Trust Me

It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust nobody.        English Proverb I have recently been building a new found friendship with one of my exes from a few years ago.  It appears that we are both in a good place and have mutually decided that a relationship is not in the cards so everything is going relatively smoothly.  Part of me wishes that we had began our relationship more as platonic friends than as romantic friends, but that is in the past now. In one of our conversations I asked my friend if he would be willing to have discussions on my own love life and in particular his thoughts from a male perspective.  Although this was a generalized statement he interpreted my inquiry as a time to tell me what he thought my flaws were in the relationship.  To be honest, I discounted much of what he said.  I can't remember it at all.  But there was one point he mentioned that has stuck with me the past few weeks, trust.  My ex said that when we were together that I had trust issues and that until I resolved them then I will always have trouble being in a relationship.  I realized he has a point. A few days ago while I was driving I came back to this point about my lack of trust of the people I have dated in the past.  However, I had an epiphany.  It really is not just a mistrust of men, but just of people in general.  Where did this come from?  I think it came from my childhood.    It was just my parents and I living in a small Midwestern community.  We had no immediate family close by.  When my parents sick at the same time, I had to rely a lot on myself to get things done or to figure things out.  I have always had this mentality that the only person you can really rely on is yourself because the people around you will not always be there.  Or that people will always let you down.  It was particularly cynical way to look at the world as a teenager. This premise is the foundation for my overachiever mentality.  I am pretty sure that my trust issues make me very hard on myself.  I set this standards and goals for myself that are very hard, if not impossible to reach.  And then I get mad at myself when I do not accomplish them.  I mean if I cannot trust myself to do things, how can I even begin to trust others? Other things have happened in my adult life that I am not comfortable going into great detail about at this time.  But I will say I have felt that in the past the trust that I have put in others that I have looked up to has been betrayed.  I usually don't share a lot of my inner most feelings with others (which is kind of ironic that I have a blog doing just that).  But when I do share it makes me feel extremely vulnerable.  I did this with some people who I trusted, who I thought I had my best interest at hand, and I was burned, badly.  It is a feeling that I am not sure I can ever get over, but I know that I need to work on in order to become a better person. But yes this mistrust does extend to my dating life.  Why?  I just have this general sense that most, and I said most, not all, guys are just kind of worthless.  Hold on, I know that every person is worth something, that is not what I meant.  I just feel like a lot of guys treat dating like a game.  They will lie, cheat, steal, do whatever they can to conquer and win, at any cost.  In fact, my friend who said I had trust issues also confirmed in the same conversation that 9 out of 10 guys are just playing the field and "stockpiling women".   I know there are some good guys out there though, I think I actually am friends with a lot of them.  But they are my friends.  Where are the guys that are not my friends and are still decent human beings?  The truth is though, that at least I can spot the bad ones and not waste my time.  People are supposed to earn your trust right?  So why should I trust someone that already appears to be untrustworthy from the start? So I guess the point is yes, I know I have trust issues.  I guess I am going to have to work on it.

It's Never Too Late

I am more than half way through The Purpose Driven Life.  I am enjoying reading this book more than I had imagined and I encourage you to read it for yourselves.  Today is Day 23 of the book and the subject is "How We Grow."  The author writes that we as followers of Jesus tend to never grow past our spiritual infancy.  To grow takes a conscious effort and commitment, a decision.  To do this you have to change the way that you think.  He says that it is never too late to do this.  It seems so simple, but little do we truly believe in the power of our thoughts.

Many times before I heard of the power of positive thinking.  You know this premise that if you think negatively that your outcome in turn will also be negative.  Did you know that even thinking bad thoughts is a sin?  Sometimes it only takes one seed of negativity to ruin your day.  A few posts ago I wrote about how I from time to time try to send positive greetings to my friends in the morning.  This is so my friends have a fresh positive perspective to begin their day.

I believe that many people do not believe in the consequence inviting negative thoughts and images into their mind.  A few decades ago members of Congress spoke out about how rap lyrics were causing violence in America.  Later on violent video games replaced this argument.  While I don't believe that there is a direct link between rap lyrics and violence, I do believe that one influences the other.  The constant bombardment of violent and sexual images definitely affect how we function as a society.  We are so de-sensitized at this point that nothing really shocks us anymore.  What are the limits?

A few of my friends what Love and Hip Hop Atlanta and the Basketball Wives.  These are two shows that I had to stop watching.  I actually felt like the violence on the show was starting to make me feel more aggressive.  Well it is that, but also the negative portrayal of black females, which I may write about another day.  Does their behavior please God?  Does it reflect that they are trying to grow in their spirituality?

Some people have adopted this name it and claim mentality when it comes to God, but I am not certain that this is what God wants either.  I don't think that everything that we name, we should claim.  And sometimes when we do name it and claim it, it turns out that it really wasn't what we wanted in the first place.

So how will changing our mind help is grow in our relationship with God?  God wants us to grow and become more in his image.  When you change your mindset and realize that you are here because of God and you are here to please God then it will as a result change your actions.  When you stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about others, that is how you grow in your spiritual maturity.  What can you do to start thinking God's way?

A Heavy Burden

I know what it feels like to carry a lot of weight in a society that's very image-conscious. It's a thin person's world, and we try to navigate within it without being made fun of.

Kevin Smith

I grew up a heavy child.  Once a white nutritionist told me that I was big-boned.  I thought that was something that only black people called each other, but apparently it is a real thing!  You know when you are younger a chubby/chunky little girl with big pinchable cheeks is cute right?  Well chubby/chunky on an adult is fat/obese and is definitely not cute.  All through my childhood the doctors told my parents that I needed to lose weight.  I know that I was slightly heftier than the other kids.  I especially knew this when I had to be fitted for basketball uniforms or band uniforms.  In fact those were the days I dreaded.  I was always scared that I wouldn't be able to participate because they wouldn't be able to find something that could fit me.  In fact, I think that is part of the reason that I never auditioned for a play, even when I always thought it would be a fun thing to do.  Yet in high school I wasn't made fun of, which I was always surprised about.  I had always wondered why I wasn't the target of the cruel kid's humor.  I guess it is because I tried to be as funny and as personable as possible so everyone would ignore the fact that I had some front and side chub.

So my weight issues followed me into college.  Although instead of just carrying weight around I was now carrying asthma.  I was so used to wheezing and coughing that I had stopped noticing I was doing it.  Imagine walking 20 minutes across campus while coughing and wheezing.  It was tiring and it was embarrassing.  Sometimes I would stop breathing to see if was my breathing that I heard or something else in my environment.

Then it was law school.  You think being the poorest I had ever been would slow down my weight gain.  Nope.  I was in Louisiana, where the food was good and the men did most of the best cooking!  By the end of law school I was sure that I was going to die from my weight and its complications.  I begged God to get me through my last few weeks in school so I could go back home and start over.  Well, as I am writing, you can tell that I survived.  I enrolled in Weight Watchers and starting going to the gym regularly.  I lost 70 lbs!

Well that was a few years ago.  I have managed not to get back to my heaviest weight of 265, but the scales have been slowly tipping upwards.  Gaining weight is such an embarrassment, especially after having lost such a big amount.  In fact, instead of using your previous accomplishment as a motivator, it actually can just make you kind of ashamed and depressed.  But I definitely know I am not alone.  My friends have the same issues.  We go up and down together as if it were a club, Weight Gainers R Us.  Yeah, that is the worst club in the world!

The thing is, I don't want to go up and down anymore.  In the back of my mind I keep thinking that my body is a temple, yet I am treating it so poorly.  Part of me thinks that maybe if I weren't so big that I would get that job that I am looking for.  Or maybe I would be married by now.  Or perhaps I would be overall happier.

While all of that may be true, the truth is I just want to be healthy.  I want to feel better.  There is nothing like the feeling after a good workout.  For me it makes me happy and it makes me want to eat healthier.  But  the problem is starting and maintaining.  I guess when you know you have a lot to lose it can be so overwhelming and it seems almost impossible.  But I am not going to give up.  My dad is my motivation.  He died at 41 and I always wonder if maybe he hadn't been overweight his life could have been different.

So by writing all of this I will try to keep myself accountable.  Maybe you need someone to hold you accountable as well?  We can do this, together.

Who said you were the judge

I was reminded of an important lesson yesterday when I was chatting with my cousin.  She reminded me that I am not in the position of judging others.  This point was confirmed during my daily meditation this morning, so I figured it would be a good topic to share.

One day I was asking my friend whether he wanted to get a tattoo.  He told me he was considering either praying hands or a cross.  Both I thought were interesting decisions for someone who didn't regularly attend church nor I thought who read the bible.  I guess I said something to this effect, and he said that he prays regularly and the subject was dropped.  But still his hypothetical choice for a tattoo lingered in my mind, why would someone one not strong in their faith get such a tattoo?  I pondered this question with my cousin, who I often come to with questions of religion.  My cousin, thank goodness, put me in my place.  She reminded me that one's relationship with God is individual and that I don't know what the relationship is like between my friend and God.  I can't judge someone's relationship based on my own.

Really, she gave me the reminder that I needed.  I have to remember that even though I am excited about my journey and I want everyone to share and grow alongside me that that is not going to happen.  As I work on myself, I have to refrain from judging others that are not in my same situation.  I don't think that I do it out of hatred or wanting to be better than someone, I just am enjoying the ride so much that I want others to following in my joy.

However, some people judge others out of a bad place.  The recent arguments about gay marriage and even abortion invoke such negative spirit.  Many people are judging gay people or people who want abortions as if they are evil people and less than a person.  While we can disagree with the sin, we are supposed to still love the person.  But the truth is, it is not our place to judge others anyway.  Why is this?  Because we are all inherently imperfect by nature.  No matter how hard we try, no matter how many of the rules we follow, we will never be perfect.  As humans, we tend to think that some sins are worse than others.  The truth is there is no hierarchy to sinning.  You can't sin a little bit.  Gluttony is on the same level as murder.  Any sin is looked at the same no matter how much that you try to justify it to yourself.  So to me it has always been crazy to hear the stories when people kill abortion doctors.  Or others have affairs while they are married, but still have staunch views against gay marriage.  No one is above sinning, and no one but God is really the judge.

So in the future I need to check myself.  Who said I was the judge?  No one.

The Importance of Friendship

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.

Octavia Butler

Growing up in Illinois my friends were like my family.  I am an only child with two parents.  The only family that I saw were in Maryland and Virginia and I only saw them once or twice a year.  As a result, I felt like I had no one I could really vent to and talk about things except my friends.  My friends growing up helped me deal with all of the sickness going on with my family.  I looked forward to all the sleepovers or even just the bike rides that stretched out far beyond the city limits.  One of my friends from those days reminded me of the impromptu back to school/birthday bashes that I held every year.  It is kind of funny how I still do that to this day.

This weekend I celebrated my 31st birthday with friends and family.  It was truly one of the best birthdays I have ever had from start to finish.  There by my side my two besties were there, as usual, walking , eating, laughing, and drinking with me.  My best friends are like my sisters.  They are as important to me as my family.  We have seen each other at our best and our worst and still live to tell the tales.  They the are people who lift me up when I am down and the inspire me to my greatness.  They guide me on my journey, but let me make my own mistakes when I need to.  I am so blessed to have them in my life.

I had a friend once who told me that his friendships are in tiers.  Meaning, that there are different levels of friendships for his friends.  The higher the tier, the closer the friendship.  At first I was annoyed because I felt as if I should have been in the top tear, but I hadn't reached that yet.  However, years later I still remember this discussion.  He was right, friendships do have different levels.  I consider myself to be a very outgoing and friendly person.  I can make new friends easily.  But my true friends are the ones that I consider to be the people who I hold to a different standard.

My friends and I sometimes have the conversation about how other people survive without friends.  I don't believe that God made us not to have friends.  I mean even Jesus, who was perfect, had his own crew.  The past few days of reading The Purpose Drive Life, have been focused on fellowship.  To me fellowship and friendship are the same thing.  Although, some may say that fellowship has a spiritual component, I don't feel that having different spiritual beliefs  is a barrier to fellowship.  In fact, when I looked up the definition for fellowship on Dictionary.com, one of the definitions is "companionship;friendship".  

Back to the book, the author explains to have a fellowship you must:  share true feelings, encourage each other, support each other, forgive each other, speak the truth in love, admit our weaknesses, respect our differences, not gossip, and make group a priority.  The author writes later that a fellowship is giving away selfishness and independence and replacing it with interdependence.  Do your fellowships look like this?  Do your friendships looks like this?  Maybe it is time for an evaluation.  Maybe you put your friends in this category but your friendship lacks some of these characteristics.  Or perhaps you realize you have friends who are like this with you, but you don't exhibit all of these qualities yourself.  

Why not look at your friendships today?  And if you realize how important your friendships/fellowships are to you then tell them so.  Your friends with thank you for it :)

Letter to Myself

Today is my birthday eve.  I usually do some sort of reflection around my birthday and at the end of the year.        This year I have decided to write a letter to 16 year old self.  Why 16?  A lot of things happened that year for me.  I got my drivers license, my dad died, and I moved to Maryland, not all at once of course.  So here goes...

Dear 16 Year Old Adia,

Hey Adia, this is me, yourself at almost 31.  I am writing you today to tell you some things that I have learned and how to better prepare you for your future.  You will be having a lot that goes on this year.  I want to encourage you to stay strong through it all, because it is going to be rough.  However, I know that you will be able to get through everything and will be able to tell other people your story.

The first thing, do not lie about hanging out at your friend's house instead of going to art club to help decorate for homecoming.  You end up not being able to see out of the back of the car and you backed up in to a ditch.  You ended up messing up the car and you were grounded.  Don't do that in the future.  It kind of sucked.

Second thing, spend as much time with Dad as possible.  You don't know this yet but dad's cancer is going to come back quickly and he is going to end up passing away in a month.  I know it seems crazy to think about right now, but it will happen.  Use this time by trying to find out as much about his family and his background as possible.  Make sure you do it now, because it will bother you not knowing this information for the rest of your life.  Also try not to act like a teenager with all that angst and anger, just be nice to him, because he really is a good guy.  And if you have the chance, go with him more to the Community Center.  Find out what he does so that you can learn, and do it in the future.

Next, forgive Mom.  I know that sometimes she wasn't the nicest person growing up.  Shoot at this point in your life, she still might not be the nicest, but she is your mom.  It turns out that she may have had some issues while you were growing up.  I didn't find out until more recently.  But try to forgive her for the way she was in the past.  Now she is totally different in many ways.  She is going to need you and she will depend on you for the rest of your life.  It will be a lot easier once you forgive her for how she acted in the past, because she won't even remember what happened.  Plus she loves you despite the lack of saying it or the hugs.  She will tell you a lot later on.

Save money!  I know you don't have a job yet.  Your first job will be working at Kmart in Maryland.  I know it seems very random but it is true.  There will be a time when you don't have a job.  So now that you have the chance, put a little bit of your money away as much as you can and don't touch it.  If you had started this when you were 17 you would be very rich right now haha.

Network!  I don't even know what this means to a 16 year old.  Your personality is going to continue to grow throughout your life.  Take advantage of this.  Get to know people, make friends, and keep in touch with people.  You may need to call some favors along the way, and you may need to help people as well.

Go to church.  Remember when you were younger?  You said that once you got your license how you wanted to try out different religions and go to different churches until you found the right one?  You never did that.  You really only started regularly going to church in college.  Start developing your relationship with God now.  Otherwise, you're going to feel behind.  It might seem overwhelming at first, but eventually you will feel like your relationship with God is the one thing you were missing all along.

Don't worry about boys.  I mean I don't think you are really concerned about them.  I know you change crushes as you change pants and that's fine.  You are going to be a late bloomer.  It's ok.  There is no need to rush.  And in your time about not worrying about dating, you are probably not seeing some of the guys who are interested in you.  They are out there I promise.  So make sure to open your eyes a little bit.  Dress up sometimes and don't be afraid of makeup.  Just to warn you, you will get your heart broken more than once and you feel like you will never be able to trust or love again, but you will.  It will just take some time.  Just trust your gut.  If you feel like a guy isn't for you let him go sooner rather in later, it will be a hard lesson for you to learn in the future.

Finally,  I just want to say self, I love you.  You are a beautiful and amazing young lady.  You are thoughtful, caring, and compassionate.  You are going to grow up to make a difference in people's lives.  It is not going to be an easy path and you are going to struggle, but you will make it.  You have a good foundation that will prepare you for your future.  I know that you are an overachiever, but stop always being so hard on yourself.  I also know that you feel like you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.  I don't know if that will ever change.  But don't forget to lean in to your friends and family.  You have an excellent support system! They love you and they are there for you.   And also remember to have fun!  Don't take life so seriously that you miss out on the fun of life.

Love ya,

Adia

The Power of Fear

Remember when you were little how one look from your mother could insight fear in you.  It was like you could already feel the wrath of her belt on your bottom before the first blow was delivered.  I have been told that my face turns bright red when I'm angry and makes the strongest people weak lol.  Ok I am exaggerating, but my face does turn red when I am mad and I did hear it was kind of scary.

The point is that people use the power of fear as a measure of control.  My mom's look could stop me from doing whatever I was doing wrong.  This has long been an issue that I have been concerned about. Throughout history fear has been used to control people.  Wars, slavery, judicial systems, have been built around fear.  Today, I was reminded about it after reading an article on CNN.  http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/23/us/texas-judge-warning/index.html.  In the article, a Judge in Texas suggested that there will be a civil war if  President Obama is re-elected.  I was saddened by not shocked by this rhetoric.  With the the election of our newest President there have been more and more efforts to resort to measures of fear.  The thing that bothers me the most is not that there are people who believe that this is true, but more that people who do not believe things to be true, but say it anyway to strike fear in others.

I believe that a lot of shock jocks and tv networks do this very thing.  Rush Limbaugh, Hannity and Combs, Fox News, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, they all make these outrageous statements that you just have to wonder about their motives.  My opinion:  they don't actually believe what they say, but they believe in making money.  Therefore, they say things that are outrageous to excite their base and therefore, make money.  I know that it is a cynical stance, however it is the only justification I have.

What also makes such statements worrisome is that they teeter on the racial tensions that been present in this country for years.  By its own nature prejudice is a product of fear.  Dictionary.com defines prejudice as "an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason."  People become racist when they hate others based on their prejudice.  It is a fear of the unknown about other races.

Since Mr. Obama began his presidential run years ago it appears that racial insensitivity has risen, despite many of the pundits thinking that this would be a means to a racial utopia.  Jokes, phrase, pictures continue to pop up that are bigoted, prejudiced, and just plain ignorant.  President Obama was even booed when he was giving a State of the Union Address by a Congressmen.  One has to wonder if President Obama was not black if all of this would be going on?  And now a judge says there is going to be a civil war, as if a civil war in the United States is not one of the main icons of slavery and racial oppression of our country.  People continue to use scare tactics as a means of gaining electoral votes.  Not only the racism but even just taking advantage of a time in our lives where there is economic and personal financial instability.

My old pastor used to say never unquestioningly trust people in the pulpit, the same is true here.  Don't trust someone just because the have a title or they are an elected official because they may not have your best interests at hand.  Do your own research and don't act out of fear because then you have all of the power.