and over trying to figuring out how I could have done something else. But I wasn’t in control when evil hatched a plan to break in. I did not pull the trigger. I remember when I was headed hunted for a job in a new industry at the point where I was considering leaving a company I worked with for a decade. Within the space of 6 months my income almost doubled. It was not just the new salary. A few months after I started wage negotiations in play a year before concluded and I was a blessed beneficiary. In retrospect I know God orchestrated it so that when I lost Chris the blow to my finances was significant but manageable.

So how do we process life without the illusion of control? We pray, we plan and we leave our hearts open to change. We must not hold so tightly to any possession, person, place or perspective that we are shattered when have to let it go. Jesus is the only constant in our changing world and our hope must be hidden in Him. We cling to Him for the answers we need and remain patient to hear His response, even when it takes longer than we think it should. (That last point was for me. Im working on it)

Write Fully Yours

Lady Kavan

It’s been eleven months. As I dust the cobwebs off this page I must admit I’m a bit embarrassed for leaving you hanging. I apologize. The good news is I haven’t stopped writing. I’ve spent the last eleven months pouring into my book. The one where you get to see me intimately. The book that I knew I had to write but scares every molecule in my being. Thankfully the core writing is done and I only have bits of homework from my coach and publisher Crystal Daye. Of course, you will get first dibs on all book related news. Now I get to focus on connecting with you again. I missed you. I promise you’ll hear from me soon. I have thoughts I want to share with you.

Write Fully Yours,

Lady Kavan

When I was younger, our version of Facebook was stacks of photo albums in the living room. We gladly pulled them out to show our guests when we entertained and used them as a source of family amusement when we were alone. I don’t recall seeing pictures of family feuds or moments when we were broken. We didn’t take pictures of meatless meals when our parents could not afford more.

The fact is more often than not, we humans have documented the good and the beautiful in our lives. We document what we want to remember not what we choose to forget. The albums were meant to be memories of the milestones, the markers and points in time we were smiling and doing something wonderful. They help to give us hope during melancholy seasons that one day that smile will return. They remind us that things were never all bad.

We berate social media all the time for the way it has handcuffed this generation to its varied electronic devices, but I believe it has its place. As an immigrant my best friends are thousands of miles away and yet they feel reachable. Our posts are often used as reminders to check in and have actual conversation. Like the photo albums in my childhood living room, the posts become an invitation for a deeper conversation.

I can’t tell you how much inspiration and strength I’ve drawn from strangers posting an inspirational thought or post in what seems like divine timing. Oh how powerful the process of learning when nuggets of facts and truth are posted. Social media is rich with the potential to learn and grow. I am learning to use it wisely.

The scripture in Prov 16:27 says: “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. This truth can be applied to so many things but let’s think about it in the context of social media. Have you, like me, ever been guilty of scrolling aimlessly through feeds when there are a million more productive things to do. Idling, procrastinating, disengaging from your current life, whatever the choice of word, its opening the gateway of our minds to more clutter. It gives our enemy more ammunition to distract us from the important things, to throw you off your plans and open up an avenue for unhealthy comparison.

With that I’m challenging myself for the next month to be intentional about my social media use. My theme word for this year is discipline, because I need that to accomplish all the things on my vision board this year. So, timer on Kavanaugh! You have a maximum of 1 hour to check your usual platforms for updates. Notifications off. Are you coming with me? Let’s do this.

I lay curled up in bed one night, too tired to sleep too tired to be actively doing anything. Instead of grabbing a book or trying to absorb new information, I turned to Netflix. There was a curious title on the list. Collateral Beauty. It had Will Smith so I decided to watch.

Without betraying the movie in case you want to watch it, there is a scene where a character explains collateral beauty. She says when her daughter was dying at the hospital an old lady said “just make sure you notice the collateral beauty”.  She described it as the profound connection to everything she would come to recognize some time after her daughter passed. Her comment “It’ll never bring her back and it will never ever make it okay, but I promise you its there” just punctured the dam and the rivers started to flow.

If Websters Dictionary defines collateral damage as  injury inflicted on something other than an intended target specifically. For me then collateral beauty is the beauty and meaning to life discovered unintentionally as a result of an ugly occurrence. Collateral beauty unveils daily in the eyes of my boys. I sense it in the intense empathy I now feel for other people’s sorrow. It is made clear in the beauty of seasons and nature and art and all that is.

In plain language, tragedy forced me to grow up and slow down enough to look outside my bubble and see the world around me. I now acknowledge that my time is finite, that death is imminent and Love is all we have. He is all that matters. He  is our raison d’être and every action and reaction should flow from that understanding.

Yet, He being Love, loves us as if there was no one else. He loves as if we were the most important things in the universe. He works our progress and our failures, our tragedies and our victories into a beautiful rendition of a poem called good. Now that I have another name for it, I’m going to use it.  I will remind myself to look for collateral beauty in every circumstance I find myself in.