Healing Over Hustling™: Liars Beware!©

 Liars Beware!©

I died today because I lied yesterday,
and the day before,
and the day before that.

It wasn’t a white lie or a big lie or even a black lie.
But a lie is a lie.
So the result is I had to die.

You know when you show up on borrowed time —
time you need for yourself —
but you give it to everyone else.

That’s a lie that can kill you.

You know when you need to be by yourself and work on your health,
but instead you’re doctoring on everyone else.

That’s a lie that can kill you.

When you teach people to rely on you,
the result becomes that’s all they will do —
and you will have nothing left for you.

That’s a lie that can kill you.

All I wanted was to be a better version of myself for everyone else,
but that cost me everything —
even myself.

I died today and it hurt — because there was

No funeral.
No flowers.
No fanfare.

The tears were mine and it was all by my design —
being everything for everyone else
and not enough, and most times nothing, for myself.

How do you break the chain

where you live out loud in vain

to be the change others need

all while you’re in need?

I didn’t get here by myself,
but the test is getting out
without being put to death permanently. 

August 12, 2025 ©

I wrote those words last summer looking for a space to be transparent — being honest about the chokehold of becoming what everyone else needed while what I needed went unnoticed and unmet.

I thought those words would give me a proverbial landing strip — a way to come out of a holding pattern.

Instead of idling in life to stay close for others who might need me, I hoped to take flight into a space that would free me from that type of bondage.

I am not saying being available and willing to share yourself, your time, and your resources is wrong, improper, or misgiving.

What I am saying is you need balance.

Without balance, you teeter either hard left or hard right.

And the lesson you think you’re teaching about resilience and love can quietly become a blueprint for others —
one that teaches acceptance of less and the bare minimum instead of what they truly deserve.

Once I heard a powerful sermon titled Coming in on Broken Pieces, and years later another titled Winning with a Bad Hand.

Both were written from the efficacies of holding on to what you have to make it to where you need to go — no matter how bad or how hard life may seem.

They used Acts 27:41–44 as the springboard for these messages.

“… You've got to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run

You never count your money

When you're sittin' at the table

There'll be time enough for countin'

When the dealin's done

… Every gambler knows

That the secret to survivin'

Is knowin' what to throw away

And knowin' what to keep

'Cause every hand's a winner

And every hand's a loser”

These lyrics belong to “The Gambler,”
written by Don Schiltz in 1976 and sung by Kenny Rogers in 1978.

It is now 2026, and what once seemed like a satirical spin on life through the lens of a gambler now reveals a deeper truth. 

There is a powerful symmetry between:

Liars Beware
Acts 27:41–44
and knowing when to hold on —  and when to let go.

Healing Over Hustling™ is not about abandoning responsibility — it’s about refusing to die quietly from the lies we tell ourselves in survival mode. It’s about how we use the vicissitudes as the embedded pedagogies that become our operational dna. It is a tethering threshold to learn how to balance deprogramming, and unlearning what has become nuanced struggling satiation. Far too long have I been exhausted from surviving — today I am choosing not to be a Liar any more but to embrace this jump into a new improved and more enlightened identity. Stay with me as I unpack and prayerfully we all can become better at being BETTER through this movement of Healing Over Hustling.

Peace and Blessings,
Love and Light,
Coach A

This may be my story to tell, but it’s our journey to share.

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Healing Over Hustling™: Broken Lenses, Frozen Truth

 

Healing Over Hustling™: Broken Lenses, Frozen Truth

This past ice storm wasn’t just about the weather.

It froze my plans in place — plans I made back in January to finally break old patterns of financial struggle. January was supposed to be my reset. My fresh start. My way of not reliving the financial bondage I’ve walked through for the last two years.

But what I didn’t know then was that stillness was coming.

And in that stillness, revelation was waiting.

These last eight days have been really exhausting.

It started two Thursdays ago, right in between the end of the month and the start of a new one. When the ice storm hit, everything came to a standstill. What was supposed to be momentum turned into pause.

But in that pause, I began to reexamine everything.

My footsteps.
My patterns.
Even my words.

And what I realized shook me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be financially free.
It wasn’t a lack of effort.

It was my heart’s desire to always be the rock.

To be vigilant.
To show up for those struggling.
For those who share my DNA.
And even those who are family by proximity — what I call proximal DNA.

I carry a deep responsibility for the people connected to me.

And while this heart is big, beautiful and full of love … It has also cost me.

On February 1st, I had a moment that brought all of this into focus.

While helping my daughter — an essential worker — navigate through the ice, my glasses fell. I picked them up and tucked them into my pocket, thinking nothing of it.

Later, I realized the frames were broken.

The lenses were safe in my pocket — but the frames that held everything together were cracked beyond repair.

So I did what I’ve always done in survival mode.

I taped them up.

Blue tape holding together something that was never meant to be patched long-term.

And at that moment, it hit me.

I’ve been TAPING over cracks in the frame of my life.

Pushing forward. Holding everything together just enough to function.

SURVIVING!!!! But not healing.

The lenses — my vision, my purpose, my heart — were still intact. But the structure supporting it all was breaking under pressure.

I realized I’ve been using survival tools for wounds that needed healing. This isn’t just about broken frames.

It’s about the broken places we hold together with temporary fixes. The parts of ourselves we tape up because stopping feels impossible. The grind that keeps us moving but never lets us mend.

This journey has taught me something about sovereignty.

About honoring my core self — the part of me created to help, nurture, build, and serve — without sacrificing my own well-being in the process.

Healing Over Hustling doesn’t mean I stop working hard.

It means I stop bleeding while I’m working. It means I stop patching broken places with quick fixes. It means I learn how to show up for others while also showing up for myself. It means shifting from grind culture to wholeness. From exhaustion to restoration. From survival to sovereignty.

These broken frames were more than an accident.

They were a frozen truth. A reflection of what happens when we carry too much for too long. (Also real visualization of burnout.) A reminder that even the strongest structures need care.

And maybe, just maybe, this season of stillness — this ice, this pause, this revelation — is redemption in disguise.

Not punishment.

But an invitation.

An invitation to heal.

This may be my story to tell, but it’s our journey to share.

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Healing Over Hustling – The Reset

 

Healing Over Hustling – The Reset

I had been trying to wrap my head around why it has been so hard to get out of this hole. How it seemed like no matter how hard I have been grinding, hustling, putting one foot in front of the other, up with the chickens and down with the crickets, I was getting no further along.

Wake up exhausted, go to bed exhausted. Can’t fully sleep because as soon as I close my eyes my mind wakes me up, reminding me of all the many things I have undone, unfinished, stuff in limbo — and if not that, it is a phone call from a loved one or close one needing assistance or utilization of my resources, skill sets, or assets.

Ever be built for problem solving but be like, “God just hide me because I don’t want to solve not nan other problem?” That’s me. Exhausted from surviving… surviving the 12–16 hour day gig work grind.

As a creator and small business owner, I would judge myself by my measurable productivity until it became unrealistic and, in this meaning, poisonous to my holistic welfare. I know we throw around the word “toxic” so much in this postmodern world that it has lost its real qualitative value, but for me in this equation:

pp = tp
poisonous productivity = toxic productivity

Literally meaning killing myself by this unrealistic rubric I was living by.

If I am completely honest, I am still in recovery. Trying to relieve myself from guilt and shame of being so equipped with training, talents, and hidden treasures yet to be discovered, only to be in disastrous and chaotic need again.

How can I (still do help) have helped, aided, and come to the rescue of so many, and don’t know but one person outside of my household I can ask for twenty bucks? This has me in a grappling grasp on reality and the gravity of how this hurts.

I did the whole — asking for help — and it got me nothing, honestly. I am so very humbly grateful for those that extended me an olive branch many times from their tree of needs themselves.

Once I was so very excited to be chosen to take a major step for my businesses and my brands. I sought out the help from whom I thought were my supporters and graciously I was “gifted” the chance to make a difference in a cause I believe so deeply in. Some of those same supporters offered to continue support for new endeavors, but when I was completely transparent that I would use the support as a building block, it was met with resistance and no assistance.

Why am I being so transparent? Because I know I am not the only one suffering from hustle overload — working hard to make a difference for your family, the community you live in, all while building a legacy that is believable and can be built upon.

These keystrokes are offering me a leap pad toward my healing, toward a freedom of not being ashamed that my hustle is failing me — not because I am lazy, not because I do not care, not because I am living above or beneath the means I have in my possession, not because my dreams are unobtainable — but because the shift happened.

Last year, a dear friend helped me eat so many times without ever judging me. Not once made me feel small because I didn’t have it or asked embarrassing questions about how I can own a business and make sales but still can’t afford to feed myself.

So many times over the last two years in particular, my presence was required in spaces that, had I not shown up or been present and accounted for, the outcome for those connected to me would have been gravely disastrous. Being present in those moments saved lives, built bridges, healed hurt for those I had to stand in the gap for — but it also cost me leverage to build for current and future financial needs.

I am exhausted with not having enough.
I am exhausted with always being the one that gets called on but can’t call no one.
I am exhausted with having to choose between paying for one necessity and going without the other.

Something as simple as buying laundry soap versus paying my mobile phone bill should not cause me to cry myself to sleep.

How can I be facing being unhoused again, disconnections again, auctions again, zero mobility again, when all I ever do is fall asleep and wake up (outside fear of notices and lockouts) dreaming about ideas, drawing plans, and creating programming for those in need around me — but can’t climb out and stay out this hole again?

I am not broken, but my ability to pay attention to the things I know I am called to has shifted into exhaustion — from being scared that I will not have something I really need so I can continue to fight, create, and build on these thoughts, ideas, and plans that never died, even in the midst of facing immediate personal calamity.

What does it mean that I have nearly 25 months being the exact resource those around me needed, but no one sees or cares about what I need?

I am exhausted from struggling.

Struggling to continue to hustle.
Struggling to choose between bread or peanut butter to go on the bread.
Struggling to choose between gas or water (water won, of course).
Struggling to give when I have nothing left but the lint in my pocket.

Struggling because I am overworked and undersupported — and those words fall off my lips easily, but they only scratch the surface.

I believe in this movement.
I believe in the momentum it will create.
I believe that this collection will give visualization to something bigger than this gray-haired grandmother.

When you read these words, I want you to hear my heart.
Hear my pain.
Hear my desire to break the chain of being ashamed and feeling guilty.

And when you wear one of these tees, I want you to hear my healing as people read the words.

They’re not just random words I threw on a tee to make another urban wear collection line for another money grab. It is the very existence of where I am as I penned these words, and it is the very needful springboard I want to use to share, find, and use my voice for others who can’t.

Join me as I divorce hustle culture and work on my healing over hustling.

These last two years have taught me that culture to nurture didn’t fail me — but hustle did. Better yet, my form of hustling did.

I see you all on the other side.

Love and Light,
Peace and Blessings,

Coach A

This may be my story to tell, but it’s our journey to share.

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