Let’s get free!

“Guilt, shame, and money go hand in hand.”

Parents of all races have berated and belittled themselves over what they could not do for their children because they didn’t have the money.  Children have the warm, loving, nurturing relations with their parents in exchange for shame over what their parents couldn’t afford.  There is something wrong with a nation that places monetary value above the greatest gift of life-Love.  There is something wrong with the people of a nation who continue to measure self-worth in terms of net worth.  It is true that money can make life a little easier, more comfortable and perhaps exciting.  Money, however, does not make life.  Love, supportive parents, good health and a well-ordered mind are absolutely free.  And they are nothing to be guilty about or ashamed of.

Money cannot make me and will not break me.

Acts of Faith, Daily Meditations for People of Color by Iyanla Vanzant
—-

Let’s get this country back on track today folks!  How have you made free today?  (exp. Bhutan measures Gross National Happiness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness.  What if we did that in our own lives?)

cleanse-part two

so i sent you part 1 of the cleanse-the physical part. now the hard part is the mental and spiritual cleanse.  this, i’m making up-so please modify it to fit your need.  wed night is going to be the most intensive night-because this will be preparation.  once you have a foundation laid-the rest will be follow through.  remember that big things only happen with small steps and that every success, no matter how little, is a success.  don’t beat yourself up if you set high expectations and do not follow through on all of them.  be realistic.  set your aspirations high and your goals pragmatically.

time-in order to become more focused and deliberate-we must first look at where we are putting our time and energy.  so on wed-make a list of where you spend the majority of your time-include in it stuff like procrastination or a specific individuals you spend time with.  be as specific as you can, while be general enough so that it is an average and not a daily tally.  write down approx how much time you spend on that task.
put that aside.
write down where you want to spend your time-and how much you want to spend on that.  be realistic, make this new time guide based on your responsibilities and obligations for the present.
compare the two.
make a third one that combines the two.  make sure that it’s realistic.

money-this is an important one because a lot of what we choose to do with our lives has to do with how and where we spend our money.  do a free write of 5 minutes on the significance of money in your life.  how does it guide your life?  what is your relationship with money?  what were you taught about money?  how does that affect the choices you make?  let what you’ve written sit for a bit and then when you are ready-read it again and then start looking at your finances and deciding if you are spending money in the way that you want to, and if not, how you want to change it.  i have some more specific tools on this that i can share with you if you want.

mental cleanse-clean out negative thoughts, negative actions, negativity, move in the positive direction that the acts of faith was talking about today.  in order to do this we must first acknowledge and realize that they are there.  so this writing exercise will take no more than 8 min a day.  on wed-write on what you consider to be a part of your identity- i.e. woman, asian american, artist, queer, whatever it might be-take a few minutes and just list out all of these aspects of yourself.  then-divide those identities between the days that you are doing the cleanse.  for each day-free write for 5 minutes on that identity and how it pertains to you, what is a story of the history of that identity to you.  here’s where it gets complicated.  after you’ve written on that identity-wait two days- and then go back and look at what you’ve written-then write for 3 minutes on what you want that identity to be for you now and how you will live that-make this no more than a paragraph and then share what you’ve decided with someone in order to solidify it.

spiritual cleanse-on wed write on what your current meditation/prayer practice is and what you would like it to be.  work with what you have above to make space for this to happen.  if you don’t have one already, ask someone to be your spirit buddy.  someone that knows and understands your spiritual journey and will walk with you.  clean out the actions, practices that do not bring you closer to the Creator.

what other things do you want in your life that help you to be balanced?  (i.e. exercise, writing, dancing, painting, etc.).  make deliberate these things in your life.

most importantly, trust yourself.  trust what your body and heart tells you.

thank you for engaging on this journey with me and i am looking forward to hearing about your journey.

What’s Good With you?

“Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing.” ~Quincy Jones

We all come into this life with talents, gifts, or abilities which, if we put them to use, they would be profitable to us and useful to the world. Yet, we allow ourselves to be told and we tell ourselves that we’re not good enough or that no one is interested in what we can do. Many of us spend the greater portion of our lives seeking authorization or recognition, never developing or using the goodness of the things we do naturally. If we would trust life and ourselves a little more, we would do what comes naturally, what we are good at, giving it all that we’ve got. If we would stop looking for fame and fortune we might find we are sitting on a goldmine of ideas and abilities. If we would stop blaming others and being ashamed of ourselves, there would be no way we could expect or accept anything less than the best from ourselves and or ourselves. If we would stop chasing castles in the sky and do what we can do, where we are, the world would probably appreciate it and reward us greatly.

I am willing to give the world who I Am naturally.

-Acts of Faith, Daily Meditations for People of Color by Iyanla Vanzant

This reading really caught me because I’ve realized that a lot of my thinking comes from this notion that if it’s not ‘hard,’ ‘challenging,’ ‘difficult,’ then it must not be really worth it. And that shift, however small, from life needs to be lived in the negative and/or growth only comes with pain, to negative things happen in life and growth occurs when I’m open to see myself in my own mirror and to change, is huge.

Have some questions that come of this reading for you and for myself. Would love to hear your responses:
1. What am I (you) good at naturally?
2. How do I (you) live that out?

If you want to get into these questions more deeply, my roommate and I decided that we’re going to do a cleanse/life readjustment this week, and if you’d like to join us electronically, that’d be dope. Basically, on Wednesday night, we’re going to sit down to it and figure out what it is in our lives is what we need right now and what we need to cut out. We’re also going to go on a fruit and vegetable diet for a week and a half to realign and replenish our bodies as well.

This past weekend, at church, we were talking about how the body is a temple. That it is Holy and that in order for us to truly honor and respect ourselves, the Creator, Life-the physical body must also be included in that. So this is the direction that I choose to face in. As we enter into this New Day that has been ushered in with a shift in power at the national level, we must prepare ourselves-mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually-for the responsibility that we have chosen as a nation. To be responsible to Hope and to Faith we must begin with ourselves.

Midwifing a New United States

LIVING FOR CHANGE
Midwifing a New America
By Vincent Harding
Michigan  Citizen, 9-15, 2008

At this milestone in our country’s  history,  these  reflections by my
old friend of more than 40 years, historian and theologian  Vincent
Harding,  are worth sharing.  The  original,  nearly twice as long,
appeared in the autumn issue of the OneLife Inst, itute Newsletter- GLB

“It was sometime early in 2007 that I began to find myself almost
possessed by a premonitory sense that we were approaching what my
Buddhist friends would call a propitious historical moment. Although
the likelihood of an amazing presidential electoral possibility was a
part of the story, I began increasingly to suspect that there was a
relentless connection to the fact that the spring of 2008 would mark 40
years since the assassination of my friend and brother, Martin King.
Grounded as I am in the biblical accounts of 40 days and nights of
rain, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, 40 days of testing and
preparation for Jesus’ ministry, I could not resist the possible
symbolic associations.

“I shared my ruminations with Rabbi Arthur Waskow,  Art said that he
had often sought to understand the persistent presence and power of the
number 40 in the Hebrew texts. What had begun to be evident to him was
the fact that while we usually speak of nine months as the normal time
of a woman’s pregnancy, the more precise and traditional period is
actually 40 weeks. As soon as I heard Art’s words,  it became clearer
to me that  Something is trying to be born in America, something
related to the visionary calls of King and the earlier urgent hope of
Langston Hughes (“O, let America be America again/The land that never
has been yet/and yet must be /The land where every [one] is free.’) I
hear as well the strong challenge of June Jordan: ‘We are the ones
we’ve been waiting for.’

“So as I sat one August night in Denver among the tens of thousands of
on-site witnesses to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, it seemed
obvious to me that my young brother seems to offer the place where all
the ’we’ people can stop our waiting and carry on our work to create
the pathway, the birthing channel toward ‘The land that never has been
yet, and yet must be.’  Not only is something trying to be born in
America, but some of us are called to be the midwives in this
magnificent and painfully creative process.

“So I turned to Selena Green, a gifted and  compassionate midwife.
Selena said that one of her most crucial roles was to help assure the
mother that ‘you can do this,’ .Often, she also speaks to the infant in
the womb. ‘I know how good you feel, how surrounded you are by a
protective nurturing ocean of love. But, my child, when you start to
feel the urgent life forces beginning to move you down, let yourself
move toward the light, painful though it may be. The fullness of your
life is waiting for you on the other side.’

As Selena shared her work with me, I began to see that we Americans are
both mother and infant, giving birth, seeking new life, full of fear,
of pain, feeling ‘the urgency of now,’ fearful of giving up all we
know, afraid of the hope, urgently in need of midwives.

“Over the past several weeks, my own perceptions have been expanded.
For instance, in one of Atlanta’s Historic Black Colleges, a group of
Morehouse men immediately grasped and celebrated the idea that they
could be midwives (following in the steps of their most renowned
alumnus, Martin Luther King, Jr.). In another Atlanta session a woman
shared the power that entered her being when her midwife  helped her to
face the pain. In Boston, a female hospice doctor called my attention
to how much my womb-whisperer friend was like their hospice service –
helping, encouraging that fetus to give up one surely satisfying life
for the great possibility of moving toward something magnificently
more.

“Perhaps the Chinese pictograph for the word ‘crisis’ is the word that
midwives must carry: ‘Crisis: time of great danger/time of great
opportunity.’ Perhaps we are the ones who will walk through the great
danger into the marvelous opportunity for helping our nation begin in a
new way to realize its best possibilities – to be born again. Perhaps
we are not only the ones we’ve been waiting for, but we are the ones
who have already begun to do the work of creating a more perfect
union.”