2021. Wow. For this year I decided to truly allow my inner creative side to come out. As a social worker I have always been big on healing, boundaries, yadda yadda ya. I have walked through the path I have sent my clients on. Examining childhood trauma and life experiences. Reinforcing boundaries, creating healthy relationships that are reciprocal. Making sure not to just pour into others, but making sure I have people around that can pour back into me (no energy vampires!). What we don't realize is if you haven't done this type of work, there is a lot of you in there that is untapped. That you haven't even seen. So much of our true personalities never see the light of day because of the protective measures and mask we've worn to stablize our environments for others. Filling in the gaps to be what others needed, before we had developed into who we really were. Those components have been too busy masquerading in other forms to meet others needs. Taking us on tangents away from out true purpose, sometimes so far that we never get back to them. We never know what was there before the world got to us. This was definitely me. I thank God he allowed me to go through somethings, and make some changes, and I didn't let go of Him. Now...I can get back to me. I have always been pretty protective of my creative side. Never really exposed it to anyone. Everything about my life and job. I have always operated so much in the analytical, my creative side never got to be nurtured...grow. It has flourished and grown since I have done the previously mentioned work (and ofcourse there is always more to do). Its when you do those things that your true self can emerge. It also caused me to be less afraid and less self conscience. I just began to step out and do. So this year I created Prayer Paper. Its a decorative paper (its was on Etsy) etched in the promises of God with scriptures on what he says about answering our prayers. On this I began to write down the true desires of my heart. For my life, my daughter, my family. This paper and the physical writing out of these prayers helped pull out other things I didn't realize were there, or connected. But I didn't get to them until I started writing. Things I wanted to work on, be healed from. Then, once I did that I finished up a writing I had been working on about marriage, and everything I have learned so far in mine. Now, I had been working on this for a while, kind of like a private journal. But this year I had the courage to step out and get it published. I did it. I sold a few. But neither was about the sales. It was about stepping out and being myself. About exposing myself, and not caring about how it would be received. It was very liberating. Then I started writing here on Vocal. I wouldn't have dreamed about blogging my thoughts where people could read them in the past. I wanted a free space to express myself and my thoughts with no rules. Just wanted to type and let it flow and see what comes out. I just decided to start putting it all out there. To start allowing the thoughts inside me out. And Its only June and I feel freer. I feel more expressive. I feel like I have outlets. I can tell its helped my stress, its made me less interested in social media (which, in my opinion is a positive). Its given me peace. I've made up my mind anything I create in my mind I'm going to create in the physical at this point. Prayerfully it helps someone, but its definitely helping me.
About the Creator
Constant Favored
This is a place I created to just talk, or think out loud, maybe even vent. Not sure. We'll see.
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Woman. Black Woman.
Whew! Being a sista in America is tiring. It will make you question yourself, like, "Is that me?". Yes bitch, that's you. All of it is you. We go from telling it like it is with a relaxed tongue sitting amongst our friends and family. To demonstrating sternness and eloquence with our children at home, to pomp, grammatical correctness, and enunciation at work. And then some. And don't mix them up. Especially don't take the other two facets to work. You know there we are seen as one dimensional creatures. Show one of those other sides you'll get yourself fired lol. No, but seriously. In America, a place that wants to define us so bad and put us in a box, during such turbulent times, I find myself questioning a lot, filtering more. When I watch the news and scroll through social media I become overwhelmed with so many emotions. It make me just want to put it all down and block it out. I'm tired. There are things that I am glad are being said and acknowledged, but still know that nothing is going to change. There are things being said that I don't agree with and hate that they attempt to represent us all. I make a conscious effort to not let what is playing out in the media stay to long in my head. I make sure it doesn't effect the way I treat people from day to day. Using my faith to keep myself grounded, I still have to show up and be a functioning member of society, a wife, a mother, a social worker. All these roles cause me to have to filter and even suppress me (to a certain extent) to show up and be present for others. This is a catch 22. Because part of me reducing my own stress and living my own truth, and being myself is literally not allowed 100% in any of the roles that monopolize most of my time. My roles are full of compromise, and poise, and being a helper and being supportive, and just showing up for others. I can't get away from it. I've learned to balance it but I get tired. I need a break. I need to check out. As I type its like most of it applies to all women, not just African American, but the guise of race puts a spin on it. All of those roles change when I put "black" in front of them. Black mother, black wife, black social worker, black member of society. It adds extra talks, extra environmental stressors, extra self awareness, extra filtering. Extra mindfulness. Its a lot of extra stress. Extra Pressure. To perform, to get it right. To protect. We never get to turn it off ladies. Except with each other. I know when I see you with your friends dressed down, using slang, rapping your favorite song that it doesn't mean you're not smart, college educated, or a great mom. I understand that, that same woman will be in dress pants and pumps conducting a meeting downtown tomorrow. I know when I see you out with your kid(s) alone it doesn't mean that you don't have a husband or supportive partner at home preparing for your return. I understand that, that same woman is on Tik Tok doing the Buss It Challenge after she puts those same kids to bed that night. And it doesn't take anything from her. It doesn't define her. Its just one facet.
By Constant Favored 5 years ago in Humans
The CEO of Everything
They say "jack of all trades, master of none," but they forgot to mention the part where the jack of all trades is also the camera woman, the makeup artist, and the person currently yelling at a tangled Wii microphone cable in a her own bathroom while recording herself singing and trying to make it look realistic and professional. (As professional as you can make it with nothing but a cell phone camera and a mic that doesn't work)
By Sara Wilson5 days ago in Humans
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