Hi!

It's me, Taye.  Happy to be here.

I'd like to begin by sharing a moment I had the other day in hopes that you will feel inspired to engage with me.  

For so many years I have been in the throes of addiction.  Addiction to food and addiction to people.  And while in certain situations I am still vulnerable to relapse,I feel so much more alive when I am committed to what makes me feel joyful.

Maybe it's a habit.  A habit of empowering myself? A habit of stepping in to new shoes, ones where my feet don't hurt anymore.

A few days ago I had a new take on my children’s story, “The Boy with the Big Ear, a simple tale that looks beyond appearances. I didn’t anticipate that I would feel such feelings of gratitude or that I would have expanded my awareness from this read. I certainly didn’t know beforehand, how little I trusted in the creative process.

Whether it was The Boy, who reached out to his nemesis, or Tom, a bully, who paid attention to his higher nature, or Sophia who befriended an odd boy when no one else would, I grew to love these characters as real friends. And in so doing, I also discovered that I love to work. When I am involved in a project, I feel focused, grounded and alive. Thankfully so.

I kept thinking about how often I move from thought to thought in my head, or go from one place to another, usually seeking to feel OK, while simultaneously feeling let down. I’d scan people wondering if they would provide me with safety so that I could finally relax and let go a little. I’d try to fix people in the guise of needing to earn their love or wanting to be perfect myself, always longing, never quite meeting up with having arrived.

Part of me knows that there’s no such person, place or thing who can give me that respite.  While everything comes and goes, most things usually got stuck in a loop of distress, and spun round and round in my mind until I did something that generated more trance, more illusory protection, more status quo. Yet despite my many attempts, things came and went, even the familiar, but my experience of myself was rarely different. Or worthy.

On this day, amidst the endless charade of change, I have decided to hang my hat on the mystery of my life. I have decided to trust that there is a invisible shield of protection in every situation I encounter. That there is an unknown stream of desire always wanting to move through and to me. I have decided to accept the hurtful experiences I’ve had in the past. Accept the qualities in myself who would take a three-month old computer back to a store where my brother-in-law worked. Not only causing a huge scene walking in with unboxed equipment, but embarrassing him to death. I have decided to lay to rest the rage directed at my husband for making and losing  $600,000 in the stock market. I decided for good to retell these stories by simply adding a new chapter, entitled, lessons learned. In so doing, I have decided to wind up as the hero with more energy to use here, now. I am finally my own real friend. 

It was that boy with the big ear who helped me recalibrate the skeptic to the lover within. The not so fictitious character who led me to my own heart and who trusts that vital important energy that comes from honoring it. He has taught me about trust. The kind of trust that’s necessary to direct my unique self expression. He is cheering me to celebrate, not apologize for being me.