Free Journey to Empowerment by Maria D. Dowd Page B

our journey together. I simply invite you to take seven minutes each day to be with your journal, to be with your spirit and to be with your soul. Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book Something More said of women of power, “Life needs women who will claim their power, and will use it for all of us.” I believe that writing for our lives is a healing tool that will guide each one of us back home to the center of our soul where we can reclaim not only our authentic selves but be fully connected to our soul’s purpose.
    I pray that we as African women around the world will continue to weave together the pieces of our fragmented selves from among the words on the page and piece them back together again like our grandmothers and their mothers before them who made the beautiful quilts often depicting the courageous stories of their lives. In doing so, we nurse ourselves back to strength, to our original glory, celebrating the enormity of who we are. As we welcome both the sun and the rain, the thorns and the f lowers of life, we keep faith and keep on stepping out, holding on to the vision to just be—all that is WOMAN! In the meantime, sisterfriend, don’t forget, you are the best things you’ve got!
    Be blessed.
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    Take a few moments each day to find your center. Give your mind the opportunity to relax and reflect on your abundance of blessings. When I’m centered I meditate upon…
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The Day I Told the Truth
    B Y S HELLIE R. W ARREN
    I ’m a liar…in recovery.
    Ever since I can remember, I’ve lied. Sure, I guess we all have at one time or another. We’ve lied about eating the cookie before dinner, about taking a glance at a fellow classmate’s schoolwork, about being seventeen when a cute twenty-one-year-old approached us for our number. These are called “little white lies”—the ones we say will hurt no one. But these fabrications only set the foundation for bigger ones, the kind I have told and have paid the price for.
    â€œI don’t need a serious commitment.”
    â€œI am comfortable with casual sex.”
    â€œI prefer ‘nonrelationship’ relationships.”
    â€œI’m too young to know what I want in a relationship.”
    â€œSharing my needs is a sign of insecurity.”
    â€œPutting a man’s needs ahead of mine is all a part of compromise in a successful relationship.”
    â€œThere’s no way I can keep a man without having sex with him.”
    Lies! Lies! Lies!
    And the sad part is…I had come to believe them.
    I’ve been in many destructive relationships with great men. The men in my life were highly intelligent, very humorous and keenly attractive. They were all goal-oriented and ambitious. And many of them were candidates for healthy, productive relationships…that is, until I started lying to them, but never without first lying to myself. You see, I had many friends who sent the men in their lives through unnecessary drama. They were jealous and possessive. Many of my male friends complained about the high level of maintenance that dating young women entailed. Thus, I pledged to be unique. I was determined to mold myself into the ideal woman, the kind of woman men desired.
    I would be attractive and intelligent and funny and would want no more than what a man was able to give. I would not demand a monogamous relationship or have “unreasonable” expectations, for that would surely put unnecessary pressure on them. I would listen to all of their female issues and would provide the solutions. I wasn’t going to be the “typical woman.”
    However, over time, I no longer felt attractive or intelligent and had started to lose my sense of humor. What I discovered, over time, was an intense longing for a monogamous relationship. But, after years of living this way of life, how could I turn back? Or, why should I? At least this way I was not vulnerable to the men I was involved