Category: Growth

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The Journey

The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. That’s what they say. One morning my journey began with burning my finger on a “protection” candle while setting an altar. No one said the journey was going to be easy. 

The journey of a thousand miles started with pain, followed by a cup of coffee. That thousand-mile journey is not without irony or humor. That pain is also vastly transformative. In the same way that my hurt finger will callous over and eventually heal, so does much of our pains that we have emotionally experienced. 

Don’t be mistaken; we’re not saying the pain has gone away. We’re saying we are healing. 

Getting toward a healing place is the ultimate journey. We are working every day on realizing the value in each step that we have already taken. When we think back on something that happened to us, do we also think about the places that incident or event has led us to as well? The loss of a family member may have led you to think about what that person meant to you and what you value, what you hold dear. It may also challenge you to ask where you find joy. 

The grief of any loss, whether it’s a job or a family member, puts us squarely in the middle of asking how to get back to “normal” or “feeling like myself again.” From there, we fumble, cry and rage through this new version of ourselves, the version in pain searching for reprieve. That search is the beginning of a series of events that lead us to sometimes wiser, sometimes more battered but improved versions of ourselves. 

They forget to tell you that one step takes a million brainwaves to move your legs, feet, and everything else to take that first step. 

The journey of a thousand miles means your brain has to get out of to even begin. It’s the idea of the journey where the struggle starts for so many people. Sometimes, what we hold onto does have value, but we can become misguided and doubt our intuition when we hear our friends say “let it go” or some other advice. 

Sometimes our ruminations have a deeper hold on us because we haven’t processed them yet. Don’t assume there aren’t reasons for whatever it was you were holding on to. Consider what you’re feeling or holding wasn’t supposed to let go. Sit down with those emotions and consider if it’s something you didn’t know you were supposed to explore. It also means exploring the parts of ourselves that we are often afraid to admit out loud some days. Maybe you were too mean to someone who didn’t deserve it or spoke harshly about someone. Question what you were feeling, where did that come from, and how you want to correct it moving forward. 

Finally, admitting out loud the challenges that we may have gone through is transformative. It may not be enough to remember something. Our minds have a way of painting events over time. On any given day, when you remember and experience, you can either be the victim or the villain. Saying the words is cathartic and helps to release. 

Each step in the process of healing takes time. Give yourself some space to heal holistically. The journey of a thousand miles takes a million tiny steps. You never know where one foot in front of the other will take you. 

Brandy Collins is a writer, and public services advocate born and raised in the Bay Area. She is a correspondent for Oakland Voices, a blogger, and the funny one in numerous group chats. Brandy is full of Scorpio magic and self-proclaimed Professional Aunty. Follow her on Twitter @msbrandycollins or Instagram @story_soul_collecter.

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Reflecting to Be Sustainable

If hindsight is 20/20, then we have seen more than our fair share to gain perspective well into the future. There have been some interesting challenges that changed the world we live in. We’ve had to make adjustments to our social constructs and how we processed this new world. Each time we begin a new year and a new journey, we also have to remember to release something that could be holding us back from being our best selves. 

Human beings are creatures of habit. An unsustainable routine was the most apparent and something we need to leave behind. The shift from sitting in traffic daily and being in an office surrounded by people to working from home wearing pajamas at a makeshift kitchen table for a desk, has forced us to question if our routines were sustainable for the lives we claim we want to live. 

The mental transitions from a “Go” centric life to a “Hurry up and wait” centric pace was the first challenge. On the one hand, sitting with ourselves for an extended period meant sitting with nowhere to rush off to. On the other hand, making plans for the end of a difficult time became a central focus because it was comforting to have something to look forward to. It’s helpful to remember there is no result or end game plan while you’re in the present moment, and that realization doesn’t often sit well for some. When we are not present or paying attention to what is going on in the now, we do it to our own detriment and miss out on moments of growth.  

The unsustainable routine may include making some truly unhealthy meal decisions. Making meals of tortilla chips, nacho cheese, and red wine for dinner can be okay once in a while as comfort but had quickly become an unhealthy habit over time. Perhaps we’ve made those choices due to diminished skills when cooking, lack of motivation, or just the sheer convenience of it. But when it becomes chronic and more consistent than making a regular meal, then a shift may be necessary. I’d be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t do this again, but at least an effort can be made more frequently for better choices. 

It was far more noticeable how disconnected we had become from the people we care about. The way we were taking care of our personal relationships was not sustainable. I didn’t realize that I missed having conversations with some people, and the conversations I’ve had have been grounding. The best conversations were spent laughing, and we found several hours later, we were on the phone talking, exchanging ideas about how we want to transform our lives. Not everyone has the ability, but there are some people I thoroughly loved talking to with full honesty that I don’t have to hold back with. 

Finally, the ability to rest when your body tells you to rest is impacted when your routine is unsustainable. Making more time for rest or taking breaks when you need to is imperative. Taking a nap in the middle of the day seems like a bad idea at first, but after some time, we may come to realize we are more refreshed to get things done around the house, even in the later hours of the night. I became more productive and reflective during the hours after a nap. 

Our lives weren’t sustainable, and the routines we had were breaking us in ways that we weren’t aware of. For your own reflection, what’s something you found wasn’t sustainable? How can you make the shift?

About the author: Brandy Collins is a Bay Area native full of Scorpio magic and self-proclaimed Professional Aunty telling stories for Oakland Voices, Oaklandside, and the funny one in group chats. Follow on twitter @gurl79, Instagram @story_soul_collecter, and her website http://storysoulcollector.com/.

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Like the Chameleon, Adapting to Change

Change

I thought that a chameleon changes its colors because it was hiding or afraid. A cursory internet search proves this theory to be incorrect. The chameleon knows when it needs to be seen and when it needs to be unseen. Hiding in plain sight or blending into the background until the time comes to reveal itself. 

Are we so unlike the chameleon? There is such a similarity in needing to be something different when the time suits us. We can’t be everything to everyone, although we try in moments where we have to. 

It’s not so much just a physical change. The chameleon can literally change its skin with the weather. Humans, while we try to change so quickly, there are other elements involved. Like the chameleon, the weather can make us change into a sweater, but can it change our way of existence so quickly? For the chameleon, a quick change can save their lives. Human beings call that code-switching in some places. 

Unlike the chameleon, however, our changes are not realized or fully recognized instantly. They come over time from environmental changes, with mood changes, and with the change of circumstances. It may take some time to look in the mirror and see that you lost weight, but the difference is there. Social changes take more work. They take a more collaborative effort. How many people are involved with these changes? Are we influenced by other people? The conversations that we have change us. The words people use affect our moods. The ability to realize that there is an experience that is not your own may change your perspective. 

What can we learn from the chameleon? 

Be ready for change. It is the only thing that is consistent in the world we live in. We have to be open to the possibility that we may be challenged with a new idea or concept. Ask questions about the idea, learn more on your own, and make changes that you feel safe to do so without compromising your authentic self. 

Recognize that something around you is changing. There are times when it’s okay to blend into the background and be still. There are other times when you will need to act and move faster than you would like  If you feel it happening, ignoring it doesn’t mean that it’s not changing. It only means that you aren’t participating in the actions.

Acknowledge your feelings around what is changing. If the change is something you disagree with, remember what your core values are and what emotion is rooting that disagreement. Are you disagreeing because you are afraid? Are you in disagreement because it’s unfair or wrong? Take some time to sit with your reasons why.  

Finally, not all change has to happen overnight. Some are slow and give you time to grow into what is occurring around you. Others are external adjustments to our lives and we have to adapt who we are at our core to meet the needs of those changes. Whatever your response to change, it is happening.  

Be the chameleon, Sis.

Brandy Collins
About the author: Brandy Collins is a Bay Area native full of Scorpio magic and self-proclaimed Professional Aunty telling stories for Oakland Voices and numerous group chats. Follow on twitter @gurl79 or Instagram @story_soul_collecter

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Balance Without Scales

Photo by Le Minh Phuong on Unsplash

We asked our sisters on our social media accounts how do they balance their lives. Our diverse community of women who are marathon runners, entrepreneurs, educators, scientists, writers, receptionists, lawyers and community activists gave us the loudest response of… silence. When some were asked individually what they are doing to balance their lives they said they didn’t feel like they were balanced at all. Sis, you’re doing the best that you can do. What do you mean you aren’t balanced? 

We each work in a variety of spaces day in and day out to make our lives as livable, comfortable and enriching as we can with the resources that we have. Its widely accepted that what some refer to as positive psychology  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/positive-psychology is a springboard for helping people get through tough times. In therapy and in manifestation meditation practices it involves focusing primarily on the positive aspects of our lives and projecting positivity in order to maintain positive things in our lives. 

No one can be expected to do this every single day all day, all the time. Each of us also faces a new challenge that can drain us of our energies. We have obligations that require a not so positive response in order to get the results. As leaders and supervisors, we have to have difficult conversations with our staff members. As parents, we have to think about the safety of our children in a not so safe world. This is what it means to balance.

“Being balanced isn’t like putting all the positive and negative things on scales and weigh them against each other. “

Being balanced isn’t like putting all the positive and negative things on scales and weigh them against each other. Being balanced isn’t focusing all your energies to solve every problem you have ever encountered. Being balanced isn’t only thinking positive thoughts and neglecting the negative aspects. Being balanced doesn’t mean that you have to forget every moment you ever lived because you are making new decisions for the betterment of your life now.

We’ve learned to box in our thoughts into categories of negative being bad and positive as being good. Unfortunately, we may have also boxed out that opposition that brought about the innovative change in our lives. Remember that time you were overdrawn and didn’t have money to put gas in the car? (Many of us have been there, sis.) You went through every pocket, purse, and drawer to find just enough to get to where we needed to get to. This also made you plan better and think about your spending habits. You started storing your change and using Coinstar to cash it in when you were low on funds.

How about the times you disagreed with a procedure at work? Either the operating system didn’t work or the procedure was steeped in bias or you simply were told that you’re pushy, sensitive and complaining too much. Remember when you speak out about something frustrating or that puts you in an uncomfortable position, you are not complaining but simply voicing a concern. It’s okay to do that. This is why many companies have IT departments, incident reports, diversity training, nepotism policies, inclusive hiring practices, grievance policies, and whistleblower policies.

What we can do is learn how to redirect our focus on what we learn in those moments about ourselves and position those moments in a more positive light. Acknowledge that there are some challenging times in our lives. Acknowledge that you are an instrument for change. Acknowledge that your change could become a way of life for someone else. Having balance is about knowing and understanding the ebbs and flows from one life event to another. When we focus on the lessons to learn from these events rather than isolating them into a negative or positive we are then balancing our lives. Hopefully, when we ask our sisters again how they are balancing their lives, we may need to reframe our question to:

How are you thriving, growing, and learning?

What steps are you making to improve your quality of life?

About the author: Brandy Collins is a Bay Area native living in Scorpio magic, observing of the world, and telling stories about people in random places. Follow on twitter @gurl79 or Instagram @story_soul_collecter