Tag: Write 2 Be blog

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Movement is Never Optional

February 27, 2023 jcladyluv

If you have been following along with my blog for a considerable length of time, then you know that I am allergic to change. I say allergic jokingly but really, I am so averse to change that it nearly sends me into full blown anxiety attacks when my routines and things that I’ve grown accustomed to being a certain way have to change. Either an anxiety attack or emotional meltdowns. It’s not a good thing by any means and I know that regulating my emotions and dealing with inevitable change is something that I should have learned to be alright with by now but alas I have not gotten to that place yet. Not sure that I ever truly will.

This is the reason why change is one of the things I talk about so much on this blog (that and fear). The way that people have to work on being disciplined in any one area, or work on keeping things clean, or their issues with time management (shoot that’s another problem I have lol), is the same way that I have to consciously work on dealing with change. Simply put, my natural personality does not adjust well to change on its own, so I have to forcefully adjust myself to the things around me that need to change.

I don’t always realize when a situation needs to be altered, when there needs to be some movement forward in a certain area of my life. I often have to have things crash in around me before my brain says okay you’ve fought this point of change for a long time now, so it’s time to just adjust. This is the point where movement is no longer optional. The point where if I don’t actively and intentionally make the decision to move forward, life is going to move me regardless, but just not in the direction I wish to go. It will move me backward.

We never want to move backwards in life because then the journey is just made to take that much longer. I truly think that if I hadn’t been so resistant to changes and to moving overall, that I could possibly be much farther ahead on this road that I’m on by now. The fear of changing (there’s that fear I talked about earlier) paralyzes and causes me to stand still a lot more than I should. Now in some instances standing still can be a good thing, but usually it’s when you want to take in all that has progressed around you, not to keep from progressing period.

A lot of the time when I think about the word movement I only think about physical movement, as in exercise. Because I suffer from chronic pain and am in some level of pain almost every single day (some days are level 1 or 2 and others are level 10 pain) I have this thing where I look for days where movement can be optional. However, I never really thought about movement in general terms for life. I didn’t think about the fact that for career success, for getting goals accomplished, for just attaining your dreams, you have no choice but to move. If you don’t, your dreams and your passions in life become stagnant. They stand still.

And that stillness doesn’t just affect you. It affects every life you and your dreams were meant to touch. So, the next time you think about just standing still and giving up, or even if you’re someone who, like me, is averse to change, just remember that if you don’t move forward, it doesn’t protect you in any way. It just keeps you stuck, in the same place, doing the same things, never growing, and never changing. So don’t hold yourself back simply by being afraid to just move.

Until next time… #BeMindful #BeCourageous #BeBold

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Accept the Unexpected

February 6, 2023 jcladyluv

“Life becomes more peaceful when you switch from expect to accept” ~ Thomas Gomes

I saw this quote this morning as I scrolled through Facebook, and it came on the heels of a rough start to my Monday. Not a seriously terrible rough start by normal standards of what a rough start would be. Just a rough start for my anxiety riddled, OCD brain who needs to have things go a certain way nearly every day for me to be able to function properly. I am a routine person, as I think I have discussed here before, and I am the type of person that if even one part of my day-to-day routine is altered, I freak out and I’m completely thrown off. I actually (crazily enough) expect things to go the way that I need them to go each and every day.

You would think that with all of the things that have thrown me off track in my life that I would be used to not having things go the way that I expect them to go but sadly I am not. I still take way too long to adjust myself to whatever changes have been tossed my way and the length of time I take to accept these changes and course corrections only makes me less productive and ultimately makes it so I accomplish less than what I had originally planned to get done.

In a normal situation, what I was thrown off by this morning (I won’t even get into what it was because honestly it would be far too silly to anyone who doesn’t understand my quirks lol) should not have affected me as much as it did. I should not have spent the better part of the first half of the day just struggling to cope with the changes and the fact that what I expected was no longer. I perhaps would have been much more at peace if I had just quickly accepted that this part of my routine was going to have to change now and that was just going to be that. It’s how I should have reacted and when I saw this quote it clicked for me. I’m wasting time I don’t have trying to control something I just can’t control anymore.

I think that’s what it was really all about and honestly what my quirks about having a consistent, unchanging routine ultimately stem from. There are so many things in life that we won’t be able to control. Things that happen to us and things that happen for us that we just have no real say in. So, it’s hard to find those few things you can control (at least for a little while anyway) and that you allow yourself to get used to being able to expect, and have them change on you, on a dime, out of nowhere.

Expectations are a funny thing. We’re not supposed to ever just expect for certain things to work out in any particular way, yet we are taught to have a schedule or routine to make sure that we are staying on track with our goals and aspirations. Aren’t routines and schedules in fact expectations? When you set up your day in a way that works best for you to be productive it is, in fact, based off of expecting for things to go accordingly. Maybe the trick is to learn to accept that unexpected things will happen, even if they throw you off balance for a little bit. Thank you, guys, for letting me vent and comment if you understand what it feels like to be thrown off and struggle to adjust to the things you don’t expect.

Until next time… #BePatient BeMindful #BeResilient

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Can You Ever Really Succeed Without Learning to Fail?

January 30, 2023 jcladyluv

“Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of it.” ~Xavier Dagba

If failure is the pathway to eventual success than I must be well on my way because I have been failing spectacularly. Now obviously it is not ever my goal to fail at any of the ventures that I attempt or at publishing my books but perhaps it should be. I know that sounds crazy. Why would anyone actually want to fail? In a perfect world and in the best scenario all of the things that I put out there and am passionate about would not only do well but would exceed my expectations. However, this isn’t a perfect world and after thinking over it for quite a while I came to the realization that I might not have learned half of the things I know without having failed first.

Really think about it. If every single time we try something and we win, what do we ever learn? I mean sure we learn how to be gracious winners (hopefully anyway) and we move up to the next level of what we are striving for, but does that actually teach us anything in life. After all, if you’re not learning in this life then what are we really here for? The tough and valuable lessons are learned in moments of adversity and struggle.

If I had it my way, or the financial means, I would be what some would call a forever student. I would gladly take class after class, degree program, after degree program, to learn all of the things I desire to know. I suppose being a creative entrepreneur is not really any different because with each venture you go after, you learn new things. You learn what you did right, sure, but more importantly, you learn, through failure, what not to do the next time. This makes me look at the idea of failure a lot differently.

When you think that you’ve learned all that you can then you don’t see the value in the lessons life is trying to teach you. You can’t grow if you think that you’re done learning. I think that adversity is the ultimate teacher in life and perhaps we shouldn’t complain about the valley’s that we dip so low down into. We have to realize that without the lows that feel like you can’t get back up, you never truly appreciate the highs where you can see just how far along you’ve come. So, the next time you feel like the Universe has knocked you down and dealt you a really tough blow, think about what the Universe is trying to teach you. What lesson is there to learn in that particular failure? And then take that lesson into battle with you the next time you get up to fight for that dream another day.

Until next time… #BeBold #BeFearless #BeGrateful

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Let’s Not Play the Comparison Game

January 23, 2023January 23, 2023 jcladyluv

“Comparison is the thief of joy” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I try extra hard not to compare things happening in my life to the things that happen in the lives of those around me and in my circle. I would say that out of all of the days in a month, over half of them I succeed in that mission because I know that we can never see what someone else does in their everyday life to achieve whatever level of success they’re having at the moment. In reality the truth is that most of the time, if you are not succeeding at whatever dream you are chasing the problem isn’t someone else’s efforts on their journey but perhaps your lack of effort in your own, or it could just simply not be your time. Most days I remember that. Most.

There are some days, maybe a little over a handful, where you truly feel like you are doing absolutely everything that you possibly can, and you see someone on a similar path as you and everything seems to be working out in amazing fashion for them. Frankly in those few days the shit just feels unfair. You’re working your ass off, pouring everything you’ve got into this dream and vision you have, and sometimes pouring things you don’t have in the emotional tank and still…nothing. You think, how much damn adversity is one person supposed to go through before they just break. That whole notion where it’s just not your time and your time will come just seems like utter bullshit on those days and you’re just mad at anyone who is on the adjacent path and are just traveling along with no bumps or obstacles that YOU can see. Does any of this sound like feelings you’ve dealt with? No! Just me?

Well, I have had a few of those days already for the month of January and I’m telling you, sometimes it just makes me want to throw in the towel and give up on everything. But then I look at my vision board and see this quote I put on there for this very eventual moment. It says, “You didn’t come this far, to ONLY come this far”. I need the constant reminder that I’ve come so much farther than I have to go (at least I hope so because truthfully, I can’t see the entire road ahead of me) and that if I quit now, it will have all been for nothing. Honestly if I didn’t believe in my dream and my vision so emphatically, I probably would have given up on it a very long time ago, but I believe in this and I know this is what I was put here to do.

This is what I need to remind myself of when I start comparing my journey to the road that other people are on because the only thing that accomplishes is it makes me resentful of that person (and that’s not who I am) and it plants seeds of doubt in my own mind about my journey. I have different abilities and limits than the next person and I can’t map out my journey according to someone else’s level of effort and ability because, once again, their journey and mine won’t be the same.

So, when you have those bad days where everyone’s road starts to look so much easier to you than your own, just remember that while it’s natural to have those feelings, you have to put into perspective that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. As the quote says at the top of the post, comparison is the biggest thief of joy and I for one want more joy in my life, I don’t want to be the one stealing joy away from myself. Don’t you allow yourself to be the thief of your own joy. Just make sure to keep watering the grass on your own side of the fence.

Until next time… #BePatient #BeBold #BeMindful

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Be The Example

January 16, 2023 jcladyluv

I wanted to say something in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today and I was looking over my posts from previous years and it’s sad that things still seem to be in the same state in terms of the world. It always astonishes me when I hear powerful people, politicians in particular, use his quotes and it is evident that they have no idea the message that he was trying to convey. Either the true meaning goes over their head completely or they make a conscious decision to go in the opposite direction of the words he says.

The picture above is one quote I had actually never heard before as one of his, but I can’t think of one that fits the time we are in better. Our leaders in this country are so busy struggling for power and trying to do anything to hold on to that power that they seem to have forgotten that they are only there, in office, to be of service. They are supposed to be there to serve the people of this country.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of service, not just in the fact that he served God as a preacher, but in his service of people and trying to seek justice for all of humanity. He wanted everyone, everywhere, no matter what color you were, no matter what culture you were from, what social status you held, what profession you practiced, to be treated equally. I never understood why it was such a hard concept for some to grasp, but I did understand that for some reason, it was. For some reason I would always be treated differently in some way because I was born with darker skin and because I am from what most would consider a poor status. I am technically considered below the poverty line; I pretty much always have been. But does that mean that I matter any less?

The people in power always proclaim to be for the people but there are certain members of public service who most certainly do not care about the people in this country that they are supposed to be serving, at least not past the campaign stage of things. I think the quote above is something that they all need to keep somewhere in their offices and anywhere they go really because then maybe at some point they will remember that public servants are supposed to serve the public, not their ego, or their wallets, or their professional resume. It would do well for people to remember, on this day in particular, that serving the public is one of the greatest things you can do in life, but only if you are truly serving the people, and not just yourself.

Until next time… #BeMindful #BeCourageous #BeHopeful

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

When Does Later Become Now?

January 9, 2023 jcladyluv

I don’t know about you, but I have spent large parts of my life planning for later. I’m a planner by nature so most things I do have to have some kind of plan or else I can’t function. In other words, I am not a fly by the seat of your pants kind of person. I don’t do well with spontaneity (and believe me I have tried). Now you might say, well planning is a good thing. You need a solid plan to build businesses, careers, and to really see your dreams through, don’t you?

The thing about planning so much (or at least as much as I do, which would probably be considered over-planning) is that you’re making plans for what comes later without thinking about what can be done now. I heard someone say the other day that people who always wait and plan to do things later, are people who never get things done. Now I’m sure this wasn’t meant literally because as I said earlier, everything needs a plan of some kind but there is a such thing as planning so much that you become stagnant and unmovable. A point in which you’ve made all of the plans, you’ve done all of the research, you’ve got all of your ducks in a row and then you find yourself so used to being in the planning stage that you start to wonder, well what now. What do I do with all of this planning now?

You start to overthink whether you’ve made all of the right plans. Did you research all of the right things and were your sources of research correct. You begin to wonder if you should now plan all of the ways that things can go wrong and subsequently what do you do when they don’t go as you originally planned. This can become a never-ending cycle of planning and preparation which turns into you never actually getting the thing you’ve been planning all this time for done.

So, with that in mind I’m going to make conscious efforts this year to do the things that I have been wanting to get done for a while right in this span of time that I have now. I don’t want to keep waiting for things to be perfect like I had been doing because that’s never going to happen. There were so many things that I didn’t do last year all because I was waiting for some magical “right” time to happen. I was waiting for everything to fall into place after doing all of the planning and research for the perfect moment. I was waiting for the right circumstances to be in play. But all of that waiting doesn’t bring you success.

You know what I’ve learned by studying really successful people and combing over the facets of their lives and how they built their dreams up into reality? They never waited until later. I mean sure they planned and researched but they didn’t allow themselves to become consumed with the idea of “perfect timing” and what that would look like. They planned and then they leaped and said let whatever happens happen. Did some of them make mistakes along the way? Of course they did but you can’t make mistakes if you don’t take the jump to begin with.

On my vision board there’s a saying that says, “It’s time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap” and that’s what I want to do this year. I’ve spent years planning things out and researching things to the point of exhaustion. This year (as afraid of heights as I am lol) it’s time for me to just close my eyes and take that leap of faith. Faith, not only in myself, but in what God has placed inside of my heart to do and the mark I am meant to leave behind in this world. So, if you’ve been waiting for some magical right time to just go for whatever it is you want, that time is NOW! Just Jump!

Until next time… #BeFearless #BeBold #BeBrave

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Breaking Through the Darkness to the Light on the Other Side

January 2, 2023 jcladyluv

Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to the Year of possibilities! I am more than ready to leave 2022 in the rear-view mirror because, well, to say that 2022 did not go as planned for me would be a massive understatement. Apologies for having been gone for a little while (or at least it feels that way) but I have been having some struggles with life in general thus my mental health has been greatly affected and it has been a lot.

Going into this new year I want to feel motivated to make it better and to get to a point where I’m not just surviving but rather, thriving. I want that for all of us. It would shock no one who knows me that I have some lofty goals for myself this year, although I do think that they are a little paired down from last year’s goals (that did not come to fruition) but I am more about giving myself grace this year for what I don’t manage to achieve. As the realization set in during the month of December that I was going through a state a depression (and honestly had been for months but I was in denial) it was evident that my focus in the New Year truly needed to be on self-care and taking better care of myself.

When I say taking care of myself, I don’t just mean physically but also mentally. In fact, one of my personal goals is to find a therapist and start the counseling I’ve most likely needed for years now. I’ve seen the good that therapy can do for others and while I was never against therapy for myself, I still had not managed to take that step but that changes this year.

Now while my focus is going to be taking better care of myself, I definitely have plans to publish this year. I have two poetry books already finished and that I now have covers for so those will definitely be released this year. I also will be prepping my second novel for publication in the Fall. I have always been one to push through whatever adversity comes my way (admittedly with a little meltdown along the way) but one of the quotes I have on my digital vision board (pictured above) says that stars can’t shine without darkness so if I’m going to shine that just means I have to break through those dark moments and shine brighter than even I could have ever imagined. That brings me to my word of the year, which is Breakthrough. I am long overdue for a breakthrough and that is what I’m working towards this year. What’s your word for the New Year and what’s motivating you going forward? I hope you are having an amazing start to your year and that you will stick around and come along on my journey.

Until next time… #BeMotivated #BeCourageous #BeBright

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

It All Depends On How High You Bounce Back

November 21, 2022 jcladyluv

“If you never know failure, you will never know success” ~ Sugar Ray Leonard

I haven’t written here in a few weeks, roughly about a month and I just want you to know that it wasn’t because I suddenly ran out of things to say. Aside from the fact that NaNoWriMo is this month and I tend to be more singularly focused on writing a brand-new novel in November, the last few weeks have just been inherently hard. I have been feeling like the Universe has just singled me out and said, ‘nope you can’t get any wins right now because you just don’t deserve to win’.

Now of course I know, logically, that that’s a little ridiculous because everyone deserves a win in life. It’s just not feeling like I’m going to get one anytime soon. It’s kind of like getting a couple of steps ahead for once and then getting knocked fifteen steps backward. It’s hard to feel optimism in that scenario. Yet, I am reminded of the fact that each time I think I’m not going to survive through the week, somehow by the time the end of the week gets here I’m still standing, and I have survived to fight another day, another week, another month, another year.

We’re getting close to the end of this year and that’s about the time where I usually reflect on the things I didn’t get accomplished and the plans that didn’t come to fruition so that I can figure out where I went wrong in my planning and plan effectively for the following year. However, it feels like my best laid plans don’t seem to ever materialize the way that I think they will, if they materialize at all. I thought for a moment that maybe I just shouldn’t plan anything, maybe I should just go with the flow but trust me, if you know anything about me by now, you know that my little planner heart would literally break without having a plan in place. So, what then? If the plans seem to not be working but I can’t just not plan, what do I do with that?

I don’t think I’m the type of person that could just not plan for success. Maybe the key is just to manage my expectations which could then manage my disappointment. Perhaps it’s just as simple as knowing that failure is the very life blood of success because how can you truly succeed without failing a few times (or in my case a few dozen times) because failure is the very proof that you are trying, that you are going for your dreams, and that you are not giving up on them, ever. As much as I may sometimes want to throw in the towel, it’s just not in my nature to give up.

I know that I want to be purposeful in everything I do in this life. I want to inspire others with my gift for words and motivate those who may also be struggling with big dreams and crushing defeats. You can’t do any of that if you’re just going to throw your hands up and say to hell with it, I give up. I’ve never been a quitter, and that’s not to say there haven’t been moments when I tried to quit (both at life and my dreams). It’s also not to say there won’t be moments in the future where I’ll have really hard days and want to quit again but I’m made of stronger stuff than that, and so are you! We’ve got this and no matter how many times life tries to knock us down we will keep getting right back up because that’s what success is truly about. It’s about continuing to get back up no matter what and no matter how long it takes to achieve the dream!

Until next time… #BeFearless #BeTenacious #BeDiligent

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

To Pretend or Not to Pretend…That is the Question?

October 24, 2022October 24, 2022 jcladyluv

I did a lot of pretending when I was younger. In elementary school I had to pretend the home I went back to everyday wasn’t broken and abusive. In high school I had to pretend I was not crumbling on the inside and like I wasn’t constantly thinking of ways to just end it all. In college and early adulthood, like most young adults, I had to pretend that I knew what the hell I was doing. With people I came in contact with back then I would pretend that I was outgoing and like I thrived on being around lots of people when in reality people drained me and any creative energy I had, and I really just wanted to be left alone. Not alone in some lonely, woe is me type of way either, but rather in a way that actually refilled my creative well.

I mean that’s what life is mostly isn’t it. Pretending! Going along to get along. Trying to fit in with people you probably don’t actually like just so that they don’t classify you as difficult, weird and awkward or just think that something is wrong with you altogether. You pretend to understand things you really don’t because you don’t want to appear like you aren’t knowledgeable and capable. It gets to be a little tiring to pretend all the time. To always have to be “on” and faking that you feel something you don’t or faking that you’re happy if you’re not.

When you get to a certain point in life you just want to be surrounded by people and live a life where you can just simply be. Where you can express how you feel about something or someone without having to hide your emotions and feelings. Where you don’t have to apologize for being a person who wears their heart on their sleeve and whose emotions show up all over your face. You want to not have to explain yourself to people who you thought you didn’t have to explain anything to because it was thought to believe that you were accepted just the way you were.

The simple truth is, at least the truth that I’m coming to realize, is true acceptance doesn’t really exist. No matter what situation you find yourself in, no matter what circle of people you surround yourself with, there is always going to have to be some manner of pretending. Sometimes it hurts to realize that but it’s best to live in reality than to have blinders on and think something is true that isn’t. Even those that are closest to you, that are your closest friends, aren’t going to always accept everything there is about you. We are all deeply flawed, and sometimes vastly broken individuals and that means we have things about us that others just can’t come to terms with and that they would rather adjust or change about you than just simply accept without question.

Let’s be honest, you probably have some things that you would change about the people in your life as well. I suppose the real question is who in your life are you willing to make adjustments for and who are you willing to pretend around? Can you really ever go through life without having to pretend something? Is there ever going to come a time in life where you can remove the mask and just be yourself without having to rationalize who you are to those you love and call friends and found family? I thought it was possible but now I’m not so sure. I guess the jury is still out on that one and only time will truly tell.

Until next time… #BeBold #BeFearless #BeYou

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine