Sometimes life offers us opportunities that we wouldn’t naturally choose.
Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play. FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around. Press play to listen to today’s podcast. Blessings!
So this past weekend, I had the opportunity to speak at a church. I nearly declined the invitation, as I was dealing with major “imposter syndrome.” Given the shifts in my personal beliefs, it felt odd to speak at a bible conference, but I’m glad I did. (I share the full story on today’s podcast.)
I’m grateful for the opportunity to use my gifts for teaching, speaking and storytelling in diverse environments. I never would have chosen myself to speak at a bible conference. But I’m grateful for the opportunity, how well I was received, and that I got invited back to speak again next year.
The thing I love the most is that I did it my way and was well-received. 🥰
Another cool thing is that I made the dress I’m wearing and the earrings. It was a promise I made to myself that I would make a dress for this event so when I was up stressing and cleaning at 3 am, and came across the fabric, I decided to try. I had no idea what I was doing, but wrapped it around me, started pinning, went to the sewing machine (with fingers crossed) and soon it was taking form. My first time hemming something I created. That was cool. I knew that being in something I created would be a reminder that I can do hard things… a comfort while I stood at the front of the room.
Super proud of myself for getting that done and for embracing my gifts. (I also sold a couple the Jamaica wristlet bags I made during the week, and got an order for another one!)
Anywho, if you missed the point… – Sometimes the thing you feel you’re not quite the right fit for is exactly right for you. – Sometimes we forget that our past has a purpose, too. What we’ve learned back then can show up to support us, and others, in the present… or future. – It’s okay to be yourself and to be a multidimensional being. The “box” is overrated. Be yourself. You never know who’ll accept you and embrace you as you are.
I’m having fun embracing me… even if I am a little anxious on the lead up. It’s all good. I’m growing.
If you haven’t already, check out the podcast above. Really powerful revelations that I’d love to share with you.
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It’s an amazing thing that happens when you give yourself permission to do the thing others talked you out of. I’m embracing myself, my gifts, my talents, my skills, my abilities, and most of all my right to try.
Investing in canvases was a reach for me. I didn’t feel I was worthy of them, that I would create anything worth looking at. And now I have this piece that I love so much.
Far more stunning in person. Not a huge piece, but a dynamic one. I use neon paints. That means that with a black light you get a next level experience of the painting.
I’m super excited to share this piece with someone in my world who truly gets me and wants to support. Someone who has watched my journey and wants to be a part… no…. who’s already a part and wants to own a piece.
My paintings are very personal to me, very deep, very demonstrative of the uphill battle it is for me to create with the challenges of deep insecurities around my right to be an artist and the struggles of ADHD. The effort it took me mentally to get this done is, and the fact that I DID IT is such a huge triumph.
I am truly an overcomer. And I will keep reminding myself of this one project at a time, one post at a time, one piece at a time, until I truly believe it.
Maybe you can relate. Maybe someone (or many people) told you that you don’t have what it takes, that you should give up on a dream, that what you desire will take too long, too much, or that it’s bigger than you.
First of all, if that has happened to you, I’m sorry. I know that pain. And I know that people’s words can get in and cause us to doubt ourselves and what we believe is possible for us. What I also know is that it’s our life and only we know the burning desire within us to do that thing they feel we’re incapable of. And if that desire has not left us, I believe it’s still ours to embrace.
I always wanted to be an artist. I felt I was talented. Others felt I was talented. But my family didn’t really encourage it. I was compared to the real artist in the family and it was discouraging. So for years, I wanted to create, but didn’t. For years, I thought about painting, but talked myself out of it. For most of my life, I let their words and pitying looks and critiques of my work convince me that I wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t worth the effort, the supplies, or the attempts. I was convinced they were right.
And then the opportunity came to believe in myself a little. To give it a try. To do the thing they said I couldn’t. To start and let it be okay if I was bad at a for a while. And I’m so glad that I gave myself the opportunity. I’m glad I didn’t let this life end without trying to do what I knew was in me all along. I’m grateful I didn’t let their declarations keep me from this aspect of my destiny.
I began to declare “I am an artist so I should be creating art.” That was the start. I’m not a fan of shoulds so maybe a better version is, “I am an artist so I create art.” And if my mind tries to get in the way and say, “You’re no artist,” I can argue with that OR I can say, “Anyone who creates art is an artist, and ‘art’ is subjective. So if I call it art, it’s art.”
And I share this with you because maybe your mind (or your environment) has convinced you that you don’t get to be, do, or have what you know within you is yours. And I’m not saying that’s the easiest to overcome. But what I am saying is that you can take steps toward it. You can choose to let those beliefs be theirs and not yours. You can secretly believe in yourself, without telling them. It’s not really about them. It’s about what we believe about ourselves and our possibilities.
It’s honestly better not to tell them. Because we give them a new opportunity to rock and challenge our foundation of self-trust and self-belief. It’s better to secretly build ourselves up into believing and trusting ourselves. To take baby steps toward doing that thing that we know is meant for us (if it doesn’t cause harm to anyone else and is centered in love). And as we build up our own belief, their opinions will matter less. We’ll lose that need for their permission to do what’s ours to do. And we’ll give it to ourselves.
This painting was my gift of permission to myself. Sharing it is another layer. Putting a price on it that feels honoring to me is another layer. And selling it is another….
Thank you for being here. Thank you for your support. Thank you for being part of my world… my journey. I hope that I am helping you in some way.
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With all that’s going on in the world, it can be hard to maintain control of our thoughts. We may find ourselves drifting to topics that cause us such distress, even though we don’t intend to.
This is a reblog of a great blog post I wrote years ago that you likely didn’t get a chance to read. It came to mind yesterday, so I decided to repost it and give you a chance to check it out. It’s about getting control of our thoughts in a more practical way. A way that I had to employ yesterday, because my thoughts kept leaning toward the negative. Enjoy!
I don’t know about you, but my mind can be a very annoying, continual list of shoulds. Even right now, as I write, I hear the suggestion, “Shouldn’t it be ‘sometimes annoying’?” This is the problem.
I know a young lady who has a gift for snappy comebacks. When she receives unsolicited advice/information, her immediate response is, “But, did I ask?” (When you’re not on the receiving end, it’s actually pretty funny.)
Anywho, I was doing some deep cleaning, today—like behind the refrigerator and bookshelves level, “Ewww, what is that?” type cleaning, and the whole time my thoughts were serving me the shoulds list. “You should mop the hall first, then change the water.” “Maybe you should clean that out before donating it.” “You should….” blah blah blah. And this time, rather than get frazzled from the constant interrupting thoughts, I was just like, “But did I ask?”
I am so grateful for my awesome coach, who has been helping me pay more attention to my thoughts. Daily, I am realizing how torturous they have been and I didn’t even realize it was happening.
Depending on your experience of life, your thoughts can be primarily supportive and friendly, while others (like me) endure a continual soundtrack of critiques, pessimistic what ifs, and the unending list of shoulds.
Have you ever been at home, work, or even out with friends and heard a car alarm go off, and the owner of the car seems to not know what’s going on so it just keeps honking? When a car alarm that you can’t control is going off incessantly, you just try to keep enjoying your show, doing your work, or continue your conversation with friends. It’s super annoying but you just try to block it out and keep going with it honking in the background.
Imagine if that alarm stayed on for days…. years… or even decades. That’s what life has been like for me probably since childhood. My alarm has been anxious thoughts. Until recently, I was primarily unaware of the soundtrack. And, I had no idea that those thoughts were constantly shifting my emotions. (When I focused on sad thoughts, I became sad. When I focused on worried thoughts, I became anxious, and so on.) However, now that I am paying attention to the sound, I realize how freaking annoying it is.
Paying attention to my thoughts, is like the car owner handing me the keys over and over again to turn off the alarm—better yet, it’s me realizing that it’s been my car alarm going off all along and grabbing my own keys to stop the sound. At any given moment, I get to recognize and temporarily silence the annoying sound of my unhelpful thoughts. And, today, it started with the simple question, “But, did I ask?”
I don’t know if you struggle with anxiety, or anger, or the constant replaying of a memory that was devastating. I just know for me that each time I’ve struggled with any of those, it started with a thought. And when it came to mind, I didn’t have a plan of what to do with it. Out of habit, I reacted to it the same way that felt right/reasonable at the time. I thought of my grandma who passed, and was instantly sad. I thought of my former boss cussing me out in front of customers, and I was instantly angry. Thought about my ex…. and… don’t even ask.
We are on loop with our reactions to certain thoughts. And our mind serves them up like a barista at our favorite coffee shop. (“You gonna have your usual?”) And without thought we say, “Thanks,” pay, and drink it down. However, when we begin to recognize the soundtrack (loop) of thoughts, we can choose to pause first, then react differently. (“No thanks. I’m gonna check out the menu a while.”)
A first step, is to begin to notice the thoughts that shift our moods. When we begin to pay attention to the changes in our emotions, we get better at catching our thoughts. When we suddenly feel down, we can pause and ask, “What was I just thinking?” With intentional shifts in our awareness, we begin to take control of our soundtrack. And doing that alone is so powerful, and life-shifting.
Another tool, that I am currently employing is to find a more empowering way to view the things that tend to knock me off my square. This is not always easy. Depending on the situation it can be really challenging, but it is possible.
I used to be on automatic with my reactions, but now I am getting better at pausing to think. When things don’t go as planned, I catch myself getting angry and think, “What if this is actually a good thing?” When I find myself worrying, I now think, “What if everything works out?” And I do similar things with uncomfortable memories….
I think the work here is to change the meaning of what we remember. We can make shifts from “You left me,” to “you freed me,” or from “I just wasted ten years of my life,” to “Well, now I have a decades worth of lessons to share.” I hold a strong belief that we are interconnected and that sometimes what I go through is for someone else. Meaning that the lessons I learn from my experiences can be used to support someone else. I developed that belief when I was at my lowest state. I chose to hold on to something my pastor once said, “God loves you too much to let you go through for no reason.” It really impacted me. And now, on the other side of that chapter, I get to see how my experiences back then have helped me to empower so many others…. even right now.
I said these words to a friend a few days ago…. “Whether it was a friendship (that I saw from jump was wack and I stayed a decade only for them to snake me), or a situation with an ex, I am learning to look at what I learned, what I gained, how much I’ve grown since then, etc., and it shifts the meaning of those memories.”
Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you do it the way I do it. I just want you to know that you can interrupt the soundtrack playing in your mind, if it’s not serving you. Whether you choose to yell, “Shut up!” (like Les Brown once suggested ), or mumble to yourself, “But did I ask?,” you get to regain control of the sound.
I’m so glad this blog post came back to me. I needed to read this and reset how I’m addressing my thoughts. I hope it was helpful for you, too. So when those depressing thoughts of things that are out of our control come wafting up, we get to say, “But did I ask?”
Blessings!
Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist
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I never really thought about it before, but I now acknowledge that society trains us to mind everybody’s business. And I’m honestly over it.
Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play.FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around. Press play to listen to today’s podcast. Blessings!
The older I get the more I don’t care about what others are doing, and what others thing about what I’m doing. Of course, being a “pk” (preacher’s kid), I still have my moments of hesitation (or even initial judgment), but then once I think about it, I’m back to “I don’t care.”
On today’s episode, I address this concept, share a few stories, and comment on the post that led to this recording. Get ready to laugh…. a lot.
Blessings!
Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist
BTW…. My money is looking REAL funny, so if you’d like to help keep me off that pole, please visit my SHOP page and buy something, by a few things, tell a friend, share the page, book me for empowerment coaching. Single mom over here tryna make it work without starting an OnlyFans. 😂 (Laughing but serious… please visit my Shop page!)
If you’d like to check out more of my blog posts or podcast episodes, tap the button below and just keep reading, listening, and scrolling. Oh, and subscribe while you’re there so you know when I post a new one.
This is the problem. 
type cleaning, and the whole time my thoughts were serving me the shoulds list. “You should mop the hall first, then change the water.” “Maybe you should clean that out before donating it.” “You should….” blah blah blah. And this time, rather than get frazzled from the constant interrupting thoughts, I was just like, “But did I ask?” 
And without thought we say, “Thanks,” pay, and drink it down. However, when we begin to recognize the soundtrack (loop) of thoughts, we can choose to pause first, then react differently. (“No thanks. I’m gonna check out the menu a while.”) 
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