Tag Archives: emotions

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The New Lonely

I saw this article and just HAD to share it. I completely agree with this author. But I think that it’s hard to connect with people when it’s something that is so rarely done. It’s hard to have a genuine and vulnerable conversation with people these days. There are times in your life when you want an actual physical person there to witness events. As great as it is to have a text or phone call or facebook message, there’s no true substitute for face to face interaction. 

Eugenio MarongiuIt’s a weekday evening and you’re feeling restless. You’re texting friends and you’re watching Netflix and you’re on your laptop and you’re scrolling through Tumblr or Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. Your attention is in ten different directions, yet there’s a tug, a tiny voice in the back of your mind. It asks: what…

via This Is The New Loneliness — Thought Catalog

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The Single Life

This weekend I went to a young adults relationship seminar sponsored by one of the local churches. The subject was on being single. Growing up in a church environment I’ve attended hundreds of seminars on relationships, marriage, and being single. I went to this one hoping to find some real life advice/feedback or encouragement. Boy was I wrong. I realized how much I’ve changed since being a teenager. The speaker focused on being a whole person in yourself, not worrying about being married, blah, blah, blah. I’ll take some accountability and admit that I’m definitely more cynical than I was as a single person 10 years ago.  I know people who are genuinely happy waiting for  “the One” to manifest and I think that’s great for them. While I’ll never go out of my way to talk about how much I absolutely hate being single, I can say with confidence that it’s not my favorite thing. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with all the “advice” coming from (self-proclaimed) religious people. There are those who promise you’ll find someone and those who say that you’ll have to learn to be content by yourself. I think that optimism is good but one must also be realistic. I prefer not spending my life waiting to do things because I want a significant other to join me. I don’t think that one should put their entire lives on hold because they are waiting on someone who very well may not even exist. As nice as it would be to have someone who is invested in me to make major decisions with, I’m not a fan of the current dating climate. I think I’m just over it. At least for a while.

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Pretty much my entire life in an article

LookCatalog.comDating sucks in general, but it’s even worse when you’re the type of girl who acts like she doesn’t give a fuck when she’s secretly a soft, sensitive soul. You can’t keep up the charade forever. Well, you can, but it’s going to make your dating life much harder than it has to be. Men hurt you without even…

via Why Dating Sucks When You Act Like You Don’t Give AF But Are Secretly Sensitive — Thought Catalog

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Jilly from Philly

I’m a Jill Scott fan from afar. I say that because while I like almost all her music, frequently play her Pandora station and listen to full albums on Amazon music, but I can’t name more than 3 of her songs off the top of my head. One of them is the one that I posted. It was my go-to during the months I worked night shift and I used to play it over and over. I don’t know how but her songs feel like a warm blanket on a cold day. They are genuine, transparent and capture the human experience with a lot of honesty. I got the chance to see Jill in concert over this weekend and she was great. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more of a fan of music that not only tells a story but also transmits the emotion of the artist. That’s why I love Jill. Her music is warm and friendly reminding you of a godmother or beloved aunt that’s being honest about her life and experiences with love.

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkA8ZDwfWRQ

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Manage the emotion 

In the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to lend a listening ear to friends. As a classic introvert, it’s easier to listen to people talk and offer some feedback than to be on the other side. One thing that I’ve thought about is how different life would be if we had an “off” switch for emotions. Let’s face it,emotions can be annoying and affect the way you act. It’s interesting how much of our lives can be ruled by emotions. We leave relationships because our feelings changed and pursue different courses of action because we just aren’t “feeling” it anymore. Life tends to require you to take action and make decisions in spite of how you feel. I’m all for acknowledging emotions but not letting them run your life. Science tells us that 69% of conflict in a marriage isn’t resolvable. What if it’s the same thing with emotions? What if we learned to manage anger,fear,sadness,or guilt without the expectation that these emotions would be completely gone?

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This Weekend

This weekend on Sunday I looked at my phone as I usually do when I wake up and was horrified with what I read. It brought back memories for me of a Friday morning when I woke up to messages from people asking if I was ok when a gunman went into a theater about 15 minutes away from me and killed people. As the days have passed, I’ve  watched the interviews with the survivors, observed all the varying views and conspiracy theorists on social media, and just felt generally sad. My heart goes out to all those affected. The people who just wanted a fun night out to celebrate with their friends and their families who have been sick with worry finally finding out if their loved one was one of the survivors or one that didn’t make it.The story about the guy whose last text to his mother was “I’m gonna die.” just broke my heart. It’s such a horrible horrible tragedy and lives were needlessly ended due to the decision of one disturbed individual. There’s really nothing that can be said to rationalize the murder of a group of people who were targeted (it appears) because of who they were as people. This event was also preceded by the murder of a singer as she was signing autographs after her concert. While it’s touching to see the kind acts of humanity by the community and the outpouring of love and support and genuine empathy and sympathy for all the lives lost, it’s still a sad reality that this happened in the first place. Maybe I’m jaded but I really don’t have a strong burning desire to bear and raise a child in the world we live in today. It feels unrealistic to hope that the next generation “gets it right.” No place is safe and it seems like an impossibility to change that. I appreciate the attitude of never-ending optimism because we really can’t afford to lose hope because it’s literally all we have. It just breaks my heart.

 

My thoughts and prayers for all those impacted by the Orlando tragedies

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The Hair Chronicles

Like many black women, I have a love-hate relationship with my hair. It really tends to have a mind of its own and rarely submits to my commands. These days there’s a lot of hype on embracing one’s natural beauty and avoiding chemicals in order to leave hair in its natural state. About a year or so ago my hair was very damaged and required a hairdresser intervention. She gave me a protective style in order to help my hair to grow back. I’ve always had very thick hair that was challenging to manage. Growing up, my mother used a relaxer on it for a few years and then changed her mind deciding that I needed to go natural. It was ok for a few years. I didn’t look my age because of the cornrows but I really didn’t care that much because we lived in the middle of nowhere (literally) with no boys in sight for miles. However, after moving to the Atlanta metro area I decided it was time for a change and (finally) my dad backed me up in getting my hair relaxed again so it would be easier to style. Fast forward two days ago when I finally took my hair out of the protective style that it had been in for over a year. My hair was completely chemical free. I washed and dried it about 3 times in an attempt to get it to the point that I could comb through it. I broke several combs in the process and still was unable to get through all the tangles. It literally would not cooperate and I decided that I needed to see an expert. Once at the hairshop I had a brief consultation with my stylist who took one look at my hair and recommended putting a relaxer back in. As much as I liked the idea of being chemical free, the day to day upkeep of it was a commitment that I just was not willing to make. So I agreed and I am now back on the creamy crack. I can comb through my hair and now I can swim and workout without altering my entire day. It’s a beautiful thing. Will I ever go natural again? To be honest, probably not.

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Losing Isaiah thoughts

A few days ago I took some time to watch the movie Losing Isaiah. There was a certain sense of urgency as Netflix was about to take it off in order to make room for more movies. I first saw the movie at my grandparents house in Michigan. I remember renting it with my very own library card when I was 9 or 10 and watching it in the living room sprawled out on the very comfortable carpet. I remember being happy in the end that the baby was returned to his biological mother. However, this time I watched the movie with a different perspective. One that’s been informed by several years of being a social worker and working with families and kids. The movie brings up some interesting questions that are still relevant today. A mother abandons her baby in a trash can. The baby is born addicted to drugs because she used substance while pregnant. A kind social worker at the hospital he is transported to adopts him. She and her family raise him as her own. Meanwhile, the baby’s mother gets her life together after finally becoming sober and decides that she wants him back because he’s her child and she never received notice that her parental rights were being terminated. So there’s a lengthy court battle where bio-mother’s lawyer insists that black babies need to be with their black mothers. However, there is a marked difference between the income of biological mother versus that of the family that has adopted the child. The life that he lives with his adopted family is vastly different than the one that his bio-mother can finance. The movie ends with full custody being given to the bio-mother who soon realizes that she needs additional support so she reaches a hesitant agreement with her son’s adoptive mother. There are certain situations where I don’t think people should be allowed to have a do over. I don’t think that any child should be denied access to their family of origin but primary custody should have remained with the adoptive parents until the child was old enough to make a decision. I’ve met a good amount of parents who have adopted kids and then decided that they were too hard as a result decided to relinquish custody back to the state. I’ve worked with parents who have voluntarily given up custody of their children because they felt powerless and felt that their lives or the lives of the other children in the home were at risk. It’s a hard decision to make. My whole point is that kids shouldn’t be taken out of a loving, stable, and safe environment because their bio-parent decides that it’s for the best. There were other options that would have allowed Isaiah to stay where he was happy. Yes, children can be resilient and they can recover but there’s no need to inflict that trauma on a child and mess up his primary attachment so that he can be with a black parent. No reason. It’s cruel and unnecessary.

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The tendency to overthink 

Recently I had a very long conversation with a friend of mine regarding a similar experience we were having. Don’t get my wrong, I’m glad that I chose my particular career path. Social work/counseling is a good fit for my personality and I genuinely enjoy helping others. However, one sees things in a totally different light when you’ve studied human interactions and behaviors from an academic point of view. When you’ve met with hundreds and talked at length about their personal challenges and relationship woes. The way you perceive the world around you changes when perfect strangers feel comfortable walking up to you and sharing details about the personal life and current problem because (apparently) you have the “trust me I’m a therapist/safe person” face. One thing my friend and I discussed was how hard (somewhat impossible) it is to separate professional knowledge from actual emotion in personal relationships. As a therapist you question everything. One’s hidden motives, past history, emotions, and body language to come to a conclusion on the best course of action to help them. I think that’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to take anything at face value in personal relationships and the tendency can be to overthink. If overthinking was a professional sport, I would be a pro. I love connecting the dots and making sense of complicated and complex information. It’s a great professional skill to have, but using a professional skill for personal use definitely has a downside. I think it comes down to taking it a day at a time and becoming okay with not knowing all the information up front. Which, by the way, can be very frustrating but also necessary to cultivate a healthy balance. 

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Single and supportive 

Like many people, I often find myself annoyed when I’m added to groups on social media without my consent. Usually it’s a subject matter I’m not particularly interested in and serves no real purpose to my daily life. Not too long ago I saw a post from one of the groups that I had been inadvertently added to. The group was specifically for single women and someone apparently thought that I could benefit in some way from the content. Let me make a quick side note. There are some people who flaunt their singleness like a badge of honor telling any and everyone how happy they are to not be “tied down” to another person. Good for them but it’s not my thing. But I digress. In the group one of the administrators had posed a question asking how the members in the group were doing in their current state of singleness. The typical responses were extremely positive with respondents saying that they were having the best times of their life and that they were working on themselves and actively pursuing their spiritual path. However, one post from a member stood out in stark contrast to the others. This lady kept it 100 and basically said that the single life (for her) sucked and that it was lonely. Almost immediately the replies from other members started coming in. They chastised her for being lonely and said that she needed more prayer, and church attendance because something was wrong with her. The pettiness came out full force with accusations of bringing the group down and “focusing on the negative.” It was sad that the supposed purpose of the group was to be supportive of single women but quickly became a group of bullies after someone honestly shared how they were feeling. I don’t know what the moral of this story is but I’ll just say that if you join a support group just first make sure they are actually supportive. Or, develop a support system of real people who won’t jump down your throat when you’re honest about your feelings.