Tag: self-acceptance

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Growing Pains

February 15, 2019 jcladyluv

Growing Pains post 2

So yesterday was Valentine’s Day and oddly enough it got me to thinking about how much I’ve grown. I can remember a time where Valentine’s Day made me anxious. Was I going to be alone on the day of love or was I going to have someone to share it with that particular year? At the stage in my life where it bothered me if I didn’t have a valentine I did not love myself enough yet, hell most days back then I didn’t even like myself (I’m talking late teens and early twenties here), and then whether or not I did like myself usually depended on what someone else thought of me. I didn’t realize it then because people didn’t talk about stuff like mental health but I had already begun my dance with depression and I needed validation from others to feel some sense of self worth.

So needless to say Valentine’s Day has never been one of my favorite days because it was either a really extreme high (because I had someone that year) or an even more extreme low (because I didn’t and I had my mother’s voice echoing in my head telling me no one would ever want me). I don’t bring any of that up to be all sad and depressive, only to point out that I truly have grown. I said a couple of years ago that I was starting a journey in which I wanted to be by myself for a while and grow my relationship with God and the one I have with myself, that I wanted to start to love myself a lot better and treat myself better than anyone else could ever treat me.

Now because I’m a mother and almost every time my daughter and what she needs will come first I don’t always succeed at treating myself to nice things or even pampering myself at all, but I have improved my love of myself and I have (at least I believe I have) strengthened my relationship with God which has also in turn provided even more self awareness and allowed me to see in myself what God sees in me, what HE has always seen in me. For me valentine’s day is no longer about whether I have someone in my life special or not because I know that I always have someone special in my everyday life and that is me (and of course my child but you get the point) and that’s enough.

I’m still growing and there are still improvements that I am making within myself and within my relationship with God but I can truly say that I have a peace within me now that I don’t think I’ve ever had before and I love it. I don’t look at Valentine’s Day with disdain anymore and it doesn’t make me sad like it once did so many years ago. I think that my growth in terms of self acceptance and my spiritual growth has spilled over into my writing career and the journey of fulfilling my purpose and I believe that it will continue to nurture those areas of my life. It’s funny how we rush so fast in our teens and early twenties to grow up without realizing that our growth never really stops, or at least it shouldn’t. I hope that I’m always growing, that we are always growing because there is always so much more to the next stage of life then what we learned on the last.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine

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To Thine Own Self Be True

January 26, 2018January 26, 2018 jcladyluv

To Thine Own Self Be True 1

Let’s talk today about checking in with yourself! Sometimes in life things can get very crazy. You’re busy taking care of the kids, taking care of your significant others, you’re checking in with your friend’s needs, your tending to your business and making sure your customers are always satisfied, and if you have a day job then you’re making sure your boss is satisfied as well. While all of that is very important to maintain, all of that would get neglected if we forget to take care of ourselves.

It took a long time for me to learn this, to even learn how to love myself it took more than half of my life so I still struggle with making sure I’m good. I have to have conversations with myself at times to make sure I’m okay and that I’m happy and that I’m at peace. That doesn’t always mean that I have everything I want or even half of what I need. It just means that I have to make sure that no matter what crazy thing is going on, what things would normally stress me out, that I have to have peace within myself to be able to deal with everything going on around me.

What I am learning, the older I get is that even when you have the things you swear up and down that you need, if you don’t have happiness and peace within you that having those things means absolutely nothing. There’s nothing wrong with having alone time with yourself. Time to reflect on things, to do some reading, to do some writing, time to meditate and talk with God, time to take yourself out on a date and just be comfortable being with yourself. Every now and then you have to remember to have a conversation with yourself and to make sure that while you are trying to take care of everything and everyone else that you are also taking care of you.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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Becoming a Vehicle for the Message

October 14, 2014 jcladyluv

I love to watch Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday for that extra sense of creative inspiration. Oprah always seems to have guests who are truly inspiring and motivate me that much more towards my goals and my destiny. The past two Sunday’s she had Elizabeth Gilbert, the Author of Eat, Pray, Love, on her show and while I didn’t watch them the precise moment that they were on, I recorded them on my DVR to be watched later (I love being able to forward through the commercials). So this morning to get my creative juices flowing and get some inspiration for my blog posts this week I sat down and watched both episodes (only intending to watch one today). While I admittedly have not read the book Eat, Pray, Love (although I fully intend to, I promise) every time I watch Elizabeth Gilbert speak or do an interview I feel like she always makes me realize something new that I had never realized before.

This morning as I watched the clips from her speaking at Oprah’s “Live the life you want tour” (which I so desperately wanted to attend but could not afford) and her interview with Oprah I found myself hoping that I could inspire people someday the way she does to the millions of people that she inspires. Now I have a lot of things that I want to do with this Write 2 Be brand, and the message that I want to share with this blog, my magazine, my books, this company in general, I feel, is so vital and important, and the way in which I want to deliver this message is steadily growing. As I put all of the parts of this vehicle together I realize more and more each day that the vehicle seemed to have always been missing a little something and I could never usually put my finger on it until today.

I have never been one for public speaking. In fact in grade school I used to take F’s as grades for not doing oral reports in front of the class until the teachers realized just how real my stage fright was and started letting me just do longer written reports. However, over the years I have become much better at voicing myself in front of people and more importantly speaking to people about my message of being authentic and being imperfectly perfect in whoever you were meant to be. My message is beginning to fall even more in line with the message of anti-bullying and in making sure that children are encouraged to be themselves despite whatever people have to say about them. I am beginning to realize that that message needs to be voiced even more and that there can never be enough people (because I ruled out my becoming active about it because there are already so many “important” people doing so) to get this message across to the world.

Now of course I am realistic enough to know that I can’t just miraculously become a public speaker and activist for anti-bullying and self-acceptance overnight. But I know that I want to expressly make sure that I am promoting the message of individualism and authenticity and of people being okay with who they are and more importantly of being okay to not fit in. I want to make sure that what I am doing with my company and with the direction that I want the Write 2 Be brand to go in compliments that message in every single facet possible.

I admittedly have my work cut out for me. I have a lot of excuses I’ve been making that I need to stop making. I have a lot of work on my current books that should’ve been done that I haven’t been doing for one reason or another. I have a few projects that don’t necessarily involve me writing anything that I have to get the ball rolling on (one’s that tie into this message by the way) and haven’t even the first idea of where to begin. I have some research to do on some things I am trying to put together. But I know that the icing on the cake of all that I have to do and all that I am determined to get accomplished is this message that I must deliver.

It’s in me and it’s something I have dealt with personally as a child (the bullying and lack of self-acceptance) and it’s something I see my child and so many other children that I currently interact with struggling with now, and I know that I bring something special and experienced to this platform. I bring something worth sharing with the world to this message and I want to add my vehicle to the many other vehicles that are out there driving this message home. My vehicle is different but it is definitely worth the ride.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

Born This Way

September 28, 2011 jcladyluv

“Don’t you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can’t be exactly who you are.”
~Lady Gaga

Just last week a young boy, Jamey Rodemeyer, who was only fourteen years old, committed suicide. He had been taunted and bullied for years because he wasn’t sure of his sexuality and he was different and he just couldn’t take it anymore. He was a huge fan of Lady Gaga, whose main mission through her music is to promote acceptance and being proud of who you are and the differences that you may bring to the table in any circumstance. There is no acceptable reason for someone, or a group of people to single certain individuals out because of who they are and because they don’t fit the general mold that society sets for any one person. There is a reason why God created us all to be different and not to be copies of everyone around us.

We live in a world where appearances are everything and where being different is not rewarded but rather ridiculed and condemned. People whose lifestyles are not the same as others are treated like they are diseased. Those that are unique and creative are made to feel as if there is something wrong with them because their mind thinks differently than the average person’s. Simply put if people do not know what to make of you, then you are too different for them to accept.

Bullying is a nationwide issue. It’s not just happening in one city or even just one state. People are literally killing themselves to get away from those that are bullying them. It should never come to that. Fourteen and fifteen year old children should not feel that they have no other way to escape the judgment of others just because they are their own person and don’t strive to be a carbon copy of everyone else around them.

When someone writes an eloquent book that touches people’s hearts and souls, maybe even one that causes them to make particular changes in their lives, then the words are powerful and meaningful. However, when someone uses their words to pick at and ridicule someone and goes to the extent of bullying them, then all of a sudden people’s excuse is ‘their just words, they don’t mean anything’. So which one is it? Words are powerful or words don’t mean anything? Well coming from someone who knows all too well what it feels like to be bullied, words do mean something. They hold the same amount of power for the negative as they would for the positive, perhaps even more so.

Words can hurt. No matter how many people think that what they say shouldn’t greatly affect someone else’s life, chances are, they do. Sometimes what a person says can shape the rest of someone else’s life. Perhaps those individuals out there that feel the need to condemn someone else for being themselves should take a much harder look inside. Who is it that you are trying to be? Until next time…Be who are, it’s the way that God intended you to be!

“I’m beautiful in my way, ’cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was Born This Way.”
~Lady Gaga

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”