What Keeps you from true happiness?

What is it that keeps you from true happiness?

Does your idea of utopia include winning the lottery?  Having a more expensive automobile than your friends?  Having a larger big screen television than your co-worker?  Or does it include ads on tv, radio, magazines and billboards telling you their way is the road to true happiness?

Well, they are totally wrong, wrong, wrong!  Unless you have some innate  personal love of lottery winnings, expensive cars, or keeping up with the Joneses, don’t allow yourself to buy into someone else’s idea of your best life.  If you do, you’re in for a huge fall-flat on your face.  Understand, no one but you has even the slightest clue as to what makes you happy or how to live your best life.  If they tell you they do, they need to take deep, deep breaths and move the heck on.

What you love is as unique to you as your dna.  You need to understand that because nothing will make you really happy but doing what you love, take a good hard look at people who are actually living their best life.  You see peace, confidence and contentment in their eyes and patience in their actions.  They know they’re in the right place at the right time, dong the right thing.

Deep inside of yourself, you know what you love don’t you?  You know what makes you happy.  You know your dream of finding the right mate, the right job, losing a few pounds, living a healthy life, even traveling the world.  You wish you could live a more holistic life; or begin or own a business, even put your own spiritual principles, no matter what they may be into action.

Perhaps you don’t have any dreams or aspirations, or maybe you can’t articulate your dreams, but you can sense them deep inside you.  Even if they are not clearly defined or articulated, they are never far away.  Generally speaking, true dreams are almost impossible to get rid of.  The dreams trouble and tempt you.  They keep reminding you that you’re not satisfied with your life, that something crucial is missing.  If my words are disturbing to you, you are just not living your best life.  You need to learn to take deep cleansing breaths and move on to what serves you best.

As impossible as this may seem, this is very lucky for you..this state of moving outside your comfort zone.  If your hopes, dreams and aspirations didn’t’ trouble you, you may forget them entirely and never know if they could have become reality.  This is what we as a people have been trained to do.

I’m not going into  what happened to us in the slave dungeons, on those horrible slave ships or those dang plantations.  We should know our history.  But it all began for us at that time..the feelings of worthlessness, of settling for less than what we are worth, or having others impose their truths about us.  We must move out of that victim state and walk into our own beautiful reality.

If your dreams didn’t trouble you, you’d forget them, remember that.  So this exercise in moving your comfort zone to live your best life is an excellent one to gage where you are and where you’re going. Forgetting your dreams is what you have been trained to do.  Whenever we dream out loud, we are criticized for being foolish by people who really have no clue how special we are.  As a result, we abandon our hopes, aspirations, and dreams without giving them an inth of a chance.

Whenever we begin to think of our dreams, we quickly recite the reasons why we can’t.  When we do that we wonder why we feel like failures, or that our lives have no meaning or purpose.  How do I know all of this?  There was a time in my life when I got an A+ for FAILURE and another for QUITTING.

But I learned valuable lessons the hard way.  I learned some very valuable principles in the process that catapulted me like a cannon shooting out of a rocket-forward.  They are:

1.       If you can’t change the people around you, then change the people around you.

2.       Awareness + Knowledge = Choice

3.       I am one of a kind

4.       I had divine gifts that I needed to begin to use

5.       I didn’t have to change ME to change my LIFE

Trust me when I tell you this.  I had ot take a whole lot of deep breaths and begin to move on and lose the madness.

I began to love me, and all that was ME.  I went into recovery (link), not to change the authentic me, u tot learn to cope and change the way I thought about me.  I found what motivated me, so I could be gentle with myself.  I also learned that having my dreams fulfilled and internal validation of who I was improved my sense of self.  I was more energized as people noticed the change in me and my own feelings of who I was validated the compliments.  I was on a mission, and I was cocky, even confident!

You will find as you begin to love you and all that is you, self love will improve you. You’ll become a much better person when you learn to through out the garbage others have left in your mind that decayed deep in your soul. Understand something, that was never really you.  It was the person someone imposed upon you.  You were living up to someone else’s idea of who you are or how you should be.

Again, trust me when I tell you that having your dreams fulfilled, knowing who you are, is one of the greatest accomplishments or gifts you can give yourself.  Not fulfilling your dreams is a loss to the planet and most of all to you because the world needs all of our gifts.  Malcolm X once said, so succinctly, “If you want freedom, then fight for it.  If you can’t fight for it, you don’t deserve it.”

Even though you may think you are pleasing yourself, you are helping all of us by sharing your God given talents.  It’s only right and fitting that we give our best back while living our best life.

Let’s take this journey together.  You’ll be living your best life before you know it.

Many blessings!

Princess Ademide Adinasse

Nurturing Ritual

You are in serious need of a "nurturing retreat" if you can say yes to at least two of the folloiwng:

You have no energy to anything.

Your main source of "fun" is television or your computer.

You feel as if you are running on an empty tank.

You run around all the time.

Your car is your primary home.

You can’t remember your dreams and goals.

You feel no inner peace.

You are unable to remember the last time you had quiet time.

Your soul cries out for more of ANYTHING.

You are the one who nurtures everyone else and can’t do it for yourself.

You feel empty.

You feel disconnected from life

You have no control over the direction of your life

You have no joy in the future

Nothing seems worth the effort you expend.

You have no trust in anyone.

You have no confidence in yourself.

You have a poor self-image.

If you can pick at least two of the above, then you, my Sistah are in need of emergency self nurturing. It is not good to have nothing to look forward to. There is a definite imbalance when we constantly allow others to feed off our energy without reciprocation. You deserve to feel something besides "tired" or "fed up". You deserve to be loved and nurtured and stop walking through life hoping things will change. You have to be the driving force to your own healing. To affect change, there must be an awareness that it is needed. Once the awareness is there, it is then time to do tha thang! Ain’t nobody gonna nurture you like you will Sistahs!

As a Yoruba Priestess, I encounter many who have a negative connotation of the word "ritual". I hope to change that. To me, many rituals are life affirming and the majority are actually activities of daily living. We get up, take care of our hygiene, and so forth. Those are rituals. They are the rites you perform on a regular basis.

As a Yoruba Priestess, I encounter many who have a negative connotation of the word "ritual". I hope to change that. To me, many rituals are life affirming and the majority are actually activities of daily living. We get up, take care of our hygiene, and so forth. Those are rituals. They are the rites you perform on a regular basis.

I particularly like the following ritual for nurturing:

Items needed:

Blue food coloring or bluing

Sea foam bubble bath

Blue and white candles

Sea salt or regular in a pinch

Your favorite soothing music

Or Tape of Ocean waves

Coconut incense or

Lavender incense or aromatherapy

White headwrap/gelee

White bed clothing

Your favorite herbal tea or contact me for a recipe for mixing your own

Comfort food

White carnations divided into two bunches

Or white roses

Shea butter or coconut oil

Timer set for 30 minutes

First, commit to at least 30 minutes of nurturing yourself. These means a quiet house or just lock yourself in the bathroom and use earplugs! Treat yourself to using the "good" dishes for your tea and snack. Get out the good napkins and the best nighties you have been saving for a "special" night. This IS a special night.

Bring all the items into the bathroom with you. Set them up nicely. If you are into altars, use a blue cloth to set your items on, add sea shells if you have them and use crystal glasses if you have chosen to relax with a glass of wine or even juice. You are your own "guest".

Put ¾ of the carnations in your most beautiful vase and take into bathroom. Light the candles and incense. Turn on the music and take deep, cleansing breaths. It will be ok.

Take a shower with whatever soap you use to wash away the stress of the day first. Wipe out tub, then run bath water using 1 cup of the salt, only enough food coloring or bluing to make the water an Ocean blue, the sea foam bath bubbles and the rest of the flowers. You can add a bit of baby oil to nurture your skin while you soak. I have a portable bath spa, which relaxes my tired muscles. They are very inexpensive. Try it if you can.

Ease your tired body and soul into the bath and soak. Meditate or pray on what you want for yourself. Pray away your cares. Ask God or if you are Yoruba, invoke Yemoja, the Great Mother to nurture you. Imagine yourself on a beautiful beach at sunset. Drink the tea from the tub and slowly eat whatever comfort foods you have chosen. Relish the flavor of it all. Breathe in deep the calming effects of the coconut or lavender. Relax.

When you are ready, use the flowers in the tub to caress your body, praying for the sweetness to come into your life. Be sure to clean what is called your third eye, back of your neck and solar plexus. Cleanse your ears from all the negative things you have heard and massage your temples gently. Relax, it’s ok. Allow the cares of the world to flow into the beautiful ocean water. Slow down your breathing.

If you meditate, when self-defeating thoughts come to mind, blow them into a blue balloon and allow them to float away. Call life-affirming thoughts to you in a white balloon to burst over your crown charka.

Yoruba devotees:

Prayer to Esu:

Eshu, the Divine Messenger

Please open the way for my nurturing.

Eshu, please close the way for negative thoughts to enter my mind

Open the way for only those thoughts that are life affirming,

Ashe

Prayer to Yemoja:

Yemoja! Great Mother of all things.

The Giver of life!

Water sustains and nurtures all living things

Gift from Olodumare,

Yemoja, I call upon you to nurture me

As you nurture the fish in the sea.

Yemoja, I call upon you to nurture me

As you nurture the earth with your refreshing waters

Yemoja, I call upon you to nurture me as you nurture

Those who fish in your waters with your benevolence.

Great Mother! Giver of Good things!

Help me to see that I am worth nurturing and

That I am a good and blessed person upon the face of the earth.

Ashe

Once you are ready, get out of the tub. Dry off with one of your best towels. Oil your skin with the shea butter or coconut oil. Glory in the beauty of your moisturized skin. Make sure you put plenty on your feet and wrap in saran wrap for another 30 minutes, even if you have work to do. This will keep in the moisture. If you have time, give yourself a pedicure.

Relax. Deep breaths Sistahs.

Get dressed, take the flowers, incense or aromatherapy from the bath and move to your bedroom or place you will relax and can enjoy them. Curl up on the couch or in bed with your drink and include water. Allow yourself to love yourself and hug YOU. If you wish, you can make a list of those thoughts and feelings that come to mind.

Close with a prayer of thanksgiving for your life.

Feel free to contact me if you need further information.

I will have a website launch at the beginning of the year, which will kick off what I like to call "the year of the healthy black woman". I will take us step by step into looking within, nurturing ourselves, beauty tips, life affirming statements, dietary issues and other things, combined with Yoruba Spirituality.

In This Moment

I've talked to so many who believe they are supposed to be superhuman and bear up under all things. When they don't, they all too readily look for the fault within themselves."

~~~~ Gloria Naylor

I had to grow up at the age of three. A horrible thing happened to me and changed life forever for me at that time, but I didn't know it.

By the time I was five, I was raising three children, my siblings, with one more to come. It was as if my mother birthed them and handed them over to me to raise, although in hindsight I don't think she realized what she was doing. That was my first bout with "enabling".

By the time I was 12, I had a special work permit that allowed me to work and go to school at the same time. Someone had to work to make sure that there was food during the entire month and clothing for my sisters and brothers. During this early morning job in our school breakfast program, I met the man who would 11 years later become my husband and one day the father of our child. He was 14 years old at the time and trying to be superman himself, although I don't think he realized it.

I reflect on my early years because those years formulated the woman I am today. In my journey as a black woman into healing from abuse, I am reminded that I didn't get to my awareness that all that was going on in my life was not normal. And I need to continue to remind myself that the "fix" is not going to come overnight either.

There are so many things that I wished I could have done differently, but survival was the key. I am a survivor. Many of us who are survivors believe that we are all things to everyone in our lives, but we don't place a value on what we mean TO ourselves. We take on responsibility after responsibility to relieve others of THEIR responsibility and when the walls come tumbling down, we think it is somehow OUR fault. We have been conditioned to believe that everything BAD that happens in our world is our FAULT. The blame lies with no one else because no one else will accept their own blame. For our abusers and oppressors to accept blame would mean they would have to face their own crap. It is easier to allow us to bear the burden.

Now that we have some idea of how we got to be "superwoman" without the magic powers, how can we stop the cycle? How can we begin to realize that we as black women are not machines? How can we understand that we cannot bear up under everthing that happens and be like the stepford wives with no feelings? When will we learn that everything is not our fault and that inside, deep in our soul, where nobody gets to go but US, that we are worthy of much more than all of this insanity!

This morning, I am taking a vow that when things go wrong, like acid rain, brown haze, wars and rumors of wars are not of my making. No matter how much it was drilled into me, I am going, just for today, realize that bad things are not caused by me and that I should not internalize other's feelings. I will acknowledge my own feelings of being a blessed person upon the face of this planet and no one can take that away from me in this moment.

In this moment, I will realize that I have made wonderful contributions in the lives of those around me. No matter what my ex-husband says, I was a good wife, or he would not have been able to be a drunk and retire from the military with 20 years! Were it not for my "enabling", he would have been a drunk azz, no military retirement fewl.

In this moment I will realize that I helped to raise not only my mother's children, but those of my foster mother and some of the good in their lives can be attributed to me. When I look into the faces of my nieces and nephews I will see my own goodness.

In this moment, I will realize that I was an excellent mother to my son. I am an excellent mother now. I mothered all his friends whose mothers had abdicated their responsibility and I thought it was up to me to pick it up. Even if he is 20 and doesn't have a damn clue, I pulled him along by the skin of my teeth for I was falling apart and kept it all together for him.

In this moment, I will think it is ok for things to fall apart and be ok with it.

For in this moment, I have life, and where there is life, there is hope that one day my healing will be complete.

Black women! The white women are not the only ones who deserve to heal! We do too! We just don't have black Dr. Phil's! What is good enough for them, is sho nuff good enough for me and that is feeling good about ME!

Be blessed

Personal Transformations on My Space

My Personal Transformation

There is so much going on in my life at this time.  Being able to write has been cathartic for me.  I have learned some very wonderful lessons over the last few years that I woud never have learned otherwise.  Those rants, are blogged herein and give you a glimpse inside what my life has been like. But there are no regrets.

But, I must do as I teach all of you to do...Take Deep Breaths and move on...I must continue to re-write the script of my own life in order to make lasting change in your black reality.  No healer ever stays in one place on their journey and no true healer tries to teach you lessons they are not willing to learn themselves.

As I teach you on my many other forums,  I will continue to chronicle my own lessons into personal transformation here.  There is always room for change I've learned.

On a recent trip, I met a wonderful young man named Rob.  Rob is a school teacher and is fighting a brave battle with testicular cancer.  Upon boarding the flight, I was all out of sorts as I am when I am rushed.  Sitting next to this blessing in disguise was what I needed.  We talked about everything!  But what I came away with was the fact that those of us who have had adversities in our lives and don't buy into self defeating behaviors are the heroes.  I looked at this wonderful soul and the love he has in his heart and was honored.  However, it would get deeper for me.

As we shared stories, laughed, cried and bonded, I realized I could not continue to allow my own past to rule any part of my present or future.  I decided on the spot to do as I told him to do....live my best life.

After the plane landed, we realized hours had passed!  Then I was shocked, he presented me with a necklace that belonged to his deceased mother and a beautiful book, one that I had wanted for quite some time and let me know how my soul touched his and brought healing to it.  That almost brought me to tears because over the past few years, most of what I heard from people do don't really know me was in the negative.  I realized in that moment, as the ancestors had told me, that I had a lot to give and a great deal of wisdom to impart.  But I had to continue to work on me.

I found my main issue in speaking with Rob was that I allowed others to "spend" me and save themselves.   I knew that could not continue.  Rob passed on a most profound statement, one that I will adopt. He told me of what a friend told him about these destructive relationships "if you can't change the people around you, then change the people around you".  Now that happened to be exactly what I was doing in my own life!  I was cleaning house, evicting those who I had been renting far too much headspace to.  We can't change anyone, but what we can do is change our own circumstance and our friends.

I'm on this path for life, and I hope you desire to do the same, and find all the joy you can stand as you learn to live your BEST LIFE!

Ase