Tag: life

Alone | Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

– Maya Angelou

The PBS Blog Podcast Ep 14 – Everything You Do Has an Intention

Today’s podcast topic was requested by one of our listeners. A few weeks ago I posted a quote to my IG that read:

Today, I am explaining what is meant by this phrase and how intention works itself out in our lives. I am not going to say much here because I really want you to tune into this episode. If you’ve not listened to any of the previous ones I ask that you listen to this one. It’s an important topic.

Listen to Everything You Do Has an Intention now on Soundcloud for more and be sure to subscribe for notification of new episodes.

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-573689310

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pbs-blog-podcast/id1344901312?mt=2

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbsblogpodcast

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thepbsblog/

To follow my personal IG page @yecheilyah

(I am always looking for inspiration! To request a topic you want me to cover, email me at yecheilyah(at)yecheilyahysrayl(dot)com)

No Whining Wednesday – Stop over-explaining yourself to People

The No Whining Wednesday Badge

Welcome back to No Whining Wednesday, the only day of the week where you do not get to whine, complain, and criticize for an entire 24hour period. If you are new to this blog or new to this segment, visit the first post HERE.

Today’s quote:

We live in a world where people post memes and quotes every day as if putting those words into action is as easy as a click of a finger on a screen. But I’ll be the first to admit that I have been an over-explainer and that it is only now in my life that I am consciously aware of this and have decided to cut it out. No one wants to be misunderstood but I found that constantly explaining my position to people revealed some of my own baggage. There are reasons why I feel misunderstood and history behind why I’ve felt the need to lay it all out in hopes that people “got me.” Once I understood that I was subtly exposing myself with the unnecessary baggage of explanations, this is when I decided not to do it anymore.

What I love about this quote is that it doesn’t say “not” to explain yourself. Sometimes going in depth about things is necessary but you don’t have to explain yourself to everyone simply because there are some people who have already made up their minds about who you are. Explaining yourself to these people is a waste of time. Because some people have made up their minds, this also means that it depends on how deeply you know yourself. If you don’t know who you are you will always be tailoring your actions and words toward the thoughts and opinions of other people. You will always get emotional and stressed about the things they say about you and you will always feel the need to explain yourself because you don’t really know who you are. That’s the deeper aspect of this that I have had to learn.

As you understand who you are and act and think in accordance to the things that align with who you are, the less obligated you’ll feel to explain yourself to people who don’t know you at all.

Establishing Boundaries

Photo by Christian Gertenbach on Unsplash

I’ve learned to establish boundaries. To understand that if I don’t feel good about something, it’s OK to say no, turn it down or cancel a commitment and not feel guilty about it. Establishing boundaries is a form of self-respect. You are honoring your integrity and taking responsibility for who you are. And when you allow people to treat you in ways that disrespect your boundaries, you are not being true to yourself.

Although having boundaries is not a bad thing, it may feel like rejection to other people. You will still lose those who feel you are no longer for them and that’s OK. We cannot continue on with relationships that no longer serve a purpose. But because we may lose people, it is our responsibility to be clear on what our boundaries are, to tell people when they have crossed it or when we can’t cross it ourselves, and to have patience with those who forget and need to be reminded. Although you will lose people, if you are clear and consistent the people who are meant to stick around will and they will understand that there are lines that you simply cannot cross and places you simply cannot go and that it really has nothing to do with them. They will understand that you are capable of loving them and staying true to yourself at the same time.

10 Ways to Write an Unforgettable Memoir | Shayla Raquel

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Check out this most excellent post from Shayla on writing a memoir. Number One is a most important point. I always wanted to write a memoir but I stopped writing the drafts and deleted the sneak peeks I’d shared with my email list (so embarrassing lol) and decided to start over. I’ve learned so much since then with one of the major things being the difference between a memoir and autobiography.

1. Learn the differences between a memoir and an autobiography.
A common mistake is to pour your heart and soul into a book and market it as the wrong genre. An autobiography is a chronological telling of your life, but a memoir hones in on a specific timeline or event. It doesn’t mean you can’t have flashbacks or backstory; you can. But you must understand the big and subtle differences between the two before you write, publish, and market your story.

Ask yourself:

  • Does my story reflect on my entire life (autobiography), or a key aspect, theme, or event (memoir)?
  • Does my story start at the beginning of my life and progress to the end (autobiography), or does it start anywhere and move around in time and place (memoir)?
  • Does my story require hours of fact-checking (autobiography), or is it more personal, requiring less fact-checking (memoir)?

“A memoir is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked.”

—Gore Vidal, Palimpsest

Read more of Shayla’s Guest Post by clicking through to the original post here.

Can we Live?

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Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

We wake up just enough to stay woke but not enough to live. We live on hours and minutes and second hands, gas, and expressways. Espressos and Starbucks. From the bed to the car to the job, back to the car to the house and to the bed where we will lie down again so that we can wake up and exist again. Begin again. Breathe again. Boldly expecting these bodies to be there to back us up again. Do we ever back up? Can we stop? When was the last time you experienced something beautiful and told no one? Can we be beautiful without filter? Can we examine this breath? This gorgeous breath. This inhale and exhale. This miracle that is in us. Can we examine these lungs? Let the seconds and minutes and hours add up, can we forget about time? Let it pass. Watch the orange and yellow rays of the sun bleeding into the sky. Can we experience the day passing onto the next? Can we catch it moving? Can we listen to the sound of quiet? Do we even know if silence has a sound? Can we listen to the birds sing for hours at a time and let the leaves change and crumble into colors? Can we let the wind blow dust onto the windowsill, can peace be still? You have to wake up before you can stay woke. Can we live?

Weight

Photo by henri meilhac on Unsplash

They say it’s the ones with the dirtiest hands pointing the finger. That the world is fake on social media, where we hold our masks together long enough to log off. People pointing fingers and laughing at their neighbors while they pretend to be someone else…until no one’s looking. We forget that integrity is less about what you post and more about your heart. Is it in sync? What of our actions behind each others backs? Studying is not for taking pictures of scripture but for showing yourself approved. Bibles are not meant to be in pictures and blamelessness is not a selfie. To be upright for the sake of a post is not integrity. So unless your presence here is a reflection of your true self, that armor you’re carrying is not armor. It is weight. The unnecessary burden of trying to fit in when you were meant to stand out.