Category Archives: Life

I Wrote This For You

One time for the anxious.

The amazing people who get so hyped that they run and hide from their greatness.

The brilliant mind. Imprisoned by the troubled soul.

A condescending warden of a brain who proclaimed that the genius had to settle for average.

Mundane.

Don’t stand out.

Maintain.

I wrote this for you. Just for you.

My pen moves in sync with your racing heart. Erratic, quite manic, slightly breathless.

For you I breathe.

For you I share my pen’s sweet release in hopes that my vulnerability will remove the invisible shackles from your feet that keep you from your greatness or the hand from your throat that suffocates you and takes your ability to speak.

These words I write are intended to touch your soul.

You are great

Brilliant

Genius, in fact.

Take the step. Leap of faith.

Share your art. Share your heart.

Watch it break in the hands of few, feel it thrive and swell in the minds of many.

You are gifted, needed, necessary

And when the anxiety gets heavy

And your heart aches from fear,

Remember, you are exactly what’s been prayed for. The greatness you fear is what you’re made for and when you want to run, lean in-your breakthrough won’t break you.

If no one is there, I’m here.

Remember, I wrote this for you.

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Trust the Process

For a while, “trust the process” was my motto. I was saying it for every situation as a means of reminding myself that God’s plan is perfect and that everything will work out in due time. I had been repeating the phrase during meditation, in the shower, as I exhaled in a difficult yoga pose-all that. I felt so strongly about the phrase that I was telling other people to keep calm and trust the process, too. It all seemed so simple and so soothing until one day when it wasn’t.

I don’t remember the exact situation, I just remember how it made me feel. I remember the bitter taste in my mouth, the tears that filled my eyes, the heat that rushed over my body, and the uncontrollable urge to lash out and let loose on the first person I saw. Luckily, nobody was there. It’s no secret that I have trouble expressing and managing my emotions, it’s one of the many things that I’m unpacking and working through right now, but on this day my emotions seemed like a burden I didn’t want to carry. I remember sitting on my yoga mat in front of my crystals and just crying. Normally, this is when I would take deep breaths and repeat “trust the process” until I calmed down but that wasn’t an option.

I went from feeling everything to feeling nothing, numb with confusion. Trust the process…what process?! I sat there on my mat with Bob Marley on repeat wondering what my granddaddy would do. What about grandma? What about Grip? Bob Marley? Jesus? Anybody?! How would anybody else climb out of this depressive state? I couldn’t come up with anything, which just made me more frustrated. I cried hard until my head ached and I got up, showered and went to work like nothing had even happened.

Fast forward a few weeks to when I was having a conversation with one of the most amazing people in my life and everything clicked: you don’t just trust the process, you have to learn to trust the process. Trusting the process is a process in itself! It’s not always pretty and it doesn’t always make sense because sometimes it isn’t what you expect or think you need it to be. I remember hanging up the phone and going straight to the shower. I stood under the hot water thinking about why I quit “trusting the process”. Why the sudden shift? After much deliberation and critical self-talk, I realized that I put too much emphasis on the idea of trusting the process and not enough emphasis on trusting God and myself.

Reflection helped me realize that in every situation where I thought things were at their worst and there was no way out, something beautiful happened. I had to get through the storm to enjoy the rainbow and that’s how my life has always been. The storm was God giving me the strength I needed to pull through because He has an amazing life for me, but I’ll have to work for it. I had forgotten that, though. I was screaming “trust the process” and not using any of the skills or knowledge I had been blessed with.

When you want something, you must work for it. All those cliché quotes about nothing worth having being easy to attain are true. Are you trusting the idea of trusting the process or are you truly trusting God and yourself? What does it look like for you to trust the process? Take some time to really think about it, because when things get hard and you want to quit or don’t understand why it all has to be so hard, you’ll need to circle back to your answers. On the road to be great, you are an ever-evolving artist and your life is your artistic expression. Open your mind and your heart to growth and trust that along the way, you’ll learn all that you need to get to where you want to be.

Trust the process. Trust God. Trust yourself.

Be the Light

It’s been a while since my last post so let me start by apologizing for my procrastination and general fear of sharing, but I also want to thank my loyal readers (all ten of y’all) and first time readers for reading. 

Now that that’s squared away. Hey y’all!

I created this blog for many reasons, two of them being to uplift people and let them know that they are not alone. In the last few months, I lost sight of that.  I wanted everything to be perfect and of course, nothing was perfect meaning nothing was published. I also felt that what I was writing wasn’t worth sharing. I’ve been writing, Lord knows I’ve been writing. Notebooks, napkins, the “Notes” app in my iPhone, my bathroom mirror. There are plenty of words, but do they matter? Does my blog actually help anyone? More than that, do I make a difference? A conversation with my favorite person made me remember why I must keep writing and sharing this journey.

We were sitting in her living room and she said something along the lines of “I just feel like my life has no purpose. What’s the point?” Loving her as much as I do, hearing those words made my heart hurt. How could she be as beautifully made as she is, and be blind to her own perfection? Does she not realize how important she is? Have I made her feel unappreciated? My mind was flooding with questions, but none of them came out. Before I could think of a reassuring response, I heard myself say:

“Maybe you’re not here for you right now.Just think of what our lives would be without you”

I wasn’t speaking only of myself, but also my sister, boyfriend, cousins, and everyone else whose life she plays a pivotal role in. I call her every day after work even though I’ve texted her throughout the day. She’s undeniably my best friend, but she’s a friend, mother, and counselor to so many others and I knew one day she would realize that.

A few days later, we were in her living room and she said, “You know, you were right about what you said the other day.” She helped someone with an issue they were working through and they expressed their gratitude and appreciation for her.

That conversation was just as eye opening for me as it was for her. I found that the purpose of a moment in life isn’t always spelled out. There will be times in life when it seems like nothing is going on or you aren’t accomplishing anything but those moments are so important. Share your love, wisdom and knowledge and be open to receive the same from others. Smile when you don’t feel like it. Be kind to others and yourself. In those moments when you’re feeling useless, push through and continue to be the light for others because it’s in that same light that you will find yourself.

 

“Even if you are a small forest surviving off of moon alone, your light is extraordinary.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

 

Quiet Moment

Whether you give up on all your goals or pursue them with everything you have, the world around you keeps going. It seems like everyone is doing everything everywhere. It seems like everywhere I turn someone is getting married, having children, or reaching their career goals. It’s so easy to get lost in what everyone else is doing because it looks so…nice. In March, I fell off track. I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted from exercise, writing or anything else so I dropped everything. I just completely stopped.

After a mediocre work day, I was scrolling through Instagram when my friend’s post came up. The photo and caption are both so simple, but they hit so hard. Though his post focused more on perseverance and growth, it made me consider the importance of being quiet. I’m a talker. I hate small talk because I’m awkward, but I love to talk. Regardless of whether it’s about stars, food, or cracks in the concrete, I love to talk. When I’m having a hard time with certain things I prefer to talk through them regardless of whether I’m talking to someone else or seeking expert advice from myself, I talk. The day I saw that photo I received a rejection email from a job I’d recently interviewed for. I wanted to cry and talk but I was at work so I opted out of the convo and crying session. Instead, I blinked a billion times and turned up my “Dreamville” playlist until I couldn’t hear myself think about the sting of another rejection. In that moment with J. Cole’s Friday Night Lights mixtape intro playing in my ears, I was quiet. Aside from the few words coming through my earbuds, my mind was completely quiet for about thirty seconds. It was like I’d pressed a reset button and was allowing myself to process more than just that moment.

That thirty seconds and this photo made me realize how powerful silence can be. It helped me bring my focus back to what truly matters to me and not what looks good on other people. The fact is, I needed to be honest with myself. What was I doing to make me see the results of my exercise? (Side note: I was overeating during meals and rewarding myself with snack cakes/candy bars when I’d complete a mediocre workout so there’s that…) Why was I being so critical of everything I wrote, instead of enjoying the therapeutic feeling of clearing my mind of things that I couldn’t talk about? What made me ready for the job that I wanted so bad? Did I even truly want the job or did I just want the job because of how it would look? If it wasn’t for silence, I would probably still be pouting over the fact that things aren’t going the way that I expected them to go.

I’m finally out of that slump! The first step was honesty; the second step was action. Don’t make the action more difficult than it has to be by telling yourself that you can’t do it or focusing on your previous failures. When it came time for me to act, I allowed all types of negative thoughts to keep me from doing what I knew I needed to do for months! Ultimately, I learned that I had to take a moment to be quiet every once in a while. In my quiet moment, I brag to myself about my accomplishments, forgive myself for the mistakes that I’ve made that I can’t seem to let go of, write down two things that I’m grateful for, and take a final moment to breathe because the best is yet to come.

“Real, sustainable change doesn’t happen in a moment. It’s a process.”

-John C. Maxwell,  Today Matters

Be Hungry

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” “What’s your five-year plan?” “What is your ideal career?”

*Insert blankest of all blank stares here*

I remember when those questions used to excite me. I could easily answer with “I’ll be in college” or “I’ll be graduating from college and moving out of Alabama to work for a large corporation”, but now those same questions result in anxiety and a slight panic. Five years?! I’m still in Alabama, that Financial Analyst career still hasn’t started, and I no longer feel like a large corporation is a must (it’d be nice, though).  It’s easy to get caught up in the fact that I’m not exactly where I want or expect to be. Yes, I graduated and have started a career in my field. Yes, I have time to dedicate to myself that I may not have had if I went straight from college to a more demanding, large corporation. I’m still not where I expected to be.

I know I’m not the only one in this position. I’m not the only one who wakes up most mornings and gets distracted by the difference between what’s real and what was expected. I’m not the only one who feels the need to push harder and be better. That hunger can be so intense and consuming that we forget how far we’ve come and what we’ve accomplished. We are in the same boat. A bunch of hardworking people who’ve accomplished so much but because we aren’t exactly where we want to be, we live in a constant struggle between what is and what “should be”. We are all hoping and praying we reach our idea of success, happiness, and/or greatness without getting lost along the way.

I got lost. I lost focus of where I was trying to go and I was still waking up feeling the overwhelming disconnect between where I was and where I wanted to be.  Instead of pushing forward, I stopped trying. I knew that I didn’t want to settle with where I was in life, but I also didn’t want to try anymore because I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I had a conversation with my mentor. We were speaking about my career goals when he basically said “You’re still young. You can definitely reach your goals; you just have to keep trying to find a way in.” Mind. Blown.

Seriously, my mind was blown. It may not seem like he said much, but he said exactly what I needed at the time. I’m 23. I turn 24 this year. 24 is a year away from 25 which is five years away from 30 which is too close to 40 and if I’m going to have my yacht by 35, I’ve got to get on it! Our conversation made me realize that while my thinking in fast forward works sometimes, I never actually considered that I have time!

For those in the boat with me, consider this: that hunger that drives you forward can also distract you. Take a moment to look back at what you’ve accomplished. Not just the big accomplishments but the small victories-you graduated, lost two pounds, skipped the snack cake and had carrots instead, wrote a poem, got positive feedback on your craft, etc. Every time you slip or get overwhelmed take the time to remember the accomplishments you reached on the way to your ultimate achievement. The journey is just as important as the achievement so be patient with yourself. Don’t let your hunger make you neglect the present because if you sabotage yourself with negativity and fear now, you don’t get the luxury of achieving your greatest dreams. Keep calm and stay focused.