When a Motivator has to Self-Motivate

Heey Sister,

When you think of the life of a Motivator you probably imagine an upbeat person who is a ray of sunshine!  On the other hand you might think that their lives are just smooth sailing. Perhaps you envision them knowing the right strategies to their life challenges, and if so I would agree that most of the times they are able to stay focused through hard times!  However, we all know that trials and tribulations come knocking on every humans door, therefore as a motivator it's impossible to be in mint condition all the time!  So what happens when the Motivator is facing a challenge of some sort?  Does your expectations lead you to believe they remain  positive through it all?  Do you imagine them perhaps having a circle of supporters that guide them through?  Nevertheless, here's a glimpse into a day of challenge with Mandy the Motivator.

Recently, I hit a very tragic storm in my life, although this was not the first one, each one to this magnitude feel as though it's the most severe.  Everything that I worked so hard for in recent years was being questioned and finding the right solutions seemed so far out of my reach.  This situation brought on many emotions and mental challenges that weighed me down day and night.  There were many sleepless nights with thoughts of why is this happening to me?   In addition, when was it going to end?

Nevertheless, I learned several valuable lessons!  One in particular being, the process of going and growing through trails and tribulations cannot be rushed.  As a result, I realized strategies that work best for me.  I took on the stance of David and began to remind myself of what God had already done and if He rescued me before He would surely do it again!  I also allowed those closest to me to have my back.  Whether it was emotional, monetary, or a shoulder to cry on, I knew it was my job to ask for what I needed without shame!  Although, there were many other avenues that I had to take to bring me back to a place of healing, the most important was envisioning myself on the other side of through!  As you face battles and circumstances remember the words of our elders, "trouble don't last always!"  Amen!

Mandy the Motivator

Recognizing Our Purposes

Hello Again My Sister,

It's a pleasure growing and developing with you!  On my last post I discussed some differences between operating through our pleasures in life verses being influenced and led by our purposes.  Even though, the topic of discovering life's purpose is being preached and taught more and more freely, the number of people discovering their purposes are still dwindling.  In understanding what purpose is, we learn that it's simply "the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists."  However, how do we find our purpose?

As a believer in God and His existence, I also trust that He is the overseer of this universe and beyond.  In addition, I believe in His word!  According to Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."  Through this test many of us have heard sermons and teachings that informs us that our images mimic God's by way of the Trinity.  We've been taught that God has three beings, God, the Father, God, the Son (Jesus), and God, the Holy Spirit.  As a result, human beings consist of having a body, mind, and soul.  Moreover, I would ask you to consider, if that being so, would not our purposes be made in His image as well?  When we study the life of Jesus, we find out that His entire purpose dealt with the need and the necessity of others.  No matter what we do for a living our livelihoods depend on others!  As a singer someone have to purchase your music, or as an educator, someone must be in the need of your knowledge. Therefore discovering our purposes in life is simple, what gifts have God given to you that would serve humanity in an arena that God can be glorified?  What are you simply great at doing with little effort, how have you been called to serve humanity?   Don't be shy to share!

Mandy the Motivator

Pleasure or Purpose

Hi Sister!

It's always great having this time with you!  Recently, during my time of meditation I found myself pondering times in my life when I was living for simple pleasures versus the times in which I was purpose driven.  For those of us who are well into our lives and depending on life's circumstances, we can recall several hard and trying experiences that we felt as though we barely survived.  Nevertheless, often times when we find ourselves in the midst of a life crisis we focus on the pain, while missing all of the learning opportunities.  It is during these times, we have the chance to gain wisdom, make positive changes, learn lessons, and most importantly discover our life's purpose!

Given the fact that we are individuals, it's within reason to say our pleasures in life varies.  As a result, some seek to ease their pain with drugs and alcohol, while others choose a promiscuous sexual life.  Still others allow their pain to disfigure them spiritually and/or mentally. They slowly become products of their pain and it begin to reshape and mold their character and damage their moral make-up.  Nevertheless, neither of these choices lead us to suitable outcomes.

However, when we decide not to focus on the pain, we are left with propositions that can lead us to our next purpose.  When we become survivors of situations and conditions, we become professionals, so to speak!  We know what will work and what will not work to get someone else through that particular issue.  In addition, as we are forced to make changes our gifts began to evolve and develop.  It is at this point we discover talents that we never knew existed with us.  This evolution reminds me of Whitney Houston's come back album entitled, "I Look to You" and her single, I Didn't Know My Own Strength!  As I leave you today, I'm encouraging you to choose the path that leads to you purpose!

Mandy the Motivator  

Smart Girl

Dear Sister,

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit in on a class of second graders who were expressing themselves in art.  As I moved around the room, I noticed one student with a captivating photo of herself.  First, I was taken aback that she showed such poise and self-confidence in herself!  It was easy to notice, since the picture conveyed her exact skin color with an amazing smile that lit up the room, as it leaped off the paper at you (see picture below)!  Nevertheless, what was more enchanting were the words that accompanied her drawing.  "What smart girls love to do.  Smart girls love to do a lot of stuff, like read books, learn about human bodies, the weather, and mother nature.  The thing they hate is being bullied!"  Immediately, I thought of Psalms 8:2.... "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength...."  The strength and clarity of her words conveyed how we are able to acknowledge our talents and abilities at a young age, we are also capable of being curious about the things around us (our environment) and how we are connected to it, as well as individuals that are apart of our immediate community. Weather we are an adolescent or an adult, being bullied in any form aim to stunt our growth!  Understanding that bullying comes in various forms, it can be depicted as being a mean girl (woman), by way of gossip, pushing others into isolation, sabotaging one's relationship/career or causing mental or emotional anguish upon a sister.  Therefore, it is imperative that we seek out all opportunities to motivate, uplift, celebrate, and support the efforts of all SMART GIRLS AND WHAT THEY LIKE TO DO!  KEEP BEING YOU... YOU'RE THE BEST AT IT AND TELL ANOTHER SISTER SHE'S GOOD AT WHAT SHE LOVE TO DO!

Mandy the Motivator

VISION

Hello Sisters:

I hope this post finds you prospering and planning for your life's goals!  Recently, I listened to a message entitled "Vision" by Joel Gregory of Linked-Up Ministries, the sermon not only blessed me, but it inspired me!  Vision is define as the ability to be able to see.  Spiritually, vision adds the ability to see a supernatural goal that has been given to you by God but has not taken place in the natural.  Taking time to dream leads to creativity.  Creativity open doors of new opportunities, and new breaks create purpose!  Moreover, purpose provides living out your vision, vision experiences!  GO AHEAD ENVISION.....You have everything in you to be GREAT! 

Mandy the Motivator

God's Love vs. His Favor

Hello Sister,

As always, I'm writing to encourage and uplift your spirit as you navigate through life.  During my time of meditation my prayers rested on God's love versus His favor.  Many of us wonder if God's love can changed based on our choices and deeds in life.  Well my sister, please rest assure there is absolutely nothing we can do that will make God stop loving us!  We're made in His image and we are His creation.  As we all know God's love should never be taken for granted, but with all our efforts, we should seek to express our love for Him.  Moreover, God's favor works a little different!  Have you ever witness or observe a person that seems to have everything going on right in their life?  Many of us have.  Often times that person is experiencing God's favor, unlike love favor is earned!  It is through our obedience and sacrifice to the things of God that gets His attention, in which He chooses to show partiality towards us.  As a result, I'm praying that all our efforts are directed towards fulfilling God's purpose in our lives and He finds Himself pleased enough to SHOW US FAVOR!

Your Beloved,

Mandee Stone

Dear Sister II

Dear Sister,

You developed your plot, you picked your team, and put your scheme into action.  I imagined your ultimate goal was to destroy my career, my life-style, and my drive, but why?  As I lived through the challenges you wished and inflicted upon me, the answers became more clear.  HURT PEOPLE, HURT PEOPLE! You hated my fashion sense, my confidence, my ability to love and draw people into my cocoon of love!  You allowed envy and jealously to over flood your heart without giving thought to the outcome of your life. To be continued..... 

Dear Sister

Dear Sister,

Having you in my life started out as any other relationship, I was fully opened to getting to know you.  I look forward to times of laughter, fun, growth, and mutual support.  However, as time progressed something happened, although I wasn't quite sure of what!  I was even oblivious to the change.  Your behavior never displayed a difference. Why didn't you just communicate, therefore you choose to secretly hid your feelings until it manifested into HATE!  As a result, your hate turned into an elaborate plot to totally destroy me!  ..... to be continue.

It's Time to Write Again

One of the most natural purposes of  human life is having the ability to contemplate subjects and topics during our time in this universe.  Like myself perhaps, you have found yourself thinking "life is worth living, therefore it's worth writing!"

Real Friendships are Balancing and Relaxing

Given the fact that birthdays are very special to me, this past weekend was very exciting! It was time to celebrate one of my dear friends (Patrice Harrell) birthday.  During this time of her life's celebration, I witnessed friendships that are balancing and relaxing to say the least. I know you are wondering what I mean about balancing and relaxing.  Let me elaborate if you will. Experiencing balance within friendships consist of opportunities of being transparent,  unmasking, competition free, and growth developing moments.  As it relates to the term relaxing, simply put, opportunities to be less tense or anxious.

Therefore, as expected her birthday began with an evening of family, friends, food and music at her newly purchased home. Toasting, cheers, and bliss filled the atmosphere. The ambience was full of unconditional love and a strong presence of God's un-measuring favor in several areas including marriage and friendship.  As a result, the festivities called for a second day of observance, which impacted me to the point of writing this post. Although, the crowd was much smaller, the purpose was extremely life changing.  The term of "life changing" can sometimes be used lightly, however not in this situation!  Many of us see this phrase as impact filled, which leads to a time of self-evaluation.

Being apart of a small assimilation of women who have allowed their life experiences to revamp them into confident and purposes filled ladies who are focused on their own life's journey was indeed relaxing!  Many times we permit ourselves to be drawn into gatherings and friendships that brings us grief, low self-esteem, competition and a compromised being. These relationships usher us into arenas of life that God never intended for us to travel. Allow me to give you an example, the Old Testament reveals the experience that the children of Israel faced when they lost focus on God's promise. A journey that should have taken two weeks turned into a forty year excursion.  Nevertheless, we should frequently reevaluate our life's purpose and goals in order to make necessary changes that will lead us to the abundance life (Jer. 29:11) God intended for us to have! It is a waste of precious time to walk through life without being spiritually influenced and vice versa.

Moreover, I would like to thank Patrice Harrell, Kellye Bowens, Tameka Bouyer, and Vanessa Desir for being open, raw, and expressive this weekend. Patrice and Tameka you are anointed beyond what has been revealed. Kellye you embody loyalty and commitment regardless of how your life started and you will live to see the fullest of this spoken word. Vanessa you host the spirit of freedom, your strong desires will drive you into many choices, be watchful, equipped, and realistic. I'm dedicating this post to these special ladies and to all of those who are search of valuable friendships, don't settle!

Love Always,

Mandy

I Think I Have A Good One

It's been quite a while since my last post; needless to say I have missed you all.  However, there have been various things that have changed in my life's arena some great and some have been challenging.  Nevertheless, I hope and pray that all is well in your life and here's to the start of a series of many great posts from Sister's Expressions.

As you may or may not remember my last post was about "How to Meet the Man of Dreams", in which I discussed a conversation with two ladies who both met their dream guys by way of personal friends.  This method of meeting a great guy intrigued me to the point I was willing to give it a try once my previous relationship became bleak and sizzled out.  I began by sharing with those I most trusted that I was once again single and was simply looking for someone to go out to dinner with on occasion without any commitments.  An old friend once advised me that it's best to spend time with one's self right after a break-up in order to get to know you again and I was determined to take that advice and build upon it.  In addition to the break-up with a companion of two years, I found myself in a pivotal moment in life as it related to my career and some personal friendships.  Therefore, I was in no position to take on a serious relationship of any sort.

Shortly after obtaining a new employment opportunity and regaining my composure from broken friendships I regained my strength and began to feel alive again.  The air felt more crisp and fresh from day to day.  My love and enjoyment of life began to bloom once again.  My smile was not only shown on my face but it was radiant from within.  Soon I was meeting new and interesting people and having great relationships with those who remained.  During an outing with a group of friends one of them happen to mentioned that she knew a guy she would love for me to meet just to see if our personalities would match.  Reluctantly, I agreed and within three weeks I found myself at a dinner table in Buckhead enjoying myself.  Needless, to say he and I have been spending a great deal of quality time together.  Now I'm not saying that it's headed towards marriage, but I Do Think I Have a Good One!  As the ladies stated in my last post and I now agree "a friend who REALLY has your best interest in mind and know you well is a great way to meet a good guy".  I am once again asking you to try it but at your own risk and don't forget to let us know about your experiences......Smooches!!!

Mandy Stone
Sister's Expressions

 

One Way to Meet the Man of Your Dreams

During a recent conversation with a couple of associates concerning relationships, I discovered an interesting point to meeting the man of your dreams.  One of the ladies involved in the dialogue is in her late 20’s (Jeanne) and the other young lady is in her early 50’s (Cynthia).  Jeanne is recently engaged to someone she describes as a wonderful and loving man who she thought she would never meet while, Cynthia is newly married to the man of her dreams.  Given the fact that I was the only one single in the bunch I was provoked to ask the question, how did you both meet these great guys?  Ironically, they both met the loves of their lives through good friends! 

Cynthia shared that given the fact that your close friends really know you as a person and perhaps you have shared with them the downs of previous relationships that went sour that they know you best and are better equip to recognize the perfect guy for you.  Therefore, it is within reason to believe that it is safe to let our close friends know when we are looking for a new love that can turn into a lifetime commitment.  Nevertheless, my opinion leads me to add this one small piece.  We should make sure that the friends we involve in our quest be those who truly and sincerely have our best interest at heart in order for this process to work!  Go ahead spread the news and don’t forget to let Sister’s Expressions know if this method works for you!

Love,

Mandy  

Character vs. Reputation

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation.  Your character is what you REALLY are, while your reputation is MERELY what others think you are!"     -John Wooden

How to Find You

Okay let’s be honest….no one will ever know, have you ever wished you had features and/or qualities like someone else.  I have, several times.  My first experience with this desire was around six or seven years old.  At such an early age, I found myself wanting to be more like my mother.  I am from a single family home in which my mother was the sole bread winner and I knew early on that my quality of life depended on her.  As a result, I always paid close attention to my mother’s work ethics, personal drives and ambitions.  Witnessing my mother handle her responsibilities so well in the 70’s made her my hero; therefore I wanted so much to echo her in various areas.  I wanted to look like her; she is what we define as light-skinned, and physically framed very well.  She was able to speak her mind freely with eloquence and never allowed people to run over her.  She was awesome in my opinion.  But I soon realized that I didn’t look like her.  I am dark-skinned, full-figured, and beautiful I might add.  Therefore, I had to spend many years discovering myself.  So, let’s talk about how to find ourselves! 

Allow me to start by saying that I think it is okay to admire certain attributes and characteristics of others.  I would even go so far as to confirm that it is within reason to adopt certain traits from others.  Sometimes we gain helpful points that we take on as our own in order to build our character, nevertheless it is very crucial that we embrace who we are as individuals, which leads to a better stay here on earth.  In my personal quest to find me, I focused on what brought out passion from within; I learned what caused me to feel hurt, what caused me to smile, how I influenced others, and then I learned to LOVE it all.  I now embrace my personal make-up and who I am.  All the love and understanding that I have for myself allows me to love others for their differences and how they were developed and fashioned for life.  Nevertheless, in order to capture this love for myself and maintain it, I’ve learned that I must reflect on my life daily.  Therefore, I spend moments throughout the day identifying attributes regarding my personality.  In all honesty and fairness, I must admit there are times when I do not enjoy going through this process out of fear of becoming aware of things I do not like about myself.  But, I became skilled at being committed to this course because the reward is so POWERFUL and fulfilling.  Life can be so enjoyable and purposed when we pledge ourselves to the purpose of our existence!  Therefore, I hope and pray that all of you who read this post will make a personal pledge to becoming more familiar with YOURSELF and what makes you, YOU!

Love,

Mandy

Now Let's Talk Steel Magnolias

As I expected “Steel Magnolias” was wonderfully written and well preformed.  The cast worked great together and their acting capabilities complimented each other without prejudice.  The revised script gave a warm feeling to what a southern African –American family would exemplify with regards to love, family bond, and friendship.  Although, there were many messages for us to gain from, the one in particular that I wanted to make mention of is acceptance!

Understanding that we all are imperfect beings should lead us to the awareness that we all make mistakes in various areas of life, relationship and sisterhood.  It was quite evident that all of the ladies suffered some type of life disappointment and each one dealt with it in their own way.  Nevertheless, each of them knew the other’s struggle and accepted their friend just as she was while allowing room for growth.    I would love to hear what message you gathered from the film….don’t be shy…communicating is good for the SOUL!

P.S. If you had to choose a character that illustrated you within your circle who would it be?  

Love,

Mandy

Steel Magnolias

I often ask myself is there a need for Sister’s Expressions and I have been reminded that YES is the answer!  Here recently the entertainment media has been bombarded with the latest story concerning Nikki Minaj and Mariah Carey.  Again, the image of black women is being portrayed in a negative manner.  I am outraged with all of the naming calling, fighting, and just plain ignorance that those who are representing black America via multi-media within the entertainment industry.  As I am reminded of how hard previous generations worked to improve black image in America, I am almost brought to tears to see this current generation destroying it with little hope of recovery.  However, the saddest point to all of this is our desire to watch ourselves being misrepresented.  We rush home weekly to tuned into all the House Wives shows, R & B Divas, Basketball Wives, etc., without considering the message that we are sending to the world.  Nevertheless, there are many positive black women out there, Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Alfre Woodard and many others in our local communities that we can learn, grow and build upon our reflection as a race of women.  Therefore, I encourage all of us to rethink the message that we send daily!  Yes, let’s show the world that we are not all angry, and confrontational.  That we can get along and we do care for one another!

P.S.  Don’t forget to watch Steel Magnolias, this Sunday, Oct.7^th, on Lifetime at 9:00 Eastern Time.  Although, it is a remake, I’m sure it will be refreshing to watch Sisters sharing and caring for each other!

Love,

Mandy