A magical and glorious Friday to you! How many of you know that life is grand? Or at the very least that it can be. Don’t worry if you you can’t answer “yes” to that question. For a very long time, I couldn’t answer “yes” either. For a while, I was in what I like to call the valley. The valley is where we go when we’ve been rejected, abused, disappointed, frustrated, and sometimes just plain ole’ pissed off. It’s ok to go in the valley. There are definitely some valleys along the path of life. But you know what? Sometimes you can stay in the valley for too long. Sometimes you can stay so long that you forget to travel up to the peaks and you then become accustomed to the valley and all its surroundings. We weren’t meant to stay in the valley. The valley, like everything else in life, is temporary. But we can spend so much time in the valley that we get a valley mind set. And the valley mind set only keeps the very things we truly want away from us. If you’re in a valley right now, I encourage you to do what you must to not adapt a valley mind set. In other words, get on up from that valley! As a wonderful friend told me, “There is no more valley. The valley is gone. The only way you’re in the valley now is because you keep dragging the valley with you.”
Happy Friday and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! For many of us, it’s a wonderful day because it gives us a chance to celebrate our favorite women: Our moms! For others of us, it’s not as wonderful because mom is or was absent–physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or e) all of the above. Mother’s Day can be a reminder that mom was the first person to betray us, disappoint us, hurt us. And what do you do when that happens? What do you do when mom is not the safe place we think mother’s ought to be?
As Mother’s Day approaches, I am hearing more frequently the phrase, “Love your Mother because you only get one.” Actually, I hear the phrase a lot in every day conversation. While I understand the sentiment, sometimes I think this phrase is used to give mothers a pass. Yes, there are some good and great mothers who love, protect, nurture and guide their children to the best of their abilities. But there are also some mothers who are not; and we fail to acknowledge that. Some mothers are cold, heartless, cruel, and unloving toward their children. In the case of the latter, it is not enough to tell the children, “Love your Mother because you only get one.” While I believe in offering Love to all, I also believe you have to accept people for who they are. Not every woman who carries and births a child is capable of being a true Mother. So to those who await Mother’s Day with dread because their Mother is not, or was not a loving Mother, I offer my love and encouragement. I hope that you are able to find the Love that you feel you missed from your Mother–because after all, it really isn’t missing. Like Dorothy in the wondrous land of Oz, it’s been in you the whole time.
I love you and wish you well today and always!
Happy Friday! It’s been a week since our beloved Prince Rogers Nelson has departed from this physical realm, and I’m still sad. But I’m more happy about his life. Prince was a gift. His music will live on forever. He exemplified audaciousness and spunk. He showed us what it looks like to be authentically yourself–at every stage. Seriously! The man was all of 5’4″, but commanded a room with the presence of a 6’5″ man! Women and men alike wanted him! He wore heels–diamond encrusted ones at that! His hair was ALWAYS laid better than any woman’s hair AND he was prettier than most of us, yet we never laughed AT him over it. We were mesmerized by him. And when he opened his mouth . . . Wow! His voice. His singing. His intellect. He graced us all with his presence. How dare we sit around, staying sad. And that’s not just for Prince. That’s for us all. I’ve always said that death isn’t difficult for the dead. No, it’s difficult for those of us who are left behind. But the thing we need to remember is that while there is definitely a time to mourn, that time is temporary. Mourn. Heal. Then celebrate. Celebrate life! We all know we’re here for a finite time. Let’s not get so caught up on death that we forget to live. Let’s not get so caught up in mourning death that we forget to highlight the life.
Happy Friday to you! Today is a wonderful day and would you like to know why? Well, it’s because you’re here. I become more convinced that there really are no coincidences the longer I live. So it’s no coincidence that you exist at this moment. It’s no coincidence that you happened upon my blog. Even if we can’t connect the dots as to the why’s behind it all, we can rest assured that there is a why. This past week was good for me because I was able to offer support to quite a few of the beloved women in my life. I was able to offer the support they needed because I have walked the path they now found themselves stumbling over. Let me just tell you, it’s taken me a long time to get comfortable enough with myself to share as openly as I now do. And I do it because I know what distress, pain, heartache, failure, and all the other yucky stuff of life feels like. If I can help at least one by offering support, encouragement, or just a glimpse of what it looks like to stand in the midst of it, let alone overcome, it is well with my soul. Today’s video was inspired by so many of the beautiful women I know and love and to the individuals who love them. May you all find peace, joy, and Soul! Wait, that’s the Soul Train, but hey, all aboard! Toot! Toot!
“Happy Friday! It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. One of my favorite songs that I’ve been playing lately is Demi Lovato’s Confident. It’s on my Theme Songs playlist and I love it because it speaks to me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being confident. In fact, it’s absolutely necessary that we have some confidence in ourselves. This is an area in which I have struggled. I’ve put my confidence in people, things, events, but very rarely myself. Well times they are a-changing because I’m finally learning to put some confidence in myself. I hope you’re doing that as well.
And it’s so very easy to look at someone else and believe that they’re much better at the confidence game than you. But we all at some point or another struggle with confidence. And if you haven’t yet, just keep living, because it will probably happen. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes.
“If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you’ve started.”
Marcus Garvey
Happy Friday! It’s almost Spring and I’m happy about that. It’s a time for rebirth and I have to be honest and say I am excited about the process of rebirth taking place in my life. Life is all about cycles. We’re in a constant cycle of birth, death, rebirth. It took me a while to get comfortable with that. And now that I’m at that place of comfortability, I embrace each stage. I’ve learned that I had to get to the space of standing in my own power in order to embrace each cycle. I have been a very passive person in my life. I was just idly riding along the train of Life. And then would have the nerve to get peeved when I didn’t like the destination. I had some nerve, didn’t I? But I’ve learned what it means to be empowered. It means getting clear on what I want and making the choices that will aid me to getting what I want. Even more, it means accepting the consequences of my choices. It’s not about raging against a machine, or trying to prove a point to anyone else. That’s not empowered living. Well, at least not to me. See, at another point in my life, I wouldn’t have been empowered by sharing this video because I would have been too busy posting it in the hope that you would agree with me, like me or affirm me. It’s different today. While I would appreciate if you affirmed me or agreed with me, and I would be grateful if you liked me, I don’t need you to. I’m ok just as I am. I’m ok if you watch today’s video and feel like it just didn’t vibe with you and you left this space thinking I missed the mark today. That’s empowerment, baby; and I like it! I like it a lot!
Happy Friday to you! I am sending good vibes out with today’s post. I really feel like 2016 is stirring up some things for us. There seems to be a collective consciousness that is awakening. I think that’s one of the reasons we’re seeing these themes of unrest and disruption in our world events. Whenever a change is imminent, we mere mortals tend to hold on for dear life to what we have known. There is some fluidity, also known as detachment, that Life needs from us in order for us to get to that “more,” “better,” “different” that we all imagine and yearn for. We can do it. We just have to be willing to detach (there goes that word again!), or let go of the reigns in order to get it. Hope you have a magical weekend!
Happy Saturday! I’m writing today to offer a wonderful invitation. As I’ve announced last week, I’m a brand ambassador for Nikki Woods Media (Team Nikki Woods go!) This has been a wonderful opportunity that has been stretching me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. As such, I wanted to offer an invitation for you to do the same. Nikki Woods is hosting a conference, The Spotlight Conference on March 19, 2016. This is definitely the conference you want to attend. You want to attend if
You have a brand and don’t know what to do with it
You are a published author looking to establish yourself in the marketplace
You want to gain more social visibility for your brand and message
You want to know how to get booked for local/national media
Nikki Woods is a master at these things and at the Spotlight Conference, you will learn the tools you need to take your brand, book, or message to the next level. To learn more, visit http://www.TheSpotlightConference.com. For tickets, go to bit.ly/Spotlight2016_BerniesDaughter.
Salutations! Naw, that doesn’t sound happy enough. Hey! I’m sending all my good vibes your way because I appreciate you so much for joining me here on this space. Today is good. It’s cold in Chicago, but the sun is out. So I’m taking my silver lining. Today’s video was inspired by a conversation I was having with one of my besties. She and I are so in sync we actually activate one another. We’re like the Wonder Twins . . . Activate! So whenever I’m thinking about something, it tends to come up in our conversations and I take that as confirmation that I’m on the right track. We were talking about life and relationships and how we mere mortals have such difficulty with the endings of a relationship. We all know they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But something about that end gets to us. We just don’t like it. But the reality is, every relationship we create in our lives won’t be one that we ride all the way to our physical death. And I’m not speaking of merely romantic relationships. What is it about the end of things that make us so uncomfortable? And we needn’t fret. No we need not. Because the end usually signifies the beginning of something else. Hmmm . . . let’s ponder that for a minute, shall we?
Putting the CL on that ASS! 
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