You’re Born An Original, Don’t Die A Copy!

I’ve had this book so long I have to hold it together with a rubber band and paper clips.  This just tells you how much I NEEDED the wisdom within its pages in my life!  As an Ex-Superwoman, I’ve found that learning to be myself is an invaluable tool–and makes my Higher Power/God/Goddess simply smile!  Think of it like this: when you try to be someone else, you’re telling your Higher Power/Goddess/God that who you are is not enough and defective. Really?! I think not!

When you engage in this kind of toxic thinking, you’ve just been blessed because you now know you need to change your perspective.  Here’s a few nuggets of wisdom from the book to get you started…

You can never see the sunrise by looking to the west.

Decision determines destiny.

You can’t walk backward into the future.

Don’t spend your life standing at the complaint counter.

The sky is not the limit.

You were created to be an answer.

Now…do something good for yourself today! Purchase the book for yourself and see your life start changing one page at a time!

Amazon.com:  http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Born-Original–Dont-Die-Copy/dp/0800720253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327687661&sr=8-1

PEACE! – Dr. Kim

Time

It’s been said that time heals all wounds.  I respectfully disagree.  It’s what you do with time that determines your healing.

As we enter into 2012, I’d like to challenge each of us to think about what we do with our time.  No, I’m not asking you to add another “thing” to your schedule.  On the contrary, I’m asking you to interrogate what you can delete from your alloted time schedule on a daily basis.

 Here’s what I’ve decided to delete:

 sore joints and muscles from not giving them an attentive work out

worry

any work after 10 pm

rushing around in the morning before I leave the house

I’m so excited about 2012. Some say 12 is a number of completion.  Others say it is a number of new beginnings.  It is interesting that there are “12 days of Christmas” and 12 hours on a clock.  Whatever you ascribe to the number 12 and the time you will utilize throughout this year’s 12 months, challenge yourself to use your time in such a way that it brings peace to your soul, healing to your world, and love to everyone – especially yourself!

PEACE! – Dr. Kim

Your New Year Starts . . .

I love this time of year.  Actually, I love the time of year between my birthday – October 27th – and the New Year.  This time always prods me to think about New Year’s resolutions.  My New Year actually starts on my birthday.  I don’t wait until January 1st.  I use my birthday as a benchmark because I feel it is the start of fresh opportunities and the blessing of many yesterdays gone by.

I also love this time of year because it ushers in the Winter season.  I didn’t know how much I’d miss the Winter until I moved to New Orleans.  I miss the first snow. I miss fighting the highways so that I can get home and snuggle up in my warm bed.  I miss snow days.  I miss checking in with friends and family to see how much snow they have and if it’s different from my snow.  I miss getting “suited and booted” to go outdoors.  How I love the array of coats, boots and gloves in my clothing collection. I miss watching kids slide, tumble, and make snow angels no matter how cold or blustery the day. I miss a lot about this time of year; however, I’ve retained the one thing that all I miss represents: an opportunity to slow down and think about the future.

Some say all we have is today. That is true! However, what we do with today impacts the value, opportunities, and our readiness for tomorrow.  So, I invite you to start your New Year’s Resolution list now!  What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to change?  What do you want to retain?  Who will you keep in your life? Who do you need to let go of in order to move forward?  What will make your soul soar, your heart sing and your mind reside in peace in the new year?

As an exSuperwoman that has divorced the need to be perfect, I fully embrace the joy of starting my New Year anytime I please.  In fact, I will start it over if needed.  It’s all up to me! That’s that joy, peace and serenity of liberated living.  So, wherever you are, take a little time, cuddle up with your iPad, laptop or journal and dream about your New Year.  Then, turn your dream into a new reality and strategize ways to enact your resolutions.  Embrace your grand choice to embrace your tomorrow to day!  So, your New Year starts . . .

PEACE! – Dr. Kim

My Own Intelligence

“I admit it. I am louder than the average human being and have no fear of speaking my mind. These traits don’t come from the color of my skin but from an unwavering belief in my own intelligence.” — Michelle Obama

I came across this quote a little over a week ago and it has been speaking life to me ever since! I’ve always taken a “shine” to First Lady Michelle Obama, even before she was our First Lady.  She is the epitome of a balanced, successful, inspiring woman. Now, I understand why I love her so much.

Her quote calls all of us to interrogate our true feelings about who and what we are in this world? Her quote calls all of us to challenge what we’ve been taught about ourselves.  Her quote calls all of us to critique our notions of self-esteem and true freedom.

As an exSuperwoman, Michelle Obama’s statement embodies the best of what I am and plan to continue being.  What does it embody for you? What would your life look like if you could dare be every ounce of who you are, what you are, and what you will be?

What is your unwavering faith in these days?

How Much More Do We Need?!?

I’ve put off posting this week because I’m mad, sad, and glad.  I mad about the continued, murderous violence done to our children. I mad about the victims of the Penn State murderers.  Yes, I call them murderers.  Sexual abuse murders the soul. I should know.  As an ExSuperwoman, it’s taken me over three decades to, like Lazarus, come forth out of the torturous grave created by the soul raping, shame inducing, vicious sexual, physical and psychological abuse I suffered at the hands of a madman.  I know all too well what those innocent boys have and are going through because of the this travesty.  What makes me even more mad is the fact that an adult human being saw what was happening and did not shout it from the mountaintop until somebody listened.  How can a human see another human being maliciously tortured and do nothing more than what amounts to whisper?

I’m sad because lives have been ripped to shreds.  Innocence has been lost.  A human’s personality is literally changed as a result of abuse.  Abuse changes who the person is…and often will become unless an intervention of epic proportions happens.  I’m sad because this is an example of humans not caring. I’m sad because it seems some of us have lost our soul, our connection to that loving, honest, caring place within us that could not fathom allowing anyone or anything come in harm’s way.  Even if the perpetrators are brought to justice, there will, in the end, be no winners.  For that, I’m sad.

But, I’m glad. I’m glad this atrocity has finally come out into the light of day.  I’m glad the nation is being forced to engage in a conversation we DO NOT like to have!  I’m glad because courage prevailed and truth is speaking so loudly we cannot avoid hearing it. 

Although I’m glad….I just wonder how much more we need? How many lives have to be lost before we’ll take abuse seriously? How many girls, boys, women, men, have to continue living lives of quiet desperation before we tackle sexual abuse just as hard as we tackle the economy, war, or who’s going to win the Super Bowl?  How many more drug addicts, alcoholics, and the like will have to be produced as a result of abuse before we wake up? How many more people will remain stuck in depression, self-sabotage, and toxic living before we say enough? How many more suicides…

I’m hoping by now you’re asking yourself what can you do? There are simple things you can do to fight against abuse.  Here’s a few resources:

Become an ONLINE VOLUNTEER with RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network)http://www.rainn.org/get-involved/volunteer-for-RAINN/ohl-volunteer

Go to VOLUNTEER MATCH and search for opportunities to volunteer with organizations that work to end domestic and sexual abuse http://www.volunteermatch.org/search

DONATE to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center Relief Fund http://www.nsvrc.org/relief-fund

Contact the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence (http://www.ncdsv.org/) to get connected with local organizations that will provide training sessions for you, your family, your church, your membership organizations, your schools, etc.

I’m glad…I’m sad…I’m mad!

What are you?

More importantly, what are you gonna do?

 

copyright  2011 by Kimberly J. Chandler

The Seduction of a Lie

I’d heard her lies one too many times.  I HAD to tell her about herself, if not for her, for me.  There’s nothing worse than working with someone who refuses to be integral and resists even the slightest suggestion that the truth will, indeed, make them free.

That was it!  My frustration was not with the lies.  It was with the fact that this person REFUSED to be free.  Her complete and utter refusal to tell the truth not only kept her in bondage, but kept those around her engaging in the toxic produce of her bondage.  For her, the lies she allowed herself to tell – large and small – were just too seductive.  They allowed her to live in a world of her own making.  They allowed her to place the blame for her shortcomings and dogged resistance to change on others.

This is the seduction of a lie.  For the moment, it allows you to feel the “high” of not feeling.  You don’t have to feel the truth.  You don’t have to feel unhappy.  You don’t have to feel discontent.  Most of all, you don’t have to feel pain…but ONLY for a moment.  Like cocaine, that fifth cocktail, spending money you can’t afford to part with at the slots, or having sex with yet another man you don’t love, the seductive high one seeks by refusing to embrace the truth is illusive at best.  Once you tell one lie and “seemingly” get away with it, you have to tell another.  But, that second lie just doesn’t have the same effect or give the same “high” as that first one.  Oh yes, you get that rush of adrenalin, but it’s not as intense as that first high.  It is just what it is: a shadow of relief that is, at best, a sign that you’re living on the scraps of life trying to believe it’s a gourmet meal.

As an exSuperwoman, I had to face my own lies if I was going to live a life of peace, love and joy.  I had to admit I didn’t like myself.  I had to admit I didn’t like the toxic people who were around me.  I had to admit that shame was keeping me from being all that I was sent to this earth to be – and that was the beginning of relinquishing seduction and accepting serenity.

Seduction may be momentarily exciting, but it’s never a source of serenity.  Seduction is only a decoy that deters you from fully living life.  The seduction of a lie only serves to draw you away from your authentic self, not draw you to the abundance of living your best life.

What have you been lying to yourself about? Is it a relationship? Is it your behavior? Is it your feelings?  Are you lying about your life?  Whatever and wherever the lie shows up, if you have the courage to expose it to your Higher Power/God/Goddess and trusted others, you have the opportunity to live a life you could only dream of.

There’s a wonderful scripture in the Bible that states,

What you’re after is truth from the inside out. 

Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life. 

Psalm 51:6 (The Message Bible)

What this passage suggests to me is that I’m assured a wonderful, new life, rid of the false reality of lies.  If I’ll just be truthful, I’ll be given the opportunity of not only freedom, but the liberty to live a new way.  Now, that’s abundant living!

What have you lied about today?  Better said, what are you willing to give up so that you can receive a new life full of love, peace and serenity?   Answer those questions…and say goodbye to the lie!

Your life is WAITING on you!

PEACE! – Dr. Kim

Copyright 2011 Kimberly J. Chandler

Peace Producing Sadness

Sadness is an emotion I was never quite acquainted with in the past.  The pain and torture of consistently reliving my childhood trauma overrode the fine nuances of more delicate emotions.  I lived on the left end of a continuum of pain and pleasure: pain was my faithful friend.  However, as an exSuperwoman, I learned how to release my pain in order to learn about the wealth of wonderful gifts sadness can bring.  Here’s one way I experienced that very gift:

I was visiting some friends, a husband and wife to be exact.  In the past, their relationship had been kind of rocky one might say.  Really, their relationship was languishing at the surface level.  Their relationship had not grown or matured in a way that characterized a supportive, loving, nurturing team.  They were not very different from a lot of couples, so my description of their relationship is not a judgment, but a realization of the realities of relationship growth cycles.

What I found when I visited my friends was a relationship that was growing into a true partnership.  They were loving each other based upon who each person truly was, not what each person wanted the other to be.  It was exciting to see how they were honoring each other.  They were having fun with each other!  There’s nothing like a couple – married or not – that truly enjoy the blessing that a relationship can hold if you are willing to do the work.

That was it! I realized that this couple was actually doing the work…and that’s when sadness started to creep into the vestiges of my memories.  I, too, enjoyed a past relationship that languished in shallowness.  I could see the potential blessing in doing the work of relationship building.  My partner could not.  We, just like my friends, were simply two great people with two trauma-filled pasts trying to move as best we could into our two great futures.  But, it takes more than one person to push past the ego and former pain to see that maybe — just maybe — you can be brought together to participate in each other’s healing while being an example to others that demonstrates the true traits of love:

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. –I Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV

I was pretty sad, I’d say.  When I saw my friends, I felt the sadness of opportunities missed and the pregnancy of possibility aborted.  I…was…sad…BUT…

At the end of my short time of sadness, I found great peace.  I found peace from fully feeling all of the feelings associated with memories I’d not fully engaged.  I found peace in understanding that there are times and seasons for everything.  There’s a great Biblical passage in The Message Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1, that states, “There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth.”

What this passage said to me is that it was okay to be sad about that time and that situation in my life.  How it played out was just how it was supposed to be.  I could not be who I am now – an exSuperwoman - without that relationship ending up just like it did.  I have a life I love and enjoy.  I have friends that are closer than brothers and sisters.  I am fulfilling my mission for coming to this earth.  Now, unlike during the season of that relationship, I live an exciting, challenging, fulfilling, busy, blessed life.  Therefore, everything was/is in Divine Order.  I’m swimming with the current of my life, not against it.  Now that’s P.E.A.C.E.

Don’t be afraid to feel the sadness of times and situations in your life that did not turn out how you wanted them to turn out.  They are as they should be.  You are where you should.  Your life will be what it should be.  Don’t block the blessing of your sadness.  Your sadness is waiting to give you the gift of knowing that your past is producing who you are and who you are destined to be in your future.

Your past is not who you’re waiting for anyway…you are who you’ve ALWAYS been waiting for!

PEACE! – Dr. Kim

Copyright 2011 Kimberly J. Chandler

NEW PUBLICATION: I’m Chapter 11!

LifeClass

I have always admired Oprah Winfrey. Her life story and her achievements are, without question, phenomenal not only for an African American woman, but any human being. I’ve followed Oprah’s career since she began in Chicago as the host of AM Chicago, the show that would ultimately become The Oprah Winfrey Show. When her show ended, I called up a line from The Color Purple to express my feelings: “What us gon do Harpo, what us gon do?” But, watching what she’s doing since the end of the show has been quite an eye-opener for me. She decided to helm OWN The Oprah Winfrey Network. She could have retired to one of her many houses and spent her days enjoying the kind of glorious life a woman with her power and privilege deserves. But no! She learned that the end of her show meant her life was teaching her something powerful!

We could all take a lesson from Oprah. Have we listened to the seasons of our life? What is our life teaching us? What should we be teaching others because of our life? As Oprah begins her new Lifeclass show tomorrow, October 10th, she takes the next logical step in her journey. Why wouldn’t the consummate teacher teach? An appropriate quote sums up why she would teach:

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, What’s in it for me.

As an exSuperwoman, I’ve released the shame that used to keep me from seizing opportunities. Many of us let distorted thinking keep us from moving through the seasons of our life. We become stuck by feelings of inadequacy or malaise.  When I released those negative notions, I conceptualized my life as a grand class. Interestingly, I am the student and the teacher of this class. My Higher Power/God/Goddess is the architect of the textbook. What this wonderous, wonderful concept of life allows me to do is keep seizing opportunities because I’m really not looking to be on the receiving end. It’s freeing to be the giver rather than the receiver. I don’t wait for things to happen; I dream them and stay present to the opportunities that bring them to fruition. In this way, I’m constantly engaged in the exercise of learning and teaching; of living and learning.  Giving is who I am not what I do.

What is the class of your life teaching you? How is your life asking you to embrace freedom? What is this season of  your life telling you? If you can answer those questions, your LifeClass will begin!

PEACE! – Dr. Kim

Copyright 2011 Kimberly J. Chandler

How About TGIF Everyday!

I’m a day late (actually 5), but not a dollar short, with my post this week.  Why? I’m tired, have a mountain of work to do, and would really like to just run away to an all-inclusive resort on a sun-filled island somewhere.  That ain’t happening anytime soon.  But, I sure could use a Friday!

There’s nothing like the feeling of a Friday. It’s the last day of the work week.  It’s the beginning of the weekend.  Even if I’m dog tired Thursday night, there’s something about Friday that gives me a second wind.  As an exSuperwoman, I’ve had to learn how to refresh and reboot myself in the midst of looming deadlines, endless to do lists and mounting responsibilities.  I had to learn that I have the power to place my mind on a higher frequency and my consciousness beyond the daily rat race should I desire to live wholeheartedly.  I’ve had to learn that I could not continue giving pieces of myself away if I wanted to save the best of me for me.  I’ve had to learn to make it TGIF everyday.  Here’s how:

T -What/what am I THANKFUL for today?

G – Who/what has been a GIFT to me today?

I – Who/what INSPIRES me today?

F – What kind of FAVOR has God/Goddess/Higher Power shown to me today?

I can always find an answer to each of those questions at any moment.  Those answers lift me out of myself and provide me with what really matters.  Deadlines will always be there.  Responsibilities will never end.  However, my choice to honor that for which I am grateful provides an never-ending well of joy.  I can drop my bucket of complaints in that well and always come out with water that will quench my thirst for relief and refresh my soul with peace.

Make FRIDAY an everyday practice.  TGIF y’all!!!

PEACE! – Dr. Kim

Copyright 2011 Kimberly J. Chandler