The Evolution of Perspective

I don't know what it means either. I used to write a wrap-up at the end of the year and reflect on what I learned about me and how I've grown and how my perspective had evolved. Nothing is coming to mind and nothing has come to mind recently when I thought about writing this blog. Fact: I'm on the other side of transition. I broke the ceiling that was in between me and my next level. Now I just have to unlock the door to climb the stairs. Fact: I'm single again. I know I'm a different woman because I don't feel like it's a terrifying position to be in at 40 years old. I like meeting new people and I'm looking forward to creating a beautiful experience in my love life next go round. Fact: I am no longer angry. I'm no longer irritated or irritable. I'm more aware of my feelings, my triggers, and my self-imposed obstacles. I am no longer angry. Fact: This is the most peaceful I have ever been in my entire life. 2014 was a blur for me.

Click Here to Listen  Ellen Gee welcomes Wise Woman Shameeka Dream and songstress CynDiva back to this episode of The Evolution of Perspective. Shameeka Dream catches Ellen up on which dreams she's been manifesting and her current and future projects in 2015. CynDiva, the friendly neighborhood Diva, comes back to the show to celebrate the release of her most recent project with Ellen Gee. Shameeka Dream is a Reiki Master Teacher, dream facilitator and manifestor, performance artist, poet, educator, speaker, and activist,.  She is on a journey to make healing more accessible and to help individuals and artists make their dreams come true. Find out more at www.shameekadream.com CynDiva, a Baltimore native, has been singing and performing nearly all of her life. She is a singer, songwriter, radio personality, event host, and actor. She recently completed Dreadloc'd Soul Volume 1 with well known producer Knatty 410.

I was sitting there and I could feel the tension building. I sensed the irritation growing. I didn't want to listen. I didn't want to participate. I started tuning people out. This is one of my anger patterns. I witnessed it happening today. It was interesting. So o.k. I’m angry. Now what? I started talking about being angry. I said, “I’m angry as shit.” I said it because I was. Then I started talking about why I was angry. I was also resentful. I was resentful because things changed. I knew that they were going to change and I knew I would be both angry and resentful. Knowing it is one thing. Feeling it is something else. This is some basic shit, right?  Anyway, I realized that I would be both angry and resentful because I would both take the lead and be expected to take the lead in a situation. I recognized that I am uncomfortable in silence and stillness and when I believe there is no movement or progression occurring…..or at least my perception of what movement or

So I'm having a discussion about anger today right. I realize that I've fallen into the slither of space in the world that is designated for the angry black woman. Anyone who knows me well knows that I can be a very angry person. I have control issues. I want my life to be smooth and easy and shit. And because that's not the way my life is set up, I react with anger. It's quick. It's swift. Then it's over. I started writing a blog a while ago about anger. Here's what I ended up with: This blog has been a long time coming. I think I reached a tipping point today, so instead of lashing out I will write it out. I've been angry. My mood has been set mostly to anger lately. Small things have angered me. Old things have angered me. People close to me have annoyed and angered me. New things have angered me.  I don't like this part of living. I understand that I'm not going to be happy all the time. I, however, do not like being angry. I don't kn

My cheerleader is gone. She got tired. She packed up her overworked pom poms and rolled right out. I’m sitting here wondering when she’s coming back. I need her. But I overworked her.  I spent the bulk of 2014 doing 100 miles easy. I kept telling myself that I needed to grind. The grind does not grind itself. The brand does not brand itself. And my network will not increase from the comfort of my living room. Looking back on my year, I now realize that I exhausted myself. I’m tired physically. I’m tired mentally. And more importantly, I’m tired emotionally and psychologically.  I am currently unable to “feel” much of anything. That’s partially due to the crash I had recently. I reluctantly have to admit that I was not successful at being Super Woman this year. I hit a brick wall…..HARD. Most of the things I did for others this year were overshadowed by a strong sense of resentment and regret. I did not want to help all of the people I helped. I did not want to be there for all of the p

October has been one hell of a month for me. It's been extra rough for me and a lot of people around me. It's been busy and I've been managing to make it to the end of each week. I haven't made it unscathed every week. Between the negative energy, anger, deaths, Mercury Retrograde, frustration, and just plain chaoticness of it all, I am noticing that I'm paying more attention to the calendar and waiting eagerly and anxiously for October to be over. I have, however, learned that you probably shouldn't try to rush time because there's no guarantee that there is something better waiting around the corner for you. So I'm peeking at the calendar. I'm barely making it through my days though yall. I looked back at the calendar. It's Fall. It's the time of the year that my system goes haywire trying to get adjusted to the change in season. She said,  " the change in sunlight effects me too and it made it easier to infiltrate." A few

Ok, so I'm having a conversation with someone and he's telling me about this guy he knows. The guy is super petty and doesn't follow man code. He goes on to say how the guy acts like "a female". *disclaimer: I know people are offended by the term "female" because they feel like it dehumanizes women. This, however, is not a battle that I side with. I've found more insulting definitions and associations of the words woman, girl, and lady. end disclaimer* What I don't understand is how AND WHEN and more importantly WHY someone "acting like", "being like", or behaving like "a girl/female/woman/lady/chick" is insulting. If a man violates man code, he's not acting according to the code. PERIOD. Not acting like a man does not automatically equate to "acting like a woman. And if it does, I need for someone to break it down for me so that I can understand the foolishness . There are gender identified behaviors

I'm hot tempered. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a short fuse. As I've gotten older, I've been able to pick and choose the flames that ignite my fuse a little more. But the fact still remains that I'm hot tempered and have a short fuse. Fortunately, I don't stay angry for a long time. My anger is like a stick of dynamite. It lights, builds, crackles, explodes, then it's over.  Now that I think about it, a lot of my emotions are that way. They aren't sustained over long periods of time. They come and they go. Irritation tends to linger a little longer than the rest of them. I've learned to short circuit my sadness.  It took me years (and therapy and some well invested time) to come to grips with my emotions. And when I say come to grips with them, I only mean being able to identify them. There's a part of me that still doesn't believe I should experience negative emotions. I don't know why though. Maybe it's because I be

I realized today that the anger and frustration that have been welling up inside of me are because of 1 person in particular. This person has been wreaking havoc in my peace for a long time and I've been letting her. She's been disturbing shit. She's ME. Recent realizations in conversations with friends: I get so angry at people it's like I have no compassion or very little compassion for people and their choices I get angry at people when they die because I know most of the time it comes from poor choices I feel like people are just wasting their lives away and that makes me angry and part of the reason I get angry is that they put their "shit" on others but I have to remember when I didn't exercise MY OPTIONS I don't want to be that woman I don't want to be that person judging people because I know what I know now that is UNFAIR it took me 40 years to change The OTHER issue has been taming my savior complex.

I used to vent here. I E.Volved here. I backslid here. I vented here. I changed here. I USED TO VENT HERE. I haven't posted in forever. For some, that's not a good thing. For me, however, I realize in retrospect that I haven't had a lot to complain about. I've been busy. I've been building. I've been connecting. I have not been causing or participating in destruction. HOW FUCKIN AWESOME AM I? I make a decision to do and be better and I look up and am better than a motherfugger. I have to decide what I will do with this blog since I won't be needing it to vent regularly. I don't really have the kind of time I want to reflect on things in a way that would be an enjoyable reading experience. I gotta think of something to do with this space. And because I'm a hoarder and have issues with walking away, this thing might live forever. LOL I don't want to abandon this blog. I've watched my the evolution of my perspective in real time. We'll

I speak to my children often about their ability to create the life that they want. We have conversations about choices and options and exercising judgement in a way that maximizes opportunities in life. I feel like the majority of us are living our lives in a way that prevents us from being present in the moment. We're reconciling the choices we made years ago. What I realized today is that I don't speak enough to myself about creating the life that I want. I've accepted my current situation, but I don't think of what my best situation looks like. I avoid complaining as much as possible, but I am not sure I concentrate my energies on creating an optimal situation for me. I believe being a living example is far more effective than giving a highly charged speech. Walking the walk is the new black. I admit that I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the things that I don't want in my life. The thing about that is that that doesn't increase

I had a blog in me earlier today. I was pondering my behavior again. I realize that I'm not a monster but I do have a problem managing my emotions. When I say problem managing my emotions, I mean I have not made a habit of putting a pause in between a situation and my reaction to it. I do not consistently allow time to process which reaction is appropriate to the particular situation I'm in. Let's be clear. I am used to reacting from a certain set of responses. These were my core responses to situations that I either created over and over again or experienced over and over again. One of them is fear. One of them is anger. I was so used to automatically pulling one of these two out of my bag that people changed the way they approached me and "handled" their interactions with me. People were on edge. They walked around on egg shells. They were uncomfortable. At first, I was oblivious to the reactions I caused. When I became aware of them, sometimes I didn't care

You know how you co-sign a man beating a woman to a pulp because she started some shit with him and....HOLD UP! In 2014, a significant part of our collective consciousness believes it's ok for a man to hit, beat, punch, kick, choke, and do everything else except restrain and then walk away from a woman if she provokes him enough. That provocation could be words, it could be violence, or it could be anything else that they believe warrants violent retaliation. "She's getting what was coming to her. A man can only take so much before he hits her back." Let me have an honesty moment. I have a problem keeping my hands to myself. I've hit, punched, thrown things at, and attempted to hurt some men in my life. I have a very difficult time containing and resolving my anger. It's quick. To do my part, I've taken steps to help myself. I admit this out loud to say that as a woman with a problem, I know that it's NEVER ok for me to hit someone. I know this befor

While I'm sitting here listening to AbRock - When I Say freestyle   , I'm reflecting on one of the biggest lessons I've been struggling with in my life. I've been a control freak since I was a child. I've been a liar, manipulator, the nice one, the supportive one, and the leader in various stages in my life. And it's all been to either subtly or overly attempt to control outcomes. As a parent, I exercised my control freakness to the infinity degree. I'm glad my children survived. I'm glad they thrived. I thought it was my duty and my responsibility to control who they turned out to be. Nurturing them? Yeah, I nurtured them alright....by telling them what to do and how to do it. It wasn't until they were older that I realized that parenting is not synonymous with molding. They are their own person. They are their own individual. They are a mixture of me, their father, and life. The best way to guide children is to be an example of what you want them t

I said WAS...or at least I thought he was. I thought I understood him. I thought I figured him out. Nah son. What I DID do was try to put him in my pocket. I tried to make him do what I wanted him to do. I tried to use him to manipulate people, situations, and things. It's really just dawning on me right now how absolutely tyrannical and indignant I can be when it comes to time. And because there was an immediate benefit to me being that way, I justified staying that way. I thought something was wrong with people who didn't have (what I considered it to be) respect for time. I just didn't understand them. I didn't want to. All I knew was I took pride in showing up early. I took pride in showing up on time. I was proud to say that I didn't keep people waiting on me. I was proud to say that I was reliable. I can say with a little bit of disgust that I was borderline obsessive about managing time. And because people who show up early or on time are generally viewed

I'm going to write about this from my personal experience and try to refrain from. ....man FTS..... Ok so if you're familiar with popular social media websites, you're probably familiar with "the inbox" *cue dramatic music* This is the place where we go to catch up with old friends, get acquainted with news one, share stories, gossip about people and situations, share information, promote ourselves, etc etc. This is also a place where men violate the boundaries of their relationship. I understand that I am preaching to the choir right now and that the people who might benefit from reading this may either ignore or dismiss it BUT I'm going to write about it anyway. If you're in a committed relationship, married, or connected to a woman, WHY do you flirt with, pursue, and/or harass other women on social media? Do you need a hobby? Do you need to work on your relationship? Is it a sign that it might not be the relationship for you? Do you know what it

I was communicating via text with one of my social media friends turned real life friend. We call each other soul sisters. I have a lot of internet sisters. I have two sisters in real life. I don't have as many internet brothers. I have two brothers in real life. I don't have any internet mamas or papas but there are some people I associate with who are older than me and I value their wisdom and insight and I respect their presence in my life. My real family is not as connected. My real family connections are not as meaningful. I ask myself how it is that I can be vulnerable and open with virtual people and can't don't want to with my blood relatives. I ask myself how is it that I can want to meet and connect with people I meet online and build solid relationships with them, but lose the enthusiasm and desire to maintain the already established ones in my immediate family. I'm sure I'm not alone because I'm someone who has trouble accepting family "

You know the old saying about honey and vinegar right? Yeah, well, I'm trying to figure out whether or not I really want to catch bees anyway. Today was interesting in the sense that I realized (again) that I am just hardheaded. The fact that I have the answers I need to a lot of situations and scenarios or that I am able to gain clarity through hard work and still come out on the other end of crazy with the same sense of insanity is just......wooooooo I'm not beating myself up. Trust. I'm just realizing again. Familiarity is a motherfu..... It disguises itself as comfort. It's not comfort. It's just familiar. I need not get it twisted. Comfort is different. There's very little anxiety that comes along with my comfort. There's very little uncertainty that comes with my comfort. I feel another shift coming on. I don't want to rush my way to my bottom but it sure would be nice to hit it sooner than later. I'm ready to bounce back up.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I started the process of my evolution back in 2006. Since then, I’ve made strides, I’ve backslid, and I’ve reconciled some situations with my self. The one thing that I’ve been consistent about since then has been working on bridging the gap between who I am and who I want to be. I’ve been pretty aggressive about it considering. It dawned on me, however, that I’ve never fully accepted who I am. I’ve denied parts of myself that I felt were too vulnerable to expose, too raw to share, and too humiliating to admit. I whitewashed my history and polished my present. I thought this was how I would carve out my future. The crazy thing about doing so was that I thought I was doing the right thing. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t on the proper path. In retrospect, I realize that I did the best I could with what I had at the time. Today, I realize that when I talked to myself, I used the word should a lot. It helped me be in denial about