Human, Whole & Worthy of Love
I can't believe it's already fall! Life has been moving bold and fast, lately. This summer, I had a launch party, a few awesome speaking engagements, and even got to cover the Miss Black USA Pageant! I also went through a rough patch in my relationship that was a huge distraction for me. Through hard work, honesty, and diligence, my boyfriend and I were able to reconnect and now our love is deeper than it ever has been. In fact, he popped the question and I said yes!
Summer highlights
[gallery ids="7327,7325,6999,6998,7423" type="slideshow"]It's been a roller coaster of a summer, but now I'm ready to get back on steady ground. For every highlight of the summer, I had twice as many moments where fear and depression clouded my mind. It felt like life was trying to teach me a few lessons and would keep knocking me upside the head until I finally started to listen.
Getting my self-worth in check
For years, I've been struggling to gain the confidence to go after my dreams, much to the confusion of my family and friends who clearly see a woman who knows what she wants and goes after it. The image I had of myself in my mind was very different. Perfectionism and anxiety were still trying to rule my life. It didn't matter how many achievements I churned out, once the moment of glory passed, my mind would go straight back to what I hadn't yet achieved. I was not absorbing my victories or giving myself time to rest after the huge effort I put into reaching goals.
Integrity way out of whack
When you're committed to achieving something in life, your actions must line up with your commitments, otherwise, you've made yourself an empty promise. I was making empty promises about my career. I said that I wanted to get more freelance clients, but I never advertised my services properly. I constantly downplayed my skills and expertise. I REFUSED to update my LinkedIn. I had this idea that I was not good enough, so my actions matched up to this flawed self-concept.Now, I'm committed to being the person I want to be right now. I'm done with waiting to see if circumstances line up in perfect formation so that I can feel validated and safe. Training wheels off! Mask off! Now I truly understand what it means to "walk in your purpose". It means living on purpose RIGHT NOW! It means being the person you want to be no matter what.
To be honest with you...
I've always thought of myself as an honest person, but it's one thing to communicate in a way that is technically true and quite another to say what your heart holds back. You know, the risky stuff about how you actually feel. It's usually hiding underneath the lies that we tell ourselves and others for the sake of looking good or avoiding looking bad.I'm not saying we should never tell lies of omission. For example, if I don't like your jeans I probably won't tell you. I'd rather shift the focus to a part of your outfit that I do like and pay you a compliment. "Nice earrings, sis!"But seriously, honest conversations are so important. Think about all of the relationships you can lose because of lack of honest communication. We walk around thinking that others should simply know how we feel, or worse yet, make up a fictional tale about how other people in our lives think/feel about us.What's the worst that can happen when we're being open, honest, and vulnerable? Someone could use that openness to hurt us or we'll keep our mouths shut and hurt anyway. Express yourself unapologetically. Give the people you love a glimpse of the real you, not just your well-maintained facade. Ever since I got engaged, people have been asking me, "How did this happen?!" since earlier in the summer it seemed like my boyfriend and I were done for good. What happened was that we got honest with each other about our fears, insecurities, and ambitions. We stopped pretending to be perfect and learned to accept each other as human, whole, and worthy of love.The best is yet to come.
P.S. Recently, I got around to updating my LinkedIn so let's connect!P.P.S. If you like to journal, SBG is having the 2nd annual Journal to Healing Challenge! Join us in this practice of self-expression and love!