Pivoting With Purpose

How many times have you heard the phrase: ” God forgives, but I don’t”? I’ve heard it a few times and it always makes me snicker a bit. Because it is so sarcastic. And…sarcasm is my second language, officially.

In all honesty, this (forgiveness) is something God is really dealing with me about. I’ve been getting a Word from God about releasing. September was utilized to focus on healing self. Focusing on making sure that I took time out to focus on my needs, which is important. Now the focus is making sure my spiritual life is aligned with what I’m feeling the Spirit guide me to. That alignment is centered on forgiveness.

October 4, I start a self-compassion and self-forgiveness seven-day journey. Before I work internally, I’m ensuring that my external life mirrors the work that I’m about to engage in. In order to know how to forgive myself I also have to know how to forgive others; this is a recepricoal relationship. Forgiveness begets more forgiveness.

I had an incident come up where a person I had not talked to (purposely) for years kept coming up in conversation. I found myself becoming more and more agitated as time went on. I thought it was because of the behavior of this person towards someone I care about. After deeper examination, I realized that I had let a bitter seed fester. I have resentment towards this individual and I wasn’t even aware of the resentment. Rejection hurts, for so many of us we use poor coping skills to deal with the truly vulnerable emotion/feeling of isolation or hurt. So instead, it becomes a “I’ll get you” before “you get me” scenario… When I don’t know if this person is even thinking of me. But it was comforting for me to also act coldly towards them. Here’s the thing, forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation and honestly, it shouldn’t. Some situations/people are so toxic it would never be God’s best for us to engage them any more. With that being said…we also need to release them spiritually as well. Resentment,bitterness and anger are all teethers to the person we want so desperately to get away from.

The only way to truly be free…is to release them from owing you. Wanting someone to pay for their “crimes” ends up owning you for the duration of your wait. It weighs us down. It doesn’t absolve them of consequences ( I believe in someone who does harm facing consequences), but it stops you from trying to figure out how God should do it. True release is to let whatever happen, happen and not replaying all the things you want to happen.

Be forgiven and be forgiving

My children have been in school for one week. While I am a vet at having school aged-children, I am a first time middle schooler mom. Middle school and high school were some really rough years for me. As my son enters those years I really felt my anxiety creep up. I love my boys so much and of course I believe that they are amazing and wonderful and world changers…but I also know not everyone will see them with their mother’s vision. With that being said, while giving my boys the usual pep talk I heard some words fly out of my mouth that were drenched with fear and doubt. I didn’t mean for that to happen. My talk was supposed to be so uplifting, but soon took a twist and I ended up exposing a wound I guess never really healed. A wound of twenty years was exposed and I unintentionally saw myself bleeding all over the kids (metaphorically of course).

That got me to think about how much I let fear just bubble below the surface of my life. Clearly, I’ve had this issue or concern but I was able to keep it at bay until something triggered it. Maybe like me, you think you’ve healed that wound in your soul and unfortunately find yourself taken aback when you see it freshly displayed. What do you do then?

Once wounded we do everything we can to never feel that pain again. Which causes us to move in fear even if we physically move past the incident, it hovers in our mind like a dark cloud coming to ruin our picnic.

How am I overcoming those negative thoughts

1. My kids are not me,they will have their own experiences and need to own them for themselves
2. Put myself out there..fully be myself. We allow fear to stop us fr displaying our true selves. We overthink things, and scrutinize so much of our thoughts and actions. What are you doing just to live your own life.
3. Disregard other’s expectations, we fear letting people down. We have people in our lives we love and respect and want them to be proud of us. While I believe in accountability I don’t believe in living your life for others. It doesn’t matter how hard we try someone is going to disagree with our decisions. Sit with the disappointment but don’t let it consume you.
4. Finally-gratitude, look at how your life is today be grateful for what you have. Make realistic goals but don’t do so for approval. Do it because it brings you joy.

What are some ways you disrupt fear and doubt in your life?

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

James 4:1-4

I had an interesting conversation last week with a dear friend. It centered on people that elicited a negative response and a reaction from us. I stated, I think sometimes people trigger us because it reminds us of something we don’t like about ourselves. Or we think someone’s else shouldn’t do something because we “never” would. It got me to think about certain individuals who just rub me the wrong way. Now I don’t mean people that are homophobic, transphobic or racist because….that’s a whole other topic. But literally someone wearing something you would never wear or being comfortable in their skin in a way you think isn’t right because they don’t behave or look a certain way… I mean those type of people. Why does their happiness and freedom annoy you?

While engaged in my quiet time I ran across the verse from James 4, one I’ve read a few times. This morning it just stopped me in my tracks. I realized there are two people that I have been judging and didn’t realize I was…in fact, it was revealed that it might be from a source of jealousy 😳 no, not me! Not women encouraging, sister soldering me?? Yes, even me. I’m human. I didn’t see it as hating or jealousy at first, but when I analyzed deeper the why behind my thoughts and feelings it became more and more apparent.

So, I decided to ask a series of questions-

1. Why do I feel the need to have a comment about their life? Even if it’s only internal, what is the purpose behind that?
2. Are they doing something I really want to do, but am too afraid to try?
3. How can I own and celebrate my own freedom more openly?
4. How can I be more kind to myself and what does my kindness manifest for others?

The next time a negative feeling arises from an interaction with someone else examine the why. You might have true legitimate reasons or like me you may find that you’ve over stepped just a tad.

Healing & Growth

Renee’6

Hello Love,

I’ve waited to say my piece about Sha’Carri Richardson, so I could see the outcome of the decision for her Olympic hopes. Unfortunately, she was not picked up to represent the US in either division. While I appreciate and appreciated seeing her compete I noticed that her competitive style rubbed some individuals the wrong way. Which is always a bit weird to me….top tier athletes absolutely have to talk and walk a bit differently. Honestly, any top performer in any field has to have a bit of swag to them. They have to think highly of themselves and their ability or they wouldn’t make it. In this era of coaching from the couch everyone has an opinion, everyone has a voice. In order to truly grow into who you are supposed to be, you have to silence the inner and outer critic.

Richardson and many other dominate female athletes are often called too masculine, their enthusiasm for their sport a bit “too much” and their confidence seen as arrogance. Add to that mixture of race and you have the proverbial perfect storm of sexism and racism. The stigma of reefer madness was high (pun intended) over the last few weeks, which again I found odd with all the marijuana businesses that have been founded over the last few years as well as the laxing marijuana laws, I was sure the attitude towards this plant were changing.

While, I get some points regarding use and employment (or sports) and how one should and cannot use in certain jobs and how it is banned from use for olympic athletes….I’m torn on the just utter vehemently “disgusted” Americans at her choice to use. I read there’s better coping mechanisms for grief than marijuana…oh you mean like counseling???? Which usually has a waiting list of 60-90 days…if you have insurance…longer if you don’t.

It’s annoying to have people use their own grieving scenarios to one up someone else as well. Well my “so and so” died and I didn’t use marijuana to cope. Good for you! Did you use shopping? Or sex? Or alcohol? Emotional overeating?…or did you shut down emotionally and pushed through? Just because someone does not grieve the way we would ..doesn’t mean it’s not the way they should. There could be 30 people to lose a mother and they would grieve and feel differently 30 different ways.

Richardson did not make excuses she said what happened, did treatment and awaited the results. At 21! You’re just stepping into who you will be at 21 and truthfully, I’m not the same person I was a decade ago.

I hope you extend grace to yourself, even if the world does not. As a self-care and wellness advocate, the best thing to do after a bad decision is to 1)own it but don’t let it define you 2) extend extra kindness to yourself 3) surround yourself with a good and uplifting tribe 4) rinse and repeat.

be gentle with yourself this week ❤️

How are you feeling today? Are you feeling alright? After having a three-day weekend (which means a four-day workweek), getting back into the groove of “normal” can be difficult. How do you prepare for your work week? I often find myself prepping for the week on Sunday, which really makes me feel like I have only one true off day. But even with that one day, I have been maximizing my time. It is my sleep-in day, it is my reading day and this past weekend it was my kid-free day. I have been a mother for eleven years and three of those years I was a single mother. Everywhere I went, my son was right behind me. While I love being a mother, I realized I am my absolute best self when I can go somewhere and gather my thoughts. Somewhere I can laugh and just be myself. If you are a mother (and even if you’re not), I am challenging you to pick at least one day a week you get to be fully you- nixing the titles. Even if it’s just for a few minutes figure out a way to incorporate some me-time into your week. You deserve!