If you are thinking about how you will get through these challenging times given layoffs, inflation, mass shootings, floods, hurricanes, drought, crypto scams, and banking calamities; look no further than yourself. Take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself who am I becoming and am I living an authentic life?
Am I just accepting the status quo? Am I truly able to be my authentic self? What do I truly want out of life? Am I masking my hidden identity for the comfortable life I have created? I am presenting here a lesson in stress management for overwhelmed individuals who need guidance for the long road ahead.
It’s a hard sell to fit into a group of individuals that want everything to look, think and act all the same. I have been in that same vein of thought for years and it only caused me more anxiety and depression. I was just afraid of how my life would turn out if I decided to go against the grain. It was all self-imposed fear. I needed a strategy on how to break the mold of fear.
This may or may not be the case for yourself, but If you are going to break the mold of FEAR; you will have to think outside the box and stretch your perspective. Grab a few of these nuggets below and continue to remove the doubt, pain, fear, uncertainty, and fearfulness from your life. It’s ok to not know what’s going on. Darkness is a place to be for creators, professions, parents, artists, etc.
1. Just Let it Go: Whatever you are trying to fight that no longer serves your interest. Just let it go. The drama in this season of your life is not worth it. The headaches, the mental and verbal abuse etc. Take a good look at yourself in the mirror and love you enough to just let it go. I am suggesting that you leave a situation that you must get worked out first. I am saying that it’s a wise move to not feed into the negativity and take thing so personally.
2. Strategize Your Gameplan: Think about the year 2030. How old will you be and what will life look like for you? If your daughter is 3 years old today in ten years, she will be 13. What type of life do you want her to live in? Make sure your perspective is allowing you to think about Crypto, stocks, climate change, migration, A.I. machine learning and various other changes that are takin place in our world. Create a 5-, 10-, and 20-year plan and use this pandemic as the springboard for that greatness.
3. Refocus Your priorities: In this pandemic you might find yourself all over the place trying to make sense of your world. What is it that you want to be know for? Helping the youth? Building Houses? Traveling the world? Giving away money to charitable organization? Whatever it is make better use of your time by thinking about who you can serve. Who needs your help? I am sure you might be thinking but I need help. And that’s why you must refocus your priorities. When you focus on others you will always come out on top. It’s about leading with your service in this pandemic.
4. Work on your Self-Confidence: If you are not going to love yourself who will. If you need to lose weigh lose the weight. You need some new clothes work and save your bread. Your confidence will not come from fast money because its fleeting at best. Take some online courses. Start a podcast and work on your communication skills. Drink more water. Cut out fast food and sugar from your diet. Believe in yourself.
5. Separate from the Crowd: You might be walking with fearful people and don’t even know it. Fear is contagious. Take a few steps back and check who is around you and see if they are built for where you are about to do. The toughest decision in your life you will ever have to make is to know who to walk away from. Sometimes, it can be a family member, your homie, a girlfriend, a situation, or vice that is destroying your health. Discern what is not good for you at this moment and sidestep the fear. Don’t be afraid to step into your light.
I applaud you for the taking the necessary steps in this pandemic to remain alive. You could have attempted to self-sabotage a great opportunity for growth and expansion. And you never allowed the “False Evidence to Appear Real” (FEAR) in your life. I am not taking this puffed tough talking, gun toting front black men put on to the world; and inside are just as fearful as church mice. Killing each other doesn’t make you hard. The false evidence of this reality in America makes you believe that you are not the answer when in fact you are.
America needs you, contrary to popular belief. They need your wisdom, intelligence, ingenuity, creativity, resilience, and culture that you bring to the table. You can no longer fear getting killed by the police or by members in your own community although the threat is real. Never fear putting yourself on the line to support your people.
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Previously Published on Medium
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