Handle Your Business Girl (HYBG) Empowerment Zone

On yesterday, I was privileged to carpool with two of my girlfriends to a master coach certification event.  It was called Handle Your Business Girl Empowerment Zone Master Coach Certification.  First of all, the name grabbed me.  Secondly, the words master coach certification sparked my interest in perfecting my craft.  I didn't know exactly what was going to happen.  All I knew was I had to be there.

Have you ever listened to a speaker and your Wise Self interpret what they say to speak directly to where you are.  Unlike most folks, I don't generally take notes.  I remember better when I listen and then I write from what rests inside.  When I do take notes, I have to feel inspired, really inspired.  I felt inspired yesterday.  If someone were to read my notes though, they would think, "the speaker didn't say that" or "that is not what she meant."  It's because the Interpreter in me let me hear it in my own native tongue.  

Afterwards, with my girlfriends, I pondered what truly lies at the core of competition or jealousy among women as this was talked about during the event.  I think it stems from feeling like something is lacking--whether it is a lack inside or a lack of resources.  I didn't feel any of that.  I really didn't.  When you believe that what God has given you is enough and He is working behind the scenes to order your steps and to provide what you need, there is nothing to hang these negatives emotions on.  There simply isn't.  Dr. Gail Hayes, the CEO of HYBG University, shared how she's always been disliked by women.  Her belief is they are that way because they don't know who they are.  I agree.  You've got to be clear about your own identity.  The dean, Greer Holmes, helps people to get clear. Not just about who you are but what you have to offer this world.  When you admire and love yourself in a healthy, spiritually-mature way, there's no need for comparison.  I'd dare say that when you feel that flutter of negativity towards another woman, it's really about you.  There's something inside of you that is broken that needs to be healed.  And as Dr. Hayes says, that woman you don't like has the key to your next level.

I am self directed and am very comfortable in that.  I move when I feel an inner prompting or an inner curiosity.  When I feel pushed to do otherwise, I get frustrated.  Perhaps that's because I'm a Middle Child.  In many arenas where there is a powerful and confident woman, we tend to admire them, want to follow them and/or envy them.  I admire Dr. Hayes and the beautiful, insightful, talented women who comprise her Master Coaching Team.

What I got out of the event was confirmation, inspiration and collaboration.  I knew that I was in the right place at the right time.  It felt authentic.   It felt right.  I got so many confirmations from people just sharing and talking and encouraging.  These women didn't know they were seconding what my heart had already told me. Lastly, I added more names to my sister circle.  More people to collaborate with and perfect my vision and my direction.  It wasn't just about seeking friends or networking for me.  It was about connecting with whomever God had prepared for me to meet.  I leave the rest to Him.

New Territory

With me contributing to a myriad of different E-writing opportunities, I have had to rethink my posts to this blog.  My blogs tend to become articles.  I don't plan on it, it just happens.  To make it more bloggy, I've decided to make this more of a public diary.   Not that I plan on telling you what I ate for breakfast or all my business, I do plan on talking more about where I am in the moment.

Sure I am a life coach.  But I think it's important for clients to know that I live what I talk about.  I have to do the work to get from Point A to Point B too.  I seek guidance, wise counsel, coaching to help give insight and accountability.

Tonight while talking with my boyfriend, I realized something.  This is the first relationship I've ever had that came to a difficult point that didn't result in weakening the relationship or revealing how weak it was.  Though I'm glad on the one hand, on the other, I've never been here before.  I know it sounds strange that a woman twice married my age would say that but it's true.  What bonded me in past relationships was a need for validation or approval.  My independence was praised as long as it meant I didn't require true intimacy.  Vulnerability was shunned and I felt cut off.  That's not the case in this relationship.

Sure, we're prone to fight-or-flight when we feel threatened with whatever our brand of threat is; but we haven't attacked each other.  That's noteworthy.  My past tendencies to fire up and let er rip have been tempered by my work with my coach.  My hap was to go into defensiveness mode and then attack. Granted, it felt good in the moment but afterwards I'd see such devastation.  Then I'd feel guilty and assume responsibility.  This absolutely negated my own feelings.

This is new territory for us both but we've decided something.  We want to make this work.  We've found a safe place and we want to make a home there.

It requires bonding as a couple as well as dealing with our individual issues.  If this will bring us to a whole and authentic space, it'll be so worth it.  I am hopeful.

It's A Wonderful Life

It started last night.  I looked at my new business page on Facebook with the same 3 Likes.  Shaking my head, I couldn't figure what was wrong.  I had contacted everyone on my Yahoo address list, inviting them to Like my new page.  Nothing.

I had deactivated my personal profile in an effort to transition from using Facebook as a social medium to using it as a platform for my coaching practice.  I meant well, but things weren't going as I had hoped.  Each day, I'd log on only to find the same three people.  Sigh.  Then the lightbulb came on.  Perhaps I deactivated my page prematurely, I thought.  I jumped back on Facebook, reactivated my personal profile page and started sending private messages to my friends list and posting invites on the timelines of groups I had joined.  In less than 24 hours, I have 71 Likes and climbing.  The outpouring has been remarkable.  Folks aren't just liking my page but they are sending me "of courses" and "certainly's" and well wishes and votes of confidence.  

Reminds me of the classic Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life.  Actor, Jimmy Stewart, portrays a disheartened George Bailey.  For years, he continued his father's legacy of helping the folks of his small town.  He granted them loan extensions and other financial breaks but when his bank went belly up, folks started demanding their money.  Overcome with anxiety, George did as many folks do: got drunk and drove like a bat out of hell down the road.  He ends up wrecking his car and wishing he were never born.  Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, an angel granted him that wish.

Through a series of twists and turns reminiscent of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the angel accompanies him through what life would have been like had he never been born.  When he realizes that life without the ones he loves is no life at all and how so many people's lives were better because he was born, he prays that he get his life back.  Through tear-stained eyes, he hears someone calling his name and realizes that he has been given such a wonderful gift.  With snow sloshing all around, he runs through his house calling for his wife and kids.  She comes in and he showers her and the kids with kisses completely unaware of the miracle that has happened.  Within moments, the townspeople he's helped over the years turn out in overwhelming numbers with money to help him.  I'm not getting money -- YET -- but the outpouring of love from my friends and friends of friends is just as wealthy.

Truly, I am basking in God's favor!  It's a wonderful life!

Ponderings of An Aging Woman

It's hard to believe that in 22 days I'll be 53.  One thing that I've noticed right off is my reflection in the mirror still looks okay but my recent pictures are revealing that the camera doesn't love me like it use to.  Unless I stand in the perfect lighting, the wrinkles, the weakening eye sockets and the loss of elasticity in my face are very apparent.  I ain't gon lie.  I don't like aging.  I really don't.  At the same time, it makes me ponder what I have that shines brighter than my outward appearance.  After all, as you age, beauty fades.  And at a certain age, botoxing and face lifting and nip tucking just starts looking....well....wrong. 

Now, don't get it twisted.  As long as I have an ounce of vanity, I plan on being a Diva.  Class, elegance and poise are ageless and so is style.  Can I get an Amen?!  I'm not going to say that one day I won't have some work done to help a sistah out.  Contrary to what many celebrity women are doing, I don't want to look like I've had work done.  Just like makeup, a little body work or face work is suppose to only enhance what you already have going for you.  When it's overdone, it looks unattractive. 

I have to admit, sometimes I start feeling insecure.  It's not all-consuming but every now and then, I hear that gentle reminder, "Guuuurl, you gettin oldddddddd." 

Will my boyfriend still think I'm hot as I continue to age? 

We tell ourselves it's what's inside that counts, but c'mon now.  Any woman who loves her man wants to keep that sexual tension poppin.  She doesn't want to go through a lot of trouble--the high heels, the weaves, the thongs--but she does want his head to turn or his eyes to do that shift thingy that men's eyes do when they are checking you out.  I love it when I'm talking to my boyfriend and his eyes do that double blink when I enter the room ready to go out with him.  Or when he slips his arm around my waist as if to tell all the other fellas, "Yeah, I know she's fine and she's mine.  So you'd better recognize and jump back, Jack." 

In a conversation Oprah was having with one of her guests about how you can tell if a man is in love with a woman, they agreed it's that his eyes light up.  I know the day will come that I will stop turning heads and stopping traffic.  It's inevitable. Okay, I never stopped traffic but you feel me.  Eyes that once lit when I entered a room will look right pass me.  I just hope that my love's eyes will still shine and he'll continue to rush to open the door or to grab the groceries for me because he still feels like the luckiest man alive.

Drama Free

The beauty of being on the precipice of 53 years old is coming to a place of acceptance more quickly.  I definitely am not exempt from rises and falls, bright spots and dark places, juggling different components of my life and evaluating when I should fight for and when I should simply let go. 

There is a story in the Old Testament of King David where he fasted, prayed and begged God to spare the life of his baby with Bathsheba.  When he received word that his child had died, he got up and went on about his life.  Baffled, those around him inquired as to how he could do that.  He simply said that as long as his child lived there was a chance for recovery but now his child was dead.  There was nothing left to do.  I cannot compare the events of this past week with David's process.  It pales in comparison.  But for the sake of making my point of acceptance, I can say this.  Relationships have difficult places.  Those I compare to category 1 earthquakes.  You barely feel them.  Contrary to this are our category 10 quakes.  Those happen very seldomly--every 1000 years to be exact.  But those are most devastating. 

Feeling the undeniable strength of a relationship earthquake, I began to assess the strength of my foundation.  This required that I take a look at the cracks that had been growing underneath my feet that now could not be ignored.  I prayed for illumination.  I consulted with family and friends.  I prayed some more.  Two things came out of this evaluation:

(1)  I was afraid.  What triggered my fear was becoming very sick and feeling vulnerable and alone.  This sent a shock through everything that wasn't stable.  Isn't that just like life?  An earthquake, even a small tremor, will dismantle anything that might appear to be okay or manageable and make it fall to the floor and break into thousands of tiny pieces. 

Though I feel a strong impulse to fight-or-flight when I feel vulnerable and alone, I had to stay that feeling.  Talking to trusted friends and family helped stabilize me.  I became aware that I cannot leave something due to fear.  In the past, when I've done that, I've secondguessed what I did or what I said.   

Lesson:  Don't run off into the dark when you are spooked.  You can't see where you're going and everything looks ominous.  Wait until the light comes on before you make a move. 

(2)  Though talking to family and friends helped give me more perspective, I wasn't content until I heard the voice of my Wisest Self.  There is a passage from the Bible--I can't tell you where it is--that says, "the entrance of your Word brings Light."  What immediately comes to mind is sitting around the table, trying to figure something out.  Then someone enters with the answer.  The entrance of Truth settles all conflicts both internal and external.  When that happens, I no longer need to consult with anyone else.  I know what you must do.   

This is what keeps me from becoming a victim.  People come into our lives as mirrors.  We all struggle with the image as long as we keep seeing the other person.  But when we see ourselves, transformation takes place.  Anything we are going through isn't about the other person; it has come to teach us something about ourselves.  It has come to bring us to a more conscious place.  It comes to show us what is out of order inside of us and what we must do to change that. 

The final question I asked myself was "is this giving me what I need?"  Not want, but truly need.  Once you know that, it's easy to decide what to do even if prior to that you had a strong emotional attachment.  Either that person is going to give that to you or they are not.  Either they can or they cannot.  No reason to villify them for it.  Release them to find their own authentic path.  It save you a great deal of angst and drama.

Lesson: Do not make a permanent decision based in your ego, i.e., guilt, shame, blame, or what other people think you should do.  Rather, wait until your Wisest Self speaks. Then and only then will your decision be the right one.  This will bring you into a drama free space and you can breathe again. 

I'm Awake

Today is the second day I've challenged myself to get up early and get to work 8:00ish.  I ain't gon lie.  It's been hard.  I probably shouldn't have stayed up watching one of my favorite television police shows, Castle, last night.  I dozed half way through it.  Despite the struggle, I am finding that I can get to work by 8am, okay 8:15, even with Highway 40 traffic congestion and I am not drained at the end of the day.  Who knew! 

Self discipline is something we have to work on every single day. 

Folks envy those who have flexible work hours and can do whatever they want when they want.  However, truth be told, you get pretty lazy unless you set goals for yourself.  This morning I had to use my parent voice to rouse me from underneath those comfy sheets.  This is where you intention has to be clear.

I've already put out into the Universe that I want to wake up every morning excited about my day.  This doesn't just happen however.  Each day I have to take conscious steps in that direction.  With this in mind, I have adopted some guiding principles.

One of my guiding principles is to watch what I lend my strength to. 

True, I work part-time for someone else right now.  That might be the reason I need to be roused out of bed.  Nevertheless, I am expected to show up to work and perform the job at an acceptable level.  With burn outs has come wisdom.  I've learned that I don't have to overachieve, especially when it's not what I ultimately want for my life.  My strength is reserved for building an authentic worklife.

This insight didn't come without a struggle.  I was told like many of you that as a Black woman I'd have to do everything better than my counterparts.  This was reinforced in school where people of color had to be higher achievers and over achievers to get the same opportunities as others.  For this reason, many of us don't feel worthy unless we work hard.  However, even a strong work ethic becomes a dysfunction if you don't feel you are enough in and of yourself.  The key is this, when you seek to live authentically, resources are attracted to you.  Accept them as God's validation of you. 

Another guiding principle is to do something to maximize my businesses every single day.

Fortunately, I've taken what I am gifted to do, talented at, and skilled to do and turned it into businesses.  Nevertheless, my goal is profitability.  This requires denouncing a hobby mentality. 

I've mentioned already that I work part-time.  It's for a staffing agency providing bookkeeping services for one of its clients.  Well, my business Odyssey Administrative Services offers bookkeeping as well.  A hobby mentality would accept doing the bookkeeping for someone else.  However, my entrepreneurial spirit knows that the day will come when working for another company will no longer work for me.  No pun intended.  Staying conscious that this is merely a stepping stone keeps me ready for the shift.  And trust, a shift is coming. 

When you stand conscious and honoring of who you are, even in your work life, anything that is not on board is headed for a shift.  Just because you've been traveling this highway of life for a long time doesn't mean that Life won't bring you to an exit.  The exit might be to abandon one highway to travel a completely different one.  Orrrrrrrr, it might be to follow the same highway but with a shift in perspective.  There might be something redeemable, reinventable, in your current circumstances that will lead you to where you want to be.  A practical example of this is, say, a temporary assignment is about to come to an end but the company still wants you to work for them.  Rather than becoming an employee, your Wiser Self might lead you to negotiate an agreement to subcontract.  Hello, it's been done before.  Know this, when someone really truly wants you, they are willing to negotiate how you will provide the service.   

Elizabeth Gilbert, My Soul Sister

While watching an encore of The Best of the Oprah Show where Oprah is interviewing Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the phenom EAT PRAY LOVE, about her journey, I feel such a kindredness to her.  Our journeys are geographically different but so spiritually similar.

I know what it's like to have an enviable life:  the house, the husband, the life, yet be absolutely miserable.  She talks about retiring to the bathroom and laying on her face, sobbing profusely and pouring out her soul. "Please help me," she said as she rocked back-and-forth engulfed in the discomfort of not being happy.  She didn't want to be married anymore.  She didn't want the house.  She just wanted to run away; she just wanted out.  Been there, soul sister.  You don't know how to do it.  You don't know anything except you just can't do it anymore.  Hers was 6 months.  Mine?  I'm not so sure of the time frame.  All I know is that I came to a point where I could no longer tolerate my life.

Prayer takes on many forms.  Some see it as a conscious act of intellectual and articulate communication.  Prayer becomes a soul's cry when you are overwhelmed and don't know how, what, where, when, and you feel ripped apart.  All you can get out of your mouth is a "help me."  It's an acknowledgement that life is too big.  Stuff happens that hits you from left field and flat lines you.  Sometimes prayer is a whimper, a holler, a moan, a sigh and God speaks fluent whimper, holler, moan and sigh.

Another thing I feel makes her my soul sister is she recognized that she had not allowed herself to enjoy pleasure.  Everything was about right, wrong, responsible, obligatory and boundaries that were so stringent they were killing her life force.  I understand that as I grew up in a very sheltered environment.  I felt like I couldn't breathe else risk sinning.

I'm going to make a very bold statement and nobody has to agree with me.  It's my observation.  Strict, legalistic, even very religious backgrounds seem to perpetuate frustration that uses sex as an outlet.  Whether it's pornography or some other hidden sexual exploit, most folks use it to cope with some dissatisfaction, some lack, some guilt.  As a child, I was puzzled about the teenage girls that had to sit in the back of the church because there were pregnant.  They had heard the same fire and brimstone messages as me.  Yet, there they were.  Have you ever wondered why that is?

"It's the pleasures of sin," the preacher and church community said.  "That's why you need to stay in church."  The devil was often blamed.  Is that possibly a form a denial though?  After all, you have no responsibility to do anything when you fall prey to the devil.  Lord knows, I didn't want that to happen to me.  I'd hear a guilt-heavy sermon and I'd collapse on the altar, begging God to stop the devil from running roughshod in my life.  As I matured, I became aware of something.  It wasn't the devil I was fighting.  I was fighting ignorance.  I was fighting the cry for attention due to neglect. I was fighting low self-esteem.  My love tank was fractured and the things I did or the people I was attracted to were only evidence of that.  Rules and condemnation only beat down further an already messed up concept of self, God and people.  There aren't enough academic accolades, makeovers, designer clothes, money or career successes to fix you up when you are bleeding out.

We forget that God created sexuality and said it was good.  We are so concerned about the consequences that we forget that the devil didn't create it.  We hold hostage our capacity for intimacy for fear of crossing the line.  That is bondage.  To walk around not free to feel, to care, to draw close to someone.  May as well be serving a life sentence.  Can I testify?  Giving honor to God, missionaries, saints and friends.  I've lived most of my life in fear of my sexuality, fighting with my sexuality, allowing a husband not to honor my sexuality and allowing other people to dictate what's proper. No more.  I am God's daughter, free from guilt and shame and it feels great.  At His right hand are pleasures evermore.  And a girl is enjoying them.  All those who know the words of prayer, pray much for me!

This is a great segway into Love.  Elizabeth Gilbert had given up on Love.  She felt it was for somebody else.  She didn't realize that in finding herself, she was finding Love.  In reconnecting with pleasure, she was attracting intimacy.  The real kind.  Not the obligatory kind.  Not the at-least-he-don't-beat me kind.  Not the politically correct kind.  Not the BORING kind.  Can I say that again?  Not the BORING kind where roles and ought's and should's undermine the connection.  I don't care if when he gets up the Heavens part and a dove comes down and perches on his head, if he's not a loving, approachable, accessible, vulnerable, mindful, open and willing spirit, "til death us do part" is a prison life sentence.

I can't say I gave up on Love.  I can say it was painful to want it but not know how to attract it.  That made me not want to think about it.  At night, however, when my soul would weep, I heard my inner self say, "this cannot be your Legacy. You cannot leave this Earthly realm having not known what it feels like.  You just can't."  Yes, God loves me and I was SO glad.  Nevertheless, my heart found no consolation.

Like Elizabeth, while doing soul work, Love slipped up on me.  And like her, I ran away from it for a time confused and scared.  It's one thing to pray for, yearn for, wish for something.  It's another thing when it actually shows up.  I think that sends you into a kind of shock.  But I'm grateful that Love never fails. Somehow, it all comes together. Every mistrusting part of you will come to the surface, but there's something in the interaction that finds a way to attend to it.  That's when healing happens.

So when Elizabeth gushed about being in Love, I understood the sparkle, the broad smile and the Light in her face.  Go head, soul Sister.  You don't know my face, but you know my spirit.