Vulnerable….

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I went through a patch in life that many people I encountered imagined that I was extremely confident and on top of my game. I chose the word imagined because it was so far from the truth. I think I’ve spent my whole life trying to win in order to have some type of validation that I’m good enough.

The truth is that I’d walk around all day feeling like the outsider (and I still do at times, but I’m grown now so it doesn’t matter) so I made up this life in my head that I was weird to people because they were regular and I was extraordinary. I know it sounds horrible to read out loud, which is why I’m putting it here. I never felt like beating myself was good enough even though my Dad and Karate instructor would preach the honor of doing your best. I’ve carried this fear of not winning my entire life.

So what does that turn into when you’re an adult?

I put myself into constant imaginary competition mode for years. Everything I do, I identify a clear winner and loser. I never just give the win to myself and stroke my own ego which never gets me to high off my own steam. The things that have suffered as a result are my deepest desires. I attempted to build a business in 2010 ( go read the old posts, you’ll see) and although I didn’t walk away in the hole I felt like a failure. Not many people are able to turn a profit in the beginning but I set the expectations for growth so high that even when I walked out on top it wasn’t good enough. I used to blame my toxic thoughts on survival.

 “I don’t have a brother or sister’s couch to sleep on if I screw up my life chasing fairytales” is something that used to frequently come out of my mouth.

I realize that much of my problem was that people had an idea about who I am based on what they’d see or hear, and being the constant competitor I’d make sure that list was short and vague. I would prefer to never show my weaknesses because in my mind I felt like everyone was out to get me.

What’s changed since then?

I’ve accepted that the thoughts that I had floating in my head of inadequacy, failure, rejection were all planted there by myself. I know the things that I love and that I’m good at. People would never know that I’m an award winning pianist, because in my mind the competition wasn’t strong enough to for that to count. I’ve adjusted my scope on what counts as a win. Moving forward, I’m allowing myself to be more vulnerable, hence all these posts about my life. I also want to enjoy more than I calculate, I believe that will spare me a few premature grey hairs.

The Point.
Life is too long and it’s too short.

 It’s too long to be in a constant battle with an imaginary enemy. Yes we all want to be the best that we can, as we should, but allowing negative self talk to remain unchecked leads to a hard life for no damn reason. 

It’s too short to wait on the perfect situation for a win. There will always be people more popular, smarter, more in tune with the craft of choice, but you can control whether or not you allow someone to out WORK you. As I dive into my dreams I hope that you’ve been reading the posts this past month or so and you’ve been inspired to make your dreams come true.

I always love getting emails from you. You have honestly been the spark that’s kept my flame going. I appreciate you being part of my spiritual family and sharing light. marellewrites@gmail.com

http://www.gofundme.com/RebuildADream

Saved my life…

Here’s a small glimpse into my life…  (it’s long, but there’s a point I promise)

I grew up an only child, you all know that. Which means I’d spend a lot of time in my imagination. I knew that t.v. wasn’t real, but it helped me develop my own thoughts and behaviors. It all started with A Different World.
Before I got into pre-school I would watch that show on the weekends that I wasn’t with my Grandpa and I knew that I wanted to go to college before I fully understood what it was. Some of you remember the opening credits when Julissa tears up the paper and throws it in the air, well I didn’t know at the time that it was her marriage certificate, I thought that was just a part of getting excited about going to school. (here comes the funny) So when my parents found out that I’d been accepted into one of the best public schools in the city, want to guess my reaction? Yes I did tear that post card up and throw it in the air, I was on my way to college, first step, pre-school.

Both of my parents worked long hours so I’d spend a lot of time by myself over the years and I let the t.v. raise me. My grandparents kept me in a missionary Baptist church, but rather that WWJD (what would Jesus do?) I found myself in moral dilemmas asking; “Is this something that would make my family stage an alternate world in which I had to suffer a real life consequence in the safety of my home?”, as I was the honorary other Cosby kid in my head that just didn’t get talked about.

Living this way between the church and the t.v. I learned a lot about relationships, sex, teenage pregnancy, drugs, dancing in public and revealing clothes. It wasn’t until I got to middle school that I found out that nobody operated with any of the principles that I’d held dear. I found myself caring more about fitting in, not being called names or having to fight than nurturing the goal that I’d set for myself long ago in pre-school. I had always been a karate kid, I’ve played the piano and ran track competitively but all of that felt so blah when I hit about 12 and the only thing that people saw was the weird girl who’s face was exploding and was shaped like a board with balloons taped to the back.

One night while sneaking to spend some quality time with my best friend the television I stopped on a comedy show and this woman had me in tears with laughter. She was loud, cussing and she talked about herself the way that people would talk about me, but it made people laugh with her. She made it ok to be the loud dark skinned girl in my world because all I knew at school was “redbone” was the thing to be. She was clearly not a “redbone” yet she’s on television, and the people love her. She held me captive until the end of her set then she gave her name. “I’m Sheryl Underwood, that’s my time, and I want to give a shout out to my Sorors the phenomenal women of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, Z-Phi!” and she put up her hand and I  RAN to the computer (feel free to read that in Sweet Brown’s voice, it was that urgent for me).

Back in those days AOL ran the Internet and I waited patiently for the dial-up to connect, closed out my email and typed in her name on the search box. A pop-up for Sinbad’s trips to Aruba came up and I found a page that gave me a little info, then I found the sorority website. This brought me back to my A Different World days, I remember how excited I was, and how I found a new energy in my pursuit of going to college. I’d almost given up, I was attending a prestigious school but it was so damn scary and filled with drug addicts and whores that I didn’t think I was still interested in going to college because the word around town was that’s the best place to get you prepared to go.

The summer before high school I was put in a young entrepreneur camp and our goal was to run a hot dog stand at the Black Family Reunion. It was hot, we made a good amount of money, but the highlight of that afternoon was when I saw two ladies in Zeta Phi Beta shirts and I was able to tell them that I wanted to be one of them when I grew up. I got the best news ever, and found out they were building a youth group called the Archonettes.

Long story short, I became the President of that youth group. The life lessons, volunteer opportunities, trips, opportunities to express myself and get real answers are still priceless. Even though other life circumstances didn’t allow me to go to college right after high school, the ladies kept in touch with me over the years and I never completely lost my focus or passion to create a situation to have the life that I wanted.

Today I’m a proud member of  Pi Sigma Zeta that exact chapter that took me in as a teenager, and tonight when the 23rd International President Sheryl Underwood completes her set at the comedy club in my city with a resounding Z-Phi, I can answer back sitting with my sorority sisters and my life together. I feel like this deserves a Julissa celebratory paper toss. She doesn’t know it but she kind of saved my life. 🙂

Hope you enjoyed. Have an inspirational story to share? Feel free to send me an email marellewrites@gmail.com. Want more information about my sorority visit www.zphib1920.org

Busy People

Karoshi  http://barprofits.com/pages/newsletter/vol3-issue2/page04.htm

As someone that’s constantly on the move I can sympathize with people being busy. There’s always a meeting, an appointment, an obligation, an engagement, a function or a meet and greet. However, there comes a time in one’s life that you need to find a way to pencil in what’s important before it fades away.

I hate reading articles about work/life balance, so this won’t be one. They always sound like they’ve got it all figured out, and that the solution that they’ve created will fit someone else’s life. I won’t dare try to sell you on that. I will say, put fun on the schedule.

Even if you have to make up a meeting/appointment to justify denying an invitation. Give yourself a window of opportunity to fill with a last minute lunch with friends, a phone call to a relative that you don’t often get to see. I’m telling you because I know that if you don’t, the list of “have to” will never end. I have no idea how you prioritize what’s important, or which things to tell you to skip, I just know that in most cases, people will ask you “what works best for you” and it’s right there that we fail to have a plan that will actually work best for us, so we just fill-in the next available appointment.

I won’t be too preachy on this one, but do what you can to plan ahead something that you will thoroughly enjoy. You’ll notice an improvement on your outlook on everything else. Don’t just take my word for it. (Reading Rainbow Flashback)

That’s all this time, a reader had a story that they wanted me to flesh out for them, if you’re reading this and it’s you, be sure to send the outline/summary to marellewrites@gmail.com

Expectations

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We all have at least personal standards. But when we try to live up to something outside of our vision for ourselves things get not only complicated but unrealistic. Each of u has a purpose and a path, sometimes it’s not what everyone else would pick for us, but we follow our hearts.

There have been some people in my life that I put on a list called “people that I care about what they think of me”. I’ve told family and friends of this list but I think they thought it was just another one of my “things”. Upon living since I first created the list I notice that not only has the list gotten shorter with each passing year, but in that shrinkage I have found great liberation. The power to say no and mean it, as well as the strength to go against the popular demand.

I’m no self-help guru, but if someone asked me to address a crowd on how to get the most out of life, I’d suggest replacing the expectations set by others with ones formulated in the midst of your own story. Don’t worry about how much of a disappointment you will be to anyone other than yourself and whomever you believe in (spiritually, not just a hero).

Life is too short to care about every opinion that’s thrown your way. Not only is it exhausting, but it’s diminishing of your personal desire to be fulfilled and happy. A moderately wise person once told me, you don’t have to succeed to be successful. When I first heard it I laughed it off and faintly agreed, but it’s true. Simply exerting the effort in the direction in which you’d like to travel is leaps and bounds ahead of sitting around wishing.

Didn’t want to get too preachy on this one, but I hope you’re out there following your heart and not just counting wins.

The Lies Die Today!

We all have a little voice in our heads that speaks up at different times. Some of us have a constant cheerleader that encourages us to step out and be bold even when no one else around seems to feel the same. Some of us however have an inner hater (to steal a term from www.ihustlenation.com ) that won’t just shut the fuck up. Many of the things we wish we’d done, places that we wish to have traveled are all unrequited dreams thanks to our failure to tune that voice out.

It’s funny how even when you know something is right/wrong, that voice will tune up and try to fill you head with every form of self-doubt imaginable. It’s believed that the voice is created when we are small and only gets worse as time goes by. Well, today I’d like to give the Obituary for the voice in my head, as it has more than outstayed it’s welcome and an eviction is not sufficient. This voice must die. So join me if you too have a voice to dispel in this little ceremony I’ve written out.

Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here on this blog to bid farewell to the small voice that lives in the back of our head. This despicable manifestation of negative energy has orchestrated many failures and disappointments in it’s time. This voice was known most for it’s incessant belligerence in the areas of fitness, beauty, intellect and financial savvy, and has constantly brought into question the aptitude, adequacy, and acceptability of it’s host. On this day, we gladly seal the casket on every project this voice ever set to complete. Moving forward from this point we will no longer speak of this thing, as we are sure it will no longer find a welcome space in which to dwell.

So Be It.

F-ing up FREE Stuff

There’s a saying that my mom used to dish out often when I was a kid.

 “______ would fuck up a free lunch line.”

I used to die laughing as it was usually accompanied with a colorful rant of eloquently placed curse words that meshed together in a beautiful web of things I couldn’t say out loud. But, as I grew older I began to encounter the type of people that embody the phrase. There are some people that will talk themselves right out of a discount, an opportunity, and yes even free lunch.

What causes people to be consistently contrary? Is it a personality trait of those that have experienced extreme disappointment in life over many years; or is the relationship reverse, and their contrary disposition is what’s breeding the energy for disappointment?

Whatever the answer may be, let me share a few words of wisdom that can possibly assist that type of person in learning how to NOT block their blessings:

1. When the price tag says $FREE, your TIME is the fee:

Even coupons say limited time offer, you can’t just run rough shot over someone offering something for free and do things whenever you feel like it. Patience, accommodation and milk (three things that expire). You wouldn’t play around with the milk and push a few weeks past the best by date, so why do that with someone’s time?

2. Nobody cares about how you feel about the circumstances surrounding something that you don’t have to pay for:

Shut up and either say yes or no. A contract without consideration is not a contract….. so what exactly is it that you are trying to negotiate? The conversation on a free offer should not exceed the length of time it takes to ascertain what time you need to be present and if there’s something that you need to bring or do. If the small hand on the clock moves from one number to the next, you’re talking too long, and asking too many questions. SHUT UP, and either accept or decline.

3. You are never just entitled to a discount:

I don’t care how long you’ve known the person, or how many discounts they’ve given you before. NOBODY OWES YOU ANYTHING. So stop acting like you’ve got the inside track on something. Every discount, unless it’s a status of your employment, is a blessing and you should be so glad to have received it. Stop thinking that people owe you the “player price” because you grew up together. Adults have bills and obligations, don’t try to get lemonade stand prices from somebody on a grind. (this is the part that the person realizes why they haven’t heard from their “friend”)

If you know somebody like this, post this on your Facebook wall, post the link on Twitter so they get a chance to read it and get their life together. Perhaps they didn’t realize that their actions are messing it up for everybody. Nobody deserves to be stuck dealing with an inconsiderate asshole.

 You should know by now I don’t mind addressing the real, so if there’s something you need to express to someone but don’t know the words feel free to send me the subject or the problem and I’ll break it down.

Secret Powers

http://www.life-changing-mind-power.com/

Despite everything that people try to say about the generation of mid-late 20 something, most don’t believe they should be famous, they believe they should be rich (Americans). However the attempts toward success are feeble at best relying on the effort of others to yield personal results of the same magnitude.

 

There is no such thing as overnight, the easy way is usually an illusion and get rich quick is a long way to say crime in most instances.  I’m not anywhere near where I’m trying to get, but I’m extremely far from where I started and not much of that progress included short-cuts.

 

Here comes the gripe. The part that makes me tired with people in the aforementioned range comes down to upbringing. Ours is the generation that came about in the middle of the crack epidemic, which has a few outcomes; There’s a big group of people that grew up in the fast life and expect immediate returns on their ventures, often unrealistically. There is also a group of individuals that I blogged about yesterday that got used to being bailed out.

 

My suggestion is to look within and find the things that are unique to you, that you do very well and put most of your energy into those things to perfect them. I can’t say that everything that you become the best at will get you paid, but excellence breeds excellence, so you’ll see an improvement in other aspects of your life. This is not to say that there aren’t people that have mastered mediocrity to a science and can excel in just one place and suck at the rest of life, but hopefully the good habits of diligence will seep into everything else.

 

Find your hidden power!

Pain

Sometimes, your heart hurts so badly that it seems like nothing you do will ease the pain. You try everything you can think of to shake the feeling but it just keeps pulling at your heart.
I challenge you to refocus that broken energy into creativity. Sometimes the heart needs to pour out love in order for the healing to begin. Find something new to take part in or explore a new culture.
Simple daily adjustments that take either your mind or your body away from wallowing in anguish will prove to take away the blues. Slowly, but surely.