I Manifest New Beginnings Not Caring What People Think

At the beginning of each year I evaluate the “theme of the year.” I do a full analysis of where things went well, where there was space for improvement, and I determine what changes need to be made for the next year.

  

Unlike previous years the 2015 theme took time to unfold.  Usually by the end of one year I know the direction in which I need to go in order to move towards the vision I have for my life.  For example the theme for 2013 was “life without fear.”  This was an easy theme to set as it came after a tumultuous 2012 that was marked by selling my home, divorcing, and finishing my dissertation.  I knew that if I could do those things with knees knocking and tears streaming I was pretty much up for anything. I marked the beginning of “life without fear” by doing something I had never done…putting on a pair of running shoes and completing a 5k.  The 5k was scary; but, what was more terrifying was putting myself in an environment to make new friends. As quiet as it’s kept I’m an introvert.  I seek deep relationships with a few people versus surface relationships with many. To put myself in a position where I was with hundreds of people without one airbag friend was one of my biggest fears realized.  However, from that race, “The Resolution Run,” I met friends from the Sacramento Sister Circle and Black Girls Run!

Life without fear

After 13 half-marathons in 2013, many of which I ran by myself, setting the theme for 2014 was easy.  2014 became the “Year of the Myth Buster.”  This was the year was about defy what other people thought I was capable of doing AND to do my part to defy stereotypes.  It was the year I ran my first marathon and chased away the myths of impossibility. It was marked by excellence and shifting definitions from what people thought I should feel and believe to the reality of who I am in this space in time.  The myth buster year was the year I challenged others to shift from looking at, and responding to, events to identifying and changing the belief systems that fuel the myths.

Myth-Buster

After a phenomenal 2013 and 2014 in came 2015. For months I struggled trying to determine what the “theme of the year” would be.  In mid-March the theme found me, it was simply, “Unleashed.”  There was dual focus for unleashed. First, it was about breaking the mental, physical, and spiritual chains that bound me. Second, unleashed was about unleashing my passion on this world to drive change for “the least of these.”  I learned that by helping others maximize their potential and assisting them in finding their voice I was able to indirectly serve humanity. This is not to say being unleashed is easy.  It’s about pressing forward, unbound.

UNLEASHED!

When I sat to write this end of year blog I had a theme, but it felt contrived, the words didn’t flow.  As I closed my computer and went to bed, I felt a little down.  The theme I wanted to have wasn’t the theme I needed to have.  As I prepared for sleep I checked to make sure my alarm was turned off.  I figured I’d sleep in and maybe inspiration would find me via a dream. As providence would have it I woke up at 6am, an hour before my usual alarm, from a deep sleep with no inspiration.  As I flossed my teeth I received a text, and a few minutes later a call, from a dear friend.  As we chatted about issues large and small, this is what I jotted down

I didn’t think anything of it at the time.  I went about morning chores of laundry and walking the dog.  As I prepared to shower the lines caught my attention.

I Manifest

New Beginnings

Not caring what people think

When I read it I felt uncomfortable. Who was I to think I could manifest something?  Who do I think I am?  This was clearly fear speaking.  As I learned from 2013, life is to be lived without fear. Of course I could manifest the vision for my life.  If not me who? 

Then I thought about New Beginnings…how trite…this is what everyone says at the beginning of each year.  Then it hit me, so what if they are.  The belief system that fuels the myth is that New Beginnings is talking about a New Year.  Yes, each year marks, as the calendar shows, a “new beginning.”  However, each new day is an opportunity to reset, as is every second in which we are blessed to take a breath.  The lesson learned from the  myth buster year of 2014 is that things are not always as they appear to be just because “Everyone” says it is so.

Lastly I read, “Not caring what people think.”  This one was hard for me.  I tried to change the words.  To say something that wasn’t as harsh.  Then the words to one of my favorite songs popped in my mind “life’s much too short to be living somebody else’s life…”  It’s not about not caring about people, it’s about not allowing the thoughts of others to dictate how you live.  This represented the final 2015 lesson of an unleashed year…unleashing the final chain …namely the opinions of others. As another dear friend says "the committee can have an opinion; but, they don't run my life."

So, it was within that moment the theme for 2016 was born.

I Manifest

New Beginnings

Not caring what people think

Do you know your theme for the year?  Are you making resolutions or establishing new goals?  If you are, are they in alignment with the vision you have for your life?  Do you know what that vision is?  If you have not replied with a resounding YES to these questions it’s time to reset. It’s time to boldly live life on purpose. 

To start 2016 off right I’m offering “Moving past New Year’s Resolutions:  How to cast a vision for your life and the steps to accomplishing it” session at a significantly reduced rate for 10 people.  I hope to see you there!

Life Lessons

Sitting at my desk doing some writing, I decided to turn on Netflix® and what should appear in my suggestions?  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  As I pressed play, I could not help but smile.  This is one of my all-time favorite movies.  It was released in Sacramento on Friday, June 13^th, 1986.  You may be saying, “How do you remember that date?”  Well, June 12^th, 1986 was the last day of my Junior Year of High School, it also happened to be the day my father died. 

So, why is this movie one of my all-time favorites when it was truly shrouded in the pain of loss?  Because it was while watching this movie that I promised myself to do the following:

1. Cherish friendships.  On what was the saddest day of my life to date, 4 life-long sister-friends were there.  I learned on that day to make friends that will be there in good times, but more importantly in the bad.
2. Find a way to laugh, especially when feeling low.  Laughter has a way of bringing everything into perspective.  Even in dark moments I find a way to laugh
3. Live my truth even if it doesn’t make sense to others.  People will always have opinions on how you should live your life; however, the only person you have to be with every day is you.  On that day so many years ago I learned for better or for worse, I had to be comfortable walking in my own truth.

This is my Flashback Thursday moment.  A few tears, but truly thrilled that nearly 30 years later these maxims I established for my life hold true. #myfit40s #livelifeonpurpose #iservetheleastofthese

The Closet

When I made the commitment to my physical fitness I didn’t know what to expect.  I knew hard work would change my body. I didn’t know it would affect my mind and spirit.

 

As the fat started to melt, and the muscles began to tone my clothes no longer fit.  I creatively tried to make the bigger sizes fit on my smaller frame.  At 3 months in, I finally went to the store.  Each passing week I would purchase new clothes.  A dress here, pants there, until eventually my closet was over-full.  I had a set of new clothes I could wear, and years’ worth of old clothes I could not.  Each morning I’d wade through the items in my closet, find a familiar outfit, and close the closet door.

It was during one of the many open – to close – closet door moments that I had an epiphany.  I wasn’t wearing the new clothes.  I defaulted to the old. It was with that realization I slowly began to unpack my closet.  As I neatly folded each item I reflected on what I was letting go.  It was more than clothes and childhood memories.  I was folding away belief systems of who I thought I was. It was within that realization I let the tears fall.  With each dropped tear, strength grew.

It would be wonderful if that were the end of the story.  If I cleaned the closet and suddenly became empowered.  But, like everything in life, letting go can be hard.  I was wearing my new clothes; yet, mounds of bags sat on the floor. The items were removed from the closet, but I hadn’t dealt with them. It was during one of the many stubbed-toe moments that I reached an understanding.  These items shaped my past. They were a reflection of limits I’d placed on my life.  It was easy to say I was going to give the items away.  It was harder to actually let go. Removing the items from the closet was a first step, removing the identity that I had associated with those items was the last.

We each carry past baggage that clutters our lives. We often where our past as a badge of honor.  What past hurts, actions, beliefs are you holding on to that you need to let go?   The scars of your past are real; however, past expectations can hinder future actualizations. Assess the physical, mental and spiritual items that clutter your life, pack them up, and let go.

It’s never too late to be whom, and what, you might have been.  Even when your knees are shaking, don’t fear the unknown. Each day you have an opportunity to start over, to have a new beginning.  Don’t hold back your greatness, unleash it!

The choice is ours

I deeply feel the pain of others. When evil seemingly plagues the world, each episode impacts me deeply. So I write, to put things in context, to develop understanding. 

The world-wide episodes of violence and destruction have become overwhelming. There is no meaning.  The events of the world are exasperated by the events within our country.  My home. There is no way to contextualize the centuries-old evil of race that continues to infect our nation.  

The issue of race is complex and mired in the intricacies of human interaction. Race is a social construct designed to separate a people and justify the atrocities of enslavement.  It has no other objective.  The means of accomplishing this objective, is racism. 

Wednesday night as I listened to the BBC, I heard the first reports of the murder of 9 people in South Carolina.  I held my breath.  An overwhelming piercing pain began in my chest.  It reverberated throughout my body. Nine people, dead, using the same propaganda as that which was used in the antebellum to justify terrorism.  As I listened, I thought of WEB DuBois 1905 quote, “Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”  As a nation we stand upon the precipice prepared to leap like lemmings to our destruction based on the 17th century construct of race.   

As I read the caption of this cartoon published in 1913, where the person identified as white is not responsible for the other because of race; yet, the person identified as black is responsible for the other because of race. I can’t help but see we hold the same centuries old beliefs mired in mistrust, fear, and pain.   Where whiteness is individual and blackness equates to monolith.  

If the definition of insanity is truly “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” as a nation we are the epitome of insane.  We have attempted to solve the black-white dichotomy since Reconstruction using the same methods, achieving the same results.  Nothing has changed.  

Our nation was built on a lie of equality.  We can’t ignore it.  We can’t hide it.  We can’t wish it away.  

Our nation was built on the righteous blood of a multitude of people.  We can’t ignore it.  We can’t hide it.  We can’t wish it away.  

Our nation is flawed.  We can’t ignore it.  We can’t hide it.  We can’t wish it away.  

For centuries we have walked in the impenetrable murkiness of racism.  We have attempted to close our eyes and ignore the gaping hole that mars the fabric by which this nation is knitted.   I do not have that luxury.  Each blow, each strike, each death hits my soul and seeks to destroy me.  So, I fight.  I write.  I teach.  I have a responsibility to my ancestors and to my children’s children to change our systems.

We stand upon the cliff looking into the abyss of our destruction.  “Either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States.” The choice is ours.