Love the Skin You're In

During this award season the beautiful and talented Lupita Nyong'o has taken Hollywood by storm. She has won award after award for her profound performance in 12 Years A Slave. During the whirlwind of acceptance speeches she gave, one stuck out to me in particular and inspired me to write this post. At the 7th Annual Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon , she was honored with the Best Breakthrough Performance Award.

She said:

 "....my mother would say to me, 'You can't eat beauty. It doesn't feed you.' And these words plagued      and bothered me; I didn't really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I  could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be. And what my mother meant when she said you can't eat beauty was that you can't rely on how you look to sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and those around you. That kind of beauty enflames the heart and enchants the soul. And so I hope my presence on your screens and in the magazines may lead you...on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade to that beauty."

I can remember when I couldn't look into the mirror at my own reflection...I just didn't like what I saw. I didn't think I was beautiful, pretty, attractive...none of those descriptive words resonated with me in any way. These feelings led me to make decisions that did nothing to uplift my thoughts or encourage any type of self-love.

It has taken many years and many changes in my life to get to a place where I can say that I am falling back in love with myself....just the way I am. So often we will say, I'll love myself when I lose this weight, when I get this man/woman, or when I get this job. But what about loving ourselves now...right here in the middle of all our imperfections. Can we do that?

Trust me, I know its a tall order. I didn't reach this space overnight, it has taken me a little over a decade to be able to genuinely say that I truly love and accept myself just as I am.  Once I started focusing on my positive qualities, my strengths, and abilities, I started letting go of my harsh self-criticism, comparing myself to others and self-hatred.

Here are some steps I took to get back to loving me:

1. Be Kind to yourself, or my favorite  Be Good to Yourself (BGTY) - Accept yourself shortcoming and all. And be aware of how you treat yourself, you are IMPORTANT!

2. Give yourself a break- No one is perfect! Don't set such high standards for yourself emotionally and mentally. Its normal to feel sadness and to hit some low points in life.

3. Embrace yourself - Are you content being alone by yourself without feelings of anxiety, fear and judgment? Learn to embrace the solitude and get comfortable in your own skin. 

4. Be Grateful - I cannot stress this enough! When you are grateful for the things that you have, no matter how small they may be, you will see those things increase. Whenever I am about to start my own personal pity party I look at all I have and how far I've made it...that always brings me back to being grateful.

5. Give yourself in service to others - The love you share with others in the form of service will help you feel more love and fulfillment in your life. 

The process of loving yourself starts with understanding your true nature. It took a combination of meditation, therapy, writing and silence for me to come to terms with my past and my present. Only once I realized I wasn't loving myself could I attempt to change that.

Falling in love with yourself is a beautiful experience. It's learning to laugh at your awkward tendencies and smile at all your quirky little habits. It's learning to be grateful for the many sides you have -- confident, crazy, shy, sexy, nerdy, angry, weird, and all the rest of them. It is realizing that you're one of a kind - there's only one YOU - and that you deserve to give the world the best person you can be. Falling in love with yourself is being happy in your life and knowing that in this one moment in time, you're beautiful simply because you are you.

"Your task is not to seek for Love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." ~ Rumi

Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone

Being the naturally lazy creatures that we are -- always doing our best to make life more pleasurable (or rather, what we believe would make our lives more pleasurable) -- we prefer staying within our comfort zones. Leaving our comfort zone is unpleasant and comfort is easy to achieve most times. We all fear uncertainty, loss, pain, and so we seek to cushion ourselves against the rawness of life by spending our lives in artificial, climate- controlled boxes safe from unwanted intrusion.

Powerful forces conspire to keep you in your comfort zones, penned by fear. The system wants you to be compliant, following the rules of the group, be an acceptor rather than a creator. Fear of social judgment discourages you from trying anything with a risk of rejection or failure.

Unfortunately changing our habits is not easy -- for one simple reason: it's uncomfortable. No matter what your habits -- healthy, unhealthy, productive, destructive -- going against them will be uncomfortable. Most people don't give discomfort the credit it is due because most of us , if only subconsciously, do our best to avoid feeling uncomfortable.

The problem is that if you never feel discomfort then you clearly never leave your comfort zone. if you don't leave your comfort zone then you will never form the habits that you need to form in order to succeed. That's what it all comes down to: forming habits that will nurture and support your success. In order to change your life you must form new habits -- habits in all aspects of your life moving your comfort zone to new, unknown territory.

Think back to the most meaningful, amazing moments of your life. When you examine them you will find that they had you stepping out of your comfort zone. Trying something new and unfamiliar brings extra excitement and emotion to an event. These highs leave us with a greater sense of accomplishment and fulfillment than simply doing the same thing every day.

Ideas, concepts or goals alone are not enough to motivate us. They are ideas -- not living things that move and can affect. We can try to find outside sources of motivation, but unless you can hire a personal trainer and life coach to sit down with you every week, then you're basically on your own. But this is not something that should scare you.

You can become your greatest motivator, all that you need to do is talk to yourself. Yes, I know it sounds silly. And yes, if you talk to yourself out loud in public, then people may very well think that you are insane. But thankfully you can have full conversations with yourself inside your head. Most people underestimate the strength and importance of talking to oneself. Not only will talking to yourself keep you sane -- literally -- it also works as the greatest motivational system the world has ever seen.

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." ~ Neale Donald Walsch

Y Wait?

Most of us have certain ideas about how or when we'll start enjoying life more - after I get this job, when I get married, or after I lose that last 10 pounds- which actually keeps us unhappy.  Not all of these misconceptions are about the future either. Thinking that if we had behaved differently in the past, we'd be more content now is equally as damaging. My old definition of joy always seemed to place it in the future.
Its sad to look back at all the time I wasted waiting for joy, instead of waking up to the fact that it's all around me.It's really easy to fixate on something and think that you can't be happy without it, but it's just not true. In fact you're holding off on joy until something you want shows up, you could be missing out for no real reason.

We all have the power to decide to be joyful right now. I'm not saying it's what we were taught or that we don't have the habit of being cranky or depressed based on what our day looks like, but we have the power to do something about our mood. If our happiness depends on having what we want, we become too dependent on outside circumstances and how the world works. "Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you're in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you." ~ Deepak Chopra
I think most people want a happy life and go seeking "things" and "people" to make them happy, but the problem is that happiness does not come from things and people; it comes from inside.

Look forward by all means, be happy and excited about what lies ahead, but if you find on reflection that you are living so far ahead in the future and tying how you might feel to what you hope will happen then that you're missing out on the present, it might be time to stop and look around! You can be happy right now and you don't need anything for that to happen.

Once you begin believing that what you have been asking for is on it's way, no questions asked, it's far easier to focus on what's already making you happy. So the next time you find yourself thinking 'if only', or as 'as soon as', you can change it to God is for me and everything is working out in my favor. Because really, it is.

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned...so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
~ Joseph Campbell

No Regrets, Only Lessons Learned

I can remember with painful clarity some of the most mortifying mistakes I've ever made in my life. There was my first real solo in the children's choir at my church when I forgot all the words; the colossal error of trying to steal some candy from the corner store that my mother denied me, knowing full well she had eyes in the back of her head; the time I tripped UP some stairs in front of my crush and busted my lip wide open. I could go on for days!

Everyone's felt it, that forehead-smacking frustration that comes with failing, or simply being flat-out wrong. To make things worse, these mistakes always tend to take center stage in our minds. To err may be human but most of us are still afraid to admit when we've been wrong, it feels like an "indictment of our self-worth." When we make a mistake, most of us fall into two categories: those who think, 'Forget it, I'll never be good at this,' then we try to forget it altogether; or those who view a mistake as wake up call, identifying what went wrong and then adjusting accordingly.

Fortunately, we can rewire our response to a mistake so that they aren't scary and anxiety-inducing. The key is self-compassion. We are so hard on ourselves as people. We do not give ourselves permission to accept mistakes and use them as a chance for growth. A setback can lead us to a better place if we just let it. I can testify to that; in my life every time I thought I had failed, it was really God just moving me to a new level of growth. All too often when we rely on our own minds, we resist or overlook opportunities to grow. So God has to get our attention. Failures are a very efficient way of doing that.

As 2014 picks up speed can we draft a joint resolution to drop the expectation that we must all be perfect friends, spouses, employees with perfect bodies who dedicate ourselves to charity and have our own organic garden, eat gluten free, at the same time that we run corporations, stand on our heads while playing the piano with our feet?

Not possible right? So let's drop it maybe?

Let's just anticipate that we will disappoint ourselves somehow this year. Go ahead and let it happen. You will survive, I promise! We can blow it all catastrophically, and thankfully start over. This is what we must all learn to do, for this is how maps get charted, by taking wrong turns that lead to surprising discoveries that open into spectacularly unexpected new worlds. So just march on. Future generations will thank you for showing the way, for beating brave new paths out of your crazy mistakes.

Fall flat on your face if you must, but please, never EVER give up! Do not stop!

Map your own life, and live it without regrets.

BGTY

Maintaining My Happy

Happiness is your original nature. before you begin to identify with anything--your race, your nationality, your social status, even your body--it is the first thing you experience. Genuine happiness is being committed to your true nature. The more you know yourself---what you love, what you dislike, what inspires you, what makes you who you are--the happier you will be. What I have come to realize and unfortunately have lived is that when you forget who you are and WHOSE you are, something crazy happens, you start to search for happiness everywhere.

Happiness is what you experience when you truly accept yourself, when you relax and when you stop obsessiong about being a size zero, about why he/she hasn't called and about what I should be doing with my life (my personal favorite).  You must accept that the happiness you hope to achieve--after you find your true partner, get the dream job, buy the ideal home and earn the right money---is already in you. Happiness is the natural state of your soul. It is not something you achieve; it is something you accept. 

I have been faking my happiness for awhile now, thinking that at some point my reality would catch up with the fantasy life I created. Slowly but surely I have started walking in my happy. I'm not 100% everyday, all day, but I am happy because I've decided to be. Yup, I have decided that I am tired of being unhappy and living this exhausting double life. So for the last few weeks I have been reflecting on what helps me maintain my happy. Here are the top 3: 

#1  Mi familia! I truly have the best family in the world, their love for me is above and beyond anything I could have dreamed. They have dragged me kicking and screaming sometimes through life and I can't thank each one of them enough.

#2 Sharing my gifts with others: whether it's singing, being a listening ear, helping someone edit a letter or a paper, organizing an event or throwing a meal together that I know others will enjoy.

#3 My True Friends: You know who you are, the family I got to choose. They have saved me from myself countless times. 

Happiness is a journey not a destination and I am embracing every ounce of it starting with today. 

This is one of my favorite quotes:

"True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not." ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Let me end with a line from a song I fell back in love with this year: Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul.

Back to Basics for 2014

It's that time of year again when we all make lofty promises to ourselves including how we plan on finally sticking to our exercise and diet regimen we abandoned somewhere around Febuary. I can't front that used to be my MO for as long as I can remember.

But not this year...I honestly didn't think I would survive 2013, and I know we got a few more days left until the end so lemme go knock on some wood, lol. But seriously, I've let fear and worry cripple me for most of my adult life. I think it started way back at the end of my senior year in college, when I received my first rejection letter, ever, to one of the law schools I applied to. Up until then in my life whatever I applied myself to always worked out without any real effort on my part. High school, college, part time jobs, I had never heard "no" before.  It hit me like a ton of bricks when I didn't get in anywhere. I didn't have a plan B, so I had to move back home and get a job until I figured out what my next move was going to be. 

Over the next year I studied my butt off, got a tutor for the LSAT and I finally got in to law school. I was so so ecstatic and then I started law school and quickly realized it was not for me. Again I was faced with the fact that I had no plan B. I had been preparing to be a lawyer since elementary school...and here I was walking away from the very thing that would make that possible. 

Let me insert here that I am of proud Jamaican heritage, which translates to mean, "Gal yah betta find yaself a job quick, quick!" in my family, lol. So I got a job, and another, and another until I found one that I could do really well. I worked hard and I was promoted through the ranks, but something was missing. You know how people always talk about their purpose in life, well I believe we all have one. And I knew I wasn't living mine but I didn't know how to fix it.

Year after year has passed and events have have occurred in my life that have stalled my progress many times. I would make pledges and promises to myself to change this and that every New Year and then lose focus 30 days in. As we approach 2014, many feel safe in hoping for a change. I know all too well that by the end of January, too many of us will be back to doing our same habits. And it's not because what we want is impossible...its because we don't have a strategy! (lightbulb moment)

Now don't get me wrong I have faith and believe that  God can do the impossible because He has done it over and over again. But, what am I doing to prepare for that breakthrough? It like I have been sitting around waiting for an email from God outlining what my next moves should be...crazy right? I will own up to it, but I can no longer let that be the way I handle things.

I have come to know that there are some key things to consider (thanks to Felicia Scott). :

1. Know Your Greater Mission-  One of the primary reasons we don't achieve our goals is because we don't know the greater "why" behind the "what we want to achieve."

2. Know Your Obstacles- Sometimes we act out of uneducated inspiration, so we don't know what it will take to reach our goals. We will stack the odds in our favor when we understand the potential challenges and obstacles ahead of time.

3. Know Yourself-  The biggest obstacle we will ever face when going for anything we want is "self." We can't afford to be ignorant about ourselves and who we really are at our core. We must know our motivators, our strengths and our weaknesses. If we actively self-manage, we've accomplished the hardest part of an endeavor. 

As 2013 comes to a close, I know for a fact that I blocked a lot of blessings that God tried to send my way. That will not be the case next year. I'm going to put this extremely analytical mind I was blessed with and begin self-reflecting on a daily basis to ensure I am not standing in this same place December 2014.

Be Good To Yourself (B.G.T.Y.)

One of my favorite quotes says: "Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you're in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you." I used to hear people say it all the time, Happiness is a choice, be happy, etc., and I used to say under my breath, easier said than done! But is it really? Over the last few months I have been doing some self-assessment which seems to occur around my birthday post turning 30. I looked at my present state in life, where I was, what I was doing, how far I've come, etc. After considering all those things I couldn't help but smile, because God has truly brought me a MIGHTY long way.

I can remember a time when I was constantly comparing myself to others or even to where I thought I should be at particular times in my life. Everyone makes deadlines, albeit sometimes unrealistic, we still make them. When I was in college I just knew I would have my law degree by 25, meet a fabulous man, get married, buy a nice house, and have some gorgeous kids! NONE of these deadlines have been met! LOL! My wise grandmother used to say, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." I may not have met those deadlines, but my life has been a wonderful, wild rollercoaster of a ride. I wouldn't change anything that I have gone through, because each trial has taught me so much about myself and I've come to realize what a strong woman I have become.

 Growing up and up into my twenties I had huge self-esteem problems. Now I grew up in a loving home, my parents are still together and they affirmed me constantly on how beautiful and smart I was. But for some reason I thought I wasn’t worth much, because I didn’t look a certain way or have certain people or things in my life. I compared myself to others and I always found myself lacking. I used the way people treated me as a measurement of how I should treat myself. It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom and realized that this way of thinking had caused me to go through some tough times that could have been avoided if I had known what I deserved and demanded it.

 These past few months since my birthday this year have easily been the happiest of my adult life. I have accepted the notion that you cannot be happy at your destination, if you can’t be happy on the journey, as my way of life. Every day I wake up thankful and grateful just for another day, another chance to get it right. You can ALWAYS find a reason not to be happy, but why would you want to when being happy is so much more fun than being sad. When you truly realize your self-worth and see how wonderfully made you are, I promise you won’t be able to stop smiling!
 Let me share a few things I picked up on my journey back to loving myself:

Never allow anyone or anything to diminish you and your dreams.

Never sacrifice who you are just because someone has a problem with it.

What God has for you, is for YOU. No one has the ability to stop you, but YOU!

You are where you are, at the time that you are for a reason. Don’t waste it by wishing to be somewhere else. 
You’re never in control of what they give you, but you’re ALWAYS in control of what you accept.

 Know your worth. Know when you have had enough. And move on from the people who keep ruining your happiness!

 Always remember to BGTY first, then everyone else. You can't love anyone truly if you don't love yourself!