“..Had I not gone through the storm and taken the highs and the lows. And embraced my experience and really understood how it shaped me. That’s why I’m here. It gave me this extra drive where I could appreciate my wings growing. And through my growing process I could understand how I could maneuver in them and really just fly.”
The following interview is from the powerful book Your Sparkle Is Inside of You, a book that I created while recreating myself from scratch…
UYL: “I believe that self-care, self-worth, and self-love is our lingerie. It’s something that we don’t see that we put on every single day…it’s how we were talking before this recording and I felt that I was so unqualified to talk about it. But it’s like our boudoir shoot we just had where you slipped into your angel wings. Our self-worth can be our wings. What is you advice for slipping into them and seeing you own glow?”
I: “Truthfully I think it was through my mom. I’m the product of a single parent home, I’m the only child and my mom really made sure that she took that time to show me what love is. Especially in a society that marks you to have two parents that are supposed to love you and provide for you – I didn’t have that.
My mom made sure that you provided love unconditionally, unadulterated, pure, genuine love.
As I grew up I always wanted to know my dad and know who he was. Once I got the opportunity to meet him and to try and build a relationship with him I realized that he wasn’t qualified to love me. To know that a person is not qualified to love you in the best way that you deserve, no matter if it’s a boyfriend, a girlfriend or your parents. You have to have that self love for yourself. It’s no different than those angel wings that you made for our shoot. You have to embrace them, tie them tight and get ready to fly and go truth.
And the truth is that I’m the product of a single parent home but because of that I truthfully know the definition of love and because of that I’m able to love myself in the midst of “You should love me, this is how you should love me.”
You can’t make anybody do anything that they do not want too, especially if they are not qualified. You have to embrace your own truthfulness and “get your glow on.” truthfully where I believe that my self love is my self glow. It’s those practices that I practice each and every single day. You have to look at yourself and tell yourself that you are beautiful. You are more than a conqueror.
I’m a big Christian and believe that God won’t give you more than you can bear and when the weight of the world really does feel like it is on your shoulders you have to realize that He already died on the cross for that. So for the weight of the world we can’t even take that on, because we don’t even know the essence of what the weight of the world. We only know a little morsel of it and even with that little morsel you have to know that your love process starts with that. It’s like the butterfly effect is what I like to call it.
My mom, growing up she would call me her little butterfly. I was always that little caterpillar that went through the metamorphosis process and through that you get something that is bold. Something so exquisite, something that is classy and elegant. But overall is going to be able to fly through everything and will be able to transform when needed. But it has to have that time, it has to have that own self protection and that’s where your process and beauty comes from. So that’s how I believe you “Self-glow”. It’s sexy, it’s beautiful, it’s something that nobody can take away from you because nobody gave it to you. It’s all yours 100%, independently yours.”
UYL: “And what is so sexy too is that when you realized that your dad was not qualified to be your father figure. You didn’t take it on as “oh I’m not loveable” you said, “No, I know who I am.”
I: “Yes. Don’t get me wrong. Going through that process of “I know who I am.” You do have those thoughts that are creeping. But I truthfully believe that those are the tricks of the enemy. God loves us unconditionally. He died on the cross for us. So if I had the notion to think, “I’m not lovable. What did I do to deserve this?”
To be completely transparent with you I have rejection issues. I would rather quit somebody before they quit me! But through that I had to realize that it’s not something that I can take on because I can’t make my biological dad stay. It’s intentional, but on top of that I learned in school, in Interpersonal Communication to be very specific, every relationship and every engagement is incoherently selfish. When I heard that, at first I was confused and thought, “What? How does that work.” My teacher kept on repeating it over and over until we got to the chapter. He said, “Remember when I told you all at the beginning of the semester that every relationship is incoherently selfish? This is the point where you will understand it. If I expect you to love, how selfish is that of me because that’s my expectation. If I expect you to give to yourself and you can’t, that’s selfish of me. Because that’s my expectation. Everything that I’m perceiving you to be is based off of my thought process. It’s all about me. And so in a sense I’m being selfish because you are not equipped to do that.”
No matter if it was my dad, I needed him to love me, granted these are society’s norms but all of those came back at the end of the day of what I wanted and that’s nothing that he was able to give. Every relationship is incoherently selfish and to understand that – it makes me understand that you can walk away and that you are the victory. You are the prize 100%. Being incoherently selfish works sometimes!”
UYL: “That’s deep! I’m going to have to re-listen and to this!”
I: (laughs) “Yes! I was sitting in class like, “Oh my goodness.” At first I was thinking..I’m not selfish…I got a big heart, I’m loving, I put people first. But then to really understand all about what I want and how I feel about what you should do, because I can’t control you. So it’s okay to be selfish to some extent, and you have to embrace that. Because of that, that also allowed the metamorphosis process. But I learned that in self protection mode. In my cocoon. Once I grasped that, and even in certain situations now I’m able to spread my wings because of that thought alone.”
UYL: “That’s beautiful! What has been a moment in your life that touched you and changed your trajectory? You either felt like you lost your wings or your wings were shedding? I always say that it’s at the lowest point in our life that our wings are really beating the most but that we might not always see it or feel it. What is a moment where you have been like “Where’s my wings?”
I: “We already talked about my dad, but another moment which happened around the same time as my dad is that after I graduated high school I was trying to figure out what to do next, and so I chose a HBCU (historically black college or university) in and it really, truthfully felt good to be around my people. I’m from a state that everything is so diverse, it’s a part of my culture as an individual. But it’s different to say that you actually took part in the culture. And I believe that it’s something so big because we are diverse.
The average Southern experience is not our fortitude in our eyes. If you really think about slavery, we are the wild wild west – we helped y’all get freed if you know what I’m saying? So that’s pretty much our mindset, we are still free. So when I went to college I was “doing the damn thing” I had a 3.6, I had my college experience, I also turned 18 out there. I also met my dad out there because he was an assistant coach of the Denver Nuggets at the time. He had a game and we met up. At college I felt like I belonged. I felt like, “Wow, school can be easy. School is for you and you are with your people learning. You have people understanding your everyday struggle because they are so similar to you.”
With that, as much as I love my HBCU’s some of the rumors are true and they can be unorganized. They can be not equipped and they messed up with my housing for my Sophomore year. I was living in the dorms freshman year and wanted to move out into the apartments on campus that were considered student housing. They told me that since they lost my financial aid and didn’t have money for my housing I would have to pay them $5,000 as a down payment and make three month “monthly” payments of $238. For those that don’t know Houston is of a different caliber and like most HBCU’s my college was in the hood. It had roaches and call me “boogie” but I’m not paying $5,000 to sit with roaches. If it’s “My lease”, it’s “My lease.” It doesn’t say… “Me plus roaches!” I was not signing up for that.”
UYL: “Think of what you could do with $5,000!”
I: “Girl yes! I could have made that money flip! I returned back home. My home state promotes HBCU’s, but what they don’t tell you is that when you come back you have the potential of losing more than half of your credits because the school system is so prestigious and high in standard that a HBCU does not meet or match over.”
UYL: “I’ve heard that from a lot of schools.”
I: “It’s true. They don’t show HBCU’s love like that. Pretty much I lost almost half my credits and I think only 9 transferred. My whole 3.6 GPA was shattered. But with that I remembered what I was taught that this life that we live is not just for that, it’s for others. So I knew I couldn’t stop. I didn’t have that opportunity or that luxury. I wasn’t going to get caught in the sector of just working my whole life. I want to work in something that I love so that it’s not work.
I stumbled into getting my AA so I have my two year degree in Mass Communication and that’s where I took the Interpersonal Communication course. I truly believe that it was where God needed to sit me down so I could be still and he could really shape and mold me. So once I got my degree, I was like “Ok, I got to finesse, I got to work the system. I’m trying to be done with school, I can’t do this for the end of time!” I found out that if I transferred to another college so I could get my credits back plus get to transfer my credits from California which are automatically weighed higher. So I transferred to another college.
My personal goal is to be a radio personality and to do eNews and stuff like that and my college had good connections with South by Southwest, iHeart radio, the Spurs, etc. Now I’m classified as a junior and with my AA my minor is two credits shy of being complete. My major now is Electronic Media and Mass Communication with my minor being Mass Communication.
Truthfully had I not gone through the storm and taken the highs and the lows and embraced my experience and really understood how it shaped me. That’s why I’m here. It gave me this extra drive where I could appreciate my wings growing. Through my growing process I could understand how I could maneuver in them and really just fly. I would have to say is the moment that I felt like I didn’t have my wings but then had to understand that they were really growing. And I was able to fly.
This reminds me of something that my mom tells me all the time. My mom’s a Pastor and she taught this sermon talking about a catapult. She used the analogy that life is sometimes like a catapult. When you use a catapult you think about the aftermath, the slingshot effect of where you are going to your destination. But you have to understand that in that catapult that there is a drawback process. It get real tight, it get real crunchy, it gets real hard and you feel like you are all the way back there, but Baby once it gets all set to break- you easily soar into your destination and you fly, you catapult to where God has called you to be.
This was my catapulting experience and I had to embrace the drawback and the struggle of not knowing. Embrace my flying purposes and understand that it was wind beneath my wings.”
UYL: “That’s beautiful! Thank you! Are there any last words about self love and self glow and being goddesses, Queens, and God’s daughters?”
I: “Yes Queen! I would say ultimately when you truthfully think about yourself know that 1. The Bible says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made and that there isn’t any other thing that you could change that would catapult you into a higher destination or inclination if God did not foresee it. So knowing that you have to embrace the struggle, you got to get it out the mud, you have to be in tune with your star player.
I know that sounds cliché but you have to be in tune with your star player because at the end of the day it’s a game. But for me, I don’t like games, I don’t play them. I’m not a sore loser but I don’t play to lose. But with that, I know that being my star player I can only give my best. I If I love myself, if I believe in my myself and have hope in myself. Those are all parts of a good recipe to be your best star player.
The best analogy that I could give is what I heard Kirk Franklin and many pastors say, it’s the baking of the cake analogy… Have you ever ate flour by itself? It’s nasty right? Have you ever taken an egg and ate it by yourself? Just cracked it in your mouth? It doesn’t sound appealing right? Have you ever taken baking power and eating it by itself? How about eaten butter by itself? But if you mix it all together and put a little love to it and put a little heat to it. You get a cake that is delicious.
It’s what you need at that moment and it’s nourishing. All those raw ingredients are us in our rawest, ugliest state. But God will come in and mix it all together put it in a pan, he will be that heat that you need and by the time that you go through that oven. It’s hot, it’s scorching but you will rise to the top and when you come out you will be a whole cake.”