Getting Outside Your Past

Growing up, I saw couples destroy each other in front of their children, in front of family or anyone who was willing to listen. The majority of the time was spent ripping each other to shreds so much that when there were moments of happiness, I would often wish for the dysfunctional times because it was what I was used too seeing.

Whether it was my parents, my grandparents, aunts and uncles, I was surrounded by people miserable in their marriage, their life and surroundings.

I decided that I would never be like that even if I have to end up alone or in strings of relationships that never went anywhere because I made sure that they wouldn’t.

During the course of my dating history, I have either ran from the idea of love or destroyed it enough so that it ended up running away from me. I tried to make myself unlovable because I wasn’t sure how to give or receive it. All I knew how to do was allow for people to break me down or become so cold and withdrawn that they ended up leaving me. I would shutdown and slowly self destruct because I didn’t know how to be happy and FUNCTION in a relationship. I wasn’t sure how to keep it stable or how to speak from my heart because I never had the opportunity to see it.

Love was an enigma and I was just coasting in it. I allowed others to dictate my wants and desires and allowed myself to get caught up in relationships that abused me in one way or another.

Losing my mother taught that me that I can’t go through life, alienating people because I was too scared to want them near. Meeting my boss and his wife proved to me that two people can form a loving, stable marriage that would stand the test of time.

All I had to do was believe that I was worth it. That I could have that and more if I put my past aside and opened myself up to life and all that it has to offer.

I’m still working on expressing love fully and having the actions match up with my words and sometimes the fear sneaks in and I want to push people far away because I hate showing pain.
So what do I do? I feel it, I allow myself to experience it all, the love, pain, sorrow, happiness; I open myself to it and become a better person because of it.

Allowing your baggage to control you won't ever get you anywhere. If you don't see your own worth, how can you expect anyone else too?

Don't allow your past to dictate your future.

Finding Comfort In Being

One of my longest setbacks had to do with my starting to write again. After my mother passed away, all creative sources in me welled up and died along with her. I did the same routine day in and day out (hating it all the while), but that’s all I could do because I felt so lost. In time, I became used to this, hating my life but to comfortable in it to stop it. I figured I would wake up one day and my life would be in alignment and things would be okay all I had to do was sit there and wait.

So, I did. I gained weight, became more angry and miserable in my day to day living. I decided that I need to take my life back but how? How do I reclaim something that has evaded me for so long, what if I couldn't, what if I was too old (I'm 25)? 

Yea, right. Excuses, excuses...I really should make that my middle name.

That's when I decided to take my life back and soon, I could feel my creativity energy soaring back. I could write again not at the valor that I used too but I’m working on it. Dancing felt seamless, my body connecting more to the movement and the music and less self conscious, everything seemed new and fresh again. I realized then how not having creativity in my life changed me, I was stunting my growth and slowly draining all the color from my life. When I forgave myself and allowed myself to be happy, I felt free and open to all my blocks and they finally began to crumble and I could breathe again.

Which is when I entered my catch 22. 

With the walls coming down, though came all the pent up emotions surrounding my mother’s death. Stuff that I didn’t even know existed; my mind was cluttered with thoughts of her, of guilt and anger. I felt them so strongly and at first it was disarming because I thought I handled so much of this. 

Yesterday, I was triggered at work. My bosses' wife is battling cancer and she is being taken off a brand of chemotherapy because she isn't responding the way they all hoped. She is also a second mother to me. So, she came downstairs to work on something and I asked her how she was doing and she turned to me and started to cry. "I'm just sick of tired of being sick and tired," she said.

She reminded me so much of my mother then. I could feel it all rushing back, that helpless feeling. Of wanting to help but knowing that I can't, not the way that I want too. So I end up crying because all these feelings well up inside me and I can't bottle them up, anymore.

Yet, initially, I wanted to stuff all those feelings back down and go back to what was comfortable and familiar but I knew better. Hiding from it won't help matters any.

I have to handle this now or else I’ll keep drowning from the inside out. I have to learn to sit in my pain long enough to handle it and not be ashamed of my vulnerability. That being vulnerable isn't a sign of weakness but the opposite. That, just being is really okay, being present in this feeling and not feeling that I have to hide it anymore.

That I can find comfort in being still.

In being myself, finally.

And that I feel strong enough to share it all with you.

Thank You.

Why Do We Procrastinate?

Yesterday, I touched upon my issues with procrastination. I feel that is one of my most undesirable character traits. Often times I blamed it on my special type of “OCD” or that there weren’t enough hours in the day and that there was always tomorrow! Of course, tomorrow would arrive and I would scramble around making another batch of excuses to combat why I was delaying what ever project I had on my calendar. It could have been something simple like washing my car, doing the laundry or exercising but I would still convince myself that it wasn’t something I had to do right this second and I could push it aside.

Lately, I have been struggling hard with this procrastination issue. But instead of making excuses, I’m handling it and doing my best to get to the bottom of the issue. The fact is, is that I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I stop procrastinating that the divide between me and supposed failure will be that much thinner and part of me wonders if I can handle it.

I’m afraid to fail, I’m worried that it might not be what I want and I’d have devoted all this time to something that didn’t get me anywhere. I don’t think I’m good enough to be what I really want, I’m even AFRAID to figure out what I really want to do.

So instead, I procrastinate…I push it away, out of my head for that hour, that day, month or year; but it always comes creeping on back in. I have tried out sleeping it, out drinking it, out – well, you get the idea; I have pretty much tried everything humanly possible to stop these thoughts that plague my brain.

I have even used my lesser procrastinations (i.e. washing my car, laundry, etc.) as tools to blow off the bigger things that I know I should handle. Which worked just fine for me, until this year, I can’t explain it really. Something went off inside me and I knew I couldn’t just coast on through my life having private trepidations hold me back repeatedly. Not when I have so much I want to do, not after losing my mother in a span of one month and being powerless about it. I can feel my potential but I was too scared shitless to utilize it.

I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. I wouldn’t allow myself to be a supporting character in my own life and if I wanted to accomplish anything, I couldn’t wait for it to happen. I had to get off my comfy arse and get too it!

I started reading self help books, travel books, writing books. I renewed my passport; started running took up dance again. I got out there, I got involved in my life and I’m still adding new things to do. It’s not about being great at everything now because I know that I can’t be but I’m never going to know where my strengths are until I get out there and try.

So what’s in store for me?
1. Writing, this blog and my book
2. Losing the last stubborn bit of this weight
3. Travel off the East coast by myself
4. Video blog
5. Apply to graduate programs both here and in London

What gets in your way? Have you been able to conquer it? If you are a former procrastinator, I would love to hear your insight!

Nothing like therapy to keep it real.

(FYI - I do go to therapy and I'm a huge advocate of it. Many folks in the black community aren't fond of it but I'm here to hopefully bring new light and shed the fear of it that many may have.)

In my Sunday therapy session, my therapist touched on a very important point. It was on how humans tend to generalize situations and people in ways that we aren’t aware of. At first, I was adamant that I, as open minded as I am couldn’t be capable of generalizing. No, not me at all! I accepted everyone for who they were whether I agreed with it or not. So my therapist was seriously mistaken on that idea. Until he stumbled onto this little tidbit halfway into the session.

Dr. G: So, do you think that your brother is incapable of listening to you?

Me: Yes, but I think that’s a male trait. You try to talk to them and then they shut you out. That’s what they always do. It’s just how they are.

Dr. G: So are all men like that? Am I like that? What are you implying exactly?

Me: ….. (that’s my being silent)

OKAY. I generalize. I open my mind to people of all walks of life but as soon as one of my mental triggers gets hit, it’s over. My walls go up, I start labeling the person and the situation and have the end result wrapped up in my head before I even issue a reply.


It’s done. It’s finished. I have it handled and I know what I have to do because they (in this case, men) are all the same.


I know I was in the wrong but my first instinct still was to start blaming, “Well, doesn’t everybody do that? I know I’m not the only one.” Then I remembered, I’m not in therapy to work on other peoples issues (because my money definitely doesn’t grow on trees), I’m here to work on my own SO I need to OWN MY STUFF and deal. It’s still so easy, so very easy to blame others though. *sigh*


Of course I know logically they [men] aren’t all the same but generalizing helps me feel vindicated in my feelings and I’m always right in what I feel? RIGHT?!



Shit. I have another thing to focus and be aware of.


I’m not being hard on myself at all. I realize that being honest and accountable is going to take time because I’m not used to it, so I’m not going to complain (at least, not today).

Goal for this week:

Check my generalizing. Just because I may not like or understand something doesn’t mean I should compare it to someone or something similar in my memory.

Trying to be fully mentally aware is quite draining. How do you feel about generalizing, does it get in your way of life or something you are blissfully (and plan to remain) unaware of? Please, feel free to share!

Oh, and another thing. To all who have stumbled upon my little blog. No matter how long you stay, I appreciate it since I have no idea how I'm being found.

Expiration Dates Is For Food Only!

Today, at one of the local radio stations, they were interviewing Buster Martin a 101-year-old employee of a plumbing mill in England.What is so special about Buster you may ask (well, the fact that he's 101 and still working is a HUGE feat to me but I digress), what is so special about him is that at the age of 101 he is going to attempt to run a full marathon.

Now, I at 25 wouldn't dare to attempt it due to frustration and fear of entering but not finishing but hearing Mr. Martin tell the story of his life, you can't help but caught up in his infectious energy. Life seems to be to an ongoing journey and you can't stop because you are too old, not as smart (so you think) or not as attractive. Life doesn't go on hold because as a society we have "shelf life" and feel that after a certain number of years we are no longer a commodity but a hindrance.

Discovering a story such of this reminds us that life is truly what you make of it. I know for me personally, I was rushing through each day, my life revolving around working, working out, eating and sleeping. I had all these milestones and goals I had to meet and I couldn't stop because as a woman (throw in being a black one at that),I felt I had to accomplish all these things because right now time ison my side. So many nights have been spent with thoughts rushing through my mind (I'm also an insomniac, surprising, eh?) about how I had to have "X, Y and Z" done by this specific time because if it didn't happen then it never would and I only have this allotment of time before I'll be viewed a certain way in society. (It hurts my brain even by reading the typed out words!) If it isn't how you physically change, it's how you are perceived in the workforce or even how people address you. I've lost countless hours that I won't be able to ever get back over something that is coming anyway. You will get old, be thankful because it's something that can't be avoided no matter what you do or how many black American Express cards you may own. You just have to come to terms with it and deal because it will never change. Don't let fear of your "expiration date" hold you back from enjoying your life fully.

Celebrate life and take a more active role in it. Our time on earth is limited but how you spend your time while here is limitless.

I think that may be my Friday Quote of The Day! I need to come up with a nifty title for it, though (and yes, I realized I used 'nifty').

It Ends Tonight & Begins Here.

March 28, 2008

I start today. No more long, entensive bouts of self destruction. Offamiliar patterns, of being afraid to fall so much that I don't eventry. I start with myself today. I am reading this book, "Get Yours!:How to have everything you want and more. Maybe this is the step Ineed, maybe it will lead me to something greater but at least I knowthat I'm ready to try.

First Step:
My dreams and goals for my happiness are:
• To work at the top of a high placed, creative field. Either anmuseum, record company,
magazine (something in the entertainmentfield).
• To teach as a professor at a university.
• To write a book about my life and my journey.
• To be healthy and always remain in shape.
• Give love, be loved and spread love.
• Maintain residences in the states and abroad.
• Raise children with a loving spouse and promote health, happiness and love, always.

I promise that today I will:
• Stop smoking for good.
• Go to yoga.
• Make decisions good for my overall wellbeing.

This year I promise to:

• Travel off this continent. Alone or with my job.
• Figure out the pathways to get my career started.
• Lose my last 20-30 pounds.
• Paint.
• Get in touch with my spiritual side more.
• Leave my comfort zone.
• Get my finances in order.

I will always:
• Love my immediate family.
• Keep myself safe.
• Keep learning, keep growing.