Tag: #SundayBlogShare

Controlling the Energy Around You

As many of you know, I’ve been doing lots of personal reflection. My focus has been on healing and love. This included taking some extensive time off to spend with Yah, my family, embracing solitude and doing more writing.

In this process, I’ve learned a lot about myself (still learning), got to spend time with my mom, finished two books and moved to Georgia.

Long story short, this break has paid off in more ways than one and I want to share with you something I shared with my Bimonthly email list already. That is, learning to control the energy around you so that you’re more positive, have more energy, are happier and accomplishing more.

To start, I’ve been practicing this by training my mind to be more positive.

Positive Thoughts

Many are already talking about the power of positive thinking, but how does that look in action?

What I’ve come to understand about the power of thought is how much our thoughts contribute to our physical well-being.

We can literally control the energy around us by the quality of our thoughts.

This means that I cannot focus my thoughts on the negative all day, every day and expect to be happy and energetic. If you wake up complaining, go to work complaining, blog your complaints, Tweet and Facebook your complaints, how do you (realistically speaking) expect to have a good day?

This includes limiting what my ears hear and what my eyes see. I can think positively but thinking positive is not enough.

I must also eliminate negative people, places, and things from my life that influences the way that I think.

Why is this important? Because we cannot heal in the same environment that broke us.

I’ve found that watching and listening to what is less negatively stimulating can help me to think less negatively. 

An example of this online is following more positive minded people on social media and accounts that encourage and build up instead of tear down. I removed those persons whose energy brought me down and followed those whose energy built me up. This doesn’t mean those I removed are bad people or that I love them less. It means that I love myself enough to protect my energy.

This process of falling back in love with ourselves begins with setting standards for what we will and will not tolerate. This is important because you teach people how to love you based on what you allow to take place.

Mental Rest

My break has been more so about mental rejuvenation more than physically. Being tired all the time does not necessarily mean that you’ve had a productive day. It may mean that you are busy but it doesn’t always mean that you’ve been productive. Sometimes it means it is mental rest that you need.

Because the spiritual (mind) and the physical (body) is connected, once we control the way we think we automatically control the way that we feel. Sure, I can get more hours of sleep (and I should) but…

ultimately it is my excitement and passion about the good in my life that will fill me up with positive and empowering energy.

Or, it is my depressed demeanor that will do the opposite.

Your mind can tire you out or fill you up.

For this, I am personally striving to cut down on complaining and worrying by focusing instead on positive thoughts and alternatives. This is not easy, is a daily process, and also means not allowing others to project their negative energy onto me. Giving into other people’s problems or letting people complain to us too much can drain our energy and leave us empty.

Being an ear is great but there’s a difference between being supportive and just letting people dump their issues in our laps.

We are not toilets and shouldn’t allow ourselves to be used.

Do not misunderstand me: Venting can be a good thing. Having someone to talk to is mentally healthy but in the words of Rudy Francisco:

“Some people will take until you have nothing left and then hold a grudge against your hands for being empty.”

Next, we’ll talk about some backlashes to the new and positive you and how to stay encouraged despite them. In a world this cold anything good is bound to be met with opposition. This should not surprise us. In fact, we should prepare for it.

My Favorite Dick Gregory Quotes

Dick Gregory, October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017

“If everyone likes you, your not real enough.”

“This isn’t a revolution of Black against White. This is a revolution of right against wrong and right has always won.”

“They act like America was good and got bad. America ain’t never been good!”

“If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they’d have to bring out the tanks to control you.”

“Momma, a welfare cheater. A criminal who couldn’t stand to see her kids go hungry, or grow up in slumbs and end up mugging people in dar corners. I guess the system didn’t want her to get off relief, the way it kept sending social workers around to be sure Momma wasn’t trying to make things better.”

“I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn’t have what I wanted.”

“Poor is a state of mind you never grow out of, but being broke is just a temporary condition.”

“The most difficult thing to get people to do is to accept the obvious.”

“Education means to bring out wisdom. Indoctrination means to push in knowledge.”

“My belief is, you know, certain things have to be explained that’s never been explained.”

“A free man is a man with no fears.”

The First “African” Slaves Arrive in Jamestown, Virginia, Aug. 20, 1619

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My messy desk…studying my history

“A Dutch ship carrying 20 Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, on Aug. 20, 1619, a voyage that would mark the beginning of slavery in the American colonies. The number of slaves continued to grow between the 17th and 18th centuries, as slave labor was used to help fuel the growing tobacco and cotton industries in the southern states. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, some 4 million slaves were set free. However, racial inequalities and violence toward newly freed slaves would persist in the country throughout the 1860s and 1870s.”

– Source, BET National News

“The arrival of the “20 and odd” African captives aboard a Dutch “man of war” ship on this day (August 20) in the year 1619 historically marks the early planting of the seeds of the American slave trade.” (Benjamin Banneker also challenged Slavery In Letter On This Day In 1791)

Source, Ioned Chandler, Newsone

“Today in 1619, it was reported by English tobacco farmer John Rolfe, husband of famed Indian princess Pocahontas, that “20 and odd” African slaves arrived at the Jamestown Settlement in British colonial North America aboard a Dutch man-of-war ship. The ship had originated in the Portuguese colonies of present-day Angola, which had been established in the 1500s. Angola was a heavy exporter of slaves to Brazil and the Spanish colonies.”

Source, Infobox

“Newly established English colonies in North America create a demand for laborers in the New World. At first, captured Africans are brought to the colonies as indentured servants. Once their term (3-7 years) is completed, indentured servants are allowed to live free, own land, and have indentured servants of their own. However, this system does not last long; indentured servitude gives way to lifetime slavery for Africans as the British colonies grow and the need for a permanent, inexpensive labor force increases”

Source, This Far by faith

“The Black Atlantic explores the truly global experiences that created the African American people. Beginning a full century before the first documented “20-and-odd” slaves arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, the episode portrays the earliest Africans, both slave and free, who arrived on the North American shores. Soon afterwards, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade would become a vast empire connecting three continents. Through stories of individuals caught in its web, like a 10-year-old girl named Priscilla who was transported from Sierra Leone to South Carolina in the mid-18th century, we trace the emergence of plantation slavery in the American South. The late 18th century saw a global explosion of freedom movements, and The Black Atlantic examines what that Era of Revolutions—American, French and Haitian—would mean for African Americans, and for slavery in America.”

Source, The Black Atlantic, episode one of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 

“In terms of African involvement, it is true also that Africans enslaved others before the coming and demands of the European. But three other facts must be added to this statement to give a holistic picture.. African enslavement was in no way like European enslavement. It was servitude which usually occurred “through conquest, capture in war or punishment for a crime” (Davidson, 1968:181). It could also resemble serfdom as in Medieval Europe where peasants were tied to the land and a lord for protection. They often lived as members of the family, married their masters daughters and rose to political and economic prominence and did not face the brutality and dehumanization which defined European chattel slavery.”

Source, Introduction to Black Studies, Ch. 4: The Holocaust of Enslavement

Yecheilyah’s Book Review Awards 2017

Guys!!

I have an idea!

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I want to do something special for the authors who are featured on this blog.

Yecheilyah’s Book Review Awards – a virtual event in which 5-star rated authors on The PBS Blog are honored with promotion, culminating in a Book Review Award gifted to the author whose book stood out to me the most.

To up the stakes, I would like to give this author an actual award. Not a virtual certificate, not a blog award, and not a badge but something tangible he or she can sit on his or her desk and be proud of! (Of course, I’m not a rich woman so I’ll be looking for something reasonable, but nice.)

This means I will have to decide on the best place (I do have one in mind) and get a logo made!!

Of course, since I read the books and reviewed them I would be the only judge of this contest and there would only be one winner whose book beat the others in all areas:

  • Book Cover Art
  • Editing
  • Character Development
  • Plot Movement / Strength
  • Thought Provoking 

The book in which I have given a five-star review that has beat the others in these areas will be the winning book of the year and will receive the prize from me.

Naturally, to participate I would have had read your book and given it five-stars before the excitement begins.

 

Which is, err, I don’t know yet. I am thinking December? Make it an end of the year thing. What do YOU think?? Should we do this?!

 

Again, this would mean that if you’ve been reviewed by me and I gave you five-stars, you are automatically drafted into the competition! And by December, I should have reviewed a lot more of you.

Of course, I’ll need help with this! If you want to help me to  organize something special for your fellow authors of excellence, please send me an email so we can discuss details. (Ohh. I like the sound of that, “Authors of Excellence”. Has a nice ring to it. Hmm.)

Vacation and Author Interviews

The summer is pretty much over but I have not exactly taken a vacation or a break. That’s about to change.

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In about two weeks I will be going on a vacation of sorts and taking some extensive time off. I’ll be away from social media, and the blog. I am going completely offline from August 27th through September.

This means that I will not be here to share your posts and that all Introduce Yourself Interviews will be scheduled to go live ahead of time. Authors, this means it will be YOUR responsibility to promote your posts if your interview is scheduled when I am gone.

About scheduling…

For those of you who are interested in being interviewed on this blog between now through September, you will need to get your questions in to me before Wednesday, August 23, 2017 so that they can be scheduled to go out. Anything coming into me after August 23rd (even Aug 24th) will be scheduled for October through the end of the year.

August 28th and the entire September is open. If you want to be interviewed before October, email me ASAP so that I can schedule you for an open slot. I am dedicating this week and next to scheduling interviews. I will literally be on a plane on August 27th so don’t wait until the last minute. The deadline is 8/23. No exceptions.

 

If you are an author and new to this blog and are not sure what “Introduce Yourself” is, GO HERE. Read through the post, choose your questions and send them into yecheilyah@yecheilyahysrayl.com before August 23, 2017 if you want to be scheduled in September.

 

Keep In Mind

I am not an editor and will not edit your questions. If you are extremely sensitive about this please be sure your questions are edited before you send them into me. Introduce Yourself is a free service and only covers very light, basic editing using Grammarly.

 

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Catch ya later

Integrity

I really dislike this day and age where everyone wants to be seen and praised and prized. Purposely present to spew pillars of knowledge pulled and preserved for a time. No one wants to be silent but everyone wants to be wise. So we selfie our way into stardom on the ground. No one wants to stand behind the curtain or risk being forgotten, or admit that integrity is doing what’s right …even when no one’s looking.

What Really Grinds My Gears

You wanna know what really grinds my gears?

  1. When you see someone doing something you perceive to be wrong, or maybe it is wrong, and instead of pulling them to the side (a personal message or email) you create a whole blog post about it or social media post, that you know the person will see in the next 3 minutes. A lot of confusion and assumption would be eliminated if people just talked to each other. If you see someone doing something wrong, don’t talk about them. Help them. Pull them aside privately, “Hey sista”, or “Hey brother, you’re doing this wrong.” Wars are built on a misunderstanding. (And, for the record people, everyone’s not hating on you. Sometimes you’re just wrong.)

 

  1. Goodreads Reviews. Goodreads reviews really grinds my gears. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone but I’ve noticed that reviews left on Goodreads are a lot less tactful and professional. An honest review does not mean you have to humiliate people. If an author is going to be on Goodreads then they should have thick skin because people are mean there, sometimes bringing up valid points but with no filter. And yes, I did grow up in the projects so I am used to this behavior (laughing but serious), but not everyone is. We seem to forget that people (even adults) have feelings.

 

  1. Non-Creative Author Interview Questions. Seriously people, stop asking the same questions over and over again. Be creative. The more wild and crazy the questions, the more wild and crazy the answers! “So, who is that cross-eyed guy I saw on your Facebook? Is that your man? Are you into cockeyed guys? You can tell us, we won’t judge you.” Readers eat this stuff up.

 

  1. People who keep their air conditioning at 65 degrees or lower.

 

  1. When people think everything is supposed to be free. Everything you have to pay for is not a scam. If you buy into the notion that you are somehow taking advantage of or scamming people just because you are charging for your hard work and time, then you will not make it as an entrepreneur (because you won’t make enough money for it to work. Rent/Mortgage and bills are not imaginary.) As long as you are building trust and adding value (know what you’re talking about), there’s nothing wrong with charging for your service and your time.  Some of you can afford to do everything free. Maybe you got a little change stored away or you just have the time but that’s not everyone’s life. Everybody ain’t got it like that.

 

  1. When people use “Freedom” as an excuse not to believe the truth or justify their wrong. Everyone wants the truth, but no one wants to be honest. There is no freedom without responsibility.

 

  1. When Bloggers create private blogs and really think they’re private.

  1. When people like all your social media posts but don’t reach out to you in real life.

 

  1. Potato chip bags with a handful of chips in them.

 

  1. When relatives spend 364 days not supporting your writing and on the day, you release a book ask, “Where can I buy yo book?” and you never hear from them again.

 

  1. Religious debates from people who hate to hear the truth about their God/Gods. Here’s the thing: Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does.

 

  1. Photo-shopped pictures of fast food that looks nothing like the picture in real life.

 

  1. People who walk all over you and then get mad at you for establishing boundaries. Order is not abuse.

 

  1. Racists whites who don’t know that they’re racists and get mad at you for pointing it out.

  1. Telling fast food places not to put mayonnaise on your burger (I hate mayonnaise) and they do it anyway.

 

  1. When people think saying, “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual” makes them deep. Saying, “I’m spiritual” doesn’t make you better than anyone else. What’s better is to just explain exactly what it is you believe in and why (because demons are spiritual too.)

 

  1. People asking, “So what you eat then?” because you said you didn’t eat pork as if no other food exist. (Though I don’t consider pork food)

 

  1. People who compare you to others. Stop saying, “so and so is doing it like this.” I don’t care what so and so is doing. That has nothing to do with me or how I do things.

 

  1. Religious people who act like they never lied, stole, cheated, or whored before. The more relatable you are, the easier it is to reach people. Just saying.

 

  1. and Indie/Trad. Publishing debates about which is better. Seriously people, just pick one that best suits you and move on. (Hint: Both require work)

Yecheilyah is an Independent Author, Blogger, and Poet. Her latest release

Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book One) is available now on Amazon. 

“The characters all sound real. I really really liked all the dialogues, it seems like hearing true people speaking. Even the crowd scenes (and there are a few in the ‘southern’ thread) are involving and easy to follow.” – Amazon Customer Review