HELLO!!!! Look, Do Not Complain About Your Journey!!! Just Commit!

The journey to the person you see yourself being can be a tedious process...especially if what you envisioned seems far from reality.

I have a vision of myself...I see a MORE confident woman. I see a woman that walks with her head held high. I see a woman that is at peace with her self, life, her past, her identity and a woman at peace with where she is headed. Starting out my journey, I was like that strong woman I see myself as is soooo far from my reality. When will I get to just feel like I am at peace with any part of my life story. Looking at the end product sometimes can be so frustrating. I realize if you were able to see that vision, then you must trust the path your suppose travel is already in the works. Life has its assignments from God that you will be given. I could see myself singing. I could see myself writing uplifting inspirational songs. I could see a confident Shelley, singer Belle Moniqe, writing something on her blog in the about me section. I could see my monthly income being what i predicted. I could see myself performing live on a regular basis. I could see all of these things. But as I began seeing small changes...I would complain. When will the vision be a  reality. How long do I have to work here and do this. I would wonder when will I just know I am in the right direction.  I could not see that I was already on the path. I could not see the positive actions, small steps of improvements, were making ripple effects in my deep sea of negativity...because progress was not what I was searching for.

I had to realize, on my journey...you must understand you have to check yourself and not complain about the process.

Your not a horrible person just because you are complaining. I am not trying to beat up on anybody about this, because I know how it feels to already want to be at your best. You do get frustrated because the feeling in your heart does not seem to resonate with how you really desire to feel about yourself and your life. Sometimes a little acceptance for where you are in the moment can help you appreciate what is going on and what has already changed in your life. Realize that each new day is a gift. Each day you get up...you have awoken to a day you have never seen before. The breath of life in you...God has allowed you to be a part of a whole new day. In that new day another lesson learned, enlightenment can happen, a test is failed or passed...either way you will not be the same. We must not complain about the process. Sometimes it is good to just take the time to appreciate those in your circle. Its amazing how fast things can change...People come and go... unforeseen things just happen at any given moment. Again do not complain about the process. You miss the point, the lesson at hand when your focus is switched to complaining. 

I realize along time ago...that I must appreciate the process that is shaping me into the best me I could possibly be. 

Enjoy the process of  shaping yourself into the best you...you could possibly be. This is not just good for you, but the world around you. This process is good for the people who will experience you in their world. Someone is watching you on your path of growth. Rest your nerves and see the bigger picture for what it is...I still have to tell myself. Your final thought can not be I am close but not close enough. I am better but not good enough. What is that? I could be at point A but I have grown so I am thankful for the new awareness in me.  There must be gratitude. We have to be thankful...for the first step on a path to healing. Finally...steps and a path for healing. Be appreciative for that path period. We must learn when class is in session. Be aware of when life is teaching...and when life is giving you the opportunity to reset something greater in motion. Complaining will help you say yes to something or a route you did not have to take. Either way though...you will learn from it. So I will say it again., as I preach to myself, do not complain about the process. Everything that is happening in your life right is working towards to greater you.

Black Woman Validation Problem!!!!

The black woman validation issue is one I can definitely talk about. I guess I am accessing my current feelings.

I think back to when I was just a young brown baby girl. I remember little girls of a lighter hew and straighter hair getting all the compliments. The light skin girl was so pretty and beautiful her peers and even adults would say. But the brown baby girl was just plan "Oh you cute for dark skin girl." I wonder for those that were in similar situations .... how did your thrown second hand compliment make you feel. Did you want to hold your head down or yell to your peers or the adult I am black and beautiful whether you can appreciate it or not...not a problem of mind. 

I come the conclusion that as a little girl, the validation game was played everywhere I went. 

It is amazing what we will do to fulfill the need for some one to say oh, you are so pretty. Since I could not change my skin color I knew that I could change the texture of my hair. I knew I could make the hair straight...which "in my mind" was the best way for it to be. I finally convinced my mother to get me a perm in the eighth grade. Yaay I was able to french rolls and finger waves...but the wraps i wore in high school were my favorite. Finally I could purchase gel and slick my hair down and it stays down. Now this was my beauty products....I needed all this to feel like something was right, straight...thus beautiful hair...beautiful brown girl. Funny I remember when I cut off my long straight permed hair to go natural...later in college years. The old lady's in the church would look at my kinky hair and shake their heads while saying "you cut of all your beautiful hair!" I didn't matter that it was healthier or that with a perm...hair was breaking of in the middle. My beauty...the long straight hair was gone....ooooh nooo!!!

I wonder who was going tell the brown baby girl...you don't have to get a perm to straighten your hair. Don't you know you can where your hair all kinds of ways. 

Who was going to tell the brown girl her crown of kinky hair was already naturally beautiful. We go through so many changes to get that validation from other's. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We should teach ourselves and those brown baby girls coming up how to be the first to behold and validate their own beauty.  Waiting for other's to validate is a sure way to get nicely set up for failure. Needing someone to validate your beauty means you need someone to tell you it is okay to be yourself. Now I feel that way...because when it seems like your cheer leaders for you are gone...people change..your stuck with your own anxiety. I was at the point where I did not believe in myself....the responsibility of believing in me was fed by outside influence. It is a shame to only feel good about the things someone else recognizes is good about you.  You are left with a charge to start validating the good in you. Everyday validate with your own voice something good about you. There is know no need to ask of someone else opinion.

Black Woman: Give Yourself Permission to Hold Your Head Up!!!

As a young and older black woman in America...I still remember the thoughts back in the day of a dark brown complexion girl. 

My mother, father, and brother did their best to bestow love upon me. I remember coming home with hurt feelings because I was heavily teased about my color. I would sometime cry to my mother. Being the lovely woman she is, she would wipe my tears away and tell me what I should say next time to someone teased me about my chocolate hew. I remember anticipating on the jokes...ready to snap...with an improved comeback phrase. I would say the phrases my mom told me to say...I look back and now wonder, was this healthy. I would feel good for a moment shortly after to just have to defend my deep brown hew again and again. Wondering  when will it ever be okay to just be who I am...and not treated like my complexion was this big gigantic unalterable permanent flaw.

Enough of the sad story but what I have said is so true the black young woman. 

Think of how powerful it would be to stand up for yourself at the moment anything concerning your beauty, your race, your complexion or anything about you is challenged. I realize you will never know your own power if it is silenced by our very own selves. How many times did we silence our self love, joy and laughter when the things we thought good about ourselves was challenged. Is it the fact that so many people outside of you had a problem with dark complexion, that what they thought must be true. Did we as brown girls make other's problem with our complexion...did we make that our problem. Did we actually decide to not appreciate are true selves in our own skin.

I just really felt like dealing with the brown girl...the Black Woman today. Our ancestors, the black woman, in particular was broken down. 

That matriarch DNA strain never changes. Our fore mother's were birthing babies under horrible conditions. Self hatred in grained in our bones in slavery. So yes, that self hatred rises up even today. In this America today we are still not holding our head up and proclaiming our beauty unless some other nationality straight wavy hair is on our head and eyelids for eyelashes. We, as brown women carry a certain bitterness towards ourselves and therefore towards each other.  We in high positions still feel like there is more to prove to the world. We have to heal inwardly. Through acceptance of ourselves, we can heal a bloodline. We don't have to be like our ancestors, birth babies in a toxic body. Let me explain. In the wombs with our babies we must not secretly carry self hatred. With dreams as big as the earth...you can not carry self hatred.

Brown girls why is it so hard to talk about the truth. Its not about talking to others with a woe is me story. 

It is about making a conscious effort to remind yourself of your beauty. Remind yourself of your worth. You are probably thinking what if you have no worth...then what?? Well, my dear, that is your problem...the world really doesn't have to do anything but continue to go on. The question is since you are here in this world...are you willing to do what it takes to heal your mind as it pertains to what you think of yourself. I would not tell you to chant to yourself " I love my self" for you may feel no connection to it. But the belief you have...name its origin and chant that it is false. Once you break an old negative belief down than you can replace with one that is true and positive. You and only you can do that for you.

I Do Not Have to Know You to Believe In YOU....I Just Believe 

Push Through Your Obstacles: Time to Get Results!!!!

The wall of obstacles we have to get through can sometimes feel like a never ending river of stagnation. 

This feeling of stagnation is enough to take all the fighting wind out of you if you let it. What the hell do you do when you are just ready for a sign...just a piece of a positive result that lets you the chance you took was even worth it. Why is it easy to follow suit...simply do what has been working. Why is it so hard for you to just do and be like everybody else...be at least glad things are as well as they are. Don't you hate when you try to follow suit, put your dreams and goals off, just for your soul to steal your sleep and having staring right back at your true passion again. Why is it not easy to move forward and at the same damn time not easy to just ignore.

There is only one easy answer...you created your own wall of obstacles, just so you can prove to yourself how bad you want your dream. 

Our dreams as children is slowly broken down the older we get it seems. This breaking down process happens slowly...each year are pulled further and further away from your goal/dream. What happened to that dream job you literally saw yourself doing as a child? You, before your understanding of "obstacles," believed deep in your heart this would one day actually come true. You let the limited life styles you were shown in your environment dictate to you what your reality would be. With your knew found reality you, like I did, had to alter the dream. We alter the dream over and over again. The question is what brings on this washed down version your dream?? 

As children, you find yourself, realizing there is not an obstacle large enough to keep you from your dream. 

In fact when you visualized as a child what you wanted to be...you just saw it and in your mind you literally  put yourself where you wanted going to be. In your dream you were already great and the best in your chosen filled. Things change when we in the physical realm play the name that thing game. We named that thing alright...we began to learn to name all kind of reasons we were too inadequate for our dream to come true. Each test was there to strengthen us...whether good or bad.  Each victory given to fear, each victory given to doubt and so on shaped our reality and shook are dream like an earthquake altering the very ground we stand on. Well some of us are much older and the test at hand is still the same if you plan on living the dream you claim was meant for your life.

I encourage you, to accept your part in the great wall of obstacles...your belief in the very existence of the wall keeps it standing strong. The brick and mortar of our own wall is one excuse laid on top of the other. So many...yet in your mind is the locked up gigantic wrecking ball and bulldozer that can knock down all this bull sh*t!!! It is time to get results...that is all I am saying.