You’re the only woman…

The risk I took at 23 is a different risk today at 47. Times have changed. I’ve changed. I see life differently and my physical abilities aren’t as good today like years ago. Okay, these are a few of my excuses for a long-time engagement with a slow crawl to the alter. Yet, I can clearly recall what she said to me about a year ago, ‘Felita, you’re probably the only woman I know who would be engaged this long without getting married [paraphrased].’

My immediate response was silence, and then I thought to myself, “She might be correct about that statement.” Yet, just the other day I reminded myself of how listening to that and giving it weight is the sentiment she carries, and not that of my own. Albeit a disagreement or an indifference, we have independent decisions to make for particular reasons. Hence, my decision to remain engaged- with a brief hiatus- is a mutual agreement in my relationship.

Truth be told! There’s a hesitancy between us with approximately 34-years of past luggage we both are still unpacking. He, formally married for 18 years and I for 16.5. Our wounds of past agony are slow to heal, and we can now finally see progress with our communication skills where, formally, we spoke at one another. Today we now talk to and are empathetic towards each other. We further understand our beginning was in haste; hence, perspectives are realized. Nonetheless, reaching this stage has been an uphill battle but neither he nor I would have it any other way.

Conversely, we are now beginning to apply helpful tips to strengthen our relationship, such as ‘working on our whole self’ and bringing that person to the table. Though remedial to a few, these relationship nuggets are useful reminders of how the slightest misunderstanding of words can potentially lead to a large ordeal that, if mishandled, can take days or months to heal. We’ve gracefully been through that also.

With that said, me and my fiancé are going on 6-years strong with no plans of turning back. So today I will say this: Yes, you’re correct about the ‘very few women‘ who will hang this long. However, my urgency to marry is different than the next (it’s not an urgency at all)! Grant it – your and my decisions are independent but our positions are the same – direction, forward. So, I wish you well at your pace that will officially occur in a few months with one simple request … I pray you will also appreciate my walk to the alter – regardless of how slow of a pace I take.

Congrats 🎉 Mrs.!

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Once Told. Believed. L-O-V-E

Once told you will never meet another, then I met him. Once told that you will never be another, and then I defied odds. Once told that you may have a challenge loving again with your whole heart because you guard it like someone has robbed you of your most private possessions, yet he still stayed. My point! Let no one, and I mean no one, put limitations on what you will or will not become, particularly as it relates to listening with your whole heart and trusting with complete vulnerability.

Is it a wonder why one guards their heart in fear of letting go because intuitively they sense and subconsciously know something does not feel correct (rhetorical). I am a part of a prayer network site where persons will post their most intimate of stories for all to not only see, but more importantly to pray about. Today I read a post from a women who was in a relationship for one year, yet recently found out that her male partner announced he was becoming a father with someone else and this announcer wanted to know what actions she should take about how she felt. Of course, I contributed my thoughts along with others.

Over and over again there are stories similar or somewhat different than the one described above. Conversely, each time an article is posted, a Facebook post is shared, a conversation occurs or an exchange of thoughts are delivered, the denominator called L-O-V-E is in the equation. This word is so powerful, yet overly used where it has and continues to lose its connotation. Instead of it meaning compassion, nurturing, maintaining, reciprocating, giving, receiving, exchanging, offering and the list continues, the acronym to mean Lusting Over Various Events (L-O-V-E) is put in its place.

Casting judgment you ask, no. Analyzing one’s actions, no. Wishing ill-intent on another, absolutely not. Perceiving myself as better, not I, who has and continues to write about my flaws and transgressions. However, I am speaking from a ‘been there done that’ perspective where finding L-O-V-E has become a regular-everyday practice such as getting up to report to a job or posting a resume in pursuit of the ideal career, rather than patiently working together toward a unified goal of becoming one, where both partners bring their whole self (100 percent respectively) to the relationship with a single purpose.

Writing from a ‘single woman’s’ perspective is not an easy task because I too desire that ideal male companion who instead will say and usher support of  the “possible” instead of the “impossible” when I am unsure of how to unwrap my whole heart for him to hold and be trusted with. He, wherever and whoever he is, will have the discernment to be patient, understanding that relationships are building blocks versus stepping stones. So, to you my prayer peer who requested advise I write, “if an open relationship existed, the outcome of you and he was to be expected. I am sorry! What should you do? Embrace your heart, cry when and if you feel the need to do so, pray and give it to God, nurture You (the whole you: good, bad and indifferent) and the hardest part – wish him well, praying he finds true love with her. Work on you so that when your [future partner] arrives you can give your whole, complete self to him. I know this is hard, yet I also know it’s possible with God at the front and center of your focus. And besides, you deserved better and this is evidence of your true worth.”

To you the reader, do not be negatively overcome with the label ‘single woman’ that I once classified as a stigma, particularly when you are at my age of 47 this year. Of course, the perspective is different when you are put in a situation that you once viewed. So let my admission be the lesson of what not to do! Hence, I am not new to the scenes of the ‘single’s life,’ yet I am exercising different principles, ridding myself of what did not work the two times prior. And I am observing my flaws, working on my voids, praying often, engaging in dialogues, welcoming advice, socializing with others, listening to my heart more and less with my head (A Libra trait to a fault) and praying to be prepared to give of myself completely to whom is equally prepared to go with me in God’s path. Hopeful thinking? Perhaps too soon, yet whose to say there is a time frame for quality companionship. *Photo credit: Inspired Whole-Self Therapy (Purple Sage Healing)

It is His Grace. Be Present, Always!

Often God sees in us things and persons we don’t see in ourselves.

I am sure you also know how HIS grace spares us from risky behaviors and grave decisions. Hence, it is HE who understands our thoughts, decisions and actions beforehand. Further, it is HE who also knows that what we want for ourselves may not be what he ultimately wants for us. I was explaining this message to a friend the other day who is adamant about decluttering her life, insomuch that things once appreciated and loved about her career and life have caused a spill-over detriment, thereby affecting her ability to become her whole self.

There is a belief that changing jobs or finding another employer may be the solution when, the real issue is with self and how and when we allow outside influences to interrupt our positive thoughts. Albeit there is so much control an employee has when working among and alongside others who are also struggling with similar concerns, however, I know and believe that God speaks to us individually. Therefore, in order to precisely hear and receive God’s message, we must be fully aware of our faults with the willingness to be changed.

I’ll use myself as an example. I am a four-year old Atlanta GA transplant who moved here in hopes of creating a new-blended family of my own. Intuitively my former partner and I both knew our relationship was tumultuous, yet our hearts spoke to the mind, changing all logical reasoning about why we couldn’t begin anew in a different location. Our haste to defy and refute the blessings God had for us, which was separate from one another, ultimately resulted in a rift that grew irreparable. Why and how so, I recently asked? We both disobeyed God’s instructions for our lives, i.e. living as married at a time when learning about each other from afar may have brought us closer together.

Hence, what I didn’t know then I wish I knew today, yet God ushered me forward with my desires to become the wife (metaphorically speaking) of our home without the honor. Hence, I wore my responsibilities, as did he, without God’s blessings upon our blended lives and today is actually where HE ultimately wanted us to be, separately living our lives on amiable terms. Conversely, today I am more in tune with the hows and whys of my emotions and I continue to seek counsel to better understand me and my needs because I still desire to become a great-committed friend to a future spouse.

So to my friend! Remain put in your current position. Take moments to reflect upon why God has you where you are today. Pray always and speak positive thoughts that will help dispel ambiguity and rid convoluted feelings that could ultimately consume you. Make conscience efforts to spend quality time with HIM, our Father. Exercise the art of patience and let your feelings flow like a river that streams in different directions without interruption so your foresight is clear and the path HE has for you may be received. Be Present Always!

 

Once is enough?

Written as a Facebook Note, April 17, 2012.

To fix is equivalent to apologizing. To build is equivalent to improving. To maintain is equivalent to nurturing. Quality and valued relationships are absent when you continue to apologize, fail to improve, and forget to nurture!

 

Anxiety in Relationships

No words need adding. Please find this great read on my blog or you may opt to visit the original blogger. Both are appreciated.

Discovering Your Happiness

Anxiety tells you that something is inherently wrong with you daily.

How can you expect anyone else to understand you if I don’t even understand yourself? Society throws around the term “anxiety” as if it’s something we all share and must all learn how to overcome. What most people are generally dealing with is stress, not anxiety. Stress creeps into your life as a result of looming deadlines, problems that need addressed, and the constant state of busyness we all live in today. Stress usually ends once those stressors are addressed and handled. Anxiety is a constant state of worry that convinces you everything is going wrong. It overthinks, over questions, and over analyzes to the point that no productivity can be achieved.

When you have generalized anxiety, you wake up every day fighting a battle that people without anxiety will never understand. Some days are easier than others. It…

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Finding your Pretty

When I was a little girl I knew I would marry one day. Although I did not know how to become a desirable woman to attract the right guy, I searched for him very early. I was introduced to womanhood very slowly, but the need to belong to someone who would love me was my driving force. As a youngster I can count how many times I was told ‘You are pretty,’ yet there was a myriad of negative remarks about my physique (even still today) insomuch that it led me to doubt my adequacy, image, significance and acceptance by others.

I never thought about the emotional damage that came from the name-calling or innuendos because it was so routine that any constructive praise came as a surprise. Just imagine a person trying to use malice words in a positive way and this sums up the mood and ambiance in a house that was led by women who were mainly parenting from their agony. I know the words ‘You are pretty’ that were never spoken does not define me, as a person. But the little girl then didn’t know that. I only wanted to hear something different than what society could offer.

My story about female wounds is like so many other girls of my race and culture. Thus, another blog can be written about how patterns are repeated and passed along through generations in the black community, and in some homes of mixed-relations, when hurt is the regulator of most actions and decisions. I believe the pain from which our black community parents is inadvertently related to the psychosomatic conditions of slavery that now reveals itself in the muteness of stories, the bearings of distress and the inability to discern a cyclical array of the same problems that continue from one generation to the next. Hence, the chastising and bondage, if you will, has disabled innate traits like nurturing, loving and hugging that was either severed, forced shut or forever hidden and replaced with thrashings, hatred or nonacceptance.

So instead of releasing the hurt to learn of new coping methods that leads to better understanding and accepting for and towards one another, the black family has built walls of defense to guard the heart and seal it away from sensations in deep places that are alleged to be unreachable. This action leads to remnants of our pain that grow dormant because it is now a part of our normalcy, living within us today. The fragments are further witnessed in accusations about and at each other and also present in our parenting styles when we first whip our children  in hopes to solve an issue before we know the problem because releasing our frustration makes us feel good, temporarily. Adopting this approach is unhealthy and counterproductive because hitting is a temporary attempt to address a long-term problem that can be unearthed using different approaches, i.e. intervention, confession of faults, etc. Conversely, a person in today’s era still practices yesteryear’s tendencies, challenging change because it is unaccustomed.

So, the little girl that lives in me today is aware of why the unkind remarks about my image were voiced and the emotional closeness was practiced because the positive of the two simply couldn’t be found in the heart of that young girl who also remains active in my mother’s life that yearned for the same compliment from her own mother who didn’t properly validate. A scholar, name Dr. Shefali Tasbary speaks and writes about the dichotomy of the parent-child relationship (among other subjects) and she asserts how the personalities within us as parents can have a stronghold on different aspects of our life, particularly when we parent.

The scholar is quoted saying, “Moment after moment after moment, your child acts as your mirror. Through every interaction you have with your child, you are really interacting with yourself. Every way you relate to your child is a reflection of how you relate to your own inner world.” This statement is profound and it speaks to different facets of a parent-child relationship and it helps me to better know and consent to the emotional space I share with my mother.

To better understand is to know one’s past hurt.  – Felita Williams, MPH