Choose yourself.

Choose yourself. 

Give yourself space to process and grieve with your past.

Time is cyclical. Trauma is cyclical. We don’t just move in a straight line. That inner child is still present. Is it hiding? Is it out in the open. Is s/he with you?

What would it look like if you chose yourself ?

How would you feel? How would IT feel? 

How would you feel if you chose yourself?

What would  happen when you confront your shadow?

Why is it following you?…why are you ahead of it?

Because you are. Because it is a part of you. You can’t escape your shadow because it is a part of you. But you are ahead of it. 

The best of you, is ahead of you. 

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

What is Hatred?

Hatred and fear are siblings. Fear is the foundation of hatred. Love and hatred are both energies on the spectrum. The opposite of hatred is not love, it’s fear because there can be no hatred without fear. Love doesn’t need a foundation because love itself is the foundation. The opposite of love is indifference. Apathy. Not hatred, apathy. When you just don’t care at all. When you hate something, there is a fear backing it. Fear from within. Dis ease .

Love stands alone.

Jeremiah

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” -Jeremiah 1:5

Before God formed you in the womb he knew you. Before you even entered your mother’s womb he set you apart.

The womb represents the earthly realm. It hits even deeper when you think about it that way. God imagined you, created your soul and spirit, made in his image before you even entered this human world. You are a spirit who came into being, through a human being who is also being, human.

God knows you.

God has an assignment for you. God set you apart for an assignment before you were formed. And as God knew you, he made you perfect, in his image before you even came to human form.

Never forget.

The Dignity of Silence

There is divinity in silence.

When in quiet reflection. Self observation. Removing oneself from the crowd to go within, like Jesus did. Like Buddha did. Like Jacob did , before he wrestled with the angel.

Sometimes it’s okay to leave the pack and walk your own path…

Yet …even in solitude we are never alone…because we are at one with God.

One. With God.

With God. We are one

Won.

Even in solitude we are never alone…because we are at one with God.

The Recipe

My recipe for success

The wisdom of an elder

A heart of a child

A beginner’s mind

The consistency of change

Heart Like Flesh

I remember when I prayed

For God to harden my heart

Because I didn’t want to feel pain anymore

I remember when I thought I was weak

For being soft

For being warm in a cold world, no blanket

I wanted to be normal

To feel, nothing

Because it hurt to feel everything

Then I realized that it took strength to feel

Only the strong choose vulnerability

What I once thought was weakness

Was meekness

God didn’t answer my prayers

Instead, he brought a storm

fire

Turbulence

To grant me peace

The experiences brought me clarity

A sense of self

A spirit of discernment

Now I stand strong

Soft

With a heart like flesh

Full.

I’m grateful

I Sat Shiva for 10 Days…

Stacey Abrams on losing the contested Georgia gubernatorial race in 2018, “I sat shiva for 10 days, then I started plotting.” 

According to Wikipedia, Sitting “shiva” refers to the act of sitting on low stools during times of mourning. As mentioned in the Book of Job, upon mourning, Job’s friends “sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights.”

What does it mean for me to sit shiva? Even when my world feels like it has ended, albeit temporarily…

I strongly dislike the feeling of helplessness, especially when I know I’ve tried my best and it still wasn’t ‘enough’.

Sitting shiva, grief, the mourning period (whatever you choose to name it) is an essential period. It allows us time to reflect on what happened. Not to dwell in it, but to remove parts from it that will aid us in the future. It is also a key period to rest and decompress from the stress and energy that you fed your past attempts.

The grief period is essential for growth. The key is, we have to choose to grow. It’s good to sit for some time but then we have to plot. In the Christian bible, it says that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Lowkey, midkey, highkey, this is exactly what that verse was trying to say.

Take the time you need

Sit in your grief

Get up

Start plotting.

Whenever I go through trying periods, I have to honor my grief and allow it space, but not too much space that it overtakes me. I can’t keep moving and moving and moving without taking a break. That’s just a quick recipe for disaster. So I say to me ( and whomever needs this)

Honor your grief and know that it too serves a purpose. When that purpose has been served, it’s time to get up and start moving again.

Thank you Stacey Abrams.

I…

We are told who we are

We are told to worship a God that lives far far away

In the sky

Then they tell us the sky is the limit

They tell us to serve a God who lives in the sky

Disconnecting us from the God within

They tell us to pray to a God in the sky

Who is white

And a man

It is written that our body is the temple of God

Then they try to prevent us from searching for our truths ourselves

Who are they?

We are told who we are

By the age of 2… we stop growing

We go to sleep

And culture starts programming

And thriving

From our somnolence

Culture is based on fear

It thrives on fear

We need it to feed the system.

They assign us a gender

As if gender is chosen for us

What does gender have to do with sex?

They tell us how we are supposed to act

As a direct correlation to our genitals

We are told who we are.

Culture has told us to get married

To someone else

To look for love

To search for that special someone

To be coupled with another being

When we don’t even know who we are

Ourselves

Who are we?

Who are you?

How many versions of yourself have you created

as a result of cultural expectations

Who are you?

When did you fall asleep?

How old are you spiritually?

How old are we, really?

Ancient mystics walked in solitude

To find their truth

Inner self, oneness

Divorce your false selves to find yourself.

Break Patterns

Break Cycles

Break Generational curses

Become your freedom.

Random thoughts at 4:44

Love doesn’t always heal but love always transforms

Love is like fire

Eventually

You will heal

through transformation

Creativity is a spirit that possesses you

I welcome every pain that is used to teach me to grow lessons turned blessings

I welcome the pain in the form of blessings

Not perfect but enough , right now.

Right now, I’mperfect.

Pain can feel so familiar

Like an old dirty duvet

A comforter

That needs to be washed

Until the dirt fades away

Love yourself enough

to wash your comforter…

MONEY is ENERGY

My view on money:

Money is currency and currency is energy. Money is not real but energy is .

Money comes and goes. Like the 1st law of Thermodynamics (Conservation), it can’t be created or destroyed, but it can be converted from one form into another.

I have found that the faster we chase money, the quicker it runs away. Also, if we don’t acknowledge money at all, it doesn’t come to us.

I have learned to treat money like the energy currency that it is. Acknowledge its presence and use it as a tool.

Always knowing that I don’t spend money, it’s transferred.

Potential energy

Kinetic energy

Positive growth, positive reciprocity.

PAIN

Pain is

a not-so gentle reminder that

we have a body

On Taking Back Your Power: a Channelled Message

Taking back your power doesn’t mean removing it from the lives of people whom your presence has blessed.

There are people whose presence has been a blessing to you, whom you’ve wronged. If they took back their power, where would you be today?

Power is not finite. Power is infinite. Your essence is infinite. It doesn’t deplete. It doesn’t begin, it doesn’t end. Your essence is from source. Your essence is from God. Your essence is abundant.

Saying you will call back your power is an act of ego because it never belonged to you in the first place. You are just a vessel from which all power flows. You are here to serve your purpose for the progression of self and others. Never forget that.

You lose nothing. You gain from giving. The more you give, the more your cup runs over. Know the difference between giving of self out of ego and being a blessing. Blessings come from God. When you feel drained, it’s God’s way of telling you to pull back and recharge. Please listen. The message is stored in your body’s power banks. You are still human, pull back when you need to. Pull back and recharge. Pull back and protect your heart. Pull back to release. Pull back to replenish. Pull back when you need to pull back.

Never forget who you are. No one is greater than the other, yet everyone has a significant blessing and purpose. Yet no one is greater. We are all children ; we are all workers here for a purpose. Some have found theirs; some are still on their way. Some have tried to deny theirs , some lack knowledge of inner self. Yet, in each stage of your journey, be grateful  because the lesson is in the journey.

Be kind to yourself and others. Think with your soul and not your ego. Think with compassion to the best of your ability but be gentle with yourself .

-Higher Self

In the Beginning There Was Darkness

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Genesis 1:1-4 NIV

Photo by Adrien Olichon on Pexels.com

Took me years to finally understand that blackness was the beginning. God was within the blackness. The wind of God swept over the face of the waters, the earth, the formless the void. In the beginning there was blackness.

When we manifest our thoughts, hopes, goals and dreams they are formed in darkness, they already exist in the blackness before the word of God brings them from the void into the light. The work behind a dream is done in the dark. Struggles are called dark times. Pain is seen as a dark period. But so should beauty.. so should love.

Seeds are sown into the darkness. They are broken in the darkness. To dig their roots into the deep , formless void of earth before they can sprout into the light. The blackness was the foundation for growth. Their power was formed in the darkness.

We need the darkness , we need the void. Why do we shy away from the darkness? Why do we shy away from the power of blackness? Why do we shy away from our power? In the beginning there was darkness. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; this doesn’t mean the dark was bad.

Day and Night. We need both. Both are important. We grow in the dark, our growth is shown in the light. Ideas are formed in the dark and strengthened in the void before being called into the light.

In the beginning, there was darkness. In the beginning , there was us.

Everything They Say About Me is True

The other day, I was blessed to encounter a stressful and triggering situation that forced me to break anew. When I reached that wall, I realized, it doesn’t matter. At my big age, none of this matters. All that was left was “eff it” When someone comes to you with gossip that is meant to manipulate, disrespect you etc, the best thing you can do is 1) silence or 2) say to the person, “everything they say about me is true, and you can add yours too.

The freedom that comes with detaching yourself from other people’s opinions of you, hits different.

None of this matters. Those who love you, know your authentic self. Even then, that is their own perspective of you. The thing that matters the most is how you feel about you. Nothing else is as important.

I’m grateful.

Connected To Everything, Attached To Nothing.

You can love a flower so much that you want it with you all the time. At first, the flower will be vibrant, sweet smelling. Each morning when you wake up, it will be there in all its glory shining for you. Then slowly, it will start to whither away. At first it may droop, then it will become dull and eventually it will die.

Photo by Maria Orlova on Pexels.com

or you can love a flower so much that you want to see it all the time. So you sit in the garden admiring its beauty. Each morning when you wake up, you will be there, and it will be there in all its glory shining. But one day, it will start to droop. Its leaves will fall off. It will become dull and eventually die.

The point is this: nothing on this earth is permanent. As the flowers come and go, so shall we. Let us allow ourselves to BE. Enjoy each other freely. In our natural state. As we are. No attachments, just connections. Because at the end of the day, we will all fade away. Why not enjoy each other freely, as we are? This is what love is to me…

True love is freedom.

Dick-Stractions

Imagine the things we can achieve, the goals we can attain. The levels we can gain

if we weren’t dick-stratcted

Imagine the places we would go, the people we would change (for good)

The things we could do

if we weren’t dick-stracted

Sometimes I feel that social media harnesses our essence and uses it for profit. At the same time, social media is a great tool to enable us to put ourselves out there for growth and success and to connect with other people, experience other cultures remotely, see how other people live (albeit through a filter).

While technology and social media is great, we (i) have to be mindful:

Don’t be dick-stracted or you will be screwed.

#notetoself

Dichotomy

Although your heart and your true spirit is not like that, you hold on to stinginess and selfishness as a security blanket. The closer you got to me, the more you brought it out.

Eventually, I saw that this prevented you from seeing me. Seeing me, meant understanding me and my struggles.

It was at this point that I knew had to leave.

The Revolution Will be Retweeted

An #EndSARS protester. Image from @theayochase on Twitter

We are one

We support the right to peacefully protest. We have the right to assemble. We have the right to human decency, the right to express righteous indignation.

We move as a collective. We are all servants , we are all leaders. We move as one against police brutality. 

Gone are the days of using respectability politics as a weapon to manipulate and subdue.

Thanks to technology and social media, we are faster, more powerful, more connected.

The revolution will not be televised, it will be retweeted.

The revolution is a hashtag.

#endsars #endswat #bewhoyouneeded

On the Subject of Love: a Channeled Message

There are many forms of love just like there are many types of people, plants and organisms in the universe.

There is only one source: the greatest spirit, Love itself, God is love.

When we feel the love of God we do not feel pressure, we feel freedom.

Love is freedom .

Love is the highest form of positive energy.

Love can not be confused with codependency.

He loves you but his love is mingled with codependency.

He’s hesitating to face his truths and learn his lessons.

She is hesitating to go within and as long as that is, she will be drained and misaligned from her purpose.

If you love him set him free.

If you love her, let her be free.

What he seeks is seeking him.

What she seeks is seeking her.

𝙱𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚢 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑, 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚢 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚐𝚎.

~ᴛᴀᴏ ᴛᴇ ᴄʜɪɴɢ

“i love you”

Those words

used to be expensive 

Damn near even priceless

Now when you throw those words at me, it feels cheap

Gaudy even

Once sacred, uttered in reverence and honor

Now belongs on the clearance rack

Bargain bin

I can buy your words at the dollar store and get change back

Change

Back

2020 Vision

When i blink with tears in my eyes, my vision sharpens.

When they roll down my cheeks, they take the pain with them as they leave.

Purge.

This year has been eye opening.

2020

vision.

Inspiration

Inspiration.

Lands like condensation

Evaporates

Like perspiration

New year, New Me?

December 31, 2019

New Year’s Eve

A year is only a year because we agreed to it. there is no Tuesday /Wednesday … just the wish

But we are part of this game and the herd has spoken

So we take the energy of today to set our intentions for ourselves .

Something we should do each and every day that God gifts us

Vulnerable

Nothing lasts forever

So they say

If you don’t want to be hurt, Gotta stay far away

Open up your heart and say “ah”

Leave the rest to me

This love, this life is a battlefield

Love and war

Speak your mind

Land mines.

Hold on

But don’t hold on too tight

No one likes too much attachment

Detach

Limb from limb

Gash. Open

Spill

Love

All over the place

Careless lover.

Unsafe.

Raw

Unprotected

You knew this game before you played

Still you stayed…

Too Open

Too open

I could fall in

Like a drug I don’t want to depend on it. So I detox. From you. Addiction is not what I want to do. Because it involves attachment . This means therein exists an opportunity for hurt. When I think about this or consider the probability , the positivity in me fizzles. I’m left with the negative self talk, the what if’s and the whispers that you’re playing me. Volume loud. Static and all. So I just freeze. Flight or fight. I don’t want to fight. Good bye.

Pineapple Tea Juice

Cold sheets. Warm bodies.

Lotion on foot. Rub down legs

Kiss scars

Lips on lips. Lips on more lips.

Heated hands on plastic glass

Melted. Soft wax

Hard like discipline

Soft like rain.

Puddles.

Voila!…Viola

a hurum gi n’anya (I see you)

Her: “Wanna know why I love you?”

Him: “Pray tell”

Her:

You’re such a man . Vulnerable, Strong, resilient, hue.man.

You don’t wear your heart on your sleeves because you unclothe your spirit for me on purpose.

You’re just who you are and it gives me the freedom to be who I am.

I want the absolute best for you.

If I never hear from you again, I will still be blessed because I have lived years with you in these few months.

You’re my true confidante. You don’t judge me

You love me as-is, never asking for discounts or a refund.

I love you as is…would say Full price…but you’re invaluable.

‘a hurum gi n’anya’ in the igbo language means , I love you. literally translated, it means , I see you.

Facing Shadows

They say you have to nurture your inner child

In order to heal

The say you have to sit with the pain

And your inner demons

And your shadows

And your vices

And show them love and compassion

Because they are also a part of you

That’s fine and all , but how?

I’m willing to try but I need to know how

To face my own shadow when I’m trying to be the light

This little light of mine

I want to let it shine

And break away from any dark times

So tell me how I’m supposed to face my shadows

When I only have a glimmer of hope left?

I miss you

I miss you

I miss the way you smell

The way you taste

The way you feel.

I miss the laughs

I miss the silence

Not awkward at all

Overthinking killed us

And our friendship

Pride won’t allow us to reconnect

It’s all well and gone

But didn’t we have fun?

Time will sweep us away

But when we smell our scent unexpectedly we will

Remember

Adios amigo.

I Wrote About You: A Poem

Last night I wrote a poem about you

As you slept

I wept

And swept

You out of me

Last night I dreamt about you

Access denied.

BRANCHES

“Why do branches grow like that? Why don’t they grow straight up?”

We are all branches on the tree of life

Attempting to grow towards the light

And away from gravitational pull

Some branches grow apart and never touch

Some branches touch then grow apart

Some branches fall off on their own

Some get cut short

Some branches grow side by side

We are all branches on the tree of life

Swaying in the breeze

Affected by the wind

Through various seasons

When life springs, we grow leaves

Then they fall, they leave

They change , wither away and die

But grow again

And we grow too

To give our leaves the most light, even if it means growing crookedly

We grow for survival

So do the other branches

Weathering the storm

And as the tree grows older

We grow more outwards than upwards

So to cast a wider net , to catch the light

Of the sun