Tag Archives: mindfulness

Rise.

I am safe.

I am protected.

I am loving.

I am loved.

I create peace. 

I speak sunrays.

I smile gratitude.

I rise with affirmations and gratitude. On those mornings when my anxiety’s attempting to Geppetto me into doing nothing or screaming statistics in my ear, I quiet the noise with gratitude. When I feel like I have nothing, I wiggle my toes and fingers, rub my hands together, blink and smile. That’s how I remind myself that if I don’t do anything more in the day, I’ve already won because I’ve defeated the voices that told me not to rise.

I encourage you to rise. Fuck those voices. 

Breath in your body means you’ve got a reason to live.

You’re a gift. 

Your existence is important, even if you don’t feel like it in the moment,

Rise.

All is Well Tee

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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.

Angles

From this angle, the world is mine.

From this angle, Mobile is cloud-covered but flooded with sunshine.

From this angle, my dreams are small and completely attainable.

From this angle, my anxiety isn’t a major obstacle. From here it’s a joke.

From this angle, the city is beautiful and the homeless people live lavishly.

From this angle, everything I want, I can have.

Everything I dream, I receive.

At this angle, I’m in love. Pregnant with dreams of happiness and the future.

This angle.

God bless this angle.

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