A great and beautiful Soul has ascended unto Heaven and has given joy and encouragement to many. She has brought love and happiness to the world through her natural God given talent of physical, verbal and written expression. I am honored to have had the chance to be in her presence and hear her speak greatness. She has made me want to be a better woman, I remember the first time I read “Why the Caged Bird Sings” when I was in grade school, the first time I read “Phenomenal Woman” and the first time I hear her speak – it changed my views on life and people. Thank you Mama Maya Angelou for sharing your natural gifts with the world, you will live on through the power of your words.
Today, take the time to forgive yourself for past faults. Forgive yourself for past mistakes, past miscommunications and past judgments. Today is a gift that you will not get back, because tomorrow – today will be the past. The past is one of our greatest life teachers. The past allows for us to reflect on how we could have handled a situation better, how we could have not reacted or how much we still have to learn. But, today choose to forgive yourself, others and adverse situations for not being or doing what you now know and have the full understanding of. Choose to do yourself a favor, and let it go to forgiveness.
When was the last time you took a moment to reflect on all of the good things in your life? How far have you come in your career? How far have you come from your educational goal? How far have you come in your relationships? How far have you come in your financial growth? How far have you come in your own personal growth? Reflecting gives us the ability to “see” how much we have accomplished. Taking time to do this, allows us to see more positive than negative in our lives. Take a moment, write a letter of “accomplishment” to yourself. Save it in place where you will remember to go and read it every so often. Make sure to take time to write down details of your “Thankfulness” in the situation. You will find that you have more to be thankful for than you realize.
The ability to visualize your self in different situations will assist you in transforming energy from negative to positive instantly. No matter what I may feel, what I may see or what others may do – I know and trust and believe in GOD and in what GOD is doing in and for me for my greater good. When I feel the least and see the least, that is when I know GOD is doing the most in my life.
This Thankful Thursday, I want to celebrate my thankfulness for the completion of the “PepTalks” Series. It was a long and hard journey, but with persistence and motivation goals are attainable. I will be signing and speaking about the “Pep Talks” series at the next book signing on May 17th, at Barnes and Noble in Tampa, FL at Wiregrass The Shoppes.
The Pep Talks Book Series is an introduction to a new way of interviewing and obtaining a job in today’s competitive market. The Pep Talks Book Series is all about giving the reader an advantage over their competitors when working toward the goal of gaining more knowledge and understanding in this new job market. This new job market is all about unconventional ways of obtaining knowledge while gaining the desired employment.
The Pep Talks Book Series explains how the new Job market knowledge and understanding how to better improve the chances of being “individually recognized” as a professional are vital. The Pep Talks Book Series assists with building job confidence and self-esteem along with providing detailed examples for the reader to use for interviews. The Pep Talks Book Series are designed to assist the reader in planning, executing, and managing their own career and potential growth in their field of choice.
Each section has an interactive “fill in the blank” area for guiding the reader with critical thinking activity examples to assist with brainstorming, and “Confidence Boosters” provide the reader with constant motivation for obtaining their “dream career.” The Pep Talks Book Series can serve the newly looking or the long-term job seeker with methods that will assist with the career search and provide motivation for future endeavors.
Personal awareness is all about finding your inner and deepest level of motivation for doing, being and having a particular thing. That thing can be a new job, a better relationship, improved finances or any other “thing” that you find you need or want in your life. Personal awareness has the ability to enlighten and bring more clarity to a person’s conscience.
Personal Awareness Note #21
Learn to monitor yourself. When you realize that you have control of you and your actions, you will be able to better monitor yourself and know when to remove yourself from hostile situations that may cause you to lose control of your yourself.
Each of us has the ability to visualize. One can think of a rose, either to picture it or feel it, it is all about focus and staying focused on the object and start to see and smell it as if it were in front of your face. This is the process one would use in order to become more aware of the energy in and around the current environment. You can learn to feel the emotional energy in a room of people using the same process, by picking out which person is emitting energy that is feeling anxiety, upset, or joy. You can learn to change the effect of that energy by closing your eyes, focusing with precision on the energy that is bothering you, and changing its impact with your mind. Just as you can close your eyes and visualize and smell a rose, so can you use the process of visualization to heal people and work on energy that you do not like, or would like to evolve in your being.
Counting has become the fabric of our culture. We count the amount of “Likes” to a photo, we count “views” to postings, we even count how many “friends” we have online. All in all, counting has become another form of power and stature. Counting is over rated; does it really matter if we have more “counts” than someone else does? The only thing that should count is how good we are to each other, our family and our self. Instead of counting likes, views and postings let’s make it our joy to count our blessings.
Being thankful is more than a feeling or a thought, is how we act when we don’t get what we want, when we want it. Thankfulness is about knowing that your situation is working in your favor for your good, for the betterment of who you are to be in this life. When you wake up, before you say anything – you could say “Thank you for my life, thank you my sweet sleep, or thank you for the ability to start a new day.” Each and everyday we have an opportunity to “begin again.” Beginning again is a gift. We get a new start and old things pass away. You have the ability to dwell on your past, or you can take the “new day” and go forward with a thankful attitude. You have an ability to start again with a new day, new way of thinking, and new unforeseen opportunities. Many times when we see the least happening in our lives, that’s when God, Higher Self and the Infinite Divine are working the hardest in our difficult situation. The key to taking hold of the “newness” is to never give up, never give in and have awareness when doubt tries to enter and take your thankfulness away. Being thankful is more than how you think, what you want or what you feel – thankfulness is a way of living.
When was the last time you reflected on how good your life was? When was the last time you were grateful for what you have, how far you come or where you see yourself being in a particular time period. It is time to renew your mind and realize that you have a choice on how you will react to “this moment” in time. Will you “bless” it or, will you “curse” it. Complaints and negative thoughts can have an adverse reaction to a situation, while on the other hand, embracing a situation and trying to find the “message in the mess” will allow for you to grow your character and experiences.
Take some time to write down your thoughts on a situation that may be irritating to you. What is the situation? What are the components? What are the pros and cons of the situation? How can you utilize self-control in the situation? Are you a direct component of a resolution? Then, sit with this information and release “good thoughts” with resolving it even if you don’t believe it to be true. When the situation comes up, reflect back on your notes and remember that you can only control what YOU do in any given situation. You have more control over the situation than you may think you do.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1). Faith has the ability to sustain you when you have no idea how you are going to pay your bills, deal with your job, feed your children or over come a difficult situation. Faith and believe in a “better day, way and situation” can give you the strength to overcome the odds. It is with faith that we are filled with motivation to continue to do “something” in the hopes of it getting better. It is with faith that we are healed from past hurts and broken hearts. Faith gives you the power to forgive when you know you have a right not to. It is with faith that we realize that we are made whole, even in our circumstances. When you go to and fro, remember that you may be the only glimmer of “faith” that someone else might have for his or her life getting better. Speak a kind word, give a kind smile or simply be kind to someone. Have the faith to believe, receive and achieve. You have the ability to build up, or to destroy. Have the faith to believe in the unseen, knowing that everything is working out in our favor.
My natural hair care journey started like many hair journeys’ start off, a self-epiphany. I woke up one morning and I wondered: “If I died today, would the mortician have to put a relaxer in my hair before they could prep my body for my funeral?” Then I busted into uncontrollable laugher at the very idea. Sounds morbid, but it is true. I actually had this very thought, and really had to think about my relationship with my hair. Relaxer had become my version of Heroin or Crack Cocaine, “Creamy Crack” to be exact! Like both of these drugs, relaxers were introduced to me by those that I loved and who claimed to love me the most. Would love ones do something to you that they knew would affect your very being and health? My answer was, of course not – but, they had.
The process of relaxing my hair changed my whole life from the day I received my very first treatment. The first relaxer I received was referred to as the “kiddy perm” but there was nothing “kiddy” about it. I was never properly informed of the dangers of the relaxer chemical nor was I told the physical damage it could do to my body. Just like drugs, I was hooked on relaxer like a crack head on his/her main drug of choice. Relaxer claimed to straighten and strengthen my hair, when in fact it did just the opposite. Relaxer did not only weaken and damaged my hair; but it started the process of balding by causing my hair to franticly breaking off. This gave the illusion of a stunt in growth, which allowed me to think that my hair was not growing at all. It seemed when I managed to gain any kind of length to my hair, it was breaking faster than it could grow. When I was relaxed I can’t count know how many times I was told that “ethnic women don’t grow hair as fast as other races” which is a completely false statement. The truth is, all hair grows at the same pace, normally two inches a month. The relaxer started balding the edges of my hairline. At the age of 31 years old, I decided to do something about my “Creamy Crack” addiction. Determined to kick the habit for good, and for the good of becoming healthier I decided to “Go Natural.”
On March 13, 2010 I decided to “Go Natural” and do whatever I needed to do to keep and grow my own healthy hair. I set aside time to research and collect lecture about natural hair, I joined hair blog forums and little by little I completed the “Long Transition” toward becoming all natural. I never really thought to much about hair until I realized I was destroying it. I received a third degree chemical burn in the middle of my head and on the side of my face while finishing up a relaxer, that was my last relater I put in my hair. I go into more detail about the whole story throughout the book.
I have been getting relaxers put in my hair since I was a young child. I have been doing them myself since I was 18 years old and not once had I ever read the box to see the warnings for chemical burns, nor did I research what the relaxer chemical actually was. The truth of the manner is I never really thought about the dangers of relaxers and what the chemical was doing to my skin, body and mind. It was just a part of my normal life to go to the beauty shop or beauty supply store, get a relaxer, put in my hair every two to four weeks – repeat every three to four weeks like clockwork.
Working out was difficult, swimming was impossible and I could forget about anyone “running” their hands through any part of my hair first few days after getting a relaxer or relaxer touch up. I had never added all the trips to the beauty stores up or all of the time I spent on doing, managing, or keeping my hair “bone straight,” and I certainly never thought about what the chemicals were doing to my body and my organs, until I started writing this book on my personal hair journey.
The life-changing event was when I decided to see the documentary “Good Hair” by Chris Rock. I expected to laugh, and be entertained. Instead of merely being entertained, I was educated on a subject that I never had a second thought about – my own hair and what I had been led to believe about it. I was told all of my life by my family, friends and the media that I was ugly unless I had straight hair. The worst thing anyone could ever have said to me in my relaxed days was “You look nice, but your new growth is showing.” This means that it was time for another relaxer because my “real hair texture” was exposed. This is where I started to panic, because I was more than what my hair looked like – or so I thought. I was beautiful and it was time to start being what God made me in God’s image – Beautifully natural.
Now that I was all motivated to “Go Natural” it was time to start getting an idea of what I was going to do. More panic came: “I don’t know what my hair is going to look like, I don’t want to look crazy, I don’t want people to think that I am all Afrocentric or hostile, I have no idea what to do with my hair once I do grow it out, I don’t even know what to put in it or how to style it.” I thought for days and days. I started to do some research on products, styles and what was considered bad and good for hair in general. I research what hair was and how often it grows. It turned out that all the rumors were false, ethnic hair grows just as much as any other hair type.
As a child I was constantly told that “Black peoples hair doesn’t grow as fast as other people’s hair does, so never cut your hair. If it breaks off then it will even its self out.” How ridiculous is that?! This was a repetitive hair statement in my young life. This is actually, what other black women would tell me, with the exception of a select few of black women in my life such as my Grand Mother Charlene, my Nana Perkins and others mentioned throughout the book.
My Grandmother Charlene was my grandmother on my father’s side. She had beautiful brownish red hair that flowed right down her back. Her hair was thick and lustrous. I always would play in her hair and hope and pray my hair would one day be like that. “You hair is beautiful child.” She would often say to me before I received my first relaxer. “You don’t need that junk in your hair, you will see” She said. Now, at age 31 years old I realized, she was right.
My Nana Perkins had a whole other thought about hair. “Any chemical you have to put in your hair to make it pretty has got to be bad for you.” Nana would say. Nana Perkins way of getting straight hair was the old fashion way, a good hot comb on a hot stove, along with a huge bucket of hair grease. This worked, until it rained and your beautiful straight hair transformed into a hot mess on your head.
Both of these fantastic women taught me that hair is just that, and to make it more than what it is to demine yourself. Being confident and beautiful are not mutually exclusive character traits, they are a part of each other, just as hair is a part of who you are. These are two of the most important lessons I have kept near to my heart. For that, these women have allowed for myself to grow into the woman I am today.
Excerpt from: A Natural Hair Journey, Stories and Memories of a Curly Girl
By: Jenice Armstead
A Natural Hair Journey, Stories and Memories of a Curly Girl by: Jenice Armstead
When you believe in something, love, desire, and want it, you can create it more quickly. One thing you have to do is not allow the emotions of others to drain you. As you calm your emotions, you will be able to handle other people’s strong emotions.
When you think about it emotions are how you know whether you like or dislike something. Your emotions are the key to understanding your environment and how you choose to react to it. When you think about something on a continuum basis you allow it to come into your life faster than it would if you weren’t thinking of it. It isn’t something that can be controlled, unless you choose to do so. It is true. I can remember thinking about not wanting to have a bad day and in fact drawing situations to me that actually caused me to have a bad day. In the moment you are thinking about it, you don’t realize what you’re doing – unless you choose to understand what you’re doing.
You are affected by others and their emotions – whether it is a positive or a negative way. You choose what to transcend from others emotions. You are in total control of your emotions and what you absorb. The key is to calm yourself and not allow others emotions to become your emotions through default.
You have and work with Infinite Power, Guided Being, Higher Power or whatever or whom ever you want to call Your Higher Self. When you realized that, you are Infinite Power and Infinite Power works within you to become Infinite power. We are beings of energy and we are able to create anything, starting with a mere thought. Thought becomes true when focus is placed on it. Have you ever thought really long and hard about something that you did not want to happen? Then found that the very thing you did not want to happen in fact happened. One of the reasons why it happened was the constant focus you placed on that “thing” not happening. When you realize your true Infinite power, you are able to create your life the way you want it.
A thought is energy that you can control. Instead of being affected by negative energy, create positive life energy in place of it.
Each of us has the ability to visualize, for I believe that everyone can think of a rose, either to picture it or feel it. This is the process one would use in order to become more aware of the energy in and around them. You can learn to feel the emotional energy in a room of people by picking out which person is emitting energy that is feeling anxiety, upset, or joy. You can learn to change the effect of that energy by closing your eyes, focusing with precision on the energy that is bothering you, and changing its impact with your mind. Just as you can close your eyes and visualize a rose, so can you use the process of visualization to heal people and work on energy that you do not like, or would like to evolve.
Most people tense up when encountering negative energy. That attracts even more negative energy. To avoid being affected by negative energy, relax. Any process of relaxation will work. Then visualize or image a peaceful feeling. By visualizing what feelings you do want, you will not pick up negative energies you don’t want.
Reference: Sanaya Roman, Personal Power through Awareness, Book II of the Earth Life Series.
The ability to visualize your self in different situations will assist you in transforming energy from negative to positive instantly. You can enjoy every single bit of your life, even the difficult times. You have the authority to keep your joy and have peace in any situation. The more truth you know, the more you can keep your faith in difficult times.
A thought is energy that you can control. Instead of being affected by negative energy, create positive life energy. Be aware of how you are feeling when you are around people and ask yourself the question: Is this bring me closer to my higher self?
It is important to know how much you are capable of receiving, for many of you are not very open to accepting anything, although you love to give to others. If you feel that others do not appreciate what you give them, it is time to take a look at how open you are to receiving from others. Start the new year off right and appreciate yourself – first.
You have the ability to “think yourself into a good mood, or a bad mood.” In my many professional experiences I have met people that have and express negative thoughts. Recently, I was contracted to work for a company where I was able to communication with many people. During this job many people “thought” they were not “good enough” and had terrible self-images.
My realization was that many people think the worst about themselves and have low hopes for their future. At times, being in sales is like being a people therapist … You get their entire story and they want a miracle from you with promises that a product will cure their hurt … But only GOD can do that.
While working this contracted job, I often found myself giving this advice:
True freedom is being able to self-evaluate without self judgment. Finding self-value in your individualism is priceless. We all have individual gifts from GOD, don’t compare your gifts to anyone else’s abilities. It is only by grace that GOD, who gives gifts can you grow and develop in yourself. Walk in your special grace. Allowing for others to determine your worth is like an adult getting mad at a child for being hungry, it is preventable. Know who you are and yourself value will increase.
