Leading With Love and Compassion
This blog is for the individual that desires more of themselves + the people in their lives.
Relationships are so delicate + crafted by every other relationship we have experienced or the lack thereof. My wife + I often speak of how we discard people for seemingly better designs. We often think our partners will take the place of our friendships or vice versa, but truthfully all relationships have their own special space. Every dynamic deserves its own reverence. Relationships are holy. Every. Single. One.
Read MoreI used to carry the weight of not knowing about the things that plagued my parents. I watched my mother crawl into bed everyday + wrap the burden of a disease un-diagnosed around her for security. We often choose religion instead of science to keep the lie our families tell us. We suffer in silence afraid to live a better quality of life. We suffer in quietness scared to let down the very people that often put us in these positions. I want to be the story that everyone desires to read because I found freedom is releasing myself from the shame of suffering.
Read MoreMaking relationships work with another human being comes at a high price especially when you are trying to do something you have never witnessed. Partnerships are messy, raising children can be complicated + loving yourself in the process of unpacking another individual’s trauma can bring about a whole new set of challenges. I am convinced that Spirit had a sense of humor when they constructed the beautiful idea of connecting with another individual.
Read MoreThis image impeccably illustrates my life. Uninhabited + varied; yet filled with loads of oxymoron’s coupled with a lot of love. Our life is full of many imperfections; but it just works! I envision somewhere in the near future; we will weep tears of joy witnessing this moment come together. This moment is a flourishing smile from the Universe with an assurance that everything is always working out.
Read MoreI wish I could be surprised at how pervasive hate is distributed daily. How it lingers in dark spaces waiting to dismantle souls and glorify the same fear it unleashes onto innocent human beings. I am convinced that self-deprecation is a substance that people ingest when they desire to make others a target. Somewhere in America an individual is utilizing self- destructive behavior to create the most heinous war on black people that even their mere presence is a battlefield.
Read More
This moment is healing in motion striving to overcome the absence of women that put strained obligations of family + career before their children. Bygones! These smiles are therapeutic chandeliers that we are now beginning to hang in lieu of carrying the burdens of unmet needs of endless generations. These emotions are amplified from years of suppressing joy due to abusive lovers, absent parents, neglectful grandparents, Jim Crow, share cropping + clandestine meetings shared between broken adults recycling trauma. It’s complicated! Being black is complicated!
Read More
When I decided to love you I asked the Creator one thing + that was to sustain our love. To give us back every year that our parents spent separated + divorced due to addiction. I asked for intentional presence that despite every hurdle we drew closer together. Proximity is everything with you! I asked for us to dwell in love + even when it seemed difficult that it would surface in the last place we put it.
Read MoreWhen I see my daughter, I am humbled by her ability to carry the weight of peer pressure + being a middle -schooler like a 4-foot promise. Committed + occasionally drenched in momentary sadness; yet wearing her resilience like a finished sentence. On point + exact! She is everything I wanted to be but never had the space, bygones!
Read MoreLately I have been unraveling fear + dissecting how it has caused a wedge in areas of my life. How it has allowed me to listen to well-meaning individuals that refuse to take their own advice. I am convinced that my life + everything about it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Every. Single. Part. Hiding for years has ignited a power in me that permits me to rise into the woman I am destined to be. Being black + queer is everything despite the weight that comes with the obligation of it. It’s hella complicated!
Read MoreLately I have been cultivating love in a new way + taking time to do the things I love. I live in my head as a way to stay unwaveringly grounded. Being unapologetically queer+ black with an understanding of all the things that my parents, parents, parents endured can be extremely heady. It’s complicated! So I work hard to dismantle the parts of my lineage that tend to trip me up.
Read MoreI seek to love my kids in a way that allows them to understand what love looks like + what love feels like. I am honored to have a boy + a girl but truthfully I am always working on being equitable. Judicial in a way that gives my son a space to be soft + loving. I remember when I was younger watching men objectify women + abuse them. Meanwhile, I have had the luxury of dating amazing men; yet I only have felt safe with women. It’s complicated! .
Read MoreLately I have been leaning into life in such a way that has been keeping me prostrate with my heart open. I cannot recall seeing gentle women in my life because they often carried the weight of unrequited love; heavy with deceitful longings. Frustrated at the thought of giving themselves over to another person or having to carry the burden of raising children alone. I have become the remnants of delicate flesh yearning to heal from centuries of not acknowledging the pain.
Read More
I always wanted to loc my hair but I had to shed so much historical bondage around my hair. I used to get my hair pressed with a straightening comb which eventually lead me to perming my hair; yet it never yielded the response I wanted to feel...free. I dreaded the days that my hair ruled everything I did from working out, swimming, enjoying outdoors + even having sex. It’s complicated! I recall how men responded to my hair when it was straight + long; yet I never felt prettier, sexier, or more desired. Ironically, I felt like a replica of someone that needed to be noticed by people who didn’t matter.
Read MoreWhen growing in love, I have been learning to yield more to the Universe. Allowing the Creator to lead me. I have been learning to forgive quickly because holding grudges interferes with the work I am called to do. I have been surrendering + allowing because love needs room to grow + expand. Especially this love. This love is being cultivated with every exchange, every argument, every disagreement, every misunderstanding, every apology, every intimate moment that reminds us that we are changing an old narrative. A narrative that would like to prove that black love doesn’t exist + if it does, it resides only in movies. So I let love rule!
Read MoreThere are moments in life that seemed very different when I was younger + this is one of them. I imagined 40 to look ancient as I decide whether to wash another load of clothes or fix lunches with inconsequential utensils. I pictured myself being in a rat race most days virtually unrecognizable to myself. I visualized myself in a rut, nestled in marriage trying to dodge the 7-year itch + hanging with people who have amputated parts of themselves just to fit in. I envisioned dragging my children to activities as I listen to random people discuss parts of their life they hate. Then I hit 40 + I realized that this moment is more than I ever dreamed. In fact, at 40 I became more of a woman by allowing my scars to be the fuel to navigate my purpose. Actually, at 40 I fell more in love with myself by loving another human being from a perpetual space of forgiveness. If truth be told, at 40 I acknowledged that I hate cooking, I need intimacy at the same frequency as sex or nothing less + I am so grateful to love what I do every day. As a matter of fact, at 40 I recognized that I enjoy people who reflect goodness a hell of lot more than people who deplete my energy. Honestly, at 40 I liberated my children in a way that set us both free + gave me permission to be a woman. The truth is, at 40 I fell in love with me + the beautiful messy journey that got me to this point. Actually, at 40 I am resolved.
Read MoreRaising you + your brother has sometimes all at once been the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It is still difficult, but I love it + sometimes all at once I cry because I love you for being so amazingly resilient. The things you give up as a parent are endless, from sleep, to just getting up + going, to hanging out when you want, to being able to have certain things to yourself + yet sometimes all at once you surrender your will + ego for the greater good. I fear that I have failed you, especially before I found myself because operating from my inner child was rough. I was petty, afraid, insecure at the ways that you loved me + I couldn’t quite love myself (not yet anyway) + then all at once you grew me up. I began to love you in ways that my mother couldn’t often being triggered by the ways that I still needed what I was giving you. It’s complicated! I tell you that sentiment often, because it is extremely complicated as I wonder will I have what it takes to give you the wings you need to soar + sometimes all at once you soar a little higher.
Read MoreWhen met with the daily task of parenting I am often reminded that all of life’s situations serve the purpose of your spiritual evolvement. However, when you are tasked go within yourself in search of the emotional lessons during a common reoccurring show down of parent vs kid; everything that happens to you is significant. Am I still parenting myself? Hell yes! Do I feel like I am a good parent considering all of my faults? Absolutely! Nevertheless, am I often triggered by parenting? Yes, yes, yes! To be honest, my children are growing me up. They are maturing me in ways that my childhood left no room for. The sad byproduct of a parent with unmet needs is the humbling realization that I can either be completely authentic or perpetually embarrassed. So I choose to respectfully surrender my wills to the power of accepting myself (flaws + all) so that I can selflessly accept my children in all of their wonderful glory.
Read MoreI have been sitting quietly, meditating on what exactly to say after I watched the movie US. It was so much to say + yet I wondered where to start. So I chose the obvious. Race. As I look at the faces of black folks, I mourn us for so many reasons. We are years away from our souls + haven’t quite fully recovered nor do I think we ever will. Not in this lifetime anyway. It will take several decades to recover the souls that were snatched from our own land + even more decades to remember who we used to be. The reality is race is something we never knew until it was pointed out to us. It was the damaging effects of how racial preferences have a long institutionalized history that often kept black people from opportunities at the expense of our counterparts. It was African slaves replacing the European indentured servants as a source of free labor. It was the General Sherman’s never making good on his “40 acres and a mule” as reparations. It was Jim Crow laws being instituted in the late 19th Century + not being overturned until the 1960’s which reserved the best, jobs, schools, neighborhoods + hospitals for our counterparts. It was the 1935 Wagner Act which granted collective power + excluded black people from access to better jobs, union protection, healthcare, job security + pensions. It was the the Federal Housing Administration deal known today as “redlining” that was explicitly typing mortgage eligibility to race. It was + continually is the border of justice that has always been clearly defined.
Read MoreThere is a saintly aura that transcends my life every time seasons change. I can feel it in my bones, my back aches + my mind tries to coerce my spirit into thinking this feeling will pass, but the flesh won’t allow it to subside. It is no surprise that I am deeply introspective + probably more honest than others care for me to be. Blame it on my tragic beginning, all the hearts I broke, the lies I told + the trauma I ingested. I gather my mistakes + rinse them daily because unlike most people I see myself clearly because I like my coffee dark with lots of self- reflection. I sit in every choice + every regret until I can cover every circumstance in forgiveness. Lately I’ve experienced all kind of loss which reminds me that I’m still learning how to let grief take a seat until its ready to vacate my sanctuary.
Read MoreNo one escapes the perils of life that pierce us to the point of anguish. Unfortunately for black people, we know this sentiment all too well + are reminded daily as we maneuver our blackness while carrying the weight of our history. It’s complicated! We carry success like a tamed beast; proud but ferocious. We are loving at first glance, appearing to have it altogether but underneath we are tortured by our past. Carrying the weight of having to make it + then free everyone else. Despite our list of accomplishments, black people share a sobering emotional attachment to overcoming mental illness. Often labeled as “crazy” by our own when we vocalize that we couldn’t “pray it away”, therefore resigning to suffer silently rather than reach out for help.
Read More