My life is a miracle.
Are you tired of reading that intro yet? LOL!
It’s so hard for me to admit but…I am so proud of myself.
I went to class tonight and I turned in my paper and I did my presentation and the class laughed and enjoyed themselves. I was very nervous considering my recent social anxiety experiences, but I managed to get through my lesson on how perception affects behavior and no one fell asleep. In fact, after my presentation the class went on for 20 minutes discussing the topic. I was able to include some of my law of attraction teachings as well as a few affirmations reminding everyone, “What we perceive (or believe) will come true in our lives so it is important to believe for the best outcome.”
I even told them a couple of stories about my kids. I love using that as an icebreaker. “I have kids,” I’ll say and the person’s eyes will grow wide. No one believes I’m a mother when they meet me. To me that’s mind boggling because I identify myself as Ms. Tee, mother of two wonderful sons. Don’t I look like a mother?
Regardless of whether or not I look like a mother, someone obviously likes my stories. I’ll go back to earlier today when I was driving to Kinkos to make copies for my presentation. I was so aware of my negative thoughts that I had to stop myself.
“I’m going to manifest something,” I told myself and I think I said something about a creative opportunity coming quickly.
After everything was set and ready for class I went home and took a nap. When I woke up I checked my email and I had a message from our local newspaper asking me to join their upcoming community of parenting bloggers and become a facilitator of the process. The position is paid too. She said she has read my blog and loves my writing style.
Wow. Talk about manifestation!
I definitely want to hear more about this opportunity although I am a little weary because this paper is mainstream and I’m nervous about being the “Black blogger Mama”. I’m not your average Black Mom. I don’t know if some of these people’s first exposure to Black parenting should be ME. ~yowsa~
Come on…I know you feel me. If I had a nice office job and my kids at home with me and I dated on the weekends and took classes to enrich myself, then I’d probably be more typical of the Black professional parents I know. But I am absolutely none of that and I don’t know if the mainstream is ready for my kind of lifestyle or my type of writing…or my honesty. I’m not trying to sugarcoat anything or make myself fit in. I just want to be me. Also, this is my town. I don’t know if I want to put myself out there like that. Hmm..Maybe I can be anonymous…That’s a thought.
This does sound like a dream to me, helping the newspaper that I already freelance for, grow their blogging community.
In other news…I’m rarely ever frustrated by other people and I don’t like to complain but can I vent?
One of my former editors contacted me on Monday after I emailed him weeks ago asking when I would be paid for stories that I wrote back in October. He told me that one of the stories I wrote wouldn’t be running and that he lost the other story.
This infuriated me. First of all, I’ve never had an editor that assigns stories and then decides that they are not relevant AFTER they are written. That’s a complete waste of my time and talent. I could see if I pitched the story and he told me to give it a go and it didn’t turn out to be something he could use. No…he ASSIGNED the story, I researched, interviewed multiple sources and then spent HOURS perfecting it. Now he decides it’s not relevant. That annoys me! This isn’t the first time this has happened with him either.
And the other story that he lost, I spent 2 entire nights at this event waiting for celebrities to show up so that i could include them in my story. I mean entire nights, from midnight until 6:30 am.
I wrote my heart out and delivered a great feature…and he lost it! Dayumm! That’s so disrespectful to me. And…I heard that this dude has been telling people that I have a bad attitude. I’m sure I do when it comes to him, he frustrates me so much. I just want to be paid and then I can move on. I have no desire to work with him again.
I love writing features but it’s not easy at all. After I’m done constructing a story I feel drained emotionally and physically. And when I see people using newspapers to line their cat’s litter box, I’m like “NO! That’s ART! It’s not garbage!” LOL! You have no idea how much work we put into those stories.
There’s something that my professor said tonight that really impacted me. She has a team of therapists who work under her and she says she sometimes has to knock them down a notch by saying, “You aren’t that important.”
Wow. On the surface that sounds like verbal abuse but the reality is, that statement takes a lot of pressure off the therapist who becomes too involved in their client’s lives. When we realize that we are only change agents and change facilitators and not SAVIORS we won’t have to walk around feeling the weight of other people’s problems.
Wow.
Sometimes I feel like the success and failure of other people are my responsibility.
I’m NOT THAT IMPORTANT!
That relieves me. I can help when I can but if they don’t want the help, their livelyhood is not up to me.
We also discussed Freud’s theory that the work people choose is a reflection of their inner fascination. So…people who have a unnatural desire like inflicting pain on people, will often choose a profession that allows them to direct that desire in a more socially acceptable manner.
“They become dentists!” one of my classmates called out and everyone laughed.
“So those people who become gynecologists are fascinated by….” a male classmate began and everyone roared.
“And podiatrists really have a foot fetish!” a tall, blonde classmate added to the discussion.
“Then why are we all becoming therapists?” My professor asked. The class grew quiet.
“It could be because we really want to learn to solve our own problems,” someone offered.
BINGO!
I think that’s exactly why I’m becoming a therapist. Isn’t that funny? I’m a chick who has not been successful at romantic and family relationships and I want to learn how to correct that by becoming a relationship therapist.
Add the fact that I’m becoming a therapist and I’m in therapy. How’s that for a double dose of education?
Life is funny…