Life’s About Choices

Taking A Stand

It was an honor to be invited again to the Overcomers Overcoming podcast with Ron & Marty Cooper for a second recording. You can click here to listen to the first one. You can also find it on Listennotes.com. In this episode we spoke more about resilience and how life’s about choices and how we respond to them.

After a brief introduction, the host asked me to speak further on how I am able to move forward in life and live for the future and not let the past dictate it. To really be honest, life’s about choices and I choose everyday. I try to explain to people that we make more choices than we actually believe that we do. In essence, we choose so many things during our whole day that we may not even realize. So I choose every morning to be the best I can be. To give the love that I have to give, to receive the love that will come. I choose the happiness, I also choose how to deal with the consequences of my choices. I take walks and love the serenity. I love music so I use it for my therapeudic release and I know it helps me to wind down and relax.

The host spoke about my self awareness. I know exactly what I need to do to rest, recharge and start my day the right way. Inspite of what I have been through, I know what I need to do to overcome. I took the time to invest in myself. I’m loving it! I am almost 50 and I am happy to invest in myself. I encourage everybody to invest in yourself and take the time to find out who you are. I am very resilient! Once I put my mind to it, no matter what statistics would say it would not stop me from doing what I need to do. I had to finish school. I was determined that I was not going to stop until someone hands me a degree. I invested in myself and learned to love me for who I am.

Cultivating Resilience

We all have down moments. Not too long ago I went into my little shell because I missed my adopted dad. He was the one who gave me the name Kimmy. He was my hero and my protector. He passed away in 97 and he was not here to see any of my graduations. But he was just a man with wisdom and he would tell me:

“Kimmy I want you to be strong, you’re a strong black woman and I’m so proud of you, but daddy is not going to be here with you all the time.”

I went into a shell after the book was released because I was thinking about him and the experience of not having a parent to look out for me. My biological father, before he passed away, reconciled his relationship with me and my siblings. But my biological mother is still living and I still don’t have a relationship with her. I did not even realize that I have been through as much as I had been through until the book was released! I am excited to get my therapist sessions because I need the guidance and the coping skills to deal with these situations.

I spoke about how I was able to develop my resilience. It was my adopted dad who helped me cultivate it. As an adult in a child’s life, you have that ability to set that foundation and cultivate these characteristics that they grow into from an early age. You have to be careful about the role you play with your children, and the language you use when speaking to them. Being told that I have “A Ni***r nose” from an early age by my adopted-mom cultivated that insecurity in me from an early age. But I also remember hearing my adopted-dad pray. I would hear him sing. He would teach me that we always thank God for our blessings. He was the one who set the tone for me to continue to build on my resilience. Without him I wouldn’t have found the courage to overcome the toxic relationships that I found myself in.