A Decade's Worth of Lessons

A wise woman once told me, “you’ve gotta learn how to live!” and no truer words have ever been spoken as it pertains to living. We owe it to ourselves to learn how to live and manage all that has been entrusted to us.

Here are a handful of lessons I’ve learned over the past decade. Let me know which nugget is your favorite in the comments below. Enjoy!

• The Voice of God ~ I can’t tell you how vitally important it was for me to really  learn how God speaks to me. Trying to navigate life guessing and wondering what the voice of God sounded like to me, had run its course. I was tired of making poor decisions & needed to know without any doubt when a thought was Him, me, or some sort of outside influence. Understanding what He sounds like, how He responds, and the many different ways that He communicates has by far been the most beneficial lesson learned to date. Oh, and let me add that I learned God’s voice/guidance more accurately from the times I didn’t listen or act on it versus the times that I did.

• The Power of Confession ~ My words have some serious power with God. I have consistently seen my confessions become reality. This year my biggest lesson was maintaining my confessions under pressure. My history with God is solid and being able to pull on that fact during tough seasons is something I strive to become better at.

• God is God and I Am Not. ~ Listen, your girl was out here worrying about and trying to control way more than I was supposed to. Over analyzing, over thinking, & control freaking was stressing me out. In a nutshell, I had to learn to allow God to be God and (for me) to stop taking on roles, responsibilities, & false burdens in my life and in the lives of others. My place is to open to what He says, heed His instructions, and let HIM do the rest. 

Check out some of my other posts & let’s talk about it!

• February 2019
  • Feb 1, 2019 A Decade's Worth of Lessons Feb 1, 2019

Saying No Helps Me To Say No ~ By default I’m a natural people pleaser. Always being available, easily accessible, & “all things to all men”, caused me create some very unhealthy boundaries. To help myself say no, I literally stand in the mirror and say no every way I can possibly think of. No. Nope. Um hmm. Issa no for me. I can’t right now. I don’t want to. Thanks, but no thanks. Nah fam. That’s not going to work for me and any other phrase that comes to mind. Hearing, feeling, and seeing myself say no has helped me to actually do it more easily when the occasion arises.

How To Use My Voice ~ One day in therapy, my doctor and I were discussing my tendencies to not speak up for myself or communicate what I want & need. During the session she says, “Isn’t it funny that you know how to use your voice to sing, but not to speak up for yourself?” Talk about gut punch, right?! Her point was this, don’t focus all of your energies building things that your naturally good at doing, at the expense of staying under developed in the things you’re not. She also affirmed that I was worthy of being heard, that my voice mattered, and I that I owed to myself and others to learn how to effectively communicate.

I’m Already Loved & Already Accepted ~ I really wish I had learned this at an earlier age, but I’m glad that I know it now. Understanding that I don’t have to change a single thing about myself to be loved and accepted by God, my family, and my tribe has liberated me to just be myself. All the things that make me me, are unique to my story that God will use to help others, and I love that.

Friends Belong In Categories ~Having proper expectations within my friendships helps me to get the best out of each of them. Expecting a sympathetic & nurturing conversation from a “tough love” “no non-sense” type of friend will cause you to contemplate severing a valuable relationship when you simply just need to know what to get from who.

Stop Playing With Imaginary Friends ~ Playing with imaginary friends was cool when we were kids but not so much as you get older. I’ve painstakingly learned that everybody just isn’t your friend. I will never be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. Pretending that they’ll change their toxic behaviors or even worse, believing that some sort of performance on my part will make things better, is a complete waste of energy.

Friendships Have Seasons ~ I’m not sure where the connotation of “friends forever” derived from but it definitely made things harder to process when the dynamics of my friendships began to change. Friendships are a very seasonal aspect of our lives & proximity plays a great part in that. As begin to make certain life choices, grow, & evolve, so will our circle. Knowing what seasons you & your friends are in keeps things in perspective & avoids unnecessary conflict. We’re all connected to our people for seasons and reasons.

How To Use Money ~I have an entire blog post coming on this, but in short, I should always have money to save, sow, spend, and serve.

Using the B Word ~ Pardon my french but I’m about to cuss. Budget! There I said the B word. Living on a budget comes easy for some people, however, I am not ‘said’ people. What I do know is, all of my goals & dreams heavily depend on me having a plan. Part of that includes having a budget (plan) for my money. I have gotten a lot better in this area but there is always room for improvement.

Generosity ~ I once heard someone talk about creating a giving portfolio. Basically you set a certain dollar amount to give away (invest) each year and incrementally increase that number each year. It intrigued me so much that I wrote it down as a goal in one of my journals. In Tony Robbins’ book, ‘Money: Master the Game’ he says, “giving trains your mind to believe that there will always be enough.” And it’s so true. The more I give, the more God gives me to give. Generosity is my retirement plan lol.

Use A Good Balance of Love & Logic ~ New relationship energy (NRE) is a complex force. Entertaining someone new can make it hard to see the forest for the trees. Learning how to use both my head and my heart while dating keeps me grounded. Cause baby, floating off on cloud nine with every single prospect is a recipe for disaster.

Fail Fast ~ Simply put, don’t prolong the season of certain relationships. When I feel “something is off with this”, go ahead and let it go. Don’t try to fix it, hope it’ll change, etc. Move homeboy’s file to the associate category & keep it moving.

The Importance of Knowing Who I Am ~ I have made a lot of poor decisions in dating. And by a lot, I mean oceanic a lot. Not because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, but because of a lack of self-awareness, loneliness, and tiredness. I vividly remember hearing the sternness of God one night while longing for the attention of a joker. “STOP BEGGING! You are my daughter. A queen does not behave like this. Your body is sacred & you are too special to be handled with such lack of care & concern. Everybody can’t have you. I belong to you & you belong to me.” His words to me that night have kept me from crawling back to things, people, and relationships that He has asked me to leave alone.