Year 2020

It’s been seventeen years since our family landed in Vancouver on Christmas day and a few days later we experienced snow for the first time in Alberta. The first few weeks were exciting in the snow, we were playing, admiring and relishing in this new experience. It wasn’t long before I dreaded stepping out of the warmth of our home, to put on my layers of clothing from the thrift store and impatiently wait outside the main doors of the school before they let us in.

Changing seasons are inevitable but our interactions with them need persistence. People, places and experiences are a big part of our stories. It can be hard to find our identities when the big parts are stripped away. It is here that I found who, what, why and how I stand alone.

Once in a while, there are memories so vivid that I need to write them down and reflect. Thinking of all the ways those experiences knocked me down yet I was able to get back up with even more mightiness. These experiences helped me better understand that we are all people trying to get back up one step at a time.

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That last day

Today is the last day that I let her insecurity speak into my life. Today is the last day that I let their prejudice of a colored woman speak into my life. Today is the last day I let my doubts speak into my life.

I celebrated saying goodbye to a bully today and also grieved allowing myself to be shaken by someone who knew nothing of my extraordinary story. I have been hit with so many unkind individuals and their mean-spirited words lately, that there are days I can’t find my superpowers. I have had to repeat my superpowers aloud more often than ever this year. They are my resilience through an abusive marriage, the courage to ask for help at age 11 at a boarding school away from my tribe, passionately created my coaching practice when they fired me, to always dream brighter lives for all who are my community and to take any barrier as a learning opportunity to better conquer the next day.

Make today your day to dream even bigger, speak even louder your beautiful story and create an action plan for your next step that lifts everyone around you as well.