I never expected to be here. I checked into the hospital Friday, May 15th after a pretty bad MRI reading. I had been dealing with severe back pain during the month of April 2020 which almost had me in the emergency room. It was in the middle of my back and excruciating. Nothing relieved it outside of some of my CBD/THC tincture but not enough to make me comfortable. Before that and during, I was experiencing some pretty severe headaches in March as well. During all of this, I also finally weaned my toddler from nursing and my hormones took a massive hit as a result. All of these compounding ailments transitioned to some fairly extreme nerve pain shooting all the way down my left arm and hand for many days at the end of April/ beginning of May. The nerve pain ceased and the numbness, tingling, stiffness, weakness, loss of finger control, coordination and pressure started to roll out which has left me in a position of feeling thankful it’s just one arm and hand affected and panicked I may never get full use of my left arm and hand again. I’m on a 5-day steroid treatment and healing very slowly right now. It’s truly terrifying but I refuse to properly mourn the loss of this function because I’m really focused on the next steps I need put in place to heal.

I am stronger than I think I am and I am allowed to have challenging moments and ask for help when I need it

Throughout this journey, there has been confusion, years of winning with no symptoms, health gains, health setbacks, emotional trauma, emotional healing, and a roller coaster of a lot of other life’s joys and pains. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2013 after years of weird and peculiar symptoms. Numb leg, torso, eye floaters, headaches, and eye dimming. It took years to get a definitive diagnosis but there was a catch. Shortly after diagnosis, I serendipitously met a dermatologist who recommended I see a functional medical practitioner she had heard of who does a deep dive into the root cause of illness as opposed to putting a bandaid on the problem like many traditional Western doctors are used to doing. With him, I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. Lyme mimics MS and many other chronic illnesses. The Lyme protocol has kept me healthy and relapse-free since 2014.

I know that 2020 didn’t start the relapse that has put me in the hospital but it was the last straw that broke the camel’s back forcing me to address a slow-moving train heading off a cliff.

Things were going well for a while and I was thankful. Then new motherhood, relationships/friendship challenges, new work requirements, starting a business, taking classes, working on film projects, applying for a Master’s Program, caring for a precocious 2-year-old, who had his own health struggles with a few illnesses back to back at the beginning of the year along with his father, and now the era of COVID-19 and social distancing had started to put a strain on my whole body. My diet and exercise diminished after I gave birth and my priorities shifted. Not to mention the passing of so many people in such a rapid, often violent, and heartbreaking way. 2020 has been a gut punch that many of us never expected. I know that 2020 didn’t start the relapse that has put me in the hospital but it was the last straw that broke the camel’s back forcing me to address a slow-moving train heading off a cliff.

I spent so much wasted time angry at this mysterious Neurodegenerative disease that started affecting me as early as 2007 that I never addressed the emotional toll it was taking on me and my outlook. I focused so much on the diet, exercise, supplements, and other treatments and ignored some of the underlying mental health components that will never go away until fully addressed. Reflecting back, I’ve noticed there were some areas that I needed to pay particular attention to for my overall well-being and for a better disease outcome.

Below are some areas that I’ve struggled with and that I have to be committed to focusing on if I want to regain and maintain my health moving forward.

Moving forward my below health and overall wellness goals will be:

• Saying no! I’m supportive of everything that my family and friends do but I often say yes and participate in things that my body is screaming at me for later. I will not be able to continue that cycle of people-pleasing moving forward
• Listening to my body. I am my own healer
• I am stronger than I think I am and I am allowed to have challenging moments and ask for help when I need it
• Continuing to disengage in low-vibrational, toxic dialogue that ultimately moves nothing or no one in a positive direction
• Speaking up for myself is not necessarily an issue but it’s imperative I remind myself to do this sooner rather than later before resentments permeate and linger
• Reclaiming my time! I don’t put myself first anymore, understandably for moms with a family, but my tank gets too depleted and bubbles over and manifests into exhaustion and disease symptoms
• Be clear and concise about my needs and more responsive to others as well. Essentially work on communicating more effectively about my desire for space and self-care
• Get back to the strict diet but don’t beat myself up for slipping
• Schedule more facetime and calls with friends during the quarantine phase and after.
• Connect to my spirituality every day and never neglect that relationship
• Always remember to connect with my significant other in meaningful, positive, and loving ways
• No matter how hard things get never forget to continue to be my silly self
• Always set goals and be intentional on working on them daily
• Manage the expectations of others and myself
• Last but certainly not least, continue to connect with my little boy and remember to always focus on whimsy and wonder while guiding him through life and loving him unconditionally

This is not a comprehensive goal sheet as I type this with one hand and two moderately functional fingers on the other hand. I wanted to start my realignment process and remember where this journey began as a reminder of the unexpected setback during an unprecedented time. This 5-day hospital stay was a wake-up call that I didn’t want but I desperately needed it. I’ve worked out every day since I was admitted and worked on keeping my spirits high and my body strong.

Thank you for the healing prayers, therapeutic video calls, and amazing sound healing session. I’m not 100% by a long shot and I will have weeks/months of physical therapy, doctors’ appointments, and many trial and error protocols on my plate to deal with this disease. Without the commitment to our health we have virtually nothing to offer ourselves or anyone else. I hope this motivates whoever is reading this to kickstart all of the things that need to be addressed that you have been putting off and learn to focus on ourselves more so we can be better partners, better parents, and better in the world. 2020 has taught us that life is unexpected and we cannot put off doing what we need to do to thrive right now.

Tell me what you have reflected on during this quarantine period and how you want to improve yourself from this moment in time on?

The post How Did I End up Here? An unexpected Hospital Journey appeared first on Carefully Created Chaos.

When will we realize that we matter to ourselves? When will we matter to each other? I read about a 19-year old, young black girl, Ta’Lela Stevenson, new mom of a newborn baby, that was killed by a 14-year old black girl who had been bullying Ta’Lela’s 14-year old sister. This young, troubled girl attempted to fight her younger sister and Ta’Lela intervened and was subsequently stabbed and killed. Now, her one-month-old daughter is without her mother. Ta’Lela’s newborn will forever feel a void not having her mother in her life and her family will have to live with the violence and anger that this misguided child has thrust upon them. This is how generational curses continue and prevail within the black communities. Some of us are broken and raising damaged children and we need to find a way to change the trajectory of the kids in our communities in our lives by healing our old wounds. Black girls hopes, dreams, feelings, lives matter!

Abandonment – Unloved – Abuse – Dreams Differed – Jealousy – Violence

We live in an angry society. America started in violence and it has always insidiously been lurking beneath the surface. Black people have endured massive amounts of violence and abuse and now generationally, many of us subconsciously and consciously, pass this down to our children, family, and communities and we need to become more aware of this pattern and work to stop it before it progresses.

How can we help ourselves, so we are effectively helping the generations after us?

While America justifies the mass shootings as a small subset of people who are mentally disturbed, many of us who have felt this country’s systemic violence physically and viscerally, know the feelings behind these shootings aren’t novel. They are as old as this country.

We have always been made to feel unwanted and a burden to a country that wanted to use and discard us. During slavery, black women weren’t able to properly care for and raise their own children and that historical fracture has created a lot of strained family dynamics. Mother’s unable to nourish and father’s unable to protect and 400+ year’s later we are in a continual state of crisis not of our own making. We are expected to accept responsibility for a cycle we didn’t create, cultivate and thrive on. Drive through any economically castrated area in the US and you see the current effects of the neglected and left behind.

Deep down, we know American will never atone for her sins so we have to decide that we want to heal and ascend to levels that we never dreamed of.

Reading the stories of Ta’Lela Stevenson, Raniya Wright, Kashala Francis, Amy Joyner-Francis and a multitude of other black girls who were bullied and killed by other black girls I couldn’t help but think of how long that anger festered in these girls until they finally exploded and decided to take out their feelings of abandonment, feelings of being unloved, abuse, feelings of dreams differed, feelings of jealousy and violence on their peers? Was this the first time they felt compelled to express their frustration violently or had there been a cycle of trauma all of their lives? Or, did they inherit a wave of subconscious dormant anger that so many black people have and if provoked finally exposes itself in unfathomable ways? The education system, the Justice System and our family’s generational pain have created some of the most hurt, abused, hopeless souls that find ways to snuff out any light in the world they see shining too brightly. This infuriates and pains me as a mother of a child I hope never encounters a soul this broken but devastated that so many of us walk around feeling this desperate.

We cannot allow any more children to grow up thinking they have no purpose and are completely unworthy of love. These feelings fester, turn into resentment and morphing into a rage with innocent people ending up at the receiving end of their destruction. We have to think of ways to shape the future, so we don’t continue this cycle of jealousy and violence our kids continuously go through while just trying to live their lives. If we don’t address our systemic traumatic issues, we will never move on from our past and remain in this low vibration so many of us are hovering in. I can’t stomach to see another beautiful, promising black life lost because we continue to walk around powder kegs of trauma unhealed.

Below are some simple transformative ways, we can implement now that may help us ascend past some of our emotional troubles.

Monitor destructive media consumption

Too often, I notice black people consuming negative media that only feeds a desire to watch and participate in more destructive media and behavior.

Reality shows, Certain types of Rap/Hip-Hop and Gossip social media sites

Low vibrational content is known to keep those in a mental state of shame, fear, apathy, pride, and anger. That is in the suffering range and on the opposite end of enlightenment. I’m not saying we need to completely get rid of guilty pleasures but we need to be completely conscious of what is going on in between our ears and what our eyes are processing because no medium is casual. We internalize many stimuli and need to be intentional about what our brain, heart, and soul feed on.

Daily Self Check-in

It’s important that we stop, assess how we’re feeling and write down our thoughts. Many of us mask our feelings with stuff. With shopping, scrolling, reality tv and other mindless activities. We do so much so we won’t have to address what is buried at the core of us. It’s important we find activities that make us stop and check in on ourselves. I do this by journaling in a phone app.

Invest in Spiritual teachings and practices

As black people, many of us have been taught to only turn to the word of god when going through a crisis or seeking personal growth help. It’s imperative that we utilize all healthy resources available to us in order to heal the areas in our lives that are causing us to remain miserable and stagnant. I have found peace while reading spiritual teachings of Abraham-Hicks, Eckart Tolle, Michael Alan Singer, to name a few. I’ve started to make a conscious effort to read spiritual teachings from black authors as well because it’s important to hear the voices of our people ringing in our minds as we cleanse our souls from the human gunk we’ve picked up along the way. More black people need to research that spirituality can help reconnect them to their inner core and thus helping them heal past the judgment and anguish so many have felt but have had no way to clear.

I’m a huge advocate of meditation and sound healing. Both provide the daily relaxation and mind-clearing needed to truly unburden yourself from excessive negative self-talk and judgment that some of us tend to do which fuels low vibrational emotions of envy and hatred that can cause a ripple effect of pain for many at the receiving end.

Consciously parent your children

I don’t want to read any more stories of black children bullying and killing each other and to stop this it’s up to parents to change how we treat and parent our children. Often times, parents push back when someone suggests that they need to do more in order to raise better humans because many feel like they are doing all that they can do. Sometimes it takes looking outside of what you have been doing and looking for different approaches to parent. Kids of all ages still want attention, boundaries, and affection. We have to learn how to accomplish this as their needs inevitably change. Our kids should see us positively loving ourselves and others. Our kids need to see us consuming healthy mediums and practicing small acts of self-care daily. Our spirituality and connection to ourselves should be a topic of discussion for the whole family. We should want to create such a mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically aligned space for ourselves that our kids will have no choice but to positively feed off of those things. We really have the power to heal ourselves and subsequently heal our children. That should be every parents’ goals.

The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself

Steve Maraboli

I’m interested in the overall health of the black community and we need to be so focused on our well-being that we become obsessed with helping ourselves, each other and more importantly our children. When I read stories about the abuse some of us have suffered and how that abuse creates more abuse, more abandonment, more struggles, and more death, I always think how can we stop this cycle before it infects the next generation. We owe it ourselves to heal. We owe it to God to take our lives and ourselves seriously and to live the best lives that we can while we are here. You don’t have to agree with every tip that I’m given but I hope you will find a positive way to affect change within your own life which will be a catalyst for the lives of your children and an overhaul of our communities.

The post Black Girls Matter appeared first on Carefully Created Chaos.

It has come up, directly and indirectly, how lucky and fortunate I was to grow up in a stable two-parent household. I have felt and continue to feel incredibly blessed to have had the upbringing that I had and the close relationship that I still have with my parents. I know that my life, was ideal and not entirely the norm, and for that I am grateful but saddened that it wasn’t the norm. Most people say they want to give their kids the life that they didn’t have. Parents want their kids to have a better education, a better home and a healthier life then the life that they may have had but often times those same people belittle and disrespect adults who came from those same backgrounds they want their kids to have. Our struggles and opinions are often invalid to many people who had harsher upbringings.

I’m sad that having two stable parents, who were both active in all of their kids lives, is atypical of the black experience. It’s sad that my pains and struggles get overlooked because I didn’t grow up with dysfunction and abuse. I wish no one grew up with dysfunction and abuse because our communities would be thriving if we truly addressed those systemic issues that so many of us choose to ignore. Within my own extended family there is dysfunction and I’ve seen how that affects everyone around.

As black people, we hold so much value on the negative aspects of our culture. We cling and hold onto the abuse we suffered because it makes us “tougher.” We view fatherlessness or motherlessness as the aspect of our upbringing that helped us to “grow up” and depend on ourselves. I understand that terrible situations can catapult us into success stories. I know drive and determination to get out of unsavory circumstances can be a major motivator for many. I understand that belittling the experience of a “privileged person” is a defense mechanism. I know it’s a way to discredit our human struggles. As a black community we need to dismantle our praise for the unfortunate negative experiences that so many of us are subjugated to while we are growing up. These same circumstances are often shared experiences we use to bond with each other. We bond over the negative because for a whole lot of us, the negative was inherited and clinging to it was the only way to survive. Obviously, not all of us grew up in turmoil but generationally we have all been touched with unfortunate circumstances that have affected our behaviors and emotions.

Having a stable upbringing didn’t absolve me from other traumas and pain. It didn’t absolve me from the very real racism I’ve faced throughout my life. It certainly didn’t make me better than anyone. What having two functional and happy parents did, was make it less likely that I would make detrimental mistakes that may severely impact my future. It helped with making better decisions about dating prospects. It helped me have more confidence in areas in my life that may have been reserved for “certain types” of people but I had the parental support to pursue anything I wanted and to shine all of my black girl magic. It gave me a perspective of humanity that many people who were raised on survival may have missed. It may have taken me years to truly understand this but I truly knew that there was enough money, love, affection, attention in the world for everyone to have if they so desired. What happens to us as children truly does shape the rest of our lives. We have to undo so many things that took place when we were in our formative years. I just hope that those undoing their own traumas see that no child deserves abuse or neglect and it’s never the fault of the kid if this was their norm. Most of my thinking, as an adult, even through pain and unfortunate circumstances, is that there is enough of everything for everyone. If our community truly understood that amplifying the good always attracts more good, we could truly transform our lives and revolutionize our families. My mind was never on scarcity because I rarely went without the basics growing up. We weren’t rich but I never went to bed hungry. I was always told I was loved by both of my parents. I received affection from both parents and I was encouraged by both of my parents. Those basic elements solidified that life could be expansive for me along with everybody else. Often, when you are raised on survival, those basic elements may not be learned until later on once healing has occurred. There is a scarcity mindset with many of us because resources were in fact scarce. When you are raised on love, your outlook and prospects on life are just different.

I wish we would bond with each other over healing past traumas, growing in our emotional, mental intelligence. I wish we would bond with each other to help each of us get physically healthier, grow in ways that we never knew were possible instead of bonding over mental, emotional and physical wounds. I’m sincerely tired of the black folks within and outside of my life battling each other because of fresh and unhealed wounds. While my personal example of how I was treated for being black and having a supportive family is rather benign, there are countless other ways in which black folks do so much damage to each other in the name of spiritual brokenness. We need to be more compassionate to each other. We need each other. Truly helping each other would transform worlds.

A lot of what I talk about in my work is not looking towards the destruction that white supremacy has caused within our community on a continual basis. These well researched and verified facts can be read and will confirm that we have been placed in positions that placed many of us so far behind other races it’s deplorable. My goal as a fiancé, mother, as a friend, as a writer and a creative, is to highlight ways we can make our lives as black people more positive and fulfilling while we are on this earth. And I hope we can see each other as less of a threat and an enemy and extend grace and support to each other. As someone who is doing the best that I can with the cards that have been dealt, I hope to inspire some to do the same and more.

This topic is important to me so I hope to expand upon this free writing topic in future posts.

The post Raised on love not Survival appeared first on Carefully Created Chaos.