Tech investor, motivational speaker, straight from the hip, foul-mouthed Gary Vee is a content creating MONSTER!!! Not only does he post on social media every day, but he also posts several times a day.
His advice for those who are struggling to get started or don’t know what to post is to simply:
DOCUMENT DON’T CREATE
He said that too often we look at a person’s success from where they are today & that if we’re starting a new business or project or whatever, document the journey. Surprisingly, folks like to see stuff like that.
Gary Vee
That’s basically what I’ve been doing for this 100 Day Posting Challenge. It’s pretty similar to journaling, which I’ve been doing for more than 30 years. I’m in the process of rebranding my business while at the same time rebranding ME!
I imposed this challenge upon myself as an attempt to write/post more consistently. While I haven’t posted every single day, I’ve posted more regularly than I ever have. Consistency is a muscle that most definitely must be strengthened…& I’m well on my way!
So, if ever you’re stuck about what to write or share in these social media streets, remember to document the process. Us folks love to see the process.
Up until very recently, I used to think that dreams were these random, oftentimes crazy happenings. Because, what could it possibly mean, besides nothing at all, to dream that all of your teeth are falling out? Or that you’re suspended in air, floating about in a parking lot? Or that you’re being chased by monsters one minute & at a picnic the next? According to Jenn Tomomitsu, PhD, our dreams are trying to communicate with us, for real.
I began keeping a dream journal back in 2014 because I probably read somewhere that I should. And as I did, I would go back & read the entries here & there & started noticing some patterns.
A large majority of my dreams appear to be centered on the theme of LOVE, wanting it, needing it. They usually come in the form of me being showered with affection by a big, faceless man. It is not the same man in each of the dreams, but the man is always tall & thick, solid, teddy bear-ish.
Gerald Levert Courtesy of getty images
We’re usually out in public, around lots of people, & he’s standing closely behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist. Proud. After having this somewhat similar dream numerous times, I said to myself that there had to be a reason.
Going back to the previous quote from Jenn Tomomitsu (you can read her article here), if our dreams are mirror images reflecting back unresolved ish in our regular lives, then it makes all the sense in the world.
I’ve been in & out of & have had many failed relationships. I’m using the word “failed” very loosely because I wholeheartedly believe that everything happens for a reason & that everything is a blessing & a lesson. So, with that being said, I don’t necessarily see those relationships that didn’t last as a bad thing.
For years I told myself that I didn’t want to be committed to anyone & that I just wanted to be free, play the field, have friends, yada yada yada. But after years of therapy, turns out that I was coming from a place of fear. It was a defense mechanism. Armor. I was behaving this way because of trauma & the attachment style I adapted early on in life.
If you’re not familiar with attachment styles, I encourage everyone to check out the Personal Development School on YouTube. In a nutshell, we acquire these attachment styles based on the way our caregivers handled (or didn’t handle) our emotional needs growing up. Many of us are born with an insecure attachment style, which filters how we show up in our adult lives & relationships.
For instance, I used to be Fearful Avoidant with some Dismissive Avoidant traits. Again, watch the PDS YouTube for in-depth explanations. I grew up with my emotional needs being completely neglected. I was yelled at if I accidentally tripped & fell, which I did a lot. I was hella pigeon-toed as a kid & had to wear corrective braces on my feet. I blame it on that.
In addition to that, I was ignored. My mom had her own shit going on, apparently. She could not be bothered with an inquisitive, bored only child. I could stand directly in front of her face calling her name & she’d look right through me. This caused me to have a grave mistrust in anyone being able to hold space for my emotions.
So, while I have an immense desire for intimacy & closeness, I have an equally immense distrust in folks. This has caused a push-pull dynamic in my relationships all of my life. I bring people close while simultaneously pushing them away.
Meanwhile, since I was out here in my regular life acting like I didn’t want love & closeness & commitment, my dreams were on that Maury Povich tip…
So, what are your dreams trying to tell you? Don’t think you can sweep them under the rug or dismiss them as crazy. Naw. Get familiar with how to read them symbolically. Have fun interpreting.
Words cannot express how uber proud I am of my oldest daughter. She’s smart, focused, determined with a big heart. I reckon that’s why she decided to become a nurse.
Graduation Day
When she was in high school, she’d always say that she wanted to be a neo-natal nurse. She absolutely loves kids. She is the #1 auntie to her nieces & nephews. She does want to have kids of her own one day but, unlike myself, she’s somewhat of a traditionalist. She’s getting solidified in her career first, then she wants to find the right man to get married to & settle down with.
We practically grew up together, considering I had her at 18 years old & got pregnant with her my senior year of high school. As I’ve watched her grow, she’s watched me fumble my way through this thing called Motherhood. I’ve made a ton of mistakes, learning basically everything as I went along. But, thank goodness for grace & mercy.
On her 28th birthday, I’m sitting back looking over her life and how far she’s come. There was a period of time that she struggled straight after high school. Taking the easy route because nursing school just seemed so daunting. So about 4 or 5 years after she graduated from high school, she decided to dive in. And she hasn’t turned back since.
I just wanted to take the time to honor her & her accomplishments, in a world that’s full of distractions. Honor her for breaking generations of teen pregnancies & parenting. The roles definitely have reversed, as I am watching & drawing my biggest inspiration from her💜
My cousin came to visit me at my new place the other day, while I had male company over. She had heard me talk about this guy for almost a year but never met him. Initially, he & I did try to see what we could see. Ya know? See if we could possibly be more than friends. Turns out, not so much.
He & I get along great. We talk every single day. See each other from time to time, flirt here & there, but that’s the extent. My cousin is confused by all of this. She honestly wants to know what is our issue. If we’re both single, looking for a relationship, spending time with each other, talking every day…something isn’t quite right.
I totally understand where she’s coming from. I struggled with this early on when he & I first started talking. It looked promising & then abruptly took a different turn. I was in my feelings. I questioned about his sudden change of heart. Started questioning my worth, my value, my enough’ness. I quickly snapped outta that though.
While we do communicate every day, ironically, he’s unavailable. He’s not available in the way that I desire & require someone to be…& that’s emotionally.
So, because I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water, I’ve accepted things for what they are. Currently, we are holding a certain space for each other. We enjoy each other’s company, make each other laugh, love Crime shows. And guess what, that’s enough.
We hear all too often about how we should forgive this person for mistreating us or that person for hurting our feelings. And also that forgiving a person is for you & not them. While that may be true, we don’t give enough credence to how necessary & important it is to forgive ourselves.
I know you’ve heard the saying before that we are our own worst critic. So much happens on a subconscious level that we don’t even notice that something’s going on.
We beat ourselves up for blowing our diets, mismanaging money, choosing the wrong dude/girl —AGAIN! What many of us don’t know is that the subconscious is hella powerful. No matter how many times our conscious mind says that we want to change a thing, it (conscious mind) cannot outsmart the subconscious without proper programming.
Our subconscious mind stores every single event that has ever happened to us plus attaches, right along with it, the emotions we felt. So, like the time my ex boyfriend & I got into it for who knows what & he proceeded to call me all types of bitches & hoes & how I was not wife material & yada…yada…yada…
Granted, I don’t believe those things to be true now, but there was a time when I couldn’t agree more. Why? Not necessarily because I was called those things before, but prior relationships I was in made me FEEL that those things were true.
There were 3 relationships I was in that, shortly after they ended, each of them got married. This, along with some other traumas & issues, played a part in driving thoughts of unworthiness into my head & affirmed that I was nothing more than just a play thing, fling, or side chick.
Our subconscious mind thrives on familiarity. It just wants us to be safe. So, even though when we meet someone who is similar to the abusive person we just broke up with, our subconscious mind is like hey, this feels familiar; let’s do it. Our conscious mind is like, naw dawg. Remember the last time you were crying for months trying to recover from the pain that fool inflicted upon you? And the subconscious mind is like…
Its only concern is with fulfilling its need of comfort & the familiar. This is why we tend to experience the same or similar incidents, events, & situations in relationships, just with different people, & will continue to do so unless we make a conscious effort to reprogram the subconscious mind.
I got to a point where I could no longer tolerate the feelings of unworthiness & not being good enough. So, I had to question the stories surrounding why I believed those things to be true. Because our beliefs invoke our thoughts…our thoughts invoke our emotions…& our emotions invoke our actions.
Once I got to the core root of those stories, it became clear as to why I did the things I did, behaved the way I behaved. I got the lesson & forgive myself for everything 💜
Me & this dude right here used to have so much fun together. I was 16 & he was 18. If my memory serves me correctly, he had just recently moved to Romulus, Michigan, a small town, from Ypsilanti, Michigan, another small town. There’s roughly 20,000 people & 36 square miles, one junior high & one high school. So small that me & 2 other girls in my senior class were all pregnant by the same boy. Yeah, that small. But that’s a whole ‘notha conversation.
I’m not sure how we met or where, all I know is that we did. He was the perfect gentleman. When I would go to his house to visit, he would walk me home & then walk back by himself. He carried my books in school. Took me fishing with his family. We even went to the movies to see The Five Heartbeats downtown at The Ren Cen in Detroit. His aunt took us. She would always take us places.
Though he was classified as one of my favorite boyfriends, our fling lasted only a few months. You know how they say that girls like BAD GUYS & that good guys finish last? Well, there’s possibly some truth to that, unfortunately.
The reason why our budding teenage love was short lived was because of the on-again off-again shit show of a relationship I had with this dude (click the hyperlink to read that blog post) smh, who was the complete opposite of Tony (the young man in the picture).
He cheated on me incessantly AND got a girl pregnant while we were together. He & I got together when I was 14 years old, in the 9th grade, & were off & on until my 12th grade year.
After a while, I got tired of crying & wondering what the hell he was doing, so I started giving him a taste of his own medicine. I’d break up with him & start seeing other folks. Well, tried to anyway. The streets were talking. Now, this was before social media. This was the early 90s. It’s not like I was flossing folks around but, somehow, he always found out.
No one stayed around long because he would threaten, intimidate, & even fight dudes who even looked like they were interested in me. Crazy, right? That ninja was in deez streets knocking women up & had the nerve to be in his feelings about what I was doing. Pot…kettle.
Tony was different. He treated me lovingly, with respect. I felt that he truly cared about me. Sadly, I wasn’t used to that. He & I were public (hence the pic). I was done creeping around & doing shit in the dark because of my ex, who tried his best to bully Tony too, but it didn’t work. He didn’t run off. He was willing to put in the work…but I couldn’t handle the pressure.
The pressure from my ex that is. He was relentless. He wouldn’t leave me be. He wouldn’t loose me. After a while, I eventually broke up with Tony & got back with my ex. We ended up staying together for 2 more years before I broke it off…
I only saw Tony maybe 2 or 3 times after that. We were cordial. We talked briefly about our past. He told me that he used to really dig me. I told him I know & that he was a really good boyfriend to me. I was young & didn’t know any better.
Thank you Tony for showing me how a young girl was to be treated. You’re still in my conversations 30 years later. You’ve impacted me more than you could ever know.
We live in such a hustle hustle grind go culture. Can’t stop won’t stop, don’t sleep til you’re dead type culture. But, that mentality doesn’t work for everybody.
We are all spiritual beings with different energetic compositions. We’re all not meant to burn the candle at both ends, or live off of three hours of sleep and Red Bulls. The key is to find out exactly how to show up in this world.
According to Human Design, our type, strategy, and authority will tell us everything we need to know from career to relationships to making decisions.
In addition to the Myers Briggs Personality Test, Human Design has been life-changing, revelatory. I won’t get into detail on everything I’ve learned, but what I will say is that I am a Manifesting Generator (you’ll understand after you click the link above & take the test). I am designed to be busy, juggle multiple tasks, do things that LIGHT ME UP & pivot when they no longer do.
Looking over my life through the years, this has proven to be true. What’s also up & through my chart is the gentle reminder DON’T CHASE! That goes for everything that’s anything…jobs, money, love, etc.
I spent the majority of my life forcing so many things. Staying in relationships longer than I should’ve. Staying at jobs out of desperation & a lack mentality. Not knowing that all things are working out for my good. If something doesn’t jive, feel right, align…it’s ok to let it go, tweak, move on, do something else.
I was chatting with a guy via Messenger & he mentioned that my Facebook status says that I’m “in a relationship.” I said, “does it?” Shit, who knew? I changed it 3 years ago when I was in one & didn’t bother to change it since I’ve been single. Hadn’t even thought about it, honestly. I give zero dambs!
If somebody wants to get to know me he will. The stars, Moon, energy will bring us together when it’s the right time. No need to force, announce, change a status, search high & low. All you gotta do is just…BE!
Before I began writing this post, I asked Siri what the definitions of bored and lonely were. I had already chosen the title, but wanted to make sure that I was choosing the right adjective to describe my current state. I was right.
dictionary.com
I don’t feel sad or a sense of abandonment, nor do I lack friends or acquaintances that I can call on to come visit or to hang out with. This is the first time in my adult life that I’ve not had a humping companion or someone who stimulated me mentally.
I will be honest and admit that I’m not as pressed about the humping part as much as I thought I’d be, though. I’m really taking this time to heal, cleanse, detox my womb. But, sheeeiiittt, I gotta pick a struggle. I can’t not be getting any peen on top of also not getting my mind stretched. Can’t be both, nah!
I am a Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury —the planet of Communication. While I don’t require regular verbal exchanges, I do love to text all day long in addition to the sharing back and forthage of songs that speak to my soul. Music is indeed my love language.
Once I got over the shock, pain, & disappointment of my boyfriend of 2.5 years ghosting me (you can listen to the podcast episode here), I have to say that it’s one of the best things to ever happen to me.
I miss the companionship and the feel of a warm body (he was hands down theeee best cuddler). The late night talks, watching movies, dining out…all of that.
After taking a plethora of courses and workshops on how to regulate your emotions and effectively meet your needs (before anyone else can), I am ready to open up and be completely vulnerable for the next, right one. TRANSPARENT MOMENT…I’ve never been fully open and honest in any of my relationships. I’m owning my shit!
My cousin suggested that I join some dating apps so that I could specifically get my intellectual needs met in the interim of my drought, I meant, pu$$y purge, but I’ve had ZERO LUCK with that.
What has been helping me is journaling. Acknowledging my emotions/feelings, because they’re simply feedback trying to tell me something. I don’t deny them or try to suppress them. I feel them and write down how I want to feel instead, what I want to experience.
You know how they say an idle mind is a devil’s workshop? Well, let’s just say over the last few weeks, I had been texting folks for texting’s sake. Poking dead bears and beehives. On some bored af shit.
Simply typing this post is helping me to not do anything that I’ll regret. To remind myself of how far I’ve come and what I want. And not to let temporary feelings cause me to do something that’ll have lasting effects, like when I was bored back in 2006 and linked up with my neighbor one time. Well, let’s just say that I now have an amazing 15-year-old daughter that I lovingly call #TookieWookie #2ndBorn who, even though she absolutely changed my life for the better, will not be getting a baby brother or sister this way.
Last week, I moved into a new place. I absolutely, positively love fresh starts. The last few places I lived, I didn’t bother getting acquainted with the neighbors. Why, I’m not really sure. I mean, I chatted with one of the neighbors occasionally. She was a young lady, around the same age as my 27-year-old daughter. She had two sons and lived in the townhouse with her mother.
The last place, I can count on one hand how many times I talked to the neighbors on either sides of me. The energy was just…blah. We would speak to each other, but they weren’t the type of neighbors to cut my grass out the kindness of their hearts when they saw it was getting taller than a Globetrotter and being cited by the city. But I digress.
Fall is my favorite season. I love its perfect sweater weather. The tall boots and festive scarves. And let’s not forget scary movies. My youngest daughter and I were talking about how it’s better to watch scary movies during Halloween time than not; however, both of us nearly jumped out of our skin when the doorbell rang.
It was after 8 o’clock and dark outside. We had just gotten in from my daughter’s volleyball game. My neighbor to the right of me was sitting in her car when I pulled up, so I thought it was her. I’ve seen her several times since I moved in and we have yet to exchange pleasantries. She just looks like she’s got an attitude problem. I could be wrong…or right, considering I’ve only been living here a week and she’s already cussed this man out TWICE, who appears to be her boyfriend/husband/live-in. Not just a regular ole cussing out, but an I’m-outside-wit-it-and-want-everybody-in-the-complex-to-hear-me type of tongue lashing. And to add to that, it was at ungodly hours in the morning.
I was shocked when I realized that it wasn’t her but an unfamiliar, barefooted black woman instead. She asked if I had some tape. Her voice was low and I had to ask her to repeat herself a few times. I’ve seen too many movies and knew better than to crack my screen door to get a better listen.
She told me she was my next door neighbor and that she plans on moving soon, which is why she needed the tape. I told her that I didn’t have any. She didn’t leave. She just stood there. My daughter, who was standing on the steps peering from an aerial view, and I kept looking back and forth at each other like….
All I could think about was the movie The Strangers that came out in 2008. It’s about a couple who go on vacation and are terrorized by three hoodlums. I don’t remember much from the movie but there’s this one line that has stuck with me ever since. One of the terrorizers goes to the house where the couple is vacationing and says, “Hi, is Tamara home?”
It is the creepiest shit EVER because there’s no gat damn Tamara there and she knows it. So, the whole time I’m telling my neighbor that I ain’t got no tape, I’m thinking to myself I NEED A MAN!!! I’m too scary for this shit.
The lady left…only to return less than 5 minutes later. My daughter said DON’T OPEN IT! I peeked out the window and, sure nuff, it was indeed her —again!
An hour or so later, my daughter got out the shower, came into my room and said, “You need a gun.”
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been delving into Shadow Work. Reading up on anything I can get my hands on. If you’re not familiar, it’s a concept created by Carl Jung, a psychologist from back in the day, who believed that we all have a light side and a dark, shadow side to us.
It’s referred to as the shadow because it’s those parts of us that we don’t want others to see. We don’t want folks to know about. Mainly because somewhere along the way we were told that those things were “bad,” “wrong,” “not ladylike,” etc… So what we do is stuff it away and act like those traits don’t exist. But they can stay suppressed only for so long before they show up when least expected.
In essence, core wounds are those things that make us feel less than, not enough, inadequate. The website Loner Wolf does a superb job explaining this. Most often than not, we received these wounds as kids. When we’re kids, we’re not able to accurately process it when our parent(s) yell at us, or call us out of our names, or hits us one too many times. So, we internalize that to make it mean something is wrong with us, that we’re defective, unlovable. We don’t have the language to articulate it for what it is, which is that our parents are dealing with their own trauma and are unable to process it appropriately, thus misdirecting all of their anger and sadness.
I grew up an only child, with just my mom and I in the household from when I was 11 years old until I turned 18. From birth until 10 years old, we lived with other folks, which I won’t get into in this blog post. But what I will say is, living with a house full of folks was a welcome distraction from the attention I wasn’t getting from my mother. I didn’t feel the brunt of that until it was just she and I living together, solo dolo.
I’ve written about this several times before that my mother was emotionally unavailable and my father was both physically and emotionally vacant. This created a host of issues for me, many that I’m still unpacking to this day, and I’m 46 years old.
Because I was ignored by mom, I developed this huge core wound of not feeling seen and heard. This led to me doing all sorts of things to get attention, from getting pregnant at 14 and again at 17 to becoming a promiscuous adult and giving up my body to anyone who I felt “saw” me.
And that’s not it. Trauma doesn’t just show up in one area; it spills into other areas of your life as well. It showed up at work in the form of challenging any and everybody who I felt was criticizing me. I yelled and would cuss folks out because I needed to be heard dammit. I had my hair died fuchsia in the 10th grade, I have over 20 tattoos, and I used to have a slew of piercings. I needed to be seen dammit.
Even though I’ve done some healing, I still get triggered by some things, for instance, when I feel like I’m not being heard and seen. It takes me back to that little girl who was vying for her mother’s attention. Because of the extensive work I’ve been doing on healing myself, I know that I have to dive headfirst into why this still affects me so.
Thais Gibson of The Personal Development School says that emotions are feedback. They’re there to help us ask the important questions like what are you here to teach me; what are you trying to tell me? I have this guy friend who, no matter what I say or how many times I say a thing he just doesn’t listen. And it pisses me the hell off!!!
He’ll ask me the same thing a gazillion times. When I repeat myself, he will turn around minutes later and ask again as if he didn’t just ask the same thing moments ago. When I call him out on it he says that I’m blowing things out of proportion and that it’s not a big deal or that I never gave him a straight answer.
According to shadow work, because this still triggers me, it is a clear sign that I still have work to do. We are all mirror images of each other, reflecting and projecting our traumas and perspectives on to another. The way I can heal this is by questioning the meaning that I’m giving to the story, the incident, or the event. What am I making it mean?
For instance, when said friend acts like he doesn’t remember what I said or ignores what I said, I make that to mean that I am unimportant, that he doesn’t HEAR me. Then I ask 3 questions:
In what area(s) of my life am I ignoring myself?
Who’s in my life that I’m ignoring?
In what ways am I ignoring the person who triggered this event?
Because, like I said before, we’re all reflections of each other and can learn a lot about ourselves simply by the interactions we have.
Phette Hollins 