“Finding my Voice”

By: Destiny Muse

I knew I had a problem when I purchased a $199 teeth whitening product, with only $229 in my bank account to last me a week, at a kiosk in the middle of the mall because “I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”

It may sound a bit dramatic but my white teeth and the smile I constantly wore to make other people comfortable changed my entire life. It started small but that day I decided I would always advocate for myself at those dang mall kiosks!

All jokes aside, I spent the majority of my life catering to other people’s emotions while never finding the value in my own. I would never tell the lady in the drive through my fries were cold.

The lady at the nail shop, my nail was crooked.

The coworker, that her comment was disrespectful.

The friend, that I felt unimportant.

The lover, that he couldn’t treat me any way he pleased.

I lost my voice somewhere between being told

“You are TOO much”

“You are TOO emotional”

“All that talk makes you look aggressive”

I believed those voices and allowed them to shut me up for years. I didn’t realize who I was, made them uncomfortable. I allowed myself to shrink to protect their fragile egos. I lost not only my voice but my entire identity, in fear of upsetting people who never advocating for me. I took on the burden of insecurities I never had the responsibility of fixing in the first place.

It cost me a lot before I realized I MATTER TOO!

It was an uncomfortable process, I had allowed people to believe I was someone that I was not so when the truth came out things got weird. People don’t mind you speaking up for yourself as long as it doesn’t interrupt their agenda. I can not blame the people around me for becoming upset because I created the standard for how they treated me and now I was taking the responsibility of changing it. Some people grew with me and some people outgrew me but I made space for people who would always allow me to be me.

I think finding your voice, is about so much more than just speaking up for yourself. It’s about living authentically and being able to communicate your truth. It’s when you decide who you are MATTERS. So before you can find your voice, you have to find your truth.

Examine who you are, be honest about the things that make you uncomfortable, the things that hurt you, the things that make you happy and then decide what you want and set parameters around your life that allows for nothing different.

Learn to say NO, “no is a complete sentence” and requires no explantion.

Share your story, your truth is beautiful and the people who need you will find comfort in your voice.

Tell them you love them. Don’t be afraid to take a risk, the truths of our hearts were meant to be shared.

Find the right people to share it with.

Sometimes I still get got at the dang kiosk in the middle of the mall but I no longer wear my white teeth and smile to make other people comfortable, I wear it because I am finally comfortable.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Instagram: @destinythemuse

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr6MuAGoXu2S2LadFE5SApg/featured

Website: www.destinythemuse.com

“My Life in Blended Families”

By: Dr. Wil Greer

As a “Warrior Brother” I have to pay homage to the two most important Warrior Women in my life: my mother and my wife.  My mother had me at 19. She was a student at San Bernardino Valley College, but dropped out after I was conceived. My early childhood was amazing.  My mother taught me how to read, we played board games,we went over math on a chalkboard that she bought and used for home lessons, and our house was filled with laughter.  I remember my stepfather being a kind man who always found a reason to celebrate me and take me out on fun excursions. I didn’t realize until years later that he wasn’t my actual father.  It was a wonderful time.

However, when I was maybe five or six, my mother and stepfather became addicted to crack cocaine.  My life changed, considerably. Before the drugs my family lived in a nice townhouse in San Mateo, a small city in Northern California, just below San Francisco and right across the Bay Bridge from Oakland.  I remember everyone saying that my stepfather had “a good job,” and that we lived nice. After the drugs he and my mom split. She moved back to San Bernardino, a Southern California town about 30 minutes east of Los Angeles County.  I first lived with my Grandmother Lillie in San Mateo. Within a year I was shipped to San Bernardino to be closer to my mom. There, I stayed with my Uncle Leon in his apartment, with my Aunt Del and her family in their apartment, with my Uncle Ronny in his car, and finally, with my otherwise absent biological father at his parent’s house.  

During this time, I remember being hungry, not having clean or fitting clothes, and going to school irregularly.  I remember being shot at by some men who were trying to kill one of my uncles, and having an older cousin who regularly pulled a knife on me.  But most of all I just remember wanting my mother to come help me. It took a few years, but before I turned 10 she indeed showed up, and she had the man with her who would go on to be my dominant father figure to this day.  He too was kind, loving, and made me feel like I was his child. Remarkably, my mom was able to get clean and stay sober. She got a job as a secretary, and my stepfather worked as a janitor at a car dealership in San Bernardino.  He often took me to work with him during his late night shifts, and for helping him clean the building I was paid a sum of $10 a month. I didn’t care about the money; I liked hanging out with my new dad. During those nights he gave me some crucial advice.  He would always say, “Wil, you better take school seriously young man, or you will end up pushing this mop like me.”

My mom and stepdad were able to build a nice life together.  They bought a house in Rialto, had two kids together, and made sure our lives were stable.  We had roaches, not a lot of frills, but we had each other, and I was fine with that.

Nineteen years after my mother dropped out, I was a student at San Bernardino Valley College.  I transferred to UC Riverside, met my friend Wendy Whitmore (but soon Whitmore-Burrell), and after graduating I took a job as a world and American history teacher.  During my first year of teaching I got reacquainted with the woman who would become my wife, Tanya. She and I went to high school together and knew each other, but were not close friends.  As fate would have it, we were now teaching in the same school district and repeatedly ran into each other. After seeing her twice I decided to shoot my shot. It didn’t work. She had a boyfriend and a baby.  

But I’ve always been lucky.  Three months later we ran into each other again.  She had split from her boyfriend, who was also the father of her child.  This time I had to shoot a three-pointer. I wanted to go out with her, but despite having a full time job as a teacher I was broke.  (I was recovering from years of payday loans and money borrowing, so my first several checks as a teacher went to rent, bills, food, and the payday loan spot on Foothill in Rialto.)  I asked her out again, this time to a comedy club, but with the caveat that she would have to pay for us up front, and I would pay her back.

Thankfully she agreed, and that told me a lot about her spirit and character.  We went out on a Friday night. The next day I called her, and we had an 11 hour phone conversation.  We talked about everything from politics, to religion, to culture, history, family, and our future plans.  On every major item she and I were in agreement. I had never experienced a connection with another person like that.  Two days later we went to see a movie, and, as crazy as it sounds, we moved in together the following week. That was 15 years ago.  We’ve been married for 14 years and have been together ever since that phone call.

Of course, when I got my wife I inherited a daughter as well.  As a father I’ve tried to draw from the best of the male figures in my life, while also honoring all that my mother taught and gave me.  Though my daughter and I have gone through our growing pains, being a dad remains the most important role I play in life. My wife and I have a son together.  I can’t imagine him or my daughter waking up and not having me down the hall from them, or being able to come to me anytime they need help. Ultimately, family comes down to love and commitment.  I love them, I am committed to protecting and nurturing them, and that is a commitment that I cherish.

Facebook: Wil Greer, Instagram: @wil_greer

“Mending a Mother-Daughter Relationship”

By: Nicole Cardona 

My name is Nicole and I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a cousin, a therapist, and a Black woman… but my first role in life was as a daughter. To be a daughter to my mother has not always been easy. There admittedly have been fights, disconnect from all communication, etc. She and I don’t have any misconceptions of our relationship because we didn’t always have the luxury of being able to get along with each other. I remember being a child and seeing other mother/daughter relationships and wondering why I didn’t have that kind of relationship with my mother. Make no mistake, my mother is charismatic and fun…all my friends loved her when I was growing up. But like most families, there is often some kind of trauma (i.e. addiction, incarceration, abuse, etc.) that can create a rupture in the mother/daughter relationship.

For me and my mother, our rupture hit a peak when I was 13 and she had just given birth to my brother. My mother was in the middle of separating from my father, she had a teenager and a newborn, she was a victim of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse by her mother, and my mother was well into her addictions at this point. Looking back on that time, I don’t know why I expected more from her with all these hurdles she had in front of her, but what I remember most about those early teen years for me was an overwhelming feeling of resentment that I carried with me all the way to my late twenties/early thirties. For so long, I felt like my mother had stolen my childhood by saddling me with the responsibility of caretaking for her.

This resentment was a valid feeling. It holds true to me, so I don’t judge myself for having felt this way. But what I’ve learned over the years is that it never benefits either of us to be so invested in anger. I think the mending of our relationship began when I started studying to become a therapist about 11 years ago. In order to become a therapist, my school required me to go to my own therapy. At the time, I didn’t have too much of a relationship with my mom but not surprisingly going to my own therapy cracked open an array of emotions that I had been suppressing with my own addictions (food and codependency). The freedom that therapy offered me over the following years along with various other tools like wellness retreats, Al-Anon and CODA (12 step programs), bikram yoga, meditation, focus on gratitude, etc., all created a mind/body/soul realignment for me. There was no longer a way to allow me to hold anger and resentment so close if I ever expected to achieve a level of peace.

As I look at my relationship with my mother now, it’s had a complete turnaround. She was at my wedding. She spends time with my daughter. She apologizes when she says something offensive. She has grown on her end and I have grown on mine and the beauty of it all is knowing that the years of past turmoil don’t even matter to us anymore. What I do give a lot of credit to is the communication having improved because I’m no longer throwing the past in her face and she’s no longer avoiding taking accountability. It does initially feel strange when we stop looking at our parents as otherworldly creatures. I think the root of mending our relationship began when I finally realized that my mom is human too and that she’s incapable of being perfect. Once I released her from ideas of perfection, I was able to enjoy the perfectly imperfect mother I have. Can I say we’ll never fight again? No, I can’t say that. But what I can say is I don’t think either of us will ever go back to a place where we can’t love on each other. And that is a beautiful thing.

“I am a Woman…Who Writes” 

By: Chamara Jewel Kwakye

For the last 6 years I have been writing a book. It started as a book about the experiences of Black women faculty at predominantly white colleges and universities. It was the book I planned to get tenure with. Unsatisfied with telling those difficult and painful stories, I decided to write about the creative arts space I helped co-create with Black girls and women in Lexington, called SOLHOTLex. SOLHOTLex was a satellite program of Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT) a creative arts space that centers Black girls and women founded by my mentor, Dr. Ruth Nicole Brown. SOLHOT and SOLHOTLex is a soul anchoring practice for me, but as much as I love doing SOLHOT and being with other Black girls and women in the name of creativity and freedom, I found it difficult to capture all the beauty and nuance of our time together. I was stuck. Nothing seemed to fit or make sense.

Throughout my life writing was a constant. Writing was never easy. I never felt like I was great or even really good at it, but it was the thing I went back to constantly, because I could give myself over to it completely without any expectation. I could say all the things I needed to say and wanted to say and was content with just getting my thoughts out. No one ever had to read it. No one ever had to critique it. My writing stood on its own because it was mine. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that’s what was making it so hard. I had forgotten to write for me. For so long in my life I had been doing things the way other people wanted me to. My thinking was simple, I will do this for them now and later I will do what I want to do. The giving here and the giving there often never led me back to doing what I really wanted to do. I compromised so much that I compromised my voice. I compromised myself.

Now, six years later, I’ve decided to write for me and I can say without a doubt this is some of the best writing I have ever done in my life. I’m less concerned with the product and in love with the process. It doesn’t mean it’s not hard and it doesn’t mean I still don’t look at the cursor as it blinks or watch as the seconds turn into minutes on my wall clock. Instead, it means I’m not waiting for tenure, approval from colleagues, or reviewers to approve of how or what I’m writing about. Below is an excerpt from my book, tentatively titled, Black Girl Lullabies. It’s one of the first pieces I wrote when asked directly, “Who is your writing accountable to? Who do you belong to?” by a student. I purposely chose it to include in THE My Warrior Life Community™ blog because it’s the piece that I read whenever I want to go back to doing what others expect of me. It reminds me that, while I am writing for me, I come from courageous stock and belong to other powerful women that have always made things happen for themselves, without permission.

Who I Belong to…

I belong to Black Migrant Women

Women that packed light but brought everything and everyone with them

That knew what was important to keep

What was important to throw away

And sometimes confused the two

I belong to the ones that never let grass grow under their feet

But always knew when to plant

I belong to the women who were always looking and searching

For home and had to create it in themselves.

Chamara Jewel Kwakye is a Lecturer at Georgia State University in The Institute for Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies and is the program director for The Initiative for Creative Arts. She co-edited, Wish to Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader and has also co-written, starred, and produced several ethnographic performances based on the lives of Black women and girls. She has published works on qualitative methods, hip-hop feminist pedagogy and is currently working on a monograph that examines Black women and girls’ pedagogy and praxis of love and labor. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2011. She is a native of Los Angeles and misses home everyday.

She can be found on social media at the following:

@cjkwakye & @TheInitiativeForCreativeArts @jewelsdaughter  @TheInitiativeForCreativeArts