Let me be so incredibly clear: simply put, some people are evil and wicked. Some people lie, cheat and steal (and don’t let them be the trifecta doing all three!) to get whatever the hell they want and they don’t care about anybody else’s feelings but their own. Actually, they don’t even care about their own feelings! They care about what the want. What they get. Feelings?! What are those?!?!
I was speaking with a client as they were preparing for discharge from the detox facility where I work, discussing their eagerness, excitement, apprehension, and joy to return from the detox facility– their temporary home for the past couple of weeks in close community with people who intimately know their struggles with addiction– to their own home. Standing tall, they said: “[When I go home,] I’m remaining firmly grounded in peace [stomps left foot] and serenity [stomps right foot].”
The strength to overcome your challenges lies within you– not without you! By daring to do one thing differently or to ask for the support you want or need to overcome your addiction, you open the door to the life and future you want. The present you desire.
Unaddressed wounds don’t heal. If I cut my arm severely but don’t acknowledge it, it won’t heal, it’s get worse! And healing hurts. After I notice the wound, I have to clean it so it doesn’t get infected and it stings. Whether I apply pressure to stop the bleeding or clean it with alcohol, it’s gonna hurt. But the hurt doesn’t last forever. It’s temporary.
I hated the fullness of my cheeks and the width of my nose and the gap in my teeth and my double chins and my uneven eyebrows and the deep chocolate brown of my skin. I distracted others from my face by wearing low cut shirts. “Surely if they notice my breasts they won’t notice me, I thought.” Deep exhale. Deep inhale. Deep exhale.
I hated the width of my nose. The White and White presenting girls at my elite private high school were getting nose jobs for their 16th birthday and boob jobs for graduation gifts. We were taught to hate our ever-growing and changing bodies. And I couldn’t wait to get my nose job. To narrow it. To make it a cute lil tip.
It’s the end of another year and the beginning of a new. The end of the year is an invitation to look forward. It’s like …
Now Ion know about you so Imma talk about me, k?! I think we can all agree that life be life’ing, don’t?! And God be …
“Did you know that confidence is a skill?” I asked her. “It isn’t about whether you have it or not, but how can you grow more of it. The question is: how do you begin to trust yourself more instead of relinquishing your power to other people and have them make decisions for you? You have such a strong discernment! Use that! Leverage that! Your discernment and your intuition is so strong and I know that you know that, which is why you’re so ambivalent about what you want to do.”
I am God in action. And when I choose joy, I choose love. When I choose joy, I choose hope for my present and my future. When I choose joy, I choose to not let those who wished me harm make me feel little or small or less than. When I choose joy, I choose wholeness and fullness and completeness. When I, a divine Black woman, choose joy, I light up a room and I command attention and people wish that they had what I have. When I choose joy, I am choosing God.
Life happens a spectrum. On one end, there’s complete abstinence, avoidance, no partaking, sobriety. Zero. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s consumption. Healthy, …
