Aaand you are?

Have you ever had anyone ask you… “Who are you… really?” Not to say that you wear a mask or hide behind a personality (or several)… orrrr you might but the deeper point is, what is the state of your identity.  It’s the knowing who we are part that determines what the SELF Esteem does.

Back in the day, I once knew this fiiiine older man, a 6-foot tall, brown skinned Trinidadian.  When he spoke, SPLOOSH.  Though I kept mine contained I could see the women all around swooning as he talked.  You should’ve seen their husbands, lol… how many times did I want to say, “Green doesn’t look good on you.”  So, when Frank made a comment about my nose ring… “Guhl, why wouldya do that to ya face?” He proceeded to say that his wife wears no make-up and is naturally beautiful.  I thought “Yeah… so, what’s your point?” “If I had met you before I met her, I wouldn’t have even taken a 2nd look at you.  To do something so drastic must mean you have low self-esteem.” (#oldschool). Although I wanted to argue with him about the low self-esteem thing… I was stuck for real when he asked me “Who are you really?”  Number one, he caught me off-guard and secondly I was going through a really tough time in my life. And I hated, hated, hated being single, a single parent raising 3 children.    

I wonder if he would’ve backed down if I told him “I am a child of the Most High God.” But what does that really mean?  I know now, but then was I tired of being rejected and alone (#noBae). The person that I was seeing at the time was separated but not divorced, which was frowned upon in my circles. Eventually he told me “I can’t be your god” as he was breaking up with me.  And I thought “What the f^%$ does that mean?” In short he was saying… I can’t be everything that you need, it’s too much.  Was I smothering him? Did I need him near me every minute of the day?  IDK, but I always believed this was his poisonous female friend twisting what she saw because she herself wanted him? Either way, this all lead me on a journey to discover who I was in truth… and why I was sucking the life out of my guy.

Listen, we have talked about the “vacuum need” thing in previous posts (see Featured Posts).  This type of brokenness drives a person to suck, and suck and suck from their environment to fill in missing pieces of their psyche. And they often do outrageous things to “make themselves feeeel better” like partying a lot, tattoos and piercings… Quite simply they go outside of themselves to get what can only be found on the inside.  Physical things can not satisfy spiritual needs. (#Looking for love in all the wrong places). So in a sense, The Guy was right. You can’t plug a man into the “God-shaped” void and think you are going to be satisfied… “man” is only human. And just one of the benefits of actually knowing God is He will tell you about, show you - the real you. But you can’t shove off all the responsibility and work onto God.  You have to do the SELF-work of discovering/re-discovering your SELF. The Pproblem is many of us have just DONE life to the point that we haven’t actually taken time for SELF.  We give everything to everyone else and starve our own souls, almost to the point of death.  Look at yourself in the mirror and say… “To know me is to love me.” Know, your own SELF and fall in  love with you.  You’ve heard it a thousand times, whose gonna love you if you don’t love your SELF? And it rings true… you CAN NOT love anyone else UNTIL you love your own SELF.

Who am I? What’s your answer? Are you more than what we see? Why? What is your worth based on? What are your God-given gifts and talents?  What’s your purpose… everyone has them. Aaaand what are you DOING with them?  Don’t feel bad if you don’t have the answers right at this moment. This is my little push for BE “all in” this SELF DEVELOPMENT journey. Step #1) Answer the door to your heart,  God is knocking, and boy does He have some STUFF to tell you!

Need help answering the questions, I got you, CLICK HERE.

Body, Body, Body

I almost started this blog with a Weight Watchers quote, something about being your own best friend or not being your own worst enemy, but instead I settled on this,

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own POWERS, you cannot be successful or happy.” Norman Vincent Peale

And though it may be easier to get disgusted at my fat ankles, I realize that I am much more than my physical flaws. This week we’re talking about the body in all it’s glory.  But I feel like people need to be EMPOWERED, almost given permission to FOCUS less on their bodies and to put more enthusiasm and energy into building who they as a whole. And it starts by VALUING yourSELF. Because what you value, you take extra care of.  You protect, keep safe and place where it can be most appreciated. However, when it comes to SELF we tend to “body shame” and as a result low self-esteem flowers. Health is soooo very important to “HappyLife” but striving to be like Adonis or Barbie is a losing battle, especially if you don’t have the skinny gene, or money to fix it. The world is pushing this workout obsession (especially in January after the holidays ) thanx Peloton, and now the new Workout Mirror…smh. A flawless outward appearance screaming “ALL IS GOOD” means nothing if you’re the walking dead on the inside! I have this friend who works out religiously, he keeps his body looking good, but he’s afraid of the dark and is Identity-challenged, aaaand he wouldn’t know how to keep a good relationship if it fell on him (wink wink.) … i mean full of fear and just stuck emotionally. And then he looks at others like… what’s wrong with you? I be like… dude for real?

There are tons of people out there that put more value on outwardness (appearances and material stuff.) How many people do you know that pride themselves on eating right and looking good but are emotionally jacked and don’t know how to deal with people? You know folks that won’t eat any animal products but sees nothing wrong with using and discarding others? I mean wasn’t it Jesus who said, “Its not what you put into your body that defiles or ruins you, it’s what comes out.” Clearly that means health, being right, is more than what you put in your body because whatever you put in always has a way of coming out (unless you’re stopped up somewhere and that’s a whole nuther blog post, CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK, lol.)

You got to feed your body, yes and good food, pure food is optimum. But equally as important, even more so, is what you’re feeding your mind and your spirit? Are you surfing the net and gorging yourSELF on explicit content, or other people’s nonsense and drama? Are you gaming more than creating? Are you swiping left more than you are connecting to people in real time? Does what you listen to and watch on t.v. numb or inspire your mind? If you feed yourself with junk, guess what will pour out into your world?

We talked about diamonds a couple of weeks ago,,, from coal under pressure to being cut and showing brilliance. And then there’s gold, which has been a commodity and source of value forever. Everyone knows the purer it is the more valuable it is. Think of yourSELF as Gold. Have you notice people that surround themselves with drama and negativity have a lot more issues and stress? Did you know stress and unforgiveness brings on dis-ease and can shorten your life? Rid yourSELF of impurities of these impurities and see how the quality of your life rises.

So, my bottom line is if you’re truly striving for a healthy and happy life, don’t just feed your body well (and exercise) you also must do the same for your mind and spirit. Love, value and honor yourSELF by choosing the right friends, and activities. Guard your heart, guard your ears and your eyes, for what goes in will definitely come out and affect your world. And lastly remember to grow, grow your gifts, use your talents, expand your mind, love more, laugh louder, sing and dance like no one is looking. And never, never dumb yourself down for temporary gratification. Let your beauty shine! You’re more brilliant than diamonds and precious than gold. And you’re more powerful than you know. It’s your POWER to be the best you can be, don’t let anyone take that away from you.  YOU ARE ENOUGH!

Having a hard time seeing/feeling it? I can help, as usual I GOT YOU! Click here