Changing Faces or Facing Changes

Life is going to move on around us whether we want it to or not. How you deal with it makes all the difference. Will you merely survive the change or will you thrive because of it?

I have gone through a few changes in the last year and I count them all joy! They were necessary to create in me a spirit of  "Yes, I can!" Some of these things I never imagined having to deal with and others were welcomed breaks from my norm. But all of them were a lesson.

The James Baldwin quote above has stuck with me for years. It used to be my email signature back in the hotmail days! But it is more relevant now than ever because I have come to realize that I have been changing faces for years! Not always, but often. 

If you are being put in a position to do something that you already know goes against who you are at your core, but you do it anyway because it will make things easier, then you're changing faces.

If you are in a "relationship" where your needs are evolving and the other person is satisfied with the way things are, but you refuse to settle for their love anymore so you walk away, then you are facing changes.

If you are being led in your spirit to take on a task you do not think you are capable of and you put the task off until you  think it is the right time, then you are changing faces.

If you know you have a testimony with details that may cause people to look at you funny but you know that it will set someone else free so you share it anyway, then you are facing changes.

If you force yourself to laugh in situations where you want to cry... changing faces.

If you let the tears flow in situations where you would force yourself to laugh... facing changes.

Embrace change, it is inevitable. But you don't have to move in the same direction. Changing faces is often a put-on. Changing faces is often a front and the inauthenticity of it will start to wear on you so quickly! Changing faces often won't let your spirit rest easy. Changing faces often feels like worry, regret, and a need to prove to everyone else  that we are ok. Changing faces is often reactive. It's a compromise of values because the group says so. It's a way to survive.

Facing change may mean you need to change direction from your peoples. Facing change may mean you need to have that conversation you have been dreading. Facing change may mean you need to seek a new path. Facing change is proactive. It's making a move before the tide sweeps you away. It's a connection to your spirit that you trust to move you in the best direction. It's a means of THRIVING and not merely surviving. 

Ask yourself are you changing faces or facing changes? Are you thriving or surviving?

He Doesn't Mean Any Harm

Recently the issue of adult females being assaulted by adult males they have turned down has come up a LOT! It is a thing that many adult females I know have dealt with in some way. I have been discussing it on my FB page. MOST adult males I know have been silent. However, the ones who are not have said things that have caused me to look at them and me differently. There are some woman-hating, man-centered things that are so deeply ingrained in folks' everyday way of thinking that they cannot even accept ANYTHING else.

Many of these adult males have said some terrible things along the lines of: Do you know what assault is? Why can't you just tell a guy you don't feel like smiling? And my personal favorite- If you don't protect yourself with a taser, then you will be a victim. These are all paraphrases but speak to the character of these adult males. It has shocked and appalled many of my female and male friends alike. "Who are these people you know?" has been a resounding sentiment. And all I can think is who ARE these people?

People that believe it is more important to tell an adult female how to protect themselves from an adult male than to tell their adult male friends to chill out. Some of them, in fact, are probably the exact adult males that need to be told to chill out! But instead, they want to tell me how not to get killed by someone I have turned down. Be nicer, smile, carry a taser, don't stay out late, walk in pairs back to back, wear more clothes and less makeup. Okay, I exaggerated those last 2 to make a point... This is ridiculous. Instead of fixing the issue we as adult females must adapt to it? Because you can't control what another adult male does? (another paraphrase of the ridiculousness I have read this year alone). But somehow you think you can control what an adult female does and if she does not do what YOU think she should, she deserves what is coming to her. Because you as an adult male know best how to be an adult woman in this world. Or maybe you know best how to handle your type.

On the flipside, there are adult males that have liked my posts. Agreed. Changed their perspectives. And for that I am eternally grateful. There are even some that have debated adult males on the subject. And THAT is where it gets sad again. You can have 100 adult females say they have been assaulted by someone they knew and thought they could trust and NOT pressed charges. But you as an adult male come in and argue with these adult females until another adult male steps in.

Many more adult males need to tell their homeboys to chill. Until they see the problem as more than "that b**ch is trippin..." adult females will continue to be assaulted by men with fragile egos and unstable emotions and still be questioned as to why they were out so late without their children. Or why they didn't run faster than the bullet.

All of these conversations have led me to realize that I have witnessed my male friends do things to strangers that were not ok. If we are friends and you get a little frisky with ME, it's okay. I have strange boundaries with my friends, but they are my friends because they KNOW those boundaries. If they do not, we ain't friends and you need to move! THIS is MY prerogative to have who I want in my space. However, the next time I am out and one of my tipsy (or drunk) male friends pushes up on a woman I need to also step in and tell him that's not ok. Even if I know he doesn't mean any harm... he is in FACT being harmful. I will not allow friendship to make misogyny okay. And I urge you to do the same.


there will be more on this...