Hard Reset

Can you believe that it’s been almost a year since I’ve made a note-worthy word deposit here? Would you believe me if I totld you that you that I am a totally different person than I was back then? Yes, I am still me but Baybayyyy… If you thought being an expert on Self development makes you exempt from growing, you are sadly mistaken. The moment you stop growing is the day funeral prep begins… trust!

Many times I have told you Self-development is a LIFELONG endeavor, This whole time that I’ve been pushing forward like a nomad in the face of a desert storm. Ehhhh, I wouldn’t call it a crises, but getting to the next level sometimes aint no joke. Let me just tell you this… scooch up close and listen good… When you find yourself in a perpetual state of irritatating becasie life isn’t “lifing” the way you want or need it to, that’s a hint for your behind that it’s time for a change.

Ever felt like you needed to be somewhere… or thatt you have somewheere to go but when yo into your car knowing theres aa full tank, you put the key in, turn over the ignition but the care just wont go? This kind of puts me in the mind of living through COVID. You have a taste for something and since you’re tired of sitting in the house you decide to go to the corner store. You put on your shoes, find the keys to lock up, down the four flights of stairs to the building exit and out the door you go. You make it off the property, around the corner down 5 blocks down the street to the story… only to find a sign on the door that says “Closed until further notice.” $%&#$ !!!

When you’re done cussing the next thought is: “Well damn that was a colossal waste! A waste of time; a waste of energy and still… no chips! To sum it up, I’m now tired, pissed off, feeling stranded, abandoned, frustrated and still unable to satisfy the hunger for the thing I really really wanted. On the long walk back the only thing swimming in my head is… “There has to be more to life man! God help me…” as a tear rolls down out of my left eye. If you think there has to more to it, there is. Dig deeper with me and I will tell the you the story.

K, so it all begins a little over a year ago when I went to Las Vegas to either restart or end a long dragging on saga between me and… well lets call him Timmy. Timmy and I dated like hooooooo… a lifetime ago. Back in the day we met, dated and almost got married until “the elephant” needed to be address. Oh yeah, The elephant was the fact that he had not gotten around to “filing a divorce.” Yep he was married. Clearly the marriage had been over for quite some time… but covenant… is no little word. Whelp you know what they say about Las Vegas… what you do in Vegas… stays in Vegas. Or… does it. So next week Imma take you there and um you’ll have to tell me, just how wrong I was to do what I did.

Love Me Long Time

Sooooo, Valentine’s Day 2021 was like last Sunday and lately it’s just been an annoyance…. I guess I’m not into the commercialism of it or of Christmas. For me it’s all about the feeling… of experiencing romance and intimacy, well and actually of being in love - to know you are loved.  I have never been into the “faking the funk” or wearing masks.  Either you is or you ain’t, there’s no almost or sortas.

I’ve heard people say, “If you have never been hurt by “love” you haven’t really lived.” Ehhhh you see, I feel like the person who came up with that rosy euphemism didn’t really understand the nature of Love.  Love ain’t like getting high and stubbing your tie. The truth of the matter is LOVE, real love never hurts… it’s hurting (and broken) people that hurt other people. We flawed humans have a hard time actually receiving and processing REAL Love.  Love is a DIVINE and pure gift manifested through fleshly hearts, self-less actions… and it’s nearly impossible to pass on something one does not have or has ever experienced.  People are often self-serving and tend to do what makes them happy until it no longer does.  And lately, what’s this thing of getting into a one thing for the meantime until something better comes along?  Some people change boyfriend/girlfriends like they change socks. I digress… lets move on.

Real Love is a DIVINE and Supernatural gift. To understand it you gotta go deeper than your feelings.  Saint Paul was divinely inspired when he described love as:  

1.        Love never stops loving

2.       Love is large and incredibly patient

3.       Love is gentle and kind

4.       Is not jealous or puffed up

5.       Does not shame or disrespect others

6.      Love does not seek its own honor

7.       Love celebrates honesty and doesn’t love what is wrong

8.      Love is a safe place of shelter

9.      Love never stops believing the best for others

10.   Love NEVER FAILS

Now, now I hear you… who can do all that? And my answer to you, one flawed individual to another… is NO BODY CAN LOVE THAT WAY. In fact, I think we should just stop using the word LOVE altogether until we HOOK UP TO THE SOURCE. Honestly, you have to have LOVE LIVING inside of you. I’m not just talking about being inspired… You have to submit to love, be subject to it, be vulnerable and be obedient to it (correction: to HIM). Love is a Spirit, He’s Real, He talks, He instructs, He corrects, and He directs. Without a relationship to LOVE, love cannot be figured out.  Love is something we (every human being) needs.  It’s part of the foundation built from the loving interactions between parent and their child.  This is particularly important between the ages of birth to _____.  And it’s vital that a child gets what they need at this developmental stage… if not it becomes a DEFICIENCY NEED. And that vacuum never stops sucking. This child goes from one relationship to the next looking, looking, looking for love (one that will last.)

Clearly, so many of us trying to love (in a fleshly way) did not receive the proper LOVING foundation.  And so, as adults we are left to figure out what we missed.  It seems to be a common problem… How to fix those cracks, holes, the vacuum for love in  our SOULS so that we can LOVE RIGHT…

These sources can help:

Book: Soul Care: 7 Transformational Principles for a Healthy Soul by Dr. Rob Reimer

Website: Love is Respect

Blah Blah Blah: Mouth to Ear Dis-ease

SOULMATES, how important are words and learning to “fight fair”?  Communication, though it can be very complex is vital to every single relationship, even the one with your SELF!  Remember “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me”? Man, that was the mantra for every bullied kid back in the day! And screaming inside their heads “keep it together, keep it together” while trying not to cry and run down the street.  But in truth the mantra is a straight up lie.  While physical cuts scab over and heal, damning words are “saved” on the hard drive of the psyche, and like a background script they run without you even knowing. Words are like seeds, so if you spew ugly, painful, insulting, insensitive language, especially to impressionable youths who are still developing identity, ya might as well be spitting bullets.  Many of us are still running the script and eating the fruit from the trees grown from the bad seeds and we can’t figure out why our lives keep glitching.

Psychological Needs, according to Abraham Maslow (The Hierarchy of Needs, 1935) is the most basic foundational need we all have in common. How do you live a happy life when your head is either messed up or not in the game? Don’t take offense, but  sense NO BODY IS PERFECT and most of us grew up in some form of dysfunction, we are ALL JACKED UP, in one way or another.  But words have the power of life and death and the actions that accompany them only solidify the message. And whatever the message good or bad, whether it meets our needs or causes a “deficiency vacuum” is the stuff we build our lives and identity on.  Let me give you an example: A kid was playing, and they fell and skinned their knee and began to cry.

Scenario 1:  The Mom, upon hearing her child, Timmy cry, threw the phone down, ran outside calling him by name as she grabbed him up.  She hugged him and held him for a moment and spoke affirmative, reassuring words as she helped him to his feet.  With great care she cleaned him up, bandaged his leg and made sure he was alright before giving him a snack and laying him down to rest.   

Scenario 2: The Mom saw everything but was annoyed that her long awaited conversation was interrupted by her stepson’s “clumsy” accident. Even though she could hear the child scream, she finished the intense part of the conversation and took the phone out with her and said (into the phone)… “This lil clumsy bastard, not watching where he was going crashed his bike. Yep, that’s him screaming in the background.  She then snatched him to his feet and dragged him into the house, slapped a bandage on, and told him to go to his room… all while continuing the phone conversation.

Psychological Impact

Kid #1 (Needs Met):  Mom affirmed that the kid is valued, important, cared for and worthy of concern.

Kid #2 (Needs unmet, and deficiency/black hole/vacuum created) Parent affirms kid has less value, is lower priority than phone conversation, Kid is a bother and is not loved/liked and is left to self-soothe.  

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Although Scenario #2 is a little extreme, I’m just trying to drive the point home. Words are seeds that are planted and the fruit from the trees that grow feed us fruit for years to come.  The only way to get rid of the bad scripts is to reprogram the hard drive.  Here’s how you do it:

1.  Remember the Murderous / Wounding Words

2. Forgive the perpetrator (If you need help, click here)

3. Get some AFFIRMATIONS and say them aloud to reprogram your thoughts (and change your trajectory)

For affirmations or help plucking up roots and changing out your fruit… I got you, click here. For more information on Communication check out my book 4Self 101 Chapter 3

Life is Calling

I didn’t plan to be “a hoe” or “addicted to drugs” or still living with Mom & Dad at 30. Well… most people who didn’t know, at age 5 years what they planned to be when they grew up, never planned to live a life that they don’t like (or ever worse… hate.)

If you were like me growing up part of a dysfunctional household… that I couldn’t wait to grow up and leave, there was no planning involved.  I just wanted to be of age so that I could have my own life. Dysfunctional can mean so many things.  And I hope you come back more and more so that we can have more dialog about what yours looked like.  But for me, Daddy left when I was 3 and so did my sisters shortly after. When Momma did remarry there was domestic violence, corporal punishment, alcoholism, a sort of mild neglect and often not enough food in the cupboards. My brother used to eat sugar sandwiches… but I digress.

Getting grown was just the stepping block I needed to “freedom.”  But once grown I realized, man! I didn’t know anything about life. Well I knew what not to do, and how not to talk to people and I also knew how to live without a man. But as having the tools that I needed to a happy life… uh one I wanted…  My tool box was empty and I found myself ill-prepared to handle the regular day-to-day struggles that come with grown-up life. That is why I wrote 4 SELF 101, so that people would have somewhere to start.

One day, the sexiest man alive (well in my life anyway) was conversing with me face to face.  It felt like there was no one else in the room except he and I, but the world was all around and passively watching.  And then he asked… “But tell me, WHO ARE YOU, really?” I was about 28 years old and if I tell you I was stuck on stupid, feeling small and at a loss for words it still can’t capture what I felt at that moment… all I could do was cry. That conversation forced me to discover ME, who I really was. One might say “Rediscover who I am” but honestly, I didn’t know who I was.

Its been many years since then, and can I tell you – it took longer than I thought it would to discover ME. REAL self -development is a PROCESS. The first step is to get to know the SELF, and it’s not just the reflection in the mirror. He/She is much more complex. Walk with me… (click the button above to join the conversation.)