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Putting the CL on that ASS!

A Bernie's Daughter Thing

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Life

Tales From The Mommy Side

If you know me, you know that my daughter. The Fizzle, as I affectionately call her, is the love of my life. I love her in a space where there are no words. But, as much as I love her, that love is not enough to sustain me. If I did nothing else but love her and be her Mom, I would die unfulfilled. Now, before you write me off as a selfish Mommy, hear me out.

I said that I love her. She is the love of my life. However, my love for her cannot shade my divine soul purpose. I know that I was put here on this Earth to do something beyond motherhood. That’s not a mark against motherhood though. I think that being The Fizzle’s mom is one of the most rewarding roles I will ever fill. What I’m saying is that it’s not my only role.

When the Fizzle was first born, I was overwhelmed. I had this image in my head of what being a mother was supposed to entail.  I was so fixated upon this image that I overwhelmed myself. I felt bad if I let her cry for too long. I felt bad when she cried even after I’d crossed off all the important items on the baby comfort checklist: fed and burped her, changed her diaper, had her at appropriate temperature. I simply felt like a failure. I can’t even say that I put myself last because I didn’t even put myself on the list. I fell into the trap of thinking that a good Mommy is one who martyrs herself for the sake of her child. And as a result, I was tired and miserable. I remember one particular day when I was just spent. I had nothing left. The Fizzle was only maybe 3-4 months old. She was crying and so was I. I had done everything I could think to soothe her, and was unsuccessful. So I put her in her crib and closed the door. I decided I would go downstairs just to collect myself. I couldn’t even make it down the stairs. I fell on one of the steps and simply cried. I remember saying, “I know I wanted to be a mother. This is what I wanted. But I didn’t think it would look like this.” Well the problem was that in my vision of motherhood, I was showing up every day. But in the reality of it, I was not. I was failing to show up for myself. I demoted myself in this world as just a Mom. And in doing so, I signed myself up to feel inadequate and to not take up my rightful place in this world.

I thought about my daughter and all that I wanted for her. I wanted so much for her. I wanted her to be and have everything that she wanted. And I believed that she could do it. So how is it that I could have all this faith in her, yet none for myself? And how exactly did I expect her to do whatever she wanted if I didn’t model that for her? How unfair I was being to the both of us. I was being unfair to myself by failing to show up for myself in every way. I was being unfair to my daughter by placing an unrealistic burden on her to be my everything. While it makes for catchy song lyrics, she was not, in fact, all I needed to get by. No one person can ever truly fulfill another—not even a child. To ask one to do so is selfish in my opinion, so I won’t. That is far too great a task to ask of my precious child. And I love her (and me) too much to do that.

No, I couldn’t ask that of my baby. Mommy needed to get on with the business of living for both of us. And that meant that I needed to engage my innate gifts and talents. That meant that I needed to admit that I had dreams that needed fulfilling. And if I didn’t go on to fulfill them, what was I doing with my life? And just like that, I gave up the ghost of martyrdom. I stopped telling myself that being a good mother was all I needed to do with my life. I stopped pretending that there weren’t dreams inside of me. I made the conscious choice to dedicate myself to myself and live my truth.

I’m so grateful to my daughter for helping me to learn this lesson. She showed her Mommy the way—and she didn’t even know it (or maybe she did and I just didn’t know). And that is why I can boldly and lovingly say that which I said at the start. While I love my daughter, motherhood alone will not leave me fulfilled. My father would say to me that the world owes me nothing. It is I who owed the world. I owe it to not only myself, but also this world to put forth my best self and use the talents that I possess to leave my imprint upon this world. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.

*photo by YourMemories Photography*

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Let Your Freak Flag Fly AndThe World Will Adjust

Happy Magical Friday to you!  I’m recuperating from my busy weekend at Key Lime Cove, celebrating my Fizzle.  She had a wonderful time and that’s all that matters. But her Momma?  Her Momma was, and still is, very tired.  But this here show of life must go on, so onward we go.  I had a conversation with my Fizzle’s teacher this week and I must say, I walked away with a lot on my mind.  It brought up some issues for me–issues surrounding acceptance and being free to be oneself.  Take a looksy at the video and tell me what you think.  All my love to you!

 

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The Struggle is Real . . . Or Is It?

The more I mature, the less I gravitate towards the idea of struggle. Now I know we live in a world that expects, and to a certain extent, respects—glorifies even, the struggle. I mean, it’s become a pop catch phrase: The struggle is real. Really real. We hear it in every day language: “You have to pay your dues.” “Nothing good comes easy.” “Hard work is the key to success.” Yet none of those things actually mean that struggle need be involved. Hard work doesn’t have to involve struggle. Paying your dues doesn’t mean you have to struggle before something works in your favor.

The word struggle means to contend with an adversary or opposing force; or to advance with violent effort. Now I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound very pleasant to me. It actually sounds like it should be avoided. But somehow, we live in a world that actually respects a struggle. We love a story of struggle. It’s what we respect. And it doesn’t matter the area in which it lies. The athlete who overcame all the odds. The entrepreneur who struck it rich after facing foreclosure and bankruptcy. The woman who finally found love after being dogged and abused. It’s what we love! They overcame their struggles! Which is why we diminish the ones we feel didn’t struggle for it. The millionaire who we know inherited money, even if that trust fund baby used their money wisely to make more millions? Nah. Not so much. After all, they didn’t really do anything.

Years ago, when my father’s career was taking off, he sat me down and talked with me about the idea of struggle. He said to me,

“I need you to understand something. You are about to be hated. You’re going to be hated for no reason other than the fact that you’re mine. People will look at you and only know that you’re mine. And from that they will conclude that you’ve had it too easy. See me? They respect me because I started from nothing and built this. But you? Not you. You they will hate. They will talk about you. And they will do it because I take good care of you.” He went on to say, “The crazy thing is, if I don’t take good care of you, they’ll talk about me and say, ‘That’s a damn shame Bernie Mac don’t take care of his daughter.’ And that just shows you how crazy people are. But no matter what, nothing you do will be good enough. Because to the world, you didn’t have to work hard enough for it. You didn’t earn it.”

I’ll admit that at the time, I thought he was crazy. I had a somewhat Pollyana-esque view on life. I loved everybody and everything and just thought everyone else did too. But experience has shown me that my father may have known what he was talking about. Now, I’d probably never admit this if he were alive. However, that’s another experience that has changed me a bit. I don’t have a problem admitting today that he may have been right. And I know everyone doesn’t think this way. But I’ve encountered more than my fair share of people—including some relatives—who have this view that I’ve had it easy because my father is who he is. Those people have deemed me a spoiled brat who has never wanted for anything. That’s not the case. I’ve had my share of struggles. I’ve experienced heart ache. I’ve lost out on jobs. I’ve had my very own Judas’ who have stabbed me in the back. I’ve had money problems because let’s face it, my father was famous and rich; I wasn’t, and currently am not.

And even as I say that, I know there are people who will still think, “Oh please! Cry me river.” Well I can’t. I’m currently dehydrated. So there! (wink). Anyhoo, my point is that this notion of struggle is something I can’t get with. As I think over the struggles in my life, I must admit that I played a major part in each one. And perhaps I wouldn’t have struggled so much if I’d made the simple choice to swim with my obstacle instead of choosing to swim against it.

My dad finished our talk by saying,

“People love a ghetto story. And the fact is that we all have a ghetto story. Every person in the world has had their share of problems that they overcame. Overcoming the problems doesn’t have to be their whole life. So don’t you worry about what anyone else says. You have worked hard. And you know something? You will continue to work hard. That’s what will get you to whatever you want.”

My dad was a very wise man.  And while we didn’t always agree when he was here, we can definitely agree on this. Hard work is essential to get what I want in life; be it career, relationships, money, and spiritual enlightenment. I’m going to need to discipline myself, and work for it. But that work doesn’t mean I have to struggle. And I may have some challenges along the way. But again, challenges don’t have to mean struggle. And while I’m at it, let me just ask a few questions. Why is it easier to believe that the good you want can’t come with ease? Why must it come by scraping your knuckles against the concrete? And why must it be deemed less valuable if it doesn’t come complete with the struggle?

My soul rejects the idea that I must struggle for the life that I want. I believe in a benevolent, loving God/Universe/Creator (call it whatever you want). I believe that I am a Divine being created for greatness. While I have faced many challenges in my life, and know that I will face more; I recognize that the challenges didn’t necessarily have to be a struggle. Had I not resisted, but instead simply accepted the challenges, my life would have flowed so much more easily than it had. I know that in the future, if I simply ebb and flow with the tides, the future challenges won’t be a struggle. Believe what you will, but I for one believe that life is much more simple than we make it. I know that simple and easy aren’t necessarily synonymous, but life not being easy is still not equivalent to life needs to involve struggle. But that’s just me.

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If Then, What . . . ?

Happy and Joyful Friday! I am sending you all kinds of ooey gooey love from the very depth of my heart. Not that I’m trying to inspire a living for the weekend mindset, I just think Friday can be a great day to recharge. People seem to cast their cares away on Friday, and I think it’s a great time to drop a little nugget that you can carry with you through the weekend (and Infinity and Beyond!). But that’s only should you choose to. And quite frankly, I do hope that you choose to.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance this week to tape a new Happy Friday video. However, I have a video that I recorded a few months back that I think will still be great. I ask myself a the question of what would my life look like if . . . ” While I make a point of being cautious of the if/then mentality. I think this was a great question to ask myself. I hope you’ve asked yourself the same. And even more, I hope that you’ve answered. If you haven’t yet, maybe you will after seeing this. I think it’s great to ask ourselves questions. And asking ourselves questions are great because it gives us the opportunity to actually answer ourselves. So that’s why I chose to ask myself this question. I think I even ask you at some point as well.

My only wish for you is that you live life with joy and power (the good kind, not the ego-driven stuff, cause that’s not really power anyway). And if this little blog of mine (and I’m gonna let it shine) can do inspire you to do so, then all is well with me. Have a fabulous weekend . . . And Life! Until next time! Muah!

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Stop Doing Sh*t You Hate

Hey, hey, hey!  Happy Friday! Here’s hoping you have a great weekend and all the goodness the world has to offer to you! I’ve been riding a creative high this week and I’m feeling really good.  A wonderful friend of mine made a simple post that inspired today’s post.   I was going to write it, but then I decided to just do a video.  We mere mortals are creatures of habit.  It’s very easy for us to live ourselves into perpetual ruts, staying stuck in the people, places, and things that don’t serve us.  So watch it and tell me what you think.  And don’t forget to do exactly what this thing here says.

 

*I realized after the fact that I credited my wonderful friend, Sie Van Dunk incorrectly in the video.  Her website is http://www.demurelyfe.com and you can find her on Facebook at Curly Demure.  https://www.facebook.com/Curly-Demure-303119106383594/timeline/*

 

 

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Choices . . . Choices . . . Choices

There was a time in my life when I could be indecisive.  Hey, I can freely admit this.  Having several options before me seemed to paralyze me–rendering me incapable of making a decision.  I would feel overwhelmed by the task at hand. I would hem.  And when I was done hemming, I would haw.  When that was done, I probably hemmed again.  I would do this until I spun myself into a frenzy.  I’m someone who tends to look at every encounter and moment as one that is capable of teaching me something. So when looking at the decisions before me, I consider all the angles. On the one hand, I find it helpful. But that other hand? On that bad boy, it causes complications. Excessive analysis leads to paralysis. At some point, in the words of Lil Jon, you’ve just got to ” . . . get out of your mind,” and DO something. Therein lied the rub for me. As I’ve said, I’m someone who believes that any encounter or thing (however pointless it may appear) has the ability to teach me something. However, I didn’t imagine that I’d receive a pivotal Aha! moment while sitting at Chili’s with my daughter.

Allow me to go Sophia from Golden Girls on you for a moment.  Picture it. Homewood, IL, a small south suburb of Chicago.  There’s a shopping center, and at the end of that shopping center, there’s a Chili’s restaurant.  My daughter and I sat at the second booth from the entrance.  We sat down and I began to peruse the menu.  I immediately became overwhelmed by all the choices.  I stared at the menu for minutes, unable to decide what I wanted to eat. When our server arrived to take our order, I asked for a few more minutes because I was not quite ready to make a choice.  Our server returned minutes later, and I was still unable to decide.  He returned a second time, and I found myself still in the throes of making a decision. Finally, my server asked, “May I ask what are your top two choices?”  I told him, to which he gave me his recommendation.  He then added, “If you don’t like it, we can always change it and get you something else that you’ll like.”  Woah! Mind. Blown. You mean to tell me that I can actually change my mind?  I do not have to chain myself to one choice.  Shut the front door! And while you’re at it, close the back one and all the windows too!

Now I know this was a truly simply example. But it got me to thinking.  How many other times in my life have I either stalled on making a choice, or simply failed to make a choice; thereby simply choosing to go on default mode?  I’ve done it more times than I actually care to remember.  And I’ve done it in some major moments in my life.  I realized my marriage was no longer serving me.  But I was too afraid to make the choice to walk away, so I stayed far longer than I needed and suffered far longer than I needed (causing my ex husband to suffer as well) because I was too afraid to make a choice.  I needed to take legal action years ago against someone very close to me, but I couldn’t make the choice.  I agonized over it and suffered over the choice that I couldn’t make.  I’ve had friendships that I realized no longer served me. But instead of choosing to walk away, I stayed in those relationships; continuing to get annoyed by the people for being exactly who they’ve always been.  And I did it simply because I couldn’t bring myself to make a choice.

In each case, I felt as if I had no choice.  What I failed to recognize was that there was always a choice.  I may not have liked my options, but there were options all the same.  I had a tendency to put the weight of the world upon my shoulders if I made a choice.  You know, like the world would somehow stop spinning on its axis simply because I chose to walk away from a toxic relationship, or chose to stay home instead of cashing in on an invitation.  Or I would tell myself that I was ruining lives.  You know, like I was really THAT powerful.  Why was I causing myself so much difficulty over a seemingly simple task?

As if this revelation wasn’t enough, I found myself sitting in my counselor’s office, lamenting over something (I can’t even remember now.  See, that’s how important it was!) I was going on and on, and she looked at me with such empathy and said, “Well, Je’Niece, try it out and see what happens.  If you don’t like it, you can always get off the ride.”  WOAH!  There it was again. I can actually make a choice, and then if I don’t like the choice, I can make another choice! Are you kidding me?  I felt that was confirmation of the lesson.  I’d heard it twice in one week.  There was no need to try to deny it.  I needed to get comfortable with making choices in my life and stop living on default (which in itself is a choice, but I didn’t realize that).

I know at some points in my life, I acted upon default simply because I didn’t feel that I had the right to make the choice.  I would feel guilty for feeling the way that I did, because again, I somehow had the idea that I didn’t have the right to feel whatever I was feeling.  Perhaps my inability to make a choice was in part due to my failure to break away from my conditioning.  I mean, we’re not taught that we can actually change our minds.  At least I wasn’t. I can remember being told on numerous occasions how I had no right to change my mind; AND if there was any mind changing going on, it would be done for me.  So is there really any wonder as to why I was incapable of making my own decisions as an adult?

But this isn’t a lamentation about my upbringing.  No, this is a revelatory moment.  One simple encounter caused me to recognize and break a pattern I’d been engaging in for the greater part of my life.  Glory!  I’m free!  Yay me! But, and this is a pretty big but–but I like big buts *cue Sir-Mix-A-Lot*  It’s a daily practice.  And it can be so easy to shift into default mode. But each time I’m tempted to go on default, I remind myself that I am the most powerful person in my life.  I remind myself that I am the only one who gets a say in how my life looks and feels. And then I choose.  Even if I don’t like my options, I choose.  And I choose because to do anything else is me failing to show up for myself.  And I’ve come too far to be a no-show in my life.

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Who Do You Think You Are?

When I was a kid, I had this image in my head of who I would be when I reached my 30s.  I thought I’d have it all together.  Now, don’t ask me what it all was; and don’t ask me how I was going to have or put it together.  That’s besides the point.  The point is that I was going to do the damn thing.  So you can imagine my shock and dare I say, embarrassment, to find myself in my mid 30s, divorced, raising my child alone, unemployed (with degrees), and having the nerve to still find myself figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

I called shenanigans on this here Life thing.  I mean I felt seriously bamboozled.  I graduated high school with a 4.1 GPA.  And yeah, ok while I graduated from undergrad Thank You Lawdy, my GPA in my major was a 3.7 (so there!).  I even graduated grad school with a 3.66 GPA.  So didn’t that mean I was entitled to some type of reward?  And I’m not talking about that piece of paper they give you on the stage.  So where was my damn award? Dammit! *Cue Florida from Good Times*

I was pissed.  I felt led astray. Run amuck.  I didn’t land on Plymouth Rock! Plymouth Rock landed on me!  Oh wait, that was Denzel as Malcolm X, but I think you get my point.  My point is that I was angry. And I was angry for a good reason. This isn’t what my life was supposed to be!  After all, I’m me!  And that’s when it hit me.  So what.  Just who in the hell did I think I was?

My dad would say quite often to me, “It’s not what the world owes you.  The world don’t owe you nothing.  It’s what you owe the world.”  I lost track of that somewhere along the way.  I got full of myself and started living on auto pilot, expecting the world to give me things.  Don’t get me wrong, I was willing to work hard.  I was willing to be kind and compassionate. But I was still expecting a reward for being and doing those things.  So a little piece of me would run and build a piece of a wall whenever I would experience disappointment.  I worked hard but didn’t get the A?  Lay a brick down.  I was loving and got rejected?  Slather that cement and add another brick.  The job, that person didn’t turn out to be what I wanted?  We’re going to need some more bags of bricks and cement over here guys!  I built that wall until one day I realized there was no one on the side of it with me.  And I had no one to blame but myself.  Initially, that depressed the hell out of me.  I was downtrodden.  I felt hopeless and full of despair. Then I realized what a treasure that is!  First, I realized that no one abandoned or rejected me.  I abandoned and rejected myself.  The people in our lives are only mirrors reflecting us back to ourselves.  So there was that.  Then I got excited because I figured if I’m the one responsible for this all, then I have the power to change it.

Wow, How simple!  And you know what?  I’ve been doing just that. And you know something else?  It’s been difficult.  It is certainly not easy to take the reigns of my life and steer them in the direction I wish to head.  Simplicity and ease are not synonymous.  While it may not be easy, it is quite doable.  And the rewards that I have been desperately seeking for most of my life are now mine.  Rewards like peace, confidence, self-love (and after all, self love is the best love).  I gave them to myself the minute I stopped looking for them to come from an external source.  Now that I’ve chosen to look within, I can get on with the business of giving something back to the world.  I can now contribute the things that only I can contribute in the way that only I can contribute them so that when I leave this place, I can leave knowing that I did what I could and what I wanted.  And that is the task before each of us–to give the world what only we can give without needing and wanting the world to give us something in return.

So ok, my life doesn’t look like what I wanted it to look like. But come on, why would it?  I was holding on to a vision I crafted when I was 8.  I mean, who does that?  It had to change.  And that’s okay.  Right now, I can say that while it still doesn’t quite look as I would like, I have and I am taking the steps to get it where I want it .  After all, I don’t need the world.  I just need to be me in it.  

So what about you?  Who do you think you are?  And just what are you going/and willing to do about it?

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