8.31.17 Rest In Loving PEACE

We all are out here living our lives many I would say on our own terms. However even in the light of owning our truths others are always affected, effected, and infected by what we do.

It is so very easy to point your finger at someone you disagree with. Especially when you don't value their ability to be a free thinker as you would want others to value you.

Watching people make decisions that affect you whether directly or indirectly and remaining mum does not mean you don't care. It could mean you value people to have the right to make decisions and think for themselves as you would want the same respect.

There are plenty of LIFE ALTERING moments you will challenge your immediate response to them. Some of the decisions you made you will later consider the best ... then others you will consider could and should have been different.

Nevertheless no one is perfect. NO ONE! It takes a real honest person to admit their responsibility in the status of their lives. ALWAYS deflecting your anger and contempt at others no matter their role in your status does not help you grow nor heal.

Sometimes DEATH is the only answer to LIVE again.  Once I was at a homegoing service of very dear to my heart loved one. I was devastated beyond words. There was nothing no one could say that could comfort me. How could GOD let this happen. Take someone I loved so much from me! WHY GOD? Even with knowing the answer to this revisited query it would do nothing to bring my loved one back. As I sat there tears streaming from my face, heart beating out my chest, aching, trembling as I looked at this beautifully adorned ornamental box now holding the remains of my loved one. I hear the officiant say these words "Some things you never get over but God will help you live with it." 

I left that moment changed forever how I looked at my life, those in it, and how I value time. Time is the one thing you never have enough of, it never repeats itself, and it subtracts and adds simultaneously. 

So mourn the DEATHS in your life so you can learn LIVE as you still have breath in your body. Some THINGS you never get over but GOD will help you live with THEM.

8.31.17 Rest In Loving PEACE

Copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Hurricane Harvey - How to Help

Whenever there are catastrophic events albeit natural disasters or some other force (domestic or international) leaving trails of mayhem and destruction the images and reports make our hearts hurt and soul's lament on how to help out. Whether we ourselves are directly caught in moment of needing assistance or a loved one or a neighbor  ... we just want to help. 

Take it from someone who has helped out with the relief efforts from Hurricane Katrina; Earthquakes in Haiti; Superstorm Sandy; Flint Drinking Water Relief Drive as well as other local - international crisis. It can be overwhelming of knowing what to do and how to help out. 

First let me challenge you to sign up for updates regarding the current and ongoing conditions of Hurricane Harvey. As much damage that has been done it is FAR from over! 

Second unless you're a trained disaster/catastrophe /crisis  responder please do not just get in your vehicle and head to the affected areas. Training is vital for you as well as those in need of your assistance. 

Here is a list of a few organizations offering training for Disaster and Crisis Management: (Just click the title and it will take you their site. This is not a comprehensive list. Just some to point you in the right direction.)

• Disaster Ready / Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation
• FEMA / Department of Homeland Security 
• Red Cross
• Salvation Army  

Third I know getting trained does little to assist now. However you can help out with those already on the ground. Below is a list of organizations already on the ground or sites to gather more information regarding the relief efforts and resources for Hurricane Harvey. (Just click the title and it will take you their site. This is not a comprehensive list. Just some to point you in the right direction.)

• Current Locations for Temporary Shelters or Housing (Information regarding whether the location is accepting pets, on stand-by, or at capacity is available through this site.)
•  National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster  (Information regarding organizations already on the ground in the devastated areas both National and Texas organizations can be found on this site. Individuals wanting to make donations can do so through this site.)
• The National Flood Insurance Program (Information on how to file a claim is located on this site.)
• Disaster Assistance (Information about resources for assistance during disaster can be found on this site.)
• Hurricane Preparedness (Information on Hurricane Preparedness Week as well as resources on volunteer organizations to partner with.)

Before You Give Check Out A Charitable Organization's Status:

1. Federal Trade Commission 
2. National Association of State Charity Officials 

City of Houston Information:

1. Houston Emergency 
2. City of Houston Government
3. Office of Emergency Management
4. Go Bag Preparation | Evacuation Plan Resources  

Weather Information:

• National Weather Service
• The Weather Channel
• National Hurricane Center

Texas Organizations seeking volunteers or donations:

• South Texas Blood and Tissue Center (The center says although O negative and O positive blood is at critically low levels, all blood type donations are welcome. The center says less than a day's supply is available. The center is asking the public in the San Antonio and New Braunfels areas to donate right now.  Call 210-731-5590 to schedule an appointment to donate blood. From the TWC 8.28.17)
• Texas Diaper Bank  ( "Diapers are not provided by disaster relief agencies," the TDB posted on Facebook Friday. To alleviate that need, the TDB is requesting donations of cash and diapers to provide emergency diaper kits for families that are being displaced due to Hurricane Harvey. From the TWC 8.28.17)
• Austin Pets Alive! (Austin Pets Alive! is an animal shelter and no-kill pet advocacy group seeking assistance to help with pets in the aftermath of the storm. From the TWC 8.28.17)
• Catholic Charities USA Text CCUSADISASTER to 71777

Texas State  Information:

1. State of Texas Emergency Portal
2. Road Closures
3. Texas Departure of Public Safety
4. Texas Department of Transportation

Louisiana State Information:

1. Lake Charles Hurricane Information
2. Governor's Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness
3. Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development

Fourth take a long deep breath get some oxygen flowing through your body. Let's get them endorphins and serotonin working. It is hard to be apart of a crisis let alone witness it take its toll on those we love, connected too, or are concerned about. Rebuilding can only happen after the recovery phase of relief efforts. If you are person of faith tap into your faith. If not find a quiet space to recenter yourself perhaps meditate. Take these moments moment by moment. Find someone to speak with and then develop a plan that will work for you.

All material provided in this article is intended for informational purposes only. The information in this article is provided for educational or information purposes only; it is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, whether medical, legal, or otherwise. 

The article contains links to other sites. These links are provided as references to help users identify and locate other Internet resources that may be of interest. Therefore, www.communcalconscientious.com does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or appropriateness of the information contained at such sites. In providing links to other sites, www.communcalconscientious.com is not acting as a publisher or disseminator of the material contained on these other sites and does not seek to control the content of, or maintain any type of editorial control over, such sites. A link to another site should not be construed to mean that www.communalconscientiousness.com is associated with or is legally authorized to use any trademark, trade name, logo or copyrighted symbol that may be reflected in the link or the description of the link to such other sites. In addition, the mention of another party or its product or services on www.communcalconscientiousness.com should not be construed as an endorsement of that party or its product or service.

Certain words, phrases, names, designs or logos used on www.communcalconscientiousness.com may constitute trade marks, service marks or trade names of  www.communalconscientiousness.com or other entities. The display of any such marks or names on www.communalconscientiousness.com does not imply that www.communalconscientiousness.com or other entities have granted a license or authorization of any kind to use such marks or names.

The Queen Has Spoken

Join me as I share my lumps, bumps, bruises, through light, love, and elevation.

The Queen Has Spoken

We are all entrusted with a gift to make this world a more positive dimension to meander.  As each of us transverse through life shedding the layers of growth via our stories it enables the next person to find their voice and use their inner strength. I have been blessed with many gifts and talents. I have outgrown the dimension of living of being ducked off and reserved well hidden in plain sight while I watch humanity suffer. This page is dedicated to revelation and elevation. Here is where revelation meets light and leads to enlightenment, empowerment, and intrinsic evolution of mind, body, and soul. I share with you what life, lumps, and love has gifted me via my prose and my voice. Unapologetically Liberated, Love and Light Rendering Loquaciousness, Poetical Proliferations in Prose, Mystically Mused through Meditation, and Unequivocally Elevated in Existence. I am the Queen and I am speaking! #theQueenhasSpoken 

Click here --> The Queen Has Spoken

Copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Shhhh …… Shame, Shame, Shame, on ME! No SHAME ON YOU!!!

If you stare long enough at anything you’ll find something wrong. ~ Mothanmeetz Daeyez

Wow you completed a triathlon .. congratulations but weren't you 1. __ or 2. ____ or 3. _____ with all those people looking? It amazes me how negative people can be. No one seems to know how to give a compliment and just leave it at that. Nor do people seem to understand that projecting their issues onto others is not a way to remedy their need to do  self-work. These selfish innuendos lead to energy spent in thoughts, meditation, actions, or perhaps medication on fixing something many times which isn’t broken.  

First it was my hair. Is that your real color? Why won't you color it? Ever thought about a wig? ETC. ETC. ETC. Women literally came up to me and asked a series of questions regarding my hair color. Most of these women were older than me. They themselves either were not happy with their hair color or just afraid to live their truth. I used to color my hair but .... I stopped - I wanted to find a more natural way to have color without damaging my texture or the grade of my hair. I did not like the options available so I stopped.

Prior to that it was why did you go natural? Once again, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. Even with me explaining that I have been natural for 17+ yrs  ….. Still more blah, blah, blah!!

At some point in our lives we just get tired of the endless pointless conversations. Especially about futile things such as image or at least the image others think you should have. I fought a battle of self-hatred for years. Many of them unbeknownst to me because I also lived in functional dysfunctional community with the IDEOLOGIES if you were to skinny eat something and if you were just really thick maybe you shouldn’t eat something. As harmless as the quips and quotes from my childhood and young adulthood were from loved ones they became an embedded critique I viewed myself through.

The battle to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not shudder at anything I thought needed to be adjusted before I could be seen publicly wearing this or that took a real toll on my life holistically. However the irony of this is I have never thought I was hard on the eyes and never needed the compliment of the opposite gender to feel good about myself. It was the words of my childhood/young adulthood on loop in my head rendering me shameful of my ever changing body.

Truthfully every single time I have set out to change my body for vain reasons I failed!!!! MISERABLY! Yup I got some great results but because they were rooted in a place of pain it didn’t last. Here is the kicker by the time I got over those vain prerequisites I was over forty and my body had developed a new attitude of existing ...... Menopause!!!! Menopause is so disrespectful!!! Graciousness is owed to GOD and a pre-menopausal lifestyle of not eating certain things of why I do not suffer as I have heard many other women share their stories.

I had finally become fully cognizant of process errors to gain control over my fluctuating weight. The physical ability to be able to do so was even more of a challenge. Now the real battle came to learn to really look in the mirror at my forty-plus body and not shudder. Not to enter into a matrix of moments relived or revisited where my body didn’t look like this. Where this didn’t bulge or wiggle or even the overarching fear of how can my king love these life lines in my body he didn’t help create!!!

Three years ago when I sought out to compete in a triathlon it wasn’t to be trend setter or garner a bunch social media hoopla. It would be a moment to grasp ahold of life fleeting and grapple with the evolution of what it would become. Even when I finally got into position to train hard once again I had to face my embedded voices about my body. Ultimately I actually stopped caring about it because I became more serious about surviving the swimming part of the triathlon than concerns about how I looked.

I am still a work in progress. Truthfully I can still look in the mirror and find plenty of spots that need IMMEDIATE ATTENTION but now instead of being paralyzed by it I embrace it. So here is my freedom and liberation moment from BODY-SHAMING and SELF-HATRED I pray it sets someone free. I am 5’10” and 45 years old and according to the BMI(Body Mass Index) Chart  I am grossly obese. However I was tested and cleared by a doctor to be able to compete in my first triathlon (my second is in September) and I refuse to live my life in box based upon charts that cannot determine if I am healthy or not. Nor will I live my life in the shadows of others whose ideal images include either starving or stuffing myself. So shhhhhhhh SHAME, SHAME, SHAME, on you if you’re still living in space not created for you or in vicissitudes of what others think.

These are pictures of me wearing two piece during my training at Lake Bennett and a one piece suit for my triathlon something just a few years ago I would have never put on. I challenge myself every week in my new level of existing to wear something I would never have done before and not let anything or anyone hinder my freedom in doing so not even myself.  I ask you to join my challenge and post a picture of you getting out your comfort zone. CLICK HERE TO ACCEPT THAT THE CHALLENGE!!!

Copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Misrepresentations

It is often a heart  ♡ breaking space to maneuver when you discover someone you trusted turns out not to be the person they represented especially if that relationship has grown pass the time and space where most faux representations of a person are either revealed or removed.

Truthfully in a time where it is very, very, very, easy to hop online or your favorite app anywhere and anytime to spew your disdain or air your laundry for any and every one to scrutinize, cherry pick, or pick apart your account of what has happened leaving you with more anguish I challenge you to do this.

Elevate your existence. AS hard and I know this may be harder for some more than others. AS hard it may be to leave it be ... LEAVE IT! See when people intentionally misrepresent themselves to be someone other than who they truly are it is not your loss. It is theirs.

I get it I truly do you have most likely invested more of your nontangible self into them and clearly there is no recovery plan for that. However operating in a space above bitterness or brokenness from betrayal is a choice. Choose YOU and your happy holistic healthy self over them. You may never ever get an acknowledgment of neither guilt nor apology for wrong but ease your mental baggage by not storing those moments of mistrust on the bookshelves of your heart or head.

But I offer you a recovery plan to move forward from this misfortunate …. 1) remember whatever energy you exude into the universe will return to you therefore keep being true to yourself by giving of yourself in a positive manner i.e. positive begets positive and negative begets negative please continue to choose positive ways, deeds, and actions; 2) authenticity always outweighs falsity therefore you cannot beat yourself up for being authentic; 3) patterns are normally cycled therefore never try to prove to others what life will reveal for them to see; and lastly 4) meditation is mirrored meaning meditate daily spend time in silence honing in on you and what God has for you. Don’t waste a lot of time trying to figure how you could have, should have, or it would have been differently if you had just done ABC or XYZ.

We cannot change people. We can only improve ourselves. When people choose to abuse the one pure innate interconnected essence of humanity through acts betrayal and intentional misrepresentations of themselves there is nothing you can do or could have done. Life is a cycle and trust me this moment or similar ones will recycle in those whom are guilty. #theQueenhasSpoken

Copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Caged No More ....

As a child one of my favorite shows on television was the Cosby Show. It represented so many ideologies I wanted to have in my own family. Their family had all the nuances which seemed to be necessary for a healthy happy family. This isn't a post about the infamous and beloved fictitious family from the '80s but rather how their storyline breed hope about the possibilities. Yes we often saw ourselves in the roles of either member of the family however life's reality would reel us back into where we lived daily far, far, far from the melodies, and teachable moments in the Brooklyn Brownstone.

In a home full of love and siblings, I admired the strength it took my mother to raise us to be true to our individualities as we maintained interconnectedness. She'd say "I have some of worst best children ever." When I became an adult she told me this meant although she'd encouraged our own divine pathways it was tough on her being all we needed her to be all the time. She did it so well with a smile on face and prayer on her tongue.

When I became a parent I wanted to emulate my mother. This was the best way to pay homage and honor all her sacrifices for us. I worked hard to not repeat mistakes she beckoned me not too. But there was one thing I repeated and it wouldn't fall up under failure but rather success albeit bittersweet. My mother had gifted me with the liberated freedom to fly free and soar high. Even though it frightened her she still encouraged me to chase after my dreams and fight for my goals knowing they would take me from home, very, very, far from home. I’ve spent most of my adulthood living away from my mother. I was maturing as an adult and parent in the earshot of her voice but far from her loving hugs.

In a series of unplanned and many unfortunate incidents I found myself back in the town I’d prayed so hard to get far and stay away from. Truthfully I came back kicking, screaming, and crying. But this space was exactly what my children needed to transition from childhood to young adulthood.

In a scene from our beloved fictitious ‘80s family the second oldest daughter returned home with a child who was preparing for the first day of preschool. This young new mother was explaining to the matriarch of the family how she was worried about her daughter’s first day of preschool. The somber scene is quickly interrupted with her daughter dashing down the stairs rushing quickly to the front door to eagerly exit for her big first day of preschool. Her mother is floored by her daughter’s exuberance all while coming to the conclusion this is just of one many fleeting moments to come.

I felt this mother’s grasp on a changing tapestry she had no control over. Even as the things we do daily are woven into it as it becomes a beautiful crafted art piece for others to admire. We still breathe deeply as the patterns we’re familiar with change.

Paraphrasing one of my favorite artist “I hated moving but I had to go” in his song Nemo Money pens a beautiful love letter to his mother and sisters titled Postcard. The song tells how he hated leaving but leaving was the only way to chase his dreams.

Today I dropped off my Princess at her dormitory to begin her spring semester. You’d think this would not be such a big deal to me since I have been taking she and her siblings most of their lives to some big away from home experience. However, it was and it made me more emotional than I expected especially as this is not her first semester in college. Why was the question I kept asking myself? Much like the young new mother from the television show I was preparing for thing and life has constantly giving signals and preparing me for something totally different.

Today I wrote this about dropping off my princess: My heart fluttered a little but as I felt the bird squirming in my hands I knew I could no longer hold on to it... it was time to let it go. It was time to let it fly. AND!! Just like that I opened my hands watching the bird leap into the air and begin to flap its wings as it flew away. I watched to see if it would turn around to look back but it didn't. But at least I got to see it land safely into its new nest.

I took my other child with me to drop off her sister. I needed the moral support. I pulled onto the parking as I have many times before but this time I felt a lump in my throat and tears welling in my eyes. I grabbed her and her sister’s hands and I begin to cry as I prayed over her exit from my vehicle to embark upon a new branch in her tree of life. She exited my vehicle and we drove off. When we pulled back up in front of our home I asked my youngest child aren’t you sad like mama? She replied, “No mama, she’s been trying to do this for a while now.” “I hated leaving but I had to go but when I come back I am make our lives magical and if I don’t at least I put on a show, I am be the man.” My son aka Nemo Money taught me the value in growing with your children even when it hurts to see them go.

Copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Fired with Freedom

This is a new year and always so many start the year out saying how they are going to such different things than they did in the prior year. It is my prayer if this is your mindset you find the strength to stretch beyond the moment you want to quit to become a better you not just for the new year but in life.

Last year was one of the most life changing and revealing as it fulfilled so many unanswered questions. So while I got fired from a space I love in the dna of my being it freed me into living. I am redoing my website and that is my only new "thing" if there would be a resolution is to stay faithful to girth and strength of my gifts as God makes room. Please bear with me as these changes unveil and propel me. Until the next post..... I am Gone Fishing!