UNITED RESILIENCE: The birth of Social Change Trip to DR/Haiti

When I decided to come to the Dominican Republic and Haiti it was just an idea. I had a friend in the Peace Corps who I have worked with before he left for service. Personally, I knew he worked hard and I also knew that he took service seriously. So why not? He posted numerous pictures and summaries about his work and I was inspired. As I begin to reach out to him he became excited about having a team of volunteers come out to support as he was located on the south board of Haiti and Dominican Republic in a town called Elias Pina. So I thought,” Damn it now I really have to go”. Again at that time I still had no vision for the trip just a calling to go. One thing that I do to stay in integrity is to tell my plan or goal to someone else, this way I cant put it ff. It no longer is a nice idea but something I am meant to do. I began to do my research on the country as I do research before I enter any new space. Of course I agree no amount of research can prepare you for what is to come. However, as I begin to do my research I soon realized why God had called me to do the work in Dominican Republic. There was a current law being passed that would extradite any Haitians who illegally lived in Dominican Republic. More importantly, there was a group of about 100,000 STATELESS people in the Dominican Republic. Stateless means that there is a group of people who were born in the DR however, the government has labeled them Haitian based on skin color and denied them documentation. These individuals have no place to call home, obviously we can see the problem.

As I continued to do research on the history of Haiti and DR I realized that their issue of skin color is not only subjective to them. However, in America we face the same issues, especially currently with the killings of black and brown bodies. Because of my skin color, which is dark, I realized that just like in South Africa I needed to prepare myself for what was to come. I began to look myself in the mirror and tell myself all of the things I thought I would hear while in Haiti as a way to prepare myself. After a while, I realized that no matter how much I prepared no one can ever be prepared for something so tragic. So I resulted in just having my trip be what it was meant to be. God was going to have me have the experience I was mean to have regardless.

When I landed in the Dominican Republic I immediately got emotional. Again I felt unprepared and a group of people was looking to me to be their leader. I also had been reading Kirsten Gillibrand’s book called “Off the Sidelines” and was inspired by her words to call women forth to lead. When I exited the plane I vowed I would do my best and also God would not call me to do this work if he did not think I was the right person. Sometimes you just gotta leap and pray that someone catches you.

This trip was me leap. And I am glad I was the pathway for many of the United States Social Change Agents to experience the work I love. We hit the ground running and even though we didn’t speak Spanish or creole, we all showed up and tried our best. On the days to come each Social Change Agent will give their review. I hope you are inspired. Matter fact I hope you book your ticket to another country to engage in service.

People Bondage......Am I Enough?

Don’t let people’s thoughts and ideas be the reason why you don’t live your life.

 Hear me when I say I get it, we all have them. Now that person may appear in different shapes and forms….It might be our parents, it might be our best friends, it might just be the enemy disguised as a friend. I am not telling you to cut those people off completely, I am requesting that you get clear on who you are, where you want to go, and who you need to be to get there.

When I was deciding my career path I was struggling with my identity and whom I thought I needed to be in order to get to where I wanted to go. I spent about eight years gearing up for law school. I held law school as the destination rather than a step in the destination. Meanwhile on the inside I really did not want to be an attorney. I simply wanted to work in developing communities and do global work addressing poverty. I never had a desire to argue court cases or push paper work behind the scenes in order to make the rich richer. My specialty lies in the direct work with people, I am passionate about people and their development as I am still a developing young woman. I remember when I had an exit interview with the Dean at SUNY Albany after I was suspended from school and she said “I am really sorry because now your chances of going to an ivy league or even another institution to finish your degree is slim to none”. I literally held what she said as truth at first and it inhibited my ability to move forward with school at first. One day my momma said, “Don’t listen to that lady, she is CRAZY! You still have myriad opportunities. You can go anywhere”.  It only took one person to speak life and I not only got into the BEST CUNY School Hunter I got into Penn for Professional school. Originally when I decided to go to Penn I really was headed to the White House for this prestigious job until once again I sat before God and prayed and asked, “what is my purpose”. I literally could not see myself going to the white house to push paper work when on the streets the people were suffering. People thought I was crazy to give up such a “prestigious” opportunity. However, I didn’t see anything prestigious about stapling papers, and answering phones for the next two years of my life. Not when God blessed me with a gift to develop and promote social change.

I had a few people tell me my goals were “not realistic”. Translation for when people tell you your goals are not “Realistic”: Play small or more so don’t out do me, stay at my level. See because here is the truth….people can do one or two things in your life….They can speak life into you or they can become a roadblock. The only two people who determine your path or your blessings are you and God. People can really become a roadblock in our lives and we must be CLEAR about who we are and what role people play in our lives. Last post we discussed mental bondage….don’t trade in your mental bondage for people bondage. YOU ARE ENOUGH ....there is a difference between your RESOURCES and your SOURCE! People are your resource but the belief in your self is your SOURCE. The only bondage you should have is with you, your God, and your purpose.

Mental Bondage: I am struggling with Worthiness

Sometimes I don’t feel like I am good enough.

A few years ago you couldn’t pay me to say that. I would always fake the funk….I would always pretend. Growing up as a young African American woman I was trained not to really talk about my feelings, or not to really say the things that “normal” people would not dare say. If you act like you have it all together how can people heal? So about a few months ago I decided to be authentic about my feelings, about the many instances of self-doubt and the feelings of unworthiness and as I began to share these feelings I noticed that people I knew had similar feelings.

I traced my feelings of unworthiness back to when I was a teenager and I was dating my little boyfriend then. The role he played in my life was instrumental in my self-destruction. I grew up in an environment where love was given in a tough way. So at age 17 when I had fallen in love with my little boyfriend at the time I thought it was the best thing in the world. I thought he could do no wrong. He could say no wrong. I thought that was it. He and I had plans to get married. Then the abuse began. We had been dating for about four years so of course we went through different stages in our relationship. Now as I reflect back on our relationship we both loved each other so much because we were searching for a love that we didn’t get at home. So our love became toxic. He wasn’t the only abusive one. I became abusive too. The verbal transactions we had were so unhealthy I would not wish it on my worst enemy today. As I reflect back some more I noticed that we were afraid of losing each other. Finally when one of us mustered up enough energy to leave the relationship I was already so far gone. That relationship was a pivotal moment in my life. The moment when I decided I wasn’t worthy.

The feeling of trying to keep up and trying to fix myself lasted for about 5 years.  I stayed with a different boyfriend. Finding a boyfriend was never a problem for me but what I noticed was I was trying to fill a void. When men couldn’t fill the void I abused food. When Food wouldn’t do the trick I abused alcohol. And when none of those did the trick I just began to exist and wait for the next bad thing to happen to me.

The sad part was that he moved on with his life found a girlfriend that he loved and they are still together to this day. What I realized now is that God created distance in my life with him on purpose. While my little boyfriend was focused on preparing me to be a wife at the age of 19 God was grooming me to be a World Leader…A change Agent….A person willing to serve and travel. I didn’t see that until about a year ago. I always felt bad for choosing to travel and live out my dream and my little boyfriend at the time wasn’t keen on me having a dream and following it if it didn’t involve him.

The sense of helplessness…..of how can life be so terrible? I am only 24 and I was miserable. I kept thinking “where the hell is the America dream?!” When will happiness come? When will my fairy tale life come?

Today as I embark on this journey called life I begin to see possibilities. A lot of my friends I know struggle with their singleness and they think it is because of their worthiness. One of my girlfriends told me the other day “ Am I too aggressive? I just graduated from Harvard Law I make 170k , I am only 26, I have a condo, and I drive a benz…..when is God going to send me a man?! Am I not good enough for these men?” I looked at her and realized that at times I was thinking the same thing. It use to feel like a waiting game until one day I really sat down and said “I am not ready for marriage and the fact of the matter is the next guy I am with will be my husband”. I no longer want to play with a man’s emotions. I enjoy my singleness….I can literally pick up and go anywhere I want. My decision to move to South Africa was so easy because I have no emotional ties to a man or a child. My commitment now is to myself and the people I serve.

If you suffer with the worthiness conversation ask yourself these few questions: why are you waiting to live your life? Why are you waiting for marriage or a relationship to be happy? Why are you waiting for that job or your finances to be joyful? If you keep waiting for the next best thing you will always be waiting.

 Lastly, as human beings our conversations about worthiness center around human beings and what human beings think of us. We give so much power to other people to determine our worth. Women particularly struggle with men and the role they play in our lives. No man gets to choose YOUR WORTH ladies. That is all a choice that we get to make. No human being can determine our worth. 

People always tell  “you live such a good life how do you do it”?

My answer: I decided I no longer wanted to wait for my happy day. I deserved so much more.

That was a choice. Mental Bondages was no longer going to live in my heart…..but unlimited possibilities lay here.

Checkmate.

         

   Sometimes I ask myself “Why cant you just live a ‘normal’ life”? What I mean by this question is why cant I just go out and get a normal 9-5 and make my guarantee 6 figures, have my family, nice house and nice car? Why do I have t be so determined and innovative? Doesn’t that sound crazy? The very thought of me being upset that I have a vision? Sometimes as a visionary our visions scare us. For me my vision complicated my life.

I remember when there was a time  I didn’t dare to dream about anything except becoming a high school graduate and getting a job. This was clearly a "I don't know my worth" move. Now as a young adult studying to become a Social Policy expert I can’t help but dream about the life and conditions of others. We live our entire life trying to figure out when God is going to give us our blessing, looking for the next big thing, looking forward to our next big promotion, our next big gig, or time to shine…I got tired of living my life waiting. What if all we had was today? What if God decided that today would be our last day? Would we decide it was enough? Can we say that we lived our lives to the fullest? I will tell you one thing I got tired of waiting…I was waiting and people were dying.

The feeling of discontentment was a battle I faced daily for the first half of my twenties. Nothing was ever good enough or I was doing thing’s for the wrong reason. I had no foundation…. no grounding…most of all I spent most of my twenties chasing after random men and negotiating myself worth. I also was not a nice person. I remember one day I sat at my apartment by myself and began to reflect on my life…. many people who I drove out of my life. I would lie to myself “they left because they cant handle the truth” when in reality they left because I was a trifling angry young woman. My anger showed (Now this move was a "since I hurt I want you to hurt move). While even in my darkest hour I was still able to create outstanding results…I didn’t have the feeling of joy.

Today I am still a work in progress and many people ask me “How do you do it”? I really don’t know. I just do. If you over think your life you will notice you will be in the same place. I noticed that while I was advancing on my resume I wasn’t advancing mentally. I was stuck mentality. So just like when I felt fat I went to the gym and began to eat clean, we as human beings also have to go to the mental gym. So I began to wake up every morning and start my day with some motivational music and dance it out. For the first couple of weeks it was “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson. After listening to the song, I read a bible scripture reflected in my journal about what it meant. Listen I grew up in the Church but when I went away to college when I need God the most I abandoned him! I was out in the world creating all of these results leading trainings, coaching people, helping people start businesses, and checking people…. but who was checking me? It is dangerous not to have someone to check you. So I turned to the one person I knew I couldn’t get away with anything with and that was God. I set my timer and began to pray every morning for 10 minutes. I began to speak to God, I began to speak to myself, and I began to ask for guidance and protection from my own anger. I don’t consider myself a “Holy Moly” but I consider myself a believer. I believe in a greater power. Who ever that higher power is for you I hope you lean in. Ask for clarity, ask for guidance.

Lastly, I got clear on my vision. Sometimes we hold job titles and other accolades as the goal. When in reality if you wanted to contribute all you have to do is DO. I had a friend reach out to me a few days ago and asked my opinion about taking a new job in city council. She wanted my opinion and I asked her …”what is your vision for career?” She said “well I want to be elected to city council so I can work with mass incarceration”. So I asked “ Do you HAVE to be a council member to do that?” We hold these titles as a prerequisite to do the work we see fit. When in reality all she had to do was research some organizations that were doing the work she wanted to do and offer her services. She could have even started a support group in her community targeted toward that population and support convicted felons in getting jobs, mentors and housing. My point here is stop waiting for a title do the work you see fit! The founder of the 4Change organization in South Africa asked me “what organization are you here with” I told him “just me” he sat in disbelief. He said “You mean to tell me you came all the way across the work by yourself to support us?” Absolutely, I had to resources to do so….so why not? If I would have waited for a title or permission I would have never traveled to South Africa or headed to my next trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Finding out who I was....taking care of my mental wellbeing....not depending on a title or waiting for permission.

Checkmate. 

First few days of Workshops in South Africa (pics & recap)

I can still remember when I had the thought of going to South Africa I really did not know what to expect from the Youth. My number one concern was that I did not think I was good enough to execute my own vision. My vision was for the South African young adults to get that they matter and to give them the tools they need so that they can succeed. The first two days of training have been a humbling experience. I have not only learned from the youth here, but the DREAM TEAM who has come to live out their purpose.

The most surprising thing that I have endured is the fact that the teens were willing to be vulnerable and they really were hungry for support. As a youth developer in NYC, my experience has been chasing teens to come to program rather than them showing up to receive support. If you want it YOU must go after it.

I know my life will forever be different. One major way that I am living different is my relationship with my word and making sure that I take care of myself. More so, making sure my life is in order. You see sometimes we want to help so much that we are unwilling to upgrade ourselves and work on ourselves. Today I am declaring a continuous upgrade in my life. This will be an example for the young people in their lives to continue to strive for greatness. In order to coach greatness you must first EMBODY GREATNESS.