Recap of February Blog Post

As we take a leap from February into the next month we are recapping the things we discuss this month. Our theme for February was Learn, Live & Love! We taught you seven ways to reconnect with yourself, we gave tips on how to live a beautiful life and then we discussed how you can leap into your 2016 the right way. 

Below are the links to recap each article.

7 Ways To Reconnect With Yourself:
http://www.theinspirationalcorner.net/2016/02/7-ways-to-reconnect-with-yourself.html 

5 Tips On Living A Beautiful Life!
http://www.theinspirationalcorner.net/2016/02/5-tips-on-living-beautiful-life.html 

Leap Into Your 2016!
http://www.theinspirationalcorner.net/2016/02/leap-into-your-2016.html 

5 Tips On Living A Beautiful Life!

How can you really live a beautiful life? What are you willing to let go in order to gain the life you deserve? What are the keys to living a life based on beauty? Well, you are probably wondering what are the answers to those questions. I can honestly tell you that living a beautiful life begins with cultivating a beautiful mind. In the last month, I have focused on filling my life with beautiful things to see, hear & speak. I have spent time celebrating beauty in a different kind of way. 

I decided not to watch, speak or listen to anything that did not display beauty. In this time of beauty I found out that life is a lot more beautiful than what we choose to see, hear or speak. When it comes to living a beautiful life you have to be intentional. If you lack intention you will continue to see, hear and speak about all the things that is wrong with life. As I grow day by day I realize life is what you make it and if you choose to make it miserable then you will be miserable.

Misery loves company, the more you feed it the more it will gain energy. The greatest question you can ask yourself is what am I giving energy to. I found myself in the last couple years giving energy to things that were irrelevant. I made situations bigger than they really were because I invested too much time into over analyzing. I can now honestly say that creating a beautiful life is solely up to each of us. Make a mental inventory of where your your energy is going.  Find out if  the energy has produced the right fruit you desire in your life. If not, refocus on new things that will serve you in a positive way. Everyone deserves a beautiful life so below are a five tips to help you start your journey.

Below are a couple tips to help you live a beautiful life:

1) Stop over analyzing. I can admit this is one of my huge problems and over analyzing creates problems that were never there. In order to stop over analyzing  let go of what you cannot control, stay focus in the present moment and know God is your ultimate source.

2) Be mindful of where your attention goes. Where your attention goes so does the flow of your energy, so be mindful of how you interpret things & react to others. 

3) Other people issues are not your emergencies. Yes, you want to be the hero for everyone but you will exhaust yourself trying to be everyone she-ro or hero. Do not let other people emergencies become emergencies in your life.  

4) Don’t take it personal. I know this is a hard one but stop taking what people say or do personal. What others say or do are not a direct reflection of what or who you are. What they don’t say or don’t do is still not a reflection of the brilliant person you were called to be. Be confident .

5) Self-Love. Fall in love with who & what you are no matter your flaws. In a perfect world we all are flawless but in the real world our imperfections is what makes us unique. 

To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance. ~Oscar Wilde~

P.S. To make your life even more beautiful you can now purchase my eBook to get five essentials tips to help build your self-confidence.  

Click here: http://www.theinspirationalcorner.net/p/ebooks.html  

P.S.S I also listen to podcasts now & here is one I am recommending to you. Click here: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/french-kiss-life-by-tonya/id1071406906

The Emerging Of The Butterfly

Like the Walls of Jericho, I couldn’t breathe everything around me suffocated me. I wanted to know what it felt like to be able to breathe fresh air without breathing in toxicity. The toxins that embraced me was the uncomfortable feeling of being comfortable.

It was time to let myself be free, free enough to live the life I deserve. I could no longer do it where I was living. In true honesty I outgrew the comfort zone. Self discovery was inevitable so enticing that I had to take a splash. In this moment, a twilight zone premonition was taking over me.

Many of us feel the temptation to exist outside the bubble but we fear the unknown. I use to be in that bubble of comfort but it made me nauseated. Once I started doing things that were authentic to my character I floated further and further away from the bubble. What is this bubble I talk about ? Your Comfort Zone….

Self- discovery usually happens when every familiar thing is taken away from you. After exiting the military I settled in a place that I did not want to be but God’s plan was greater. He used a desolate place to help me find the amazing woman I was inside. I didn’t realize this girl existed but once all the layers were peeled aside a beautiful butterfly emerged. Now as I discover more of who I am the desolate place has become a place I am outgrowing.

In the voyage of self-discovery you grow which makes a comfortable place uncomfortable. Eventually, a caterpillar has to emerge from its cocoon to become a butterfly. The butterfly has to fly away to a place they can enlarge their territory and spread their wings.

Be willing to self-discover the butterfly within you !

Am I Feminist?

The word feminist can sometimes have a negative meaning depending on who is defining the word. I never thought I would even questioned the fact that I really believe deep down I am a feminist. According to Webster’s Dictionary a feminist is a person who believes in organized activities in support of women’s rights and interests. It also defined feminist as the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. I never have been focused on the word feminist because I believe we live in a society that put labels on things but create a bad stigma behind the labels.

In this case, I believe the word feminist consistently has been misconstrued to society. I recently took a quiz that identified whether you were a feminist or not and to my surprise it stated I was a full blood feminist.  I am not the type of woman who likes to be defined by labels and I never let labels make me or break me.  Labels are used to categorize things which can sometimes limit our ability to be more. Labels are used to minimize who we truly are to put us in a box. I never like to be put into a box because as we grow we change and continue to expand. However, as I further decipher the word feminist I realize it is nothing to run from but embrace. I am truly a woman who loves things that are centered on women empowerment, uplifting women and inspiring women to be more than what society says they should be.

It is our duty as women to make sure we are upholding the right image of what a lady should be due to the responsibility to the younger generation of girls. As a mother I constantly express to my daughter to be her own person, never try to fit in with the crowd but blend out. In society we constantly try to make others fit into a certain category but it takes bravery to step out the norm. And being a woman who believes in equality I guess I am a feminist in my own right. Feminism for me is about embracing your inner strength as woman breaking societal validation and being true to yourself. If this is what makes me a feminist well I can proudly say that I am. Every woman I believe is a feminist if we take the time to embrace our inner feminism and love ourselves completely. A woman is powerful when she knows her power uses it wisely to educate other woman about their worth and bridge the gap of tearing down the wrong images of women. So am I feminist, according to my definition I can embrace the word wholeheartedly.

Beauty Has No Face!

In a society where we place a shape, color, size, and name to beauty it has distorted the self-esteem of many women in the world. As I become more of an ambassador for my own personal beauty I realize beauty does not have a specific appearance. Beauty has to be defined on our own terms not by the majority in America. When I think of beauty I began to think of the eclectic style of Erkyah Badu, Solange Knowles and Rihanna . These women have set their own standard of what beauty feels like and look like to them. It feels amazing to go through a journey to find what fits me as a woman because in this journey I am finding my beauty. Many African American girls struggle with the idea that their dark skin, dark hair is not beautiful because they are faced with the idea that pale skin and blue eyes are the ideal beauty. White women struggle with the illusion of being curvy is considered to be fat when curves are the epitome of womanhood, the gratitude of beauty.

Beauty has no name, shape, size, color or texture however it is the hidden secret of what a woman holds inside. When we can tap into our own inner beauty then we can unlock a glow that can radiant externally. I look at women such as Lupita Nygon’o who has been such an inspiration for women of color because she has broken the barriers of what beauty could be if we look beyond the surface. We are raised in a society where it is encouraged to change the way we look to be accepted by the world but God created us in his image; perfect. In the May issue of Essence Magazine Solange Knowles stated, “As women we have the choice of how we want to look and how we want to feel and that’s the beauty of being a woman.” We should not allow society to have a voice on how we look, feel or define our beauty. Many women deal with low self-esteem because what they see in magazines. However, Beyonce Knowles song Pretty Hurts discuss the standards society places on our beauty but we have to be willing to understand beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. It is time for us to look in the mirror and remove the mask of the wrong self-image of who we are to kindly replace it with an image of how we define beauty. Beauty has no face it is truly established by what we say, see and speak about ourselves. Let us strive to replace our negative views with positive affirmations of our own personal beauty because in the end beauty truly has no face!

Reference:

Essence Magazine May Issue

Picture reference: www.searchquotes.com