Happy National Women's Day!

I absolutely love being a WOMAN! I have grown to embrace every part of my womanness. I revel in my femininity that is rough around the edges. I love my creativity and how my particular mind works, ADHD and all. I love the gifts that depression has given – teachings on how to be fearless, joyful, resilient, and filled with faith. The anxiety that was gratefully inherited has opened the path for meditation and prayer as a lifestyle. My addictive nature guides me to dig for what I’m really craving. I love my resistance to “impossible” and how I dare it to be true. I adore my sensitivity, because it can’t tolerate holding grudges and resentment, not even against my self. I ❤️ how I keep the F-word close at hand, because sometimes I just need it. I love my insatiable curiosity and my passion for learning and growing. I love my blackness, its history, and the confidence and resilience it has given me. I love my bruises and scars that remind me of God’s presence and how I have been kept to serve. I have even grown to love my less than perfect skin (that at times still breaks out 😏); it has taught me to see my beauty anyway.  I am grateful for being a mother because it has been my greatest teacher in humility. I love being a daughter, niece, grandchild, aunt, sister- friend; these roles have positioned me to learn, grow, and change. My womanness has been ignored, taken advantage of, discriminated against, and betrayed. And yet, I also love that it has contributed to my integrity and ability to stand in the face of struggle. I love my ability to carry, deliver, and nurture life and the “baby fat” I still carry decades later. This strength has given me space to see potential when there is no evidence. My “baby fat” struggle gives me the gift of powerlessness, and the need to ask for help and be in community. I love the women who have hurt me; these experiences planted in me reservoir of infinitely deep compassion and empathy, with the understanding that we are all doing the best we can in the moment. My habit of speaking without thinking offered the wisdom of pause, sleeping on it, meditating, and journaling. My fear of conflict, which would lead to fear of not being liked, catapulted me into courage, boundaries and self efficacy. I love the mother God gave me, who lives by NEVERTHELESS SHE PERSISTED. This teaches me how to use my innate stubbornness in ways that are productive, creating spaces for others to do the same.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
     ——Marianne Williamson