Your Power: Stand In It

Sometime last year, a Canadian woman - Caucasian, blonde and blue-eyed - posted a video on Facebook about Jamaica. I mention it and her features not because they are the point of today's post but more so as we are not in a post-racial age.

Race still matters - too much - and this particular post raised the issue among my friends and I. This video was on the subject of "begging" by Jamaicans. I for one took some offence to her post - not because of her race but her generalisation about a people and her presumption that she "knows everything" about our journey.

Having said that, the observation of this young lady about what has seemingly become a pastime for some Jamaicans is accurate. As a Jamaican who has resided outside of the country for about half of my life, I too am bothered by the practice.

Some of my people have lost sight of their power.

Growing up in Jamaica, I watched my mother finetune the art of begging to a master's level. In fact, I was supposed to be both her apprentice and target.

That never happened.

For over a decade, close to two, regrettably I allowed myself to be the bullseye on her dartboard. However, it was by the Grace of The Divine, I never learned the skill.

The opposite actually occurred throughout those years of giving and acquiescing to every demand made by her and her creditors.  

I learned to stand in my power.

Always a mouthy child, a thinker, a reader and a sponge for information from an early age, I knew I had something that would take care of me. What and where it would come from, I had no clue.

No matter the situation I got myself in, a crack always opened to light my way out. Yes, sometimes it would happen after I cried all night and asked Jesus to help me. It would happen when I pulled up my panties - literally or the proverbial ones - and go do what I had to do. Then it would happen when I accepted responsibility for my choices and made new ones.

Strong is a descriptor some assign to me. Now at the threshold of 50 years on this Earth plane, Powerful is one I would add to my autobiography.

Strong because I have been weak, totally vulnerable (and remain so) and I always invariably surrender.

Powerful because I know and have survived pain and suffering without completely losing my dignity.

I say completely as it would be dishonest to say that I have not come close. I did several years ago at the end of a long term relationship. That was the closest I ever came to begging.

The beauty, however, is that that experience - the darkest night of my soul - endowed me with such power. I now know that I do not have to beg for:

* Love

* Money

* Approval

* Worth

All these things I was either born fully equipped with or the ability to access however much is needed (money). That is where some of my fellow Jamaicans still remain in the dark. We all have it. We just need to stand in it. Are you?

Let me share more with you if it would help. Write to me here or via email and we will stand together.

Namaste.