My best self is truly joyful
Not letting the little things bother
Live with ease
Proceed with caution
Not everyone has pure intentions
Stop giving to those whom don’t give back
Don’t Stress on situations you can’t control
Be you
No matter what
Don’t let anyone change the woman you have become
You’ve come such a long way
Through pain in the past
To get you where you are now
You are Poet
You are a Singer
You are a true writer
Here’s to sharing your story with the world
Using your words and melody
Smiling even though you’re hurting
This growth i see
This Vision
Our Journey is here
It’s Ours
Patience is key
Persistence is needed
Be Consistent
You are no longer distant
You are me
We are one
Us as one will become
Everything we dreamed of
In time we will see
What it takes to
Express me

We are shackled by insecurities
Followers and likes make up our worth
External validation is what we seek
It’s a never-ending curse

But I was looking in the wrong places
The answers are found deep within
So I’m reintroducing myself to me
And so this new journey begins

Hello, it’s nice to meet you
I’ve longed for a best friend
I decided to become the things I need
No longer living a life of pretend

I tell myself I’m worthy
And validation starts with me
I no longer need to look elsewhere
I’m exactly where I need to be

I was born to be successful
I was born to share my gifts
I was born to give love to this world
I was born to build and uplift

I am worthy because I’m loving
I am worthy because I care
I am worthy and uniquely created
Hand-crafted with so much to share

You are worthy when you wake up
You are worthy when the sun sets
You are worthy and I love you
In case no one has told you that yet

Old self

You’re so social they say. But little do they know my skin crawls and I feel like I’m going to ball every time I’m in front of you all. The panic and manic start to settle in , where do I even begin. I worry if I’m worthy or if they’ll all look at me and scurry. It all starts to get blurry and my mind starts to scatter like if everything I’ve accomplished never even mattered. My heart beats fast, and I can’t look past my old self I thought I laid on the shelf. But here she is, with all her might ready to fight. I’ve learned to fight back, despite the pain I feel of my old self, that was never healed which I’ve kept so
concealed. She keeps me from going out and makes me miss out. Some say it’s all in my mind but I can’t seem to unbind, we’re the same person even if she was a different version. Some times I win and some times I lose, either way, my old self always seems to loom.

Hello there,

I’ve always been painfully shy. I swore that I’d never approach anyone, and that I’d never let anyone know how I feel because being mysterious was my safety blanket. It was my safety blanket for many years, but soon I began to realize that it was also my shackle; a personal prison.

In order to set myself free, I had to allow myself to be uncomfortable.

But one day I did it.

I missed him. I thought about him daily. I worried about him. I needed to let him know how I feel.

The moment the words left my heart and mind and made their way to him, I felt overcome with anxiety and relief.

We grow when we leave our comfort zone, but we also battle thoughts from the enemy. Sometimes we are the enemy. But those thoughts in your head are just words. Words have power. They can either build you or break you. You have the power to choose what they will do to you.

He told me I made his day, but little did he know that he made mine even more.

Never underestimate the power of words, the power of a simple action.

It was that moment that constantly reminded me how important it is to let people know how much you care about them. The feeling of regret is much worse than my fears of the unknown. Never again will I cower from opportunities to share what’s in my heart.

And please friend, don’t let your fears shackle you as well. The greatest opportunities started out with a simple action. May that simple action of yours take place today.

Love, Cherie.

Dear Gerald,
If there’s one lesson you’ve learned in all the years you’ve been on this Earth, is that you were worthy of respect all along. 

You knew deep inside your heart since you were little that you desired to be respected like a lot of your peers, family members, teachers, celebrities, and authority figures who you saw had a lot of respect, like the Reverends and Pastors you grew up watching preaching in a few Baptist churches. 

But respect was rare in your early journey. Not a lot of people shared your deep belief that you were worthy of respect. You were undermined, dismissed, and belittled just for existing how you wanted to exist. 

That soft-spoken sensitive soul just wanted to enjoy being comfortable in his own skin. But the troublemakers refuse to let that happen. 

These experiences of disrespect created doubt & inner demons that you would wrestle with throughout your teens and early 20s, while you tried to figure out who you were and where you fit in a microwave world. 

The inner demons desperately wanted to take you out and celebrate victory. But, something made you keep fighting, because you didn’t want them to win the war. 

Today in 2023, you still stand, feeling stronger than ever. Plus, you can say without hesitation that not only are you worthy of respect, but that anything less than the respect you expect is unacceptable. 

The disrespect you’ve endured throughout your life taught you that respect for self is imperative -  because without it, other people will disrespect you if they have the chance to. 

You’re worthy of respect because you’ve always strived to be a respectable person in a sincere way. The road wasn’t easy to achieve that. But you went through the fire to know what’s acceptable and what’s not when it comes to how you want people to treat you. 

You give people a chance to show why they should be respected and to see if you should respect them. If they failed the test, then they failed your class. 

You’ve learned repeatedly that respect should flow both ways between two people (or more) who appreciate each other. If respect is only flowing one way, the person who isn’t being respected must demonstrate self-love by removing themselves completely from that person. 

It can be a challenge at times to say that we’re worthy of respect if we rarely receive respect from others. But when we have people who care about us and show us how respect for ourselves should look, we can say what’s true in our hearts, that we’re worthy of respect too.

Sincerely,
Gerald