Power in Submission

I am a control freak. I often feel things won’t get done properly or at all if I don’t do them myself. As I journey inwardly in search of truths and answers I am discovering there is power in submission.

Submission simply means to yield or to stop trying to fight or resist something; to agree to do or accept something that you have been resisting or opposing. My only resolution/word for the year 2015 was organic. I promised myself I would allow things to naturally unfold in my life, take it all in, and go with the flow to see what would happen. This has been one of the most challenging yet rewarding years of my life to date. I am yielded to the unknown and having to learn to trust God and the infinite wisdom and perfect timing of the Universe in all facets concerning: my children, finances, spiritual growth and evolution, my heart, emotions, everything. This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

Being yielded to the unknown is causing me to make various changes in the way I think, view people and situations, and is causing me to question my deepest motives for everything I do. To find these answers I am forced to go deeper into myself. It has been disheartening yet freeing to realize I have been lying to myself about why I do certain things. What a humbling experience.

I got to this place via frustration with the stagnant pace of my life. I got mad at God and started asking why about so many things. I was in search of the truth, honest truth, not what I had been taught to believe was true or what I told myself was truth to get past emotionally tough times. I needed to know why I wasn’t progressing in life as I should. What was the blockage?

The blockage was me and my need to control everything. I am terribly afraid of poverty and not ever settling down with the man that allows me to totally be all of me. The fear of being lovelorn causes me to hold on so tightly to my heart that I choke the life out of anything good that could possibly grow there. Fear of poverty causes me to stress myself out trying to ensure my children and I never go without, and that in turn is one of the quickest ways to end up in poverty. The truth, my truth, is bitter but healing. In submitting to truth, love, God, the unknown, and the Universe I am starting to realize and believe I have the power to determine the outcome of my destiny.

Mommy Chronicles: Allergies, Asthma, &...MILK?!

I’ve had the displeasure of nervously sitting in the waiting areas of hospitals twice as my youngest son underwent surgery to have tubes inserted into his ears due to frequent ear infections. Paying thousands of dollars per year for visits to allergists was no fun, either, especially when nothing seemed to work long term. Giving another person a saline rinse is pretty much one of the grossest things ever, but I received so much joy as globs and globs of snot were dispelled from my baby’s nose after the rinses. The things that bring mothers joy.

My youngest son loves milk and orange juice. When he was around three he started having recurring ear infections, really horrible colds seemingly year round, hearing loss, and constant wheezing in his chest. His pediatrician suspected that he wasn’t suffering from colds, rather he had severe allergies and asthma, so she referred us to an allergist.

The allergist conducted breathing and allergy tests and came to the conclusion that he did in fact suffer from allergies and asthma. He put my son on steroids that seemed to help, but he gained so much weight. He went from a super skinny kid that was considered normal healthy weight but tall for his age to being considered clinically obese within a week of being on the meds prescribed by the allergist.

All of this led to about four years of constant back and forth appointments between the pediatrician, ear nose and throat specialists, and the allergist. This definitely took its toll on me emotionally and financially. His flare-ups would always occur at the worst times for me. Sometimes it got so bad I would literally sit in my car, cry, and yell at God for this being so difficult. I was a single mother, and his expenses were draining my finances. I made up in my mind that I was no longer taking him to all these specialists that couldn’t cure him.

I did a ton of research on allergies and how they were directly linked to asthma. The trigger for all his complications seemed to stem from his love of cow milk! I wouldn’t let him drink milk for periods at a time and noticed he had no asthma flare-ups and little to no congestion the led to ear infections which led back to the asthma. I put him on almond milk because I read even soy milk can be a bit unhealthy. He hated almond milk and begged me to buy cow milk. When I did all the symptoms came rushing back: congestion, allergies, and asthma.

I no longer buy cow milk, and he’s adjusted to that. More orange juice suffices for him. Every now and again he will ask for regular milk, but I simply refuse. I have grown quite accustomed to not fretting before bed hoping he doesn’t wake up super congested all because I forgot to give him a saline rinse, allergy tab, and asthma treatment before he fell asleep.

Finding the culprit of his ailments has spurred me to invest more time researching a more holistic approach to life overall. I now make one hundred percent beeswax candles to purify the air in our home, and he and I are working together to help him lose the weight he gained from years of steroid use. What was once considered a huge burden spawned into a life overhaul. We are taking baby steps, but we’ll get there.

Do you have any problems with cow milk?

Let It Go

There can be such liberty in letting go, both voluntarily as well as involuntarily. Many times we cling very tightly to the things we are familiar with for fear of the unknown and of being lost. I am discovering that there can be much joy, pleasure, truth, and healing on the other side of release. I have been going through my own process of releasing and letting go.

If you have followed my blog from the Truth Spewing Fire of my Heart days, then you know my relationship with my ex-husband is pretty much nonexistent. He got re-married before we got the chance to resolve the  issues from the marriage and divorce. We got that chance earlier this year after being forced to come together to discuss some issues our eldest son was going through. I was able to tell my ex-husband exactly how I felt about him, his parenting (or lack thereof), his new wife, and how he left me out there alone to care for our sons. He was, in turn, able to tell me exactly how he felt about me as well. A few weeks later his wife reached out to me via social media, and I was able to tell her exactly how I felt about her. For years I never rocked the boat and never fully voiced my true sentiments about them to them because my goal was to keep the peace for the sakes of my sons. Do you want to know how it felt to finally be able to get that off my chest? It felt amazing. I realized I had been harboring hurt, resentment, and anger for almost seven years behind people that genuinely weren’t worth it, especially when I got a glimpse into their lives and realized without an ounce of doubt that I indeed made the wisest decision when I filed for divorce. No one is worth harboring negative thoughts and emotions over. I wish them well.

I have worked in Oil and Gas for as long as I can remember with no real issues, but the closer I got to my eighth year work anniversary the more angst I began to feel. I hated going to work because the work I was doing seemed pointless to me, and hardly a day went by I didn’t get sexually harassed from colleagues and managers alike. I would look out the window of my office and long for the day I could work for myself and enjoy the nice sunny days outside at the park or take long lunches with my favorite people. I felt like a caged bird that was dying, doing the exact same thing every single day with very little variation. I wanted to quit every morning, but I didn’t want to quit without having something else lined up. There were rumors of a layoff swirling, and I desperately wanted to be one of the chosen ones to be laid off. My wish was granted. Although I didn’t have a backup plan in motion I haven’t missed a beat. My afternoons have been filled with basking in the sunshine and having too many long lunches. I have ten extra pounds that can attest to that. During my downtime I have been pondering on what it is I truly want out of life and what I hope to accomplish. My recent experience of being without traditional work along with a conversation with one of the most beautiful men I know are pushing me to finally pursue the path of happiness over that of money. I always chose the path of money out of my fear of poverty and lack. So far I have lacked absolutely nothing.

For years I have been curious about yoga, but I was always warned against it by the Christian community. I recently decided to give it a go anyway. I’m cool with the God I serve. Initially I liked it because it was extremely relaxing and aided in my goals for more flexibility, but the more I took it the more in love with it I became. One morning near the end of class the instructor asked if we wanted to end with hip or shoulder openers. No one answered, so she went with hip openers. One asana in particular changed my entire morning and emotional life, the pigeon pose. I felt a barrage of sensations as I released the tension in my buttocks and relaxed my breathing to go deeper into the stretch. I distinctly recall wanting to cry for no reason at all and feeling overwhelming love for a man that I had been trying desperately to push away. I could no longer deny that I loved him deeply and wanted him in my life. I had been pushing him away because my kind of love would drive me crazy. The only way I knew how to love was obsessively and possessively. When you love that way you have no peace, and the person you love is always under scrutiny and never fully trusted. I don’t want that. That yoga pose opened me to my emotions, and I surrendered and went deeper into myself to understand why I was so emotionally retentive but inwardly wild with passionate. I desired to let it all go and gain proper balance. Every day I release a bit more, and I have come to accept that even if things don’t work out between us I won’t harbor the heartbreak and block love from flowing in, out, and through me. He is not mine to own. Healthy love is love without ownership or attachment. Love is and should be as free as the wind. I am also more mindful of my body and gauge it to see if I am holding tension anywhere. I noticed I hold tension in my back when doing the dishes and slump my back and shoulders when I’m procrastinating and not feeling truly confident.

I have so many more issues to be worked out within myself, but learning to let go has been a beautiful experience for me. I now look forward to discovering more and more of who and what I am by releasing what hinders me. What do you have yet to release?

Non-traditional Daddy's Girl

I am not much of a daddy’s girl in the traditional sense. I don’t think my dad is Superman or that he can fix any and everything. I’ve always seen him for what he was first and foremost, a man.

For as long as I can remember, my dad has tried to prove his love to me. I loved my dad, but I hated his flaws. Somewhere along the lines of loving the man and hating his flaws, rejection of his love got tossed into the equation. That left me with a void that I would spend most of my adult life trying to fill.

As an adult woman I have been searching endlessly for love, the love of a man. I just want someone to love me past my hurts and pains and see me, the woman behind the enigma, the scared little girl that fears having her tender heart broken by a man whose life hers revolves around, a man that will protect me even from himself. 

My daddy was the first man to ever break my heart, and it wasn’t because of anything he did to me personally. Initially I did think my dad was Superman and that he could do no wrong. I wanted nothing more than to be in his presence. There was a time he could soothe me better than my mother, and mothers are the ultimate sources of nurturing and comfort. It was his relationship with my mother that shattered the heart of the daddy’s girl and created the mind of an analyst that thinks but doesn’t relay thoughts, feels but doesn’t express emotions.

The man he was with my mother was a different man from the one he was with me. This dichotomy of extremely different temperaments befuddled and scared me. Little girls grow up to be women, so I thought the way he treated my mother he would one day start treating me. In an effort to protect myself, I shut down when it came to him. I rarely ever kiss, hug, or even engage in conversations with my father, but I can clearly see his hurts, pains, weaknesses, strengths, his wonderfulness and huge capacity to heal and create good, and his ability to totally destroy anything good.  

It wasn’t until a few days ago that I realized this is exactly how I go about my love relationships with men. I can see them clearly and love with an all consuming love that, the only way I can describe is via a poem I once wrote entitled Persephone: 

I don’t want companionship. I want to be your owner, your devourer. I have raging passions that see only in shades of red, white, and black. The multifaceted taste of your blood is requested upon my palate. My lungs have need of the air that is your spirit. A need to consume your soul lies in the abyss of my heart. The billowing smokes of Hell have nothing on the need of my love to possess you. I am Queen of a kingdom that's not my own, longing for the spring when I can emerge from the depths of dark love and bring to you my gift of beauty, light, and a love that heals.

The problem with this kind of love is that though it consumes me wholly, the men I love rarely ever truly know they are loved this hard, this darkly, richly, and powerfully because I never really open up to them because I fear they will become monsters that break my heart. It wasn’t until now that I realized just how much my relationship with my father mirrors my relationships with men. They love me and try to prove their love, but they themselves never fully feel loved by me. Though I hail them as Kings in my heart and spirit they never really know it because I treat them as mere men that are flawed possessing the power to hurt me. 

My goal is to work on the healing of my emotional relationship with my daddy. I am at a point in my life that finds me wanting marriage, a family, another baby, and just peace and happiness. You can’t conquer what you won’t confront, so I plan to conquer the false sense of lack of love by embracing and accepting the very thing that has always been readily accessible to me, my daddy’s unconditional love. I am now challenging myself to go on a journey of releasing false perceptions and reconditioning my mind to line up with my heart with regard to love. I always say love shouldn’t be so damn complicated, and truly it isn’t. I was the one making it complicated. Now maybe I can unfasten the lovelorn sign from my forehead as I learn to openly express what is consuming me inside: LOVE!!! Love is truly the very essence of who I am as a person, as a woman. I have so much of it to give.

Peace, love, and light

-Q

Mission to Heal

For the last few months I have been on a journey of awareness and seeking my higher self, higher thoughts, higher vibrations. I believe there is more to life than the simple working to survive and take occasional vacations and stay-cations. I have always been pretty intuitive, but now I am learning to not second guess what I feel in my gut. I vibe off energy.

Since starting on this new journey I have drifted away from some of the people I once held dear to me. Bits of their characters I had once either subconsciously ignored or been oblivious to began to surface, and I realized I had been in the company of people that either really didn’t like me, were jealous, were in secret competition, or all three. I have never been one to ever think anyone was jealous of or threatened by me because I can’t fathom why anyone would feel that way. I’m no angel, but I am also no devil. I reside on the side of just trying to stay in my lane and let other people live their lives however they choose and living my own with sprinkles of love, lust, spirituality, peace, light, and a little bit of mischief to break up the monotony and sate my free spirit. 

Although people began leaving, other people began to filter in. The new people all possessed beautiful souls and spirits. It was as if we all knew each other from different times and spaces, long lost friends from past lives. One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn in this season of my life is how to let go and become a revolving spiritual door. I had a bad habit of harboring hurt feelings and feelings of abandonment and rejection all while trying to rationalize and analyze why some people leave me, hurt me, don’t like me, or just don’t want me. I am learning that some people truly only have a season in your life and are not meant to be held on to. Learn the lesson and bid them adieu when their times have expired with no hard feelings. I also learned that there are others that should be cherished and the relationships nourished. 

Learning to let go and not over analyze has been a bit of a challenge for me because I have a highly analytical mind and am more emotionally sensitive than I let on, but it has been worth the challenge. I finally have clarity as to what my purpose in life is, and how to go about fulfilling that purpose. I feel lighter, more peaceful, and at ease. I can literally feel the stress melting away as I release the negative thoughts, fears, and regrets. My new-found mission in life is simply healing and aiding others in their own healings. It’s not a religious thing, but a spiritual, energy, and vibe thing. 

Peace, love, and light,

Q

Lust

Apparently I look like the poster child for lust and sex appeal. I would be lying to say lust isn’t my vice. I love the feeling of wanting, needing, yearning, craving, and finally being sated. It’s crazy I suppose, a self inflicted torture of sorts that leads to over indulgence only to do it all over again, but it has a way of making me feel alive…punishment then fulfillment.

As for sex appeal, I think it has more to do with attitude, chemistry, and confidence. I believe in both lacy as well as nonexistent unmentionables and sultry perfume with hints of vanilla, jasmine, and musk. Not for the man, but for myself. I do most of what I do for myself. I feel just as sexy donning chucks and goofy T-shirts as I do wearing fitted dresses and high heels. When you feel sexy, I think they (men) sense it, and it heightens their lust. That’s my goal, to always have my man lust for me. I want to be 50 plus and still have him look at me with that fire and hunger in his eyes. I think perhaps, sex appeal also lies in being equal parts girly, minxish, cerebral, and whimsical.

Why are we talking about lust and sex appeal? Because it isn’t a comfortable topic for many women, especially women that are in long term relationships, and I get asked many times by women about these topics. Most find themselves in ruts and feeling down because they feel their men aren’t attracted to them anymore. I just want to take these women by the hands and lead them to the nearest lingerie and dress shops and dare them to sex it up a little. Sex appeal is not something to shun or be ashamed of. Honey, I will be old and (not gray because I will be dyeing these strands) putting my saggy boobs in pretty push up bras and wearing kitten heels being just as sassy and feisty as I want to be. Don’t judge me!

Basically, my unsolicited advice is to just own your sexuality and sex appeal. Lust inside of a relationship can be a beautiful thing. What woman doesn’t want that Song of Solomon chapter seven kind of interconnected lust and love? I certainly do!

(Song of Solomon Chapter 7 for your pleasure - The Message Translation)

Shapely and graceful your sandaled feet,

    and queenly your movement—

Your limbs are lithe and elegant,

    the work of a master artist.

Your body is a chalice,

    wine-filled.

Your skin is silken and tawny

    like a field of wheat touched by the breeze.

Your breasts are like fawns,

    twins of a gazelle.

Your neck is carved ivory, curved and slender.

    Your eyes are wells of light, deep with mystery.

    Quintessentially feminine!

Your profile turns all heads,

    commanding attention.

The feelings I get when I see the high mountain ranges

    —stirrings of desire, longings for the heights—

Remind me of you,

    and I’m spoiled for anyone else!

Your beauty, within and without, is absolute,

    dear lover, close companion.

You are tall and supple, like the palm tree,

    and your full breasts are like sweet clusters of dates.

I say, “I’m going to climb that palm tree!

    I’m going to caress its fruit!”

Oh yes! Your breasts

    will be clusters of sweet fruit to me,

Your breath clean and cool like fresh mint,

    your tongue and lips like the best wine.

The Woman

Yes, and yours are, too—my love’s kisses

    flow from his lips to mine.

I am my lover’s.

    I’m all he wants. I’m all the world to him!

Come, dear lover—

    let’s tramp through the countryside.

Let’s sleep at some wayside inn,

    then rise early and listen to bird-song.

Let’s look for wildflowers in bloom,

    blackberry bushes blossoming white,

Fruit trees festooned

    with cascading flowers.

And there I’ll give myself to you,

    my love to your love!

Love-apples drench us with fragrance,

    fertility surrounds, suffuses us,

Fruits fresh and preserved

    that I’ve kept and saved just for you, my love.

Pity Post

If I am being honest, I don’t know where this post is headed or why I am even writing it. I felt I needed to write in hopes that it will help me out of this place I am in. It’s a place I can’t quite describe or understand. The only word I can think of is stuck. 

My emotions are all over the place. Last night I watched Cheaper by the Dozen 2 with my sons, and I had to force myself to hold back tears at various parts of the movie. It isn’t even a sappy film! In addition to being emotional I keep wondering what happened to my happily ever after. I am at a point in my life now that finds me longing for marriage and even another baby. I was hellbent on not having more children, but now a part of me desires that. I love love with every fiber of my being and want nothing more than to be totally free to give it away, but it seems the word lovelorn had been affixed to my forehead. I’m knocking on Heaven’s door all like, “Um, excuse me. Where is the man from whose rib I was created? I’ve been single since 2006. Can a sistah finally get partnered up? Are those my angels over there playing Russian Roulette with my heart?!”

Then there is my career, or lack thereof. If I had my way I would be writing a column for a women’s magazine and owning clothing, house wares, and fitness boutiques. I don’t want to have to work for anyone else anymore. I want the freedom that comes with entrepreneurship and to be able to travel the world. Corporate America can suck the life out of you. I feel like a robot. Always the same shit just different days. What am I really working for other than to pay bills? 

I keep telling myself to vibrate higher, but sometimes I just don’t want to. I’m giving myself a few days to wallow in this emotional state, and then I will force myself to put on my big girl panties and just deal. At times like this I wish I was a weed smoker.