5 Things I Learned In 2016

Here we are at the start of another year. 2016 was wild, from the loss of legendary artists and entertainers, to seeing our nation elect its first reality tv star as president. This year has been nothing less than bizarre. This year tore apart our expectations and taught us tough lessons, but we made it through.

Just Do It

The iconic Nike tagline is genius because it’s simple but extremely effective advice. I have always been someone who can get so caught up in the planning of an idea that I often burn out before the first action item is ever completed. While planning is needed to accomplish goals effectively, sometimes the best way to learn your craft is to just do it, and figure it out along the way. We plan because we don’t want to fail but often times failure is our best teacher on what we can do to become better. So stop chit chatting, stop “trying” and get it done.

Keep Going

Yes 2016 was a shitty year, or at least it felt like it. The numerology points to the number 9 (2+0+1+6) and tells us to expect transformation. Is change easy? Hardly. Is it expected? Yes. We are only given two promises in life, that we will die, and that things will change. Discomfort is the key to growth, so we must push forward in the New Year and keep going. I started school this fall, and my first quarter was tough, but I’m not going to quit, I’ll pick up the pieces learn from my mistakes and be better next quarter. Nothing worth having comes without a little effort, and while this paragraph is full of clichés they all apply and they’re all true.

Fuck the Isms

It’s hard not to get discouraged by the racism, sexism, and bigotry displayed in this country over the course of the last two years. Election season was brutal this time around and our country has spoken on how it truly feels about multiculturalism in America. The reality is these systems of oppression affect us all but they can’t stop a freight train. That train being you. Don’t let the ideas of being marginalized actually cause you to marginalize yourself. Your thoughts are more powerful than any outside influence and we must practice positive self-talk and affirmations to keep our spirits high. Your soul is other worldly so don’t let anything of this world stop you from accomplishing your goals.

Keep Your Heart Open

The world has a way of making our hearts heavy, whether it’s dealing with abusive personalities, getting stabbed in the back by someone close to you, or just feeling as if you keep getting slighted by everyone and everything it can be hard to keep your heart open. Remember that you are only responsible for you and your feelings. If you let the actions of others change the ways of your heart, then you’re becoming more like them and losing yourself. Practice meditation, prayer, take a walk, and get some exercise. Keep your mind focused on what blessings are in your life instead of who and what’s wrong. Don’t close yourself off to new experiences and meeting new people just because your past experiences have been negative. Learn to read red flags but give everyone an equal opportunity to show you their intentions.

Make Peace with the Present

Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way we planned for it to go and sometimes we feel stuck. When you feel stuck in life, it seems like there are no options to feel unstuck. I had this problem this year, I wanted to chase my creative endeavors but needed more time and skills to do so, I’m not in a position to quit my 9-5, and the visual design program I wanted to enroll in requires me to be in school full time. How do you manage? Where can you turn when all seems to be wrong with life, but the options to fix it are minimal? A good friend told me in these times, it’s best to be still. Take a second to assess your life currently. Celebrate the parts of your life you enjoy, and find small action items to change the parts you’re struggling with. I took two classes toward finishing my degree, I failed one and passed the other with a B. Does it suck to have failed a class? Yes, but the bigger picture is I went back to school after a 4 year break and I did my best. I’ll take this quarter off and be more mentally prepared next quarter. I’m able to gauge and assess how much time I’ll have to complete assignments and study. We have to be okay with our present situation in order to think clearly about what our next move should be.

I hope this year is a good one for all of you. I’m off to a stellar start, I have a new position with a company that aligns with my greater career goals and I finally feel like I know what it is that I want to do. I hope you all find these 5 lessons helpful and may 2017 bring you a lot of peace and a ton of prosperity. 

3 Healthy Ways to Lead a Happier Life

A year ago, I wrote something in my journal that has stuck with me every day since. “I have to work hard at happiness every day.” A year ago I was in a much more difficult place. I was in a relationship that I didn’t feel supported in, I was drowning in debt while trying to maintain my current bills, and hating my place of employment. Even though there was so much that was pulling me down, closer to the lower frequencies that are negativity, I refused to relinquish myself to sadness. I refused to accept the idea of being unhappy as my normal. In today’s society where our layered identities are attacked in various outlets, it can be difficult to find a space and time to just be happy. I had to coach myself through the darker time periods in order to create a light within myself to uplift myself. Below I want to offer some common and most of all FREE techniques to keep happiness at the forefront of your life.

Re-frame your perspective:

In a different post I will break down the science behind happiness, but for the purpose of keeping this post as digestible as possible I will cover the basics. Surprisingly, 50% of our happiness is genetic, 40% is controlled by our thoughts, actions, and behaviors, and finally 10% is determined by our present circumstances. With that being said, while genetics can’t be changed, we can definitely make the efforts to be mindful of our moods and how they shift accordingly. Both men and women experience hormonal cycles once a month that is closely tied to the moon cycle. By examining and studying ourselves in a way where we can predict these fluctuations in hormones and mood we can assign ourselves methods to keep us happy and at peace during those genetic times of upheaval.

Nearly half of our happiness is dictated by the things we do and what we think about. If you find yourself constantly feeling unhappy examine why. Is it your body? Your job? Your relationship? Once you’ve identified what makes you unhappy, and if it is something that you can’t immediately change re-frame the way you think about those things. Find the silver lining, or positivity in the issue before spending time on the negative aspects the next time it pops in your head. Secondarily, if your actions or behaviors are effecting you negatively, change them. This is often easier said than done, but draft a plan and start little by little until you’ve completely transformed the patterns in your life that have you feeling stuck and unsatisfied.

Learn the art of gratitude:

Gratitude is one of my favorite words and forms of expression. Defined as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness”. While gratitude is categorized as a noun, it is as much an action as any other verb. For myself, my gratitude is deeply connected to a higher power, but that is not true for all of us. Gratitude is more about intention than spiritualism, when we wake up with the idea in our mind that we are going to be grateful for all the good in our life both big and small we are setting the course of our day. Be grateful to be alive, be grateful for our families, be grateful to earn a paycheck, be grateful to see a beautiful sunrise on a long commute into work. When we stop focusing on all that is going wrong and start to appreciate the things that are right both internally and externally we began to manifest better circumstances for ourselves and the ones around us. Letting go of a negative mindset can be very difficult but all it takes is that half second to re-think that initial negative thought and turn it into an opportunity for gratitude.

The second part of gratitude is to return kindness. The best way to receive kindness, love, and opportunity is to give it to others. Helping others also scientifically improves our outlook on life and contributes to our happiness. Whether it’s calling to check on a loved one, stopping to help someone on the street, or something as simple as waving and saying hello to a stranger. These little things will boost the mood of the party you are blessing as well as boost your own mood and give you a greater sense of purpose and happiness in your day to day life.

The Value of Being Alone:

Often times when we hear this we think of spending time at homes watching TV by ourselves, taking the time to zone out at the gym, or reading a book by ourselves. All of these are great ways to start your journey with being comfortable alone, but there are steps that we can take that will truly make us happier people. For at least 15 minutes every day we need the time to just sit quietly, in silence with just our thoughts. Nowadays you hear the term meditation frequently. In essence this is what meditation is, taking the time to tune into your own mind while simultaneously blocking out the rest of the world. As a mom who works full times and commutes to work/school by bus, I do this early in the morning. I wake up at 5:45am and I take the 15 minutes before 6am to breathe, thank God for breathing life into my lungs and set my mental goals for the day. When I’m having a hard day, one where I wake with thoughts of stress and anxiety, I pinpoint the affliction and decide what I can do about it, if the answer is nothing I let it go and relinquish it to God to handle.

For those that don’t find comfort in God, assess whether this problem is so big that it is effecting you currently. Is it stopping you or preventing you from moving forward today right now? If the answer is no, save that problem for the day it is holding you back and address it then. Meditation is checking in with ourselves to remember that we need to be present in this time and space right now. It is removing the stress of tomorrow and the anxiety of yesterday and being happy in the moment that is today.

Working hard at happiness in a healthy and mindful way takes a lot of practice. We are working to rewire our brains and train our way of thought. Sometimes this requires letting go of decades worth of patterns and behaviors, but the pay-out will be worth it. We owe it to families, our children, and most of all ourselves to at least attempt to be happier. Life is too short not to enjoy as many days as we can.

Peace & Love

I Decided Not to Fight Homelessness

I’m usually a very private person. I don’t usually discuss my personal shortcomings openly unless I have wrestled with it and settled on my own feelings about it. It’s a tool I’ve had in my arsenal for years. It provides time for me to reflect without influence, and maintains this very stoic, brave, and tough outer shell. Internally, I’m wrestling with so many issues at once, I’m almost too scatterbrained to be organized. The sole root of all my material issues is money. Whether it’s the crushing weight of student loan debt, or trying to make sure every commercialized holiday is exciting for my 7 year old, or just getting the bills paid on time. I spend a lot of time thinking about money.

While I have made steady advancements in my career over the last 4 years, each position I’ve taken has been accompanied with a pay increase. As far as income is concerned I am in a class among my peers that complains about tax returns, stock price decreases, and the overwhelming cost of living that continues to increase month after month in Seattle. According to a national study in the Journal of Urban affairs, every time rent increases $100, homelessness increases by 15%. I’ve watched the rental rates jump from $1,000 to $2,400 in just two months’ time.

So here I am in a situation that has indeed left me homeless. Bad credit and the obsession to create stability for my daughter has left me scrounging up $2,250 a month, just for rent. And while I may not always pay on time, I always pay. This past weekend I received the news that my landlords would no longer be accepting my money, and that they were going to file legal action to have me removed from my home. A week prior to this conversation I was asked about whether I had a copy of the leasing agreement, because my landlords did not. I know my rights as a tenant but I decided instead to relinquish my rights to the property and gracefully start over from scratch, yet again. This was the third private home owner I have interacted with in 3 years, and they have all been terrible. When you need a place to stay, and your credit was ruined before you were even of age to ruin it, they jack up rent prices and offer very little in return for your money. They change leasing terms on a whim and drop by to pick up rent 3 days early. They knock on your door to ask personal questions about the company you keep and attempt to scald you like children for any misstep. Needless to say, they remind you often that you are just a tenant and where you are residing could never really feel like home.

I’ve kept all this in because I didn’t want to be judged, didn’t want to be called a bad mom, or irresponsible, when in reality I am the pillar of stability and responsibility for my immediate family. I am not only supporting my daughter. When I get in “binds” like this no one jumps to aid me because “She always figures it out.” The truth is, I do, I always figure it out. So in an effort to correct my credit, climb out of debt, and collect experiences, I will embrace my situational homelessness with open arms. I will not be any less commanding in my daughter’s life. I’ll have a cushy income and a lot of goals to knock down. I am cutting the ties of stability to test drive a freelance lifestyle.

Why? Because I am tired and weathered by the society that puts massive importance on receiving a standardized education and then ties astronomical debt to us before we ever step foot into the real world. Sick of having to be uncommonly strong and unmoved by hardship. Tired of battling egos with others who are no better or worse shape than me. I’ve been paying anywhere between $2,200 - $3,500 a month, just in living expenses, because that’s what I was told to do. I have been doing this by myself, with a little help here and there from others. I am relinquishing my faith in this system and putting my faith in God to lead me where I need to be. Taking things day by day and not stressing the future.

I am so outrageously grateful for the stability my daughter has in her paternal family. If it was not for her father and the force behind him that allows him to be everything she needs and then some I could not embark on this journey, I would be in a state of terror if this was not true for us. In that, I recognize my privilege. I have been offered a once a lifetime opportunity to shape my life on my own terms and I won’t take it lightly. We’ve all heard the saying “Be the change you want to see.” This is where I start. I get a chance to be artistically free, debt free, and most of all free of the deadly toxicity that is stress. This is just another bump on the road of life, there will still be those who judge, those who condemn, but I shared this because I know I’m not alone. This is a reality for so many, and the burden of this standardized way of living weighs more heavily on some than others. I hope to carve out a path that can help others who are struggling. Most importantly, I look to the future with joy and optimism because for once, I actually feel free.

I Went Looking For God & Found The Universe

I was raised Christian. My domination is Baptist, and I honestly have no complaints regarding my childhood in church. My grandmother is easily the most religious person in my family. Far from a zealot, but she is the matriarch, the queen and we all obliged to make her happy. What we all know about Black Church is it can be a long day on those wooden benches, but it was always entertaining. From Sunday School with “Sister such and such”, to morning devotion, the hour long sermon, and last but not least the call to fellowship. I did it all from a youth usher, to the children’s choir. I enjoyed that so much I eventually upgraded to the women’s choir. I deeply appreciate the fundamental ideas instilled in me at church. It fined tuned my moral compass and created boundaries around my big heart.

I haven’t regularly attended church since I was 15. Nearly 11 years later, I have no plans to ever resume that ritual. I enjoy going once in a blue moon, it’s the nostalgia of it that draws me in. I love hearing gospel songs and an ambitious sermon, but the questions I started asking in my early teens would never be answered in church. “Why are there 3 offerings in one service?” “If the holy trinity is the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost, then where is the mother?” Most of the time I would be given long elaborate explanations that never really made sense or answered my questions, or simply told to stay in a child’s place.

In High School, I started learning the history of the Bible and how it was written in a dead language in a largely illiterate society. Which of course generated more questions. From that point I began an unconscious search for God. I read a lot of material about human spirituality, reading about Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. I learned that Islam is the most practiced religion in the world, and Hinduism also had a widespread following and it made me wonder. “How can someone go to hell when they never even knew Jesus existed?” I felt my way through some deeply spiritual moments, including sleeping under a blanket of stars on a boat in the Pacific Ocean.

During a bout of depression in my early 20s, where everything seemed too hard for no reason, I began praying and reading the Bible again. It was what I knew best.  I found parts of it to be absurd but I mostly found it to be inspiring. When I stopped trying to understand every verse in every chapter in every book, and instead viewed it from a general overview it read like a guide on unconditional love. From Job’s unconditional love of God, God’s unconditional love for his son, and Jesus’s love for the world. Every Bible story has an underlying theme of love conquering all obstacles. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 is still my favorite series of versus in the Bible. If God is love and love lives and is manifested inside of us, what does that make us? What about the other organisms on the planet? Since God created all that we know and see on this planet and beyond I started to look for God in the animals, in the plants, and in my child. I read more about science, math, and how it is ever present in everything we see.

I came to understand the universal order that encompasses not just humans, the planet Earth, and the galaxy, but the entire Universe surrounding us. So after years of unconsciously looking for God, I consciously came to the conclusion that God is an energy that flows through all living things from insects to stars. God lives in all of us, and we show our best love to God by showing the best love to ourselves and to each other. I am in no way suggesting that anyone should lose their religion and follow the ideals I have. I believe each of our relationships with that higher energy of influence is deeply personal. It should be shaped and defined in the way that works best for us on an individual level. For me, I find peace in believing that all religions can co-exist. That as long as the world keeps spinning and the sun keeps rising and setting that we are in flow with all things. I love the air I breathe, the people I meet, and pure simplistic beauty that surrounds us every day. I found God in the flower that grows in between the cracks on the sidewalk, and in the intricate patterns of butterfly wings. So what does God mean to you?