A Daily Dose of Freedom

” God governs our starts, steps and our stops.” —Pastor Keisha Battle Spivey  I had the pleasure to take part in an interactive seminar that challenged attendees to go beyond practically aligned, goal driven, vision boards and to create a different type of masterpiece, a legacy board. I’m no Picasso and was fresh out of creativity; but after the message, I felt compelled to the challenge. As the facilitator shared her message, I started to ponder upon two things: Who had “ deposited ” seeds into me? Who had I “ transferred ” those seeds into? I come from a traditional lineage of “ alpha females ” that set the bar high, so naturally I’m drawn to bold, strong leadership. I briefly thought about the most powerful, influential voices that had transferred wisdom and impacted my “ NOW .” First, I recall Bishop Atwater’s words, “ You can be pitiful or powerful, but you can’t be both.”  Then Sister Quay Hudson’s insertion of “ Don’t ALWAYS assume that you are the student...

" You find peace not be rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level." ---Eckhart Tolle After we got back from the Eddie James concert, I was determined to stay in that moment of freedom. I needed to hold onto that like I needed the breath in my body. Somehow, I got sidetracked in the midst of my process, so I decided to "out work" my pain.  I committed to out give ,   out eat ,   out love ,  and unknowingly " outsource " my strength. I compromised strength for acceptance. People begin to scrape the bottom of my pit, searching for the remnants of leftovers to " take ." There was nothing. The "pain " kept chasing me down so, I became a mirror of exhaustion in public but dead weight in a sunken down mattress behind closed doors. The enemy had administered a lethal sedative and I became spiritually numb by the environmental dead weight of surrounding circumstances. The demons of he...

" Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. " --Galatians 6:2 An excellent GPS locator to determine if you are out of God's will is by the path you choose to follow. Are you being driven by God's truth or man's opinion? Either way, you will end up somewhere. When I tend to abandon spiritual truth and try to live up to man's expectations, I always end up in back in Egypt ---found sitting under the same tree of darkness, trying to catch my breath. Although I could be found faithful over family, work and school obligations, I refused to be good to me and it showed. I had gone through the fire, inhaled the fumes and smelled like smoke. I was fragile. I was defensive. I was empty. My defensive posture was a result of bearing witness to these ugly untruths and the discomfort I faced with people's probing questions. Obviously, they saw or smelled the fumes and wanted to help, but I wasn't big on being helped. Prideful ? Abso...

"We carry our homes within us which enable us to fly." -John Cage Although I wake up faithfully before my alarm sounds, it’s been a struggle to force myself out of bed. I’m not a morning person (per say), but I used to take pride in having a solid morning routine. I typically got more accomplished by 7 am than those who covet their last few hours of sleep by hitting the snooze button. My time management discipline had somehow collapsed under the earth’s seasonal rotation and obstructed my to-do-list by shortened days. There was a strict, religious color-coded checklist that kept my hormones balanced and in proper alignment with this time change. (Always a methodical map to my madness--even when presumed ridiculous to some). I’d wake up every morning and rehearse the same mental spill. I "had" to keep going due to responsibilities, outstanding obligations and to be apart of the productive working class, even though I didn’t feel productive. My expectations and purpos...

"The surest way to lose your self-worth is by trying to find it through the eyes of others."-Becca Lee My ears are still ringing from the long list of unsolicited "you need to’s" that dance off the white popcorn ceilings every time I attempt to close my eyes for a night’s rest. If life were as simple as some would have you to believe, then we would all be healthier, happier and more fulfilled. It’s only when you’re limp and ice cold, pinned to a table (helpless & hopeless), lying on your back, with a bleak future that people insist upon inserting their "expert opinions," without fully understanding the depths of your deficits. It’s after the diagnosis...after the failure...after the bottom falls out --that they have all the accommodating answers.  Where were you when you saw me "bleeding?"  Where were you when my "cries" went ignored? Judging by natural sight, many assume my wounds are self inflicted, a result of repeated disobedien...

My testimony grows the strongest during the winter months. My routine seasonal sabbatical is oftentimes frowned upon and perceived as backsliding to the pit or just plain old double-mindedness. Little do the jurors know that involuntary isolation has become my most favorable coping mechanism. My secluded nest keeps me out of harms way. Only a few hands are granted limited access for safety concerns.  When the leaves fall and the seasons change, my emotions are short circuited by the residue of gray matter in the brain. The shorter days impair my vision and my corrective lenses don’t offer much guidance. When I look out into plain view, my limited sight is constricted by fences of segregation--black and white. And it’s either raining or snowing but not much natural sunshine. My Vitamin D deficiency catapults any resemblance of light and the only reminder that I have that beauty still exists is by the strokes of my colored pencils magically transforming white spaces. I’d been sitting...

"There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying." -Sarah Dessen When January 2018 caught the masses by surprise with it's seemingly early arrival, I had already hit the ground running. I was making great strides with a meticulous schedule. I made great use of every available opportunity that landed in my lap. I skipped splurging expeditions and ate noodles frequently to free up money for self development workshops, seminars, and lectures. Rarely did I miss a beat. If there was something intellectually appealing going down, I made myself available.  My social wings grew stronger and as a result my circle expanded. For the first time, I had fun learning with people that shared my interests. Although we held many similarities amongst us, there wasn't any unnecessary comparison, competition or catty scheming. We were too p...

My daily obligations have been greeted with an unexpected murky grimace. The lack of physical agility appears to be the most visible culprit and overextended truth. It has only afforded me the opportunity to show up minimally with the added help of over-the-counter migraine medications and swapping them out for natural remedy alternatives. Somewhere between coping and existing, "survival" has become the new norm again. Although this "periodic relapse" isn’t foreign, the recovery period appears to have grown insanely long. Self-care routines temporarily mask the underlying temporal tension but doesn’t seem to compensate much for the excruciating heart condition. Life happened again. Stressors triggered that "little switch" that has caused a hormonal overload of emotional chaos.  Nothing feels right cause everything is wrong. How did I become the "sole proprietor" of this inherited dysfunction? My simple answer: Proclaiming myself (by fallacy) as t...