I could talk about this topic for days but I'm just going to touch the surface a little bit. Throughout life you are going to have feelings happy, sad, mad, hurt, loved and the list goes on; it's not about how you are feeling it's about how you handle your feelings. I know there are days I personally go through a barrage of feelings but I have to refocus myself and push through. I know for me it was only through God, growth and maturity that I am able to handle my many stages of feelings. I learned how to take how I am feeling evaluate it and work through it so I can get back to a place of peace so I can continue with whatever I am doing or have to do. I know now that when I'm not quite feeling like myself I have to take time to myself and pray then I pull out my bible I read then as I am feeling myself calming down I am able to regain my focus. There are times you have to talk to someone about your feelings but make sure you are talking to someone that isn't going to try and give you solutions unless you ask for advice. But when you ask for advice be ready to receive what is said and make sure you evaluate what's said and don't just run out and do whatever someone advices because 9 times out of 10 if you think about the advice given it's bias and not necessary what's best solution. Most of the times your feelings are not just out of the blue or a one situation thing. Your feelings are derived from things that may have happened to you, around you or because of the way you perceive things should be. Think about how you feel about children and raising them, your spouse and how relationships should go, how things should run on your job; you just didn't start feeling the way you do either something has happened in your past or you grew up with certain views which impacts your current feelings. You have to teach yourself how to look at the situation for what it is not for how it use to be, what happened before, how you think it should be or how you use to act. When I find myself "feeling" some kind of way about anything I take a step back and reflect on how I am feeling and why am I feeling this way then I go into how do I want to feel what do I want to feel then I make the decision to adjust how I feeling. My goal today is to stay in a place of positivity and peace so when I find myself in any other place I take the step to get back to that place. And believe me there have been times I have had to do this several times in a day. It's not easy but it is something that is a must for me. I have to be at peace so I can be the best me that I can be. I can't walk in my purpose if my emotions are all over the place. Don't get me wrong I am a very emotional person and that's ok, you have to allow yourself to feel emotions but your aren't suppose to act on emotions. You have to acknowledge how you are feeling in order to handle and deal with your feelings.


Many Blessings & Much Love

Drugs, alcohol, physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse pick one they all are generational cycles that you have to be careful or you will continue and pass on to your children. Being a survivor of all those listed I could talk about this for days and still not cover everything so today I'm just going to focus on physical. The ironic thing is while touching on this subject it will cover some of the others. Being a product of physical abuse I grew up with a man beating on myself from the age of six. As a result I subconsciously as an adult would enter into relationships that I had to argue and fight in. No matter how much I said I'm not going to deal with anyone that put they hands on me time after time I would end up dating someone I had that very issue with. Part of the problem was I wanted to be loved so badly that I would get myself into situations and commit to being with someone that was a "good" person not looking at are they good for me. Growing up in an abusive home I didn't have a voice so once grown I had a voice and it didn't matter who it was I expressed how I felt and in my relationships it would cause problems because I was not going to have a man talking to me any kind of way or doing to me what I seen done to my mother. When I was younger I loved to argue I thought that was me defending myself but in the end it just caused more problems. I had it in my head I'm not taking this, I'm not taking that, your not going to do that to me but I had to learn how to stop allowing my past to dictate my current and future. It took a lot to get to that point. I had to go through a lot of forgiving, healing and growing before I could get to the point of breaking the cycle. I always promised myself that my children weren't going to have to go through anything I did growing up but when I was younger I was making different bad decisions over and over. I finally got to the point that I had to sit down, pray and ask God for guidance. I truly wanted more and better for my children and myself so I decided no matter how hard it was going to be I was going to break the cycle. I began to take baby steps to make the changes within myself the kept me going down the same path as well as vowing to myself that I would raise my children in a single parent home until God brought to me the man I was suppose to be with. I can say that I have stumbled over the years but I have been a single parent for the last 16 years. Now don't get me wrong I have dated and had some relationships over the years but for the most part none of the men I dated lived with me and I didn't introduce them to my children in that aspect, my private life was my private life. My home became my sanctuary, I don't believe in arguing and fighting at home, I raised my children with love and affection, we don't name call in our home. My motto to my children when you leave outside the house you have to fight for everything we will not fight in our home. My children have a voice and they are allowed to express their feelings - may not change the outcome of the situation or lessen their punishment but they do have a voice. In my home just because your and "adult" don't make you right. I get both sides of the situation then I make a decision on the outcome. My children know that I love and adore them. My children know that God comes first in our home. They know their value and worth. My children know in my eyes I feel that my number one job is to be the best mom I can be to them because God entrusted me with them and I am to protect, care for, and guide them to the best of my ability. I lead by example, I told my son I can make you a man but I can teach you how to respect and care for a woman! With my daughters I taught them about respecting and loving themselves first. They don't need no man or woman to give them value or worth. I do my best to lead by example and I am very transparent with my children about my life, past and mistakes I made. I express to my children to do better than me, learn from me and most of all if they have questions ask and we can talk about it. I support my children in their dreams and passions because I want them to know that they can do and be anything they want in life as long as they keep God first. I pray that I have been a good enough example to my children that some of the family cycles have been broken. I know that I have succeeded in some areas because my son is 20 and he has no children as of yet and he graduated from high school and working, my daughters are 15, 16 and haven't had sex. My 15 year old is a couture fashion designer who has had her own business since the age of 8. My 16 year old is in the national honor society and dances  a competitive dace team. Both my girls are very active in the community and church so I will continue to count my blessing despite the trials and tribulations my life has thrown at me and the circumstances by which my children were brought into this world by the grace of God I have continued to stay true to the promise I made. I love all my children birth born and the others that call me mom. Being a "MOM" is one of the most important things I do and I enjoy being all that I am to my children. I am pretty confident in the fact that I was able to break the abuse cycle and with God it will remain broke!
Many Blessings & Much Love

It's complicated.....the man that became my dad. Imagine being five years old and your moving into a new home and being told you have to call someone dad that you don't even know. Well this was my story, at five I became a big sister and had a new daddy. Our relationship was one filled with love, pain, hurt, anger and strain for many many years. I didn't understand everything that was going on at the time but all I knew was this man went from being nice to hurting me on a regular basis. He wasn't just hurting me he was hurting my mom too. Before you knew it his family became our new family and I no longer was aloud to be around my family. They didn't call, come around, come get me or anything. In the beginning I didn't know what was going on but as time went on I knew that him hitting me was wrong. I didn't understand why my mom would just allow him to yell and hit on us but it started getting worse and worse to the point that other people began to notice by the time I was seven years old I was removed from the home for the first time. I didn't know who told that I was being beat but I was relieved to know that something was going to be done about it. In the beginning I was too scared to tell what was going on. When I would get beat I was told to lie if someone questioned me about and bruises or marks on my body. I was so scared of my dad I would lie even when I was removed I really wouldn't open up about what was going on for many years. I would be placed back in the home because I would lie and say that I got hurt fighting friends or I fell or whatever the lie was that I was told to say. We would have to have people come in the home to check and see if I was being abused. It got to the point that when he would beat me he would make me stay home from school and I wouldn't be aloud to go outside just so no one would see the bruises and marks. As the years went on the abuse got worse and my responsibility in the home became more. I would have to clean, cook, and take care of my little sister. I would get time limits to do everything eat, clean, doing my hair, going to the store whatever and if I didn't do it in the time frame I would get beat. I would have to ride with my dad whenever he wanted me to and a lot of the time we would be out he would go visit his other girlfriends, go to the bar, or be with people I didn't want to be around. In the beginning I would tell my mother who we would be with or where we would go but it would always backfire because when they would get into arguments and fights she would tell him everything I told her and he knew it was me reporting back to her then I would get beat for telling her. So I stopped telling her. I was stuck in the middle when he was happy I would have to run with him, when he was mad I was his punching bag, when he and I would get along my mother and I wouldn't. I finally figured out that it was better to be on his good side than it was to be on his bad. I did whatever he told me in the time that he told me no matter what just to keep the beatings at a minimum. The intensity of the beating began to get worse by the time I was beginning middle school and when I got removed this time the courts decided not to place me back in the home. I had to decide who I wanted to live with and my first choice was my grandmother (my biological father's mother) but due to the fact they told the courts that my father and uncle were addicts I wasn't aloud to go there. My second choice was my godmother which was approved so I was placed with her in Erie unaware that my godsister was ill. I lived with my godmother for all of middle school and when it was time to go to high school my godmother was moving to North Carolina and didn't want to take me with her so I ended up back at home with my dad. Needless to say I wasn't home but a few weeks and the abuse started back and had progressed to the point that by the end of the year I was in a group home. When I came home at the beginning of the year it was much of the same. I did make it through my 10th grade year at home but come the summer before my 11th grade year at our annual family reunion he acted up so bad and beat my mother that my family told my mother if she wanted to stay there was nothing they could do about that but they weren't going to make me go back to that house if I didn't want to and I left with them when they went back home to Detroit. I spent the next two years in Detroit living with my cousin who showered me with love, attention and affection. For the first time since the age of five I was able to live the life of a child. Once I was able to over come the fear that my dad was coming to get me and make me come home I was able to get my grades together, play sports, hang out with friends, attend church but most of all be and feel love. But my senior year I began to feel guilty that my mother wasn't going to get to see me graduate and I reached out to her. She told me she had been really sick and I told her I would come visit on my spring break......(worst mistake I ever made) because when I went to visit she played on my heart strings and I ended up staying. I got home March of 1993 and the abuse started back up almost immediately then we moved out of the neighborhood so if he didn't feel like taking me to school I didn't go. I didn't get my senior pictures, I didn't go to prom and I almost didn't make it to graduation. I moved out and in with my grandmother (paternal) in July 1993 because of the abuse. So, I know you are reading this and may be a little confused because in the beginning I talk about my relationship with my "dad" as complicated. It was complicated because as bad as this man was to me I truly loved and adored him. He taught me how to drive (at 12), he took care of me when my sickle cell trait was acting up, he would pop up on my school route and pick my friends and I up and take us to get ice cream (checking to make sure I was walking home the route I was told to and I wasn't with someone he told me not to be with), he would come to my school concerts, would have me sit with him and talk, he also taught me some "bad" things but in hindsight I was later able to turn into positive like he taught me to drink, shoot a gun but most of all he taught me what I didn't want in a man. I always talk about hurt people hurt people and he is a perfect example of that. Once I was grown and on my own we had a conversation one of the times I was at the house, he never apologized but in his own way he did. He explained to me that he was a step child and what happened to him. I walked away from that conversation with an understanding that he just continued the cycle of abuse that he received and from that day until the day he passed we built. I was truly able to forgive him and move pass all that he put me through. It wasn't always easy to be around him because when he would call and ask for me to bring the baby over, can he pick the baby up from the daycare, or for me to cook for him I would question his motives. I would interact with him very tentatively because I wasn't sure if he was trying to get me over there to start something but it really was his way of trying to make amends for the past. I have lasting effects from this man but I can say that when he died it affected me as if I was his birth born child. I always thought that I would not have been affected when he died but I cried like a baby. As broken as our relationship was he was my "DAD" the good, the bad and the ugly. It is what it is he was who he was he did what he did but at the end of the day that was my "DAD" I found out how regretful he was for all that he did without him ever saying sorry because when he passed in 2003 at his request he was buried in the closest plot to my daughter who passed in 1995 and for this I know in my heart that he was sorry for what he did to me and may he rest with GOD!


Many Blessings & Much Love

Hi everyone, how are you today? Well I decided today will be just a little light. Being a single mom of three I tend to run, run, and run some more. I love being a mom and an active mom in my children's lives. Being a great mom to all my children birth born or the ones I've inherited through the years is one of my biggest joys of my life but I need my me time. I don't get as much as I would like but I make sure that I do get it in when I can. In order to be all that you need to be for everyone else you have to take care of YOU! You must take time out of your day, week, or month just for you. It don't have to be a long time but you must put some time in your schedule for you. For me it could be just reading a book by myself, getting out to karaoke, going to bingo, going for a walk or going out dancing. It took me a long time to get to the point of making sure my family knew I needed time just for me. I would run myself so much I would get sick and I had to make a change and it was such a refreshing change once I was able to do it consistently. There are going to be times that you have to get real creative in order to get your me time but you have to make a commitment to yourself that you deserve that time and make sure you get it in. Me going out to karaoke or dancing wasn't about me being around other people it was for me to refresh myself. I love singing and dancing so I would go out, I wouldn't be out no more than 2-3 hours but it would be just enough time to feel good. I have been playing bingo for over 20 years not to win but it's actually relaxing to me. I enjoy the atmosphere and the bonus is if and when I win! I also have been known to get a room for the weekend; it allows you to sleep in, take naps, take long showers or baths uninterrupted. Being a wife, mom, girlfriend, confidant, boss, employee can be very draining and you need to be able to say it's okay for me to have some time to myself and not feel guilty about it. It doesn't make you a bad person by doing this. Everyone needs time to themselves. Once you give yourself permission to do this and really start setting time aside to do this you will see. Once you start having your me time you will begin to slowly start having girls days out, girls day in, and ladies only days. Your me time doesn't have to revolve around having money it is very inexpensive to do something to put a smile on your own face from time to time. Incorporating this habit into your life is a value that can be passed on to your children and possibly keep the stresses of life to a minimum. Life is stressful enough and trying to find time to for yourself can be hard and if it become part of your regular routine then you can live a more peaceful life. I feel that with everything that life throws our way we have to be in a place of peace in order to keep moving. Even when things aren't going the way I plan I can go into my "me time" regroup and come back with a clear mind and make better choices and decisions. So, give yourself permission to find that ME TIME, plan for your me time, tell your family and friends your going to start having me time, and just start enjoying your me time. YOU DESERVE IT!


Many Blessing & Much Love

Of course you don't know who this is! This is my father, I love him and he loved me but our relationship wasn't always the best. Depending on who you talk to the story will be different that being said I won't spend time discussing how I got here. What I will say is I'm my mother's first and my father's only child. I always knew who my father was but I didn't get to spend much time with him until later in life. I wasn't allowed to be around him and his side of the family for many years. I spent from age 7-17 away from them. When my mother met her second husband slowly but surely I was pulled away from my father's side of the family and by the time I was seven and being removed from the home for child abuse I had no relationship with them. Prior to my ties being severed with him I would see my father on various occasions such as family outings, holidays, family reunions and I would be taken to see him in jail as well. While I was going through being pulled in and out of my mother's home my anger towards my father began to grow. Why? I felt like my father should have came and rescued me from all the abuse and when he didn't I was hurt, angry and felt unloved. One of the time I was removed I asked to go stay with my grandmother (paternal) and I wasn't allowed because the courts were told about my father and uncle's drug use so the courts deemed her house as an unsafe environment. As time went on I didn't see or speak to my father until I was a senior in high school and living in my mother's home again. I had reconnected with my grandmother and was preparing to graduate from high school. By the time my graduation day came the abuse was so bad I moved in with my grandmother which meant I was around my father regularly. When I moved in with my grandmother I couldn't even be in the room with my father for more than five minutes without us arguing. Our arguing got so bad that we ended up almost fighting. We didn't know how to communicate with each other, one of the reasons was I didn't know how to express to him how him not being there for me hurt me, how I felt he should have came and saved me, how he mad I was at him for allowing my mother to put me in the situation I was in and letting another man put their hands on me. He didn't know how to interact with me because he wasn't used to being a "dad" I was his only child, he wasn't around to help raise me, he didn't know how to deal with my hurts and pain. We spent our first 2-3 years back around each other arguing and fighting. Once we got through those first couple of years we began to build a relationship of love and understanding. I finally got to a point where I had to forgive him for not being there so we could move on. I'm not saying it was always easy but in the end it was definitely worth it. We had to sit down and go from the beginning, I had to get his side of the story which allowed us to heal together. My father was a life long heroin addict. After we spoke I had a better understanding of the choices he made after we had our heart to heart. He didn't know how to be a "dad" so we decided to build our friendship. I expressed to him that I wanted him to be a part of my life but it would have to be my way and he received that and we were able to move forward. I can say he was very supportive of everything, my father would be there the best way he could. When my daughter passed in 1995 my father spent a lot of time with me making sure I was ok, when my other three children were born he was active in their lives as much as he could be. My father had a very good heart and I really with that he could have been strong enough to kick the habit. When he was good he was great but when he was bad I couldn't deal. My father's life struggles was amazing to me because he really wanted to become better but when I reflect over his life and our family dynamics made it hard for a recovering addict. His parents were enablers, his brothers were fellow addicts, he stayed in the same circle, he would chose women that would allow him to do whatever he wanted but most of all once he had his brain surgery and recovered you couldn't tell this man he wasn't the same person. The more I would try and explain to him that he was sick he wasn't hearing it. After years and years of living in the world as I call it my father was diagnosed with cirrhosis, and hepatitis in 2011. With him being sick he wouldn't stay on his meds like he was supposed to, not following up with doctors caused his ailment progress faster than I believe it would have. My father ended up in the hospital January 29, 2012 because he fell and his cut got infected. While being treated for the infection his organs started shutting down. The hospital stopped treating the infection to get his organs back. Unfortunately, my father laid in the hospital for 10 days before I was even notified (family mess), but when he got a little worse I got the call. Mind you I talked to him during the time he was there and he never mentioned to me that he was in the hospital. Our relationship had gotten to the point that he wouldn't tell me things if he thought I would be worried or upset at him. So as soon as I got the information about him being in the hospital I called him and he sounded really good; I was on my way to a meeting so I told him I would be in to see him the next morning (Thursday). Thursday comes I get to the hospital and my father was so big I almost didn't ever recognize him. His spirits were up and he was laughing and joking like he always did, trying to play match maker like always. I had to step and address some issues. I had to get some things in order because I was his next of kin and wasn't informed that he was there plus he wasn't even in the hospital where his doctors were. Before I could get all the information together and make arrangements to have him moved he took a turn for the worse. Tuesday 7am in the morning on Valentine's Day I got a call from the doctor saying they gave him four pints of blood over the night and  his blood wasn't clotting so they were moving him to ICU and I needed to get to the hospital. I got to the hospital we got him moved down to the ICU, I met with the doctor who proceeded to tell me my options none of them good. I could either have him put on a ventilator when it was time or I could allow them to make him comfortable until he passed on his own. When it came time to make the decision after praying about it I decided to just make him comfortable and notified the family that he more than likely wouldn't make it through the night. My father was gone at 2:30pm and the only people that were there were he and I. God rest my father's soul and I will see him when I get there MUCH LOVE MARVIE MARV


Many Blessings & Much Love