What if I can’t afford it? What if I lose my job and my credit tanks? What if God didn’t call me to do this work? What if I’m not as purposed as I thought I was?
These are only a few of the thoughts that have been piercing my mind lately. I’ve been making tremendous strides toward growth, healing, and greatness – and my spiritual obedience has been top notch, too. But despite the feeling of achievement, these thoughts have been echoing loudly within.
Read MoreI thought I learned a lot in my relationship. We came from very different walks of life, so I thought learning how to work together and deal with our differences taught me everything I needed to know about building a budding relationship. I just knew I had been stretched as far as I could have been with everything we went through together. But the years following our relationship transformed me into a woman I never thought to become.
Read MoreI was going to start my April posts off differently, but the brutal assassination of rapper and community activist, Nipsey Hussle, haunts me. Like much of the black community, I’ve been grieving since Sunday.
I muscled into my hotel room with great disappointment after turning down a lunch date with colleagues. It was a long walk from the convention center to the Westin, so I had plenty of time to think about what I had just done. I needed a listening ear and a loving heart, but as I entered the room to explain my error to my best friend, nothing came out. I was so upset at myself that I couldn’t even express how I felt.
Read More“Hey, our online request form is down. Can you help resolve?” I asked. A critical function of our office is being able to process certain requests in a timely manner. In this situation, however, we were unable to receive requests because that part of the site was down. It hadn’t even been 24-hours before we started receiving frantic e-mails from students and alums who had tried to access the form but were met with this roadblock.
There was no solution at the end of her e-mail. No alternative she was willing to offer up.
Read More“Is it just me?”, “Am I crazy?”
I’ve gotten so used to second guessing the validity of my opinions, even as it specifically pertains to my own experiences that it becomes almost necessary to hear out loud, that I’m not alone.
Read MoreFor as long as I can remember I’ve been presented with these false narratives. Narratives that perpetrated the belief that women are catty, jealous, bitter, and incapable of nurturing and maintaining genuine relationships with each other. We have of course also been presented with positive displays of sisterhood in movies, television, and magazines. I just couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming number of portrayals that depict women in a light that made it seem slightly unrealistic for women to possess drama-free, healthy, and stable relationships.
Read MoreMy aunt’s voice was unusually stern. Her brown locks swung past her shoulders as she waited for me to do it that very second. So, I did. I placed my right hand on my left breast and felt a lump the size of a chickpea. I opened my eyes and jumped out of bed.
It was only a dream, right? There’s no way I have a lump in my breast. Not after my dad died. Not after the way my dad died.
Read MoreDo you know how amazing it is to be surrounded by such beautiful, smart, fun and resilient women? Words can’t even begin to describe it. I’ve been so blessed to have such great friends that sometimes I forget many women have never and will never experience the beauty of friendship. Some don’t even desire to have a sisterhood. Casting friendships aside because of petty differences and unnecessary drama.
Read MoreYetti is the first to notice that I’m on mimosa number three. I’m mid-pour, with my eyes down, dousing my internal fire with glass after glass of alcohol. She bores holes into my eyelids for a full thirty seconds before I allow her eyes to catch mine. She twists her face into a shame-on-you scowl, then clears her throat and laughs. I shrug and laugh with her.
“I need a banana. Bring me one?”
I told her I didn’t have time but would try tomorrow. I never had the opportunity. Twenty-four hours later the sound of her voice was silenced by a breathing machine. They strapped her hand to the bed rail because she kept taking the tube out of her mouth.
Read MoreI found it on the internet, buried within the comment section of a rant that highlighted my lack of self-confidence and my continued battle with Imposter Syndrome. It was subtle yet affirming, and to be honest, it went slightly over-looked. My dwellings on the internet was simply a space for me to unravel without the people I knew in real life catching a glimpse of my vulnerability. But that comment was just the beginning of something very permanent.
Read MorePeople say time heals all wounds, but they never say how much time. Last month I learned that, for me, time meant a little over two years. It is just now that I’m finally settling into a breakup that I had experienced back in 2016.
The breakup affected my belief in God and the very foundation I set my faith on.
Read MoreI stressed myself trying to create meaningful relationships, that I ended up having to cancel more people than I could call on. People’s baggage wasn’t good for my health, and while we all come with it, it was important for me to recognize how much of it I could carry, and frankly, whose was worth carrying.
No matter how many ways I tried to force connections, none of them mattered. The women who weren’t meant for me simply weren’t meant for me. While I had never been a stranger to knowing how and when to release friendships, I recognized that I also had to learn how to nurture and protect them.
Read MoreI stopped dieting and calorie counting a few years ago. I realized that my attempts to slim down were rooted in self-loathing rather than self-love. I knew that the only way to combat that was to truly love myself — as soon as I did, I learned that my size was perfect for me.
One thing I never shied away from, though, was healthy living. Instead of fad-dieting — like I had done so many times in the past — I was simply eating better, consistently. Not for weight loss, but for health care.
Read MoreThere’s a meme floating around social media that suggests that 3 a.m. is the hour of creatives, writers, musicians, and artists. I’ve watched this movement of late nights early mornings for a while. I’d roll over in the wee hours of the morning and see late nighters (or early risers) up and at it — grinding. I’d grow to admire their work ethic thinking that their loss of sleep was a goal to aspire to.
Read MoreI began my journey toward finding my peace after moving out of my parents’ house about five years ago. After living in the chaos of having college and grad school roommates, then back to a house with my parents and older brother — and having to write my name on my groceries — I was ready to venture off to a new place of solitude and quiet peace. I wanted to own and enjoy this transition.
I learned early on, that while place can affect peace, perspective is one of its largest contributors. With that revelation, I began the self-work necessary for cultivating peace.
We’re officially in the last month of the year. It took a while to get here but we made it! Many of us are using this time to set new year’s resolutions and assess the success of this year’s goals. It’s a last-ditch effort to accomplish the things that are still pending and create a new set of goals to begin in January.
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