Deconstructing the meaning of Strong
I have taken pride in the fact that I have overcome circumstances - losing my mom when I was 17, surviving traumatic sexual incidences afterwards that left me with little or no self-esteem (I hate to sound like cliché) looking for love in all the wrong places and filled with fear of connecting emotionally with anyone and not wanting to live post my quarter of a century. When I made it past my 25th birthday I realized that I did want not to just lull in martyrdom mode, but I wanted to live and experience life in a more conscious way because the light I had inside had never extinguished. My light got brighter as I started to understand my grief differently and the unfortunate circumstances that took place from a victor’s perspective.
People have often told me they admire my strength and I have worn my “being strong no matter what” badge of honor proudly since losing one of the most significant sources of love I had known in my life and learning how to love myself even when I was a glass half full. With COV and the rattling of Ida, I feel like I have to pull from another place to push forward. Lately I have been deconstructing the definition of strong and what being strong means. Strong is defined as having the power to move heavy weights or able to withstand great force or pressure.
When a person is said to be strong he/she/they/ze is defined as someone who is confident and determined.
In times like these when COV keeps altering our realities and continues changing the way we live and when natural disasters disrupt and, in some cases, wipe away the life we hold so dearly, the notion of being strong morphs into something else.
When I think about my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother and my great- great back to mother of all mothers, my Bantu mother, I don’t think they had many choices, they simply made a choice to live. Making a choice to live sometimes comes from a place of necessity, to survive, which is probably the reason people of color have an innate sensibility to honor those that came before us so their spirit of tenacity and resilience can live on through us. Our ancestors had to pull from a spiritual place to survive being taken from their native lands and transported to a foreign place, where they had no free will and had to persevere inhuman circumstances to exist.
For those of us that are brave enough to sit still, listen and connect to our ancestors, especially in these tumultuous times, when many of us are dealing with grieving the life we left behind in 2020 and PTSD, it is the only choice that will get us through. I don’t think our ancestors chose to be strong and I don’t think I have consciously chosen to be strong. I have unconsciously chosen a path that connects spiritually to my loved ones that have paved the way for me to live a fulfilled life. Strength is a notion and a matter of physics, we all have witnessed what happens when you apply pressure to something, the matter is forced to release. Imagine that if we took the time to pause daily, quiet our brains, write intentions that are not just personal but for the betterment of the community at large and ask for guidance, how much pressure would be released not just individually but globally.
As a friend once reminded me diamonds are formed over years under heat and pressure and brought to the surface by natural events, in most cases by volcanic eruptions. I say that to remind us of the source of our resilience, our light and our true beauty, which comes from deep within and is reflected from the inside out. During this holiday season let’s stay the course by practicing compassion and mindfulness and doing our part to reflect our beauty and light through our words and actions toward others.
