I needed this saying today.

*sigh*

Hang in there, okay?

*Cassandra wipes tears from tired eyes, turns from the mirror and keeps it moving*

The mountain WILL move. Keep removing the pebbles you have the energy to move.

Be encouraged.

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,Ow.That is probably the best way for me to begin this.Ow.For the past few years, the Holy Spirit has been convicting my heart.Not condemning me.Convicting me.There is a difference.Condemnation tells me to hide.The conviction of the Holy Spirit calls me into the light.And sometimes?That light hits something in me that makes me say:OW!😳🥺❤️‍🩹I love living in my Black skin.I love Black joy.I love Black laughter.I love Black music.I love Black creativity.I love Black excellence.I love the beauty of us.The resilience of us.The tenderness of us.The absolute foolishness of us sometimes.🤣I love everybody.But I especially love my bros and sis.Which is exactly why what the Holy Spirit showed me hurt so much.Just before my stroke, I discovered a ton of Black romance movies.Beloveds…I LOVED THEM.🥰😍Seeing Black people in love was breathtaking to me.People who looked like me were falling in love.Being pursued.Being cherished.Building families.Laughing.Arguing.Reconciling.Getting married.Living.And many of these movies showed something else I loved seeing:Black affluence.Black professionals.Black entrepreneurs.Beautiful Black families in beautiful homes.Black men and women succeeding.Black excellence.I loved seeing us.But then something happened.And this is where I cry.😭Permit me to digress.Growing up, Black folk pounded something into my head:You have to be ten times better than everybody else just to earn a hint of a whiff of a chance at a decent job. At a decent life.So I worked.Hard.HARD.I learned.I became good at what I did.I loved Customer Service.You could hear that love in my voice.I trained people.And I watched many of the white people I trained receive the raise.The promotion.The opportunity.Over me.I offered my skills.I knew I was capable.Still…I was seldom selected.Not chosen.Again.Sigh.❤️‍🩹Now come back to those movies with me.Because one day I caught something happening inside myself.I was watching Black people on the screen.And somewhere in my thoughts I heard:They’re too loud.Too boisterous.Too…Black.😳🥺🥹😦😩😢😭OW.I am a Black woman.I love Black people.And there it was.Inside me.A measuring stick.A judgment.A standard about what kind of Blackness was acceptable.And the Holy Spirit would not let me look away from it.That is important.Because I could have defended myself.I could have said:I’m Black!I love Black people!Look at everything I’ve written!Look at who I am!I could have produced evidence for my own defense.But God wasn’t putting me on trial.He was showing me something because He loves me enough to show me what still needs healing.❤️‍🩹I had learned that Black people are watched.Evaluated.Measured.Judged.How we speak.How we dress.How we wear our hair.How loudly we laugh.How angry we are allowed to become.How professional we appear.Whether we are “articulate.”Whether we make somebody uncomfortable.Whether we are respectable enough.Somewhere along the way, the watcher got inside.⛓️Society didn’t have to sit beside me watching the movie saying:That’s too Black.Some of those old lessons had learned how to speak from inside me.And the Holy Spirit said:Look.👀Not:Hate yourself.Not:You are terrible.Not:You don’t love your people.Look.See it.Tell the truth about it.Let Me deal with it.And Beloveds?I did something important.I forgave ME.❤️‍🩹Not because bias doesn’t matter.Not because judgment doesn’t hurt people.Not because I wanted an excuse.I forgave myself because shame was not going to heal what God was revealing.I forgave the Black girl who learned she was being watched.I forgave the Black woman who learned she needed to work ten times harder.I forgave the professional who watched people she trained receive opportunities she wasn’t given.I forgave the woman who learned that being excellent, controlled, polished and respectable might make the road a little safer.And then I let the Holy Spirit teach that woman something new.🔑Over these last few weeks, I started watching those movies again.🥰Then:😍Then:😅Then:🤣😂And something began changing.I stopped grading everybody’s Blackness.Loud?Okay.Quiet?Okay.Boisterous?Okay.Reserved?Okay.Professional?Okay.Country?Okay.Hood?Okay.Affluent?Okay.Working class?Okay.Harvard?Okay.Grandma’s kitchen table and the school of hard knocks?Okay.🤣❤️Black people do not owe me one acceptable performance of Blackness.And neither do I.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿Because here’s another little piece of God’s sense of humor:After all those years learning how not to be “too loud”…Look at the name of my blog.WHY CAN’T I BE LOUD?!🤣🤣🤣Won’t He do it?!But this revelation went deeper.Because I realized something about Black excellence too.I LOVE Black excellence.I celebrate it.But Black excellence cannot become another chain.⛓️We cannot spend generations being told we must be ten times better and then accidentally turn around and require exceptional achievement from one another before we feel comfortable celebrating Black life.The CEO matters.The doctor matters.The professor matters.The entrepreneur matters.And so does the cashier.The janitor.The unemployed brother trying again.The sister working two jobs.The person without the degree.The person with the accent.The person whose grammar somebody wants to correct.The quiet Black man.The loud Black man.The quiet Black woman.And yes—the LOUD Black woman.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿❤️‍🔥Our dignity cannot depend upon our excellence.And that revelation made me ask an even harder question:What other measuring sticks am I carrying?Not just about Black people.About people.Period.What have I absorbed about disability?Poverty?Weight?Age?Education?Accents?Religion?Gender?Mental illness?Addiction?Homelessness?People who vote differently?People who worship differently?People who don’t believe what I believe?People whose lives I don’t understand?👀What if some of the chains I want broken in the world are also hiding somewhere inside me?⛓️Then I need a key too.🔑That is why I’m telling you this.Because the Holy Spirit convicted me.And the instruction in my spirit was:BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME.For ME.Him.God.🙏🏿Tell them.Don’t polish yourself first.Don’t pretend you arrived.Don’t make yourself the teacher standing above everybody else.Tell them what I showed you.So I am.I judged.God showed me.It hurt.I listened.I forgave myself.I kept watching.I started seeing differently.And I’m still learning.That is conviction.That is grace.That is growth.That is another chain hitting the floor.⛓️💥And now, Beloveds, I turn the question toward you—not from above you.From my chair.🪑Be honest with you.For, HIM.What hidden bias are you struggling to deal with?What measuring stick did somebody put in your hand so early that you forgot somebody gave it to you?And what might happen if you finally put it down?Don’t answer for me.Don’t answer for Facebook.Don’t answer for church.Don’t answer because somebody is watching.Ask God.Be honest with you.For, Him.Because He already knows what is there.And if the Holy Spirit turns the light on?👀Look.Listen.Repent where repentance is needed.Forgive yourself.Learn.Unlearn.Heal.Choose differently.And keep walking.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹God did not show me the chain so I could decorate it with shame.He showed me the chain because chains can be broken.And THAT?That will preach.❤️‍🔥🙏🏿Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!Unapologetically His.Unapologetically yours.
• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,I have been thinking about honesty.Not the kind we demand from everybody else.The kind that requires us to sit with ourselves long enough to tell the truth about what is happening inside us.👀Because sometimes the hardest person to be honest with is yourself.Sometimes we know something hurts, but we keep calling it fine.Sometimes we know we are tired, but we keep calling ourselves lazy.Sometimes we know we need help, but we keep calling needing help weakness.Sometimes we know something has changed, but we keep trying to live as though nothing did.And sometimes we are so busy trying to make everybody else comfortable with our reality that we stop being honest about our own.❤️‍🩹I have had to learn this in ways I never wanted to learn it.My life changed.My body changed.My speech changed.My independence changed.The amount of effort required to do ordinary things changed.And there have been moments when I wanted so badly to be the Cassandra I remembered that I became impatient with the Cassandra who was actually here.But she deserves honesty too.She deserves tenderness too.She deserves patience too.She deserves to be loved without having to pretend that everything is easy.🪑So I am learning to tell the truth.I can be grateful and tired.I can have faith and still have questions.I can laugh and still hurt.I can celebrate progress and grieve what changed.I can be strong and need help.I can love people and still need boundaries.I can forgive somebody and still acknowledge what happened.I can believe God is with me without pretending every part of this journey feels good.Those truths do not cancel each other.They can sit in the same room.Sometimes they can even sit in the same chair.👀🪑And maybe somebody reading this needs permission to stop performing too.You do not have to tell everybody everything.Privacy is not dishonesty.Boundaries are not dishonesty.Taking time before you speak is not dishonesty.But beloved, please find somewhere you can tell the truth.Even if the first place is inside your own heart.Say:This hurt me.I miss what was.I am angry.I am afraid.I need help.I don’t know yet.I changed my mind.I need more time.I am proud of myself.I survived something difficult.I am learning.I am healing.I am still here.🔑Because honesty can be a key.A key that unlocks shame.A key that loosens the chain of pretending.A key that lets grief breathe.A key that allows joy to be real instead of performed.A key that makes room for healing.And sometimes the truth is not:”I have figured everything out.”Sometimes the truth is simply:”I am trying.”And beloved?Trying counts.❤️‍🩹I am learning not to require perfection from myself before I offer myself compassion.I am learning not to make recovery another place where I have to perform.I am learning that one difficult day does not erase every good day that came before it.I am learning that needing rest does not erase determination.I am learning that receiving help does not erase independence.And I am learning that being honest about what hurts does not mean I have stopped believing that healing is possible.It means I stopped requiring myself to lie on the way there.👀So be honest with them when honesty is safe.Be honest with the people who love you.Be honest with the people helping you.Be honest about what you need.Be honest about what you cannot do today.Be honest about what you are learning to do again.But before all of that—Be honest with you.For me.❤️‍🩹Because I want you here.Not the polished version.Not the pretending version.Not the version exhausted from convincing everybody that everything is fine.YOU.The learning you.The healing you.The laughing you.The crying you.The figuring-it-out-as-you-go you.There is room for that person here.🪑Pull up a chair.You don’t have to resolve everything before you belong.You don’t have to perform strength before you are loved.You don’t have to have all the answers before your life matters.Your life matters right now.Exactly here.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹🪑Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
• THE CHAIR.
• WEDNESDAY 🌎
• WEDNESDAY 🌎

I am loved.

Nuff said.

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Note: Sometimes, you have to declare what you are.

The truth, not lies the world likes to forever whisper, in your ear.

What are you?

Tag, you’re it! Declare something, about you…

Cassandra

• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,Ow.That is probably the best way for me to begin this.Ow.For the past few years, the Holy Spirit has been convicting my heart.Not condemning me.Convicting me.There is a difference.Condemnation tells me to hide.The conviction of the Holy Spirit calls me into the light.And sometimes?That light hits something in me that makes me say:OW!😳🥺❤️‍🩹I love living in my Black skin.I love Black joy.I love Black laughter.I love Black music.I love Black creativity.I love Black excellence.I love the beauty of us.The resilience of us.The tenderness of us.The absolute foolishness of us sometimes.🤣I love everybody.But I especially love my bros and sis.Which is exactly why what the Holy Spirit showed me hurt so much.Just before my stroke, I discovered a ton of Black romance movies.Beloveds…I LOVED THEM.🥰😍Seeing Black people in love was breathtaking to me.People who looked like me were falling in love.Being pursued.Being cherished.Building families.Laughing.Arguing.Reconciling.Getting married.Living.And many of these movies showed something else I loved seeing:Black affluence.Black professionals.Black entrepreneurs.Beautiful Black families in beautiful homes.Black men and women succeeding.Black excellence.I loved seeing us.But then something happened.And this is where I cry.😭Permit me to digress.Growing up, Black folk pounded something into my head:You have to be ten times better than everybody else just to earn a hint of a whiff of a chance at a decent job. At a decent life.So I worked.Hard.HARD.I learned.I became good at what I did.I loved Customer Service.You could hear that love in my voice.I trained people.And I watched many of the white people I trained receive the raise.The promotion.The opportunity.Over me.I offered my skills.I knew I was capable.Still…I was seldom selected.Not chosen.Again.Sigh.❤️‍🩹Now come back to those movies with me.Because one day I caught something happening inside myself.I was watching Black people on the screen.And somewhere in my thoughts I heard:They’re too loud.Too boisterous.Too…Black.😳🥺🥹😦😩😢😭OW.I am a Black woman.I love Black people.And there it was.Inside me.A measuring stick.A judgment.A standard about what kind of Blackness was acceptable.And the Holy Spirit would not let me look away from it.That is important.Because I could have defended myself.I could have said:I’m Black!I love Black people!Look at everything I’ve written!Look at who I am!I could have produced evidence for my own defense.But God wasn’t putting me on trial.He was showing me something because He loves me enough to show me what still needs healing.❤️‍🩹I had learned that Black people are watched.Evaluated.Measured.Judged.How we speak.How we dress.How we wear our hair.How loudly we laugh.How angry we are allowed to become.How professional we appear.Whether we are “articulate.”Whether we make somebody uncomfortable.Whether we are respectable enough.Somewhere along the way, the watcher got inside.⛓️Society didn’t have to sit beside me watching the movie saying:That’s too Black.Some of those old lessons had learned how to speak from inside me.And the Holy Spirit said:Look.👀Not:Hate yourself.Not:You are terrible.Not:You don’t love your people.Look.See it.Tell the truth about it.Let Me deal with it.And Beloveds?I did something important.I forgave ME.❤️‍🩹Not because bias doesn’t matter.Not because judgment doesn’t hurt people.Not because I wanted an excuse.I forgave myself because shame was not going to heal what God was revealing.I forgave the Black girl who learned she was being watched.I forgave the Black woman who learned she needed to work ten times harder.I forgave the professional who watched people she trained receive opportunities she wasn’t given.I forgave the woman who learned that being excellent, controlled, polished and respectable might make the road a little safer.And then I let the Holy Spirit teach that woman something new.🔑Over these last few weeks, I started watching those movies again.🥰Then:😍Then:😅Then:🤣😂And something began changing.I stopped grading everybody’s Blackness.Loud?Okay.Quiet?Okay.Boisterous?Okay.Reserved?Okay.Professional?Okay.Country?Okay.Hood?Okay.Affluent?Okay.Working class?Okay.Harvard?Okay.Grandma’s kitchen table and the school of hard knocks?Okay.🤣❤️Black people do not owe me one acceptable performance of Blackness.And neither do I.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿Because here’s another little piece of God’s sense of humor:After all those years learning how not to be “too loud”…Look at the name of my blog.WHY CAN’T I BE LOUD?!🤣🤣🤣Won’t He do it?!But this revelation went deeper.Because I realized something about Black excellence too.I LOVE Black excellence.I celebrate it.But Black excellence cannot become another chain.⛓️We cannot spend generations being told we must be ten times better and then accidentally turn around and require exceptional achievement from one another before we feel comfortable celebrating Black life.The CEO matters.The doctor matters.The professor matters.The entrepreneur matters.And so does the cashier.The janitor.The unemployed brother trying again.The sister working two jobs.The person without the degree.The person with the accent.The person whose grammar somebody wants to correct.The quiet Black man.The loud Black man.The quiet Black woman.And yes—the LOUD Black woman.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿❤️‍🔥Our dignity cannot depend upon our excellence.And that revelation made me ask an even harder question:What other measuring sticks am I carrying?Not just about Black people.About people.Period.What have I absorbed about disability?Poverty?Weight?Age?Education?Accents?Religion?Gender?Mental illness?Addiction?Homelessness?People who vote differently?People who worship differently?People who don’t believe what I believe?People whose lives I don’t understand?👀What if some of the chains I want broken in the world are also hiding somewhere inside me?⛓️Then I need a key too.🔑That is why I’m telling you this.Because the Holy Spirit convicted me.And the instruction in my spirit was:BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME.For ME.Him.God.🙏🏿Tell them.Don’t polish yourself first.Don’t pretend you arrived.Don’t make yourself the teacher standing above everybody else.Tell them what I showed you.So I am.I judged.God showed me.It hurt.I listened.I forgave myself.I kept watching.I started seeing differently.And I’m still learning.That is conviction.That is grace.That is growth.That is another chain hitting the floor.⛓️💥And now, Beloveds, I turn the question toward you—not from above you.From my chair.🪑Be honest with you.For, HIM.What hidden bias are you struggling to deal with?What measuring stick did somebody put in your hand so early that you forgot somebody gave it to you?And what might happen if you finally put it down?Don’t answer for me.Don’t answer for Facebook.Don’t answer for church.Don’t answer because somebody is watching.Ask God.Be honest with you.For, Him.Because He already knows what is there.And if the Holy Spirit turns the light on?👀Look.Listen.Repent where repentance is needed.Forgive yourself.Learn.Unlearn.Heal.Choose differently.And keep walking.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹God did not show me the chain so I could decorate it with shame.He showed me the chain because chains can be broken.And THAT?That will preach.❤️‍🔥🙏🏿Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!Unapologetically His.Unapologetically yours.
• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,I have been thinking about honesty.Not the kind we demand from everybody else.The kind that requires us to sit with ourselves long enough to tell the truth about what is happening inside us.👀Because sometimes the hardest person to be honest with is yourself.Sometimes we know something hurts, but we keep calling it fine.Sometimes we know we are tired, but we keep calling ourselves lazy.Sometimes we know we need help, but we keep calling needing help weakness.Sometimes we know something has changed, but we keep trying to live as though nothing did.And sometimes we are so busy trying to make everybody else comfortable with our reality that we stop being honest about our own.❤️‍🩹I have had to learn this in ways I never wanted to learn it.My life changed.My body changed.My speech changed.My independence changed.The amount of effort required to do ordinary things changed.And there have been moments when I wanted so badly to be the Cassandra I remembered that I became impatient with the Cassandra who was actually here.But she deserves honesty too.She deserves tenderness too.She deserves patience too.She deserves to be loved without having to pretend that everything is easy.🪑So I am learning to tell the truth.I can be grateful and tired.I can have faith and still have questions.I can laugh and still hurt.I can celebrate progress and grieve what changed.I can be strong and need help.I can love people and still need boundaries.I can forgive somebody and still acknowledge what happened.I can believe God is with me without pretending every part of this journey feels good.Those truths do not cancel each other.They can sit in the same room.Sometimes they can even sit in the same chair.👀🪑And maybe somebody reading this needs permission to stop performing too.You do not have to tell everybody everything.Privacy is not dishonesty.Boundaries are not dishonesty.Taking time before you speak is not dishonesty.But beloved, please find somewhere you can tell the truth.Even if the first place is inside your own heart.Say:This hurt me.I miss what was.I am angry.I am afraid.I need help.I don’t know yet.I changed my mind.I need more time.I am proud of myself.I survived something difficult.I am learning.I am healing.I am still here.🔑Because honesty can be a key.A key that unlocks shame.A key that loosens the chain of pretending.A key that lets grief breathe.A key that allows joy to be real instead of performed.A key that makes room for healing.And sometimes the truth is not:”I have figured everything out.”Sometimes the truth is simply:”I am trying.”And beloved?Trying counts.❤️‍🩹I am learning not to require perfection from myself before I offer myself compassion.I am learning not to make recovery another place where I have to perform.I am learning that one difficult day does not erase every good day that came before it.I am learning that needing rest does not erase determination.I am learning that receiving help does not erase independence.And I am learning that being honest about what hurts does not mean I have stopped believing that healing is possible.It means I stopped requiring myself to lie on the way there.👀So be honest with them when honesty is safe.Be honest with the people who love you.Be honest with the people helping you.Be honest about what you need.Be honest about what you cannot do today.Be honest about what you are learning to do again.But before all of that—Be honest with you.For me.❤️‍🩹Because I want you here.Not the polished version.Not the pretending version.Not the version exhausted from convincing everybody that everything is fine.YOU.The learning you.The healing you.The laughing you.The crying you.The figuring-it-out-as-you-go you.There is room for that person here.🪑Pull up a chair.You don’t have to resolve everything before you belong.You don’t have to perform strength before you are loved.You don’t have to have all the answers before your life matters.Your life matters right now.Exactly here.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹🪑Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
• THE CHAIR.
• WEDNESDAY 🌎
• WEDNESDAY 🌎

Sometimes, it’s good and necessary, to consider others.

I have been wanting to vacuum, for hours. Too early. Yes, I could have pulled the ‘it’s my apartment and too bad for downstairs neighbors card’

I waited. I know how it feels to work all week only to be kept up, ALL weekend, by noisy neighbors.

Now, my rug, happily vacuumed, has given me the rest of the afternoon off.

Yippee!

It felt good, thinking of neighbors getting some nice weekend sleep. Makes me want a nap.

Hhmmm.

brb,

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Note: The world seems to have lost a bit of it’s humanity. Spread some consideration liberally, around you. Don’t look for anything, in return. Love someone simply because they could stand a bit of loving. Okay? Kewl beans. Get goin…

I love you.

• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,Ow.That is probably the best way for me to begin this.Ow.For the past few years, the Holy Spirit has been convicting my heart.Not condemning me.Convicting me.There is a difference.Condemnation tells me to hide.The conviction of the Holy Spirit calls me into the light.And sometimes?That light hits something in me that makes me say:OW!😳🥺❤️‍🩹I love living in my Black skin.I love Black joy.I love Black laughter.I love Black music.I love Black creativity.I love Black excellence.I love the beauty of us.The resilience of us.The tenderness of us.The absolute foolishness of us sometimes.🤣I love everybody.But I especially love my bros and sis.Which is exactly why what the Holy Spirit showed me hurt so much.Just before my stroke, I discovered a ton of Black romance movies.Beloveds…I LOVED THEM.🥰😍Seeing Black people in love was breathtaking to me.People who looked like me were falling in love.Being pursued.Being cherished.Building families.Laughing.Arguing.Reconciling.Getting married.Living.And many of these movies showed something else I loved seeing:Black affluence.Black professionals.Black entrepreneurs.Beautiful Black families in beautiful homes.Black men and women succeeding.Black excellence.I loved seeing us.But then something happened.And this is where I cry.😭Permit me to digress.Growing up, Black folk pounded something into my head:You have to be ten times better than everybody else just to earn a hint of a whiff of a chance at a decent job. At a decent life.So I worked.Hard.HARD.I learned.I became good at what I did.I loved Customer Service.You could hear that love in my voice.I trained people.And I watched many of the white people I trained receive the raise.The promotion.The opportunity.Over me.I offered my skills.I knew I was capable.Still…I was seldom selected.Not chosen.Again.Sigh.❤️‍🩹Now come back to those movies with me.Because one day I caught something happening inside myself.I was watching Black people on the screen.And somewhere in my thoughts I heard:They’re too loud.Too boisterous.Too…Black.😳🥺🥹😦😩😢😭OW.I am a Black woman.I love Black people.And there it was.Inside me.A measuring stick.A judgment.A standard about what kind of Blackness was acceptable.And the Holy Spirit would not let me look away from it.That is important.Because I could have defended myself.I could have said:I’m Black!I love Black people!Look at everything I’ve written!Look at who I am!I could have produced evidence for my own defense.But God wasn’t putting me on trial.He was showing me something because He loves me enough to show me what still needs healing.❤️‍🩹I had learned that Black people are watched.Evaluated.Measured.Judged.How we speak.How we dress.How we wear our hair.How loudly we laugh.How angry we are allowed to become.How professional we appear.Whether we are “articulate.”Whether we make somebody uncomfortable.Whether we are respectable enough.Somewhere along the way, the watcher got inside.⛓️Society didn’t have to sit beside me watching the movie saying:That’s too Black.Some of those old lessons had learned how to speak from inside me.And the Holy Spirit said:Look.👀Not:Hate yourself.Not:You are terrible.Not:You don’t love your people.Look.See it.Tell the truth about it.Let Me deal with it.And Beloveds?I did something important.I forgave ME.❤️‍🩹Not because bias doesn’t matter.Not because judgment doesn’t hurt people.Not because I wanted an excuse.I forgave myself because shame was not going to heal what God was revealing.I forgave the Black girl who learned she was being watched.I forgave the Black woman who learned she needed to work ten times harder.I forgave the professional who watched people she trained receive opportunities she wasn’t given.I forgave the woman who learned that being excellent, controlled, polished and respectable might make the road a little safer.And then I let the Holy Spirit teach that woman something new.🔑Over these last few weeks, I started watching those movies again.🥰Then:😍Then:😅Then:🤣😂And something began changing.I stopped grading everybody’s Blackness.Loud?Okay.Quiet?Okay.Boisterous?Okay.Reserved?Okay.Professional?Okay.Country?Okay.Hood?Okay.Affluent?Okay.Working class?Okay.Harvard?Okay.Grandma’s kitchen table and the school of hard knocks?Okay.🤣❤️Black people do not owe me one acceptable performance of Blackness.And neither do I.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿Because here’s another little piece of God’s sense of humor:After all those years learning how not to be “too loud”…Look at the name of my blog.WHY CAN’T I BE LOUD?!🤣🤣🤣Won’t He do it?!But this revelation went deeper.Because I realized something about Black excellence too.I LOVE Black excellence.I celebrate it.But Black excellence cannot become another chain.⛓️We cannot spend generations being told we must be ten times better and then accidentally turn around and require exceptional achievement from one another before we feel comfortable celebrating Black life.The CEO matters.The doctor matters.The professor matters.The entrepreneur matters.And so does the cashier.The janitor.The unemployed brother trying again.The sister working two jobs.The person without the degree.The person with the accent.The person whose grammar somebody wants to correct.The quiet Black man.The loud Black man.The quiet Black woman.And yes—the LOUD Black woman.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿❤️‍🔥Our dignity cannot depend upon our excellence.And that revelation made me ask an even harder question:What other measuring sticks am I carrying?Not just about Black people.About people.Period.What have I absorbed about disability?Poverty?Weight?Age?Education?Accents?Religion?Gender?Mental illness?Addiction?Homelessness?People who vote differently?People who worship differently?People who don’t believe what I believe?People whose lives I don’t understand?👀What if some of the chains I want broken in the world are also hiding somewhere inside me?⛓️Then I need a key too.🔑That is why I’m telling you this.Because the Holy Spirit convicted me.And the instruction in my spirit was:BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME.For ME.Him.God.🙏🏿Tell them.Don’t polish yourself first.Don’t pretend you arrived.Don’t make yourself the teacher standing above everybody else.Tell them what I showed you.So I am.I judged.God showed me.It hurt.I listened.I forgave myself.I kept watching.I started seeing differently.And I’m still learning.That is conviction.That is grace.That is growth.That is another chain hitting the floor.⛓️💥And now, Beloveds, I turn the question toward you—not from above you.From my chair.🪑Be honest with you.For, HIM.What hidden bias are you struggling to deal with?What measuring stick did somebody put in your hand so early that you forgot somebody gave it to you?And what might happen if you finally put it down?Don’t answer for me.Don’t answer for Facebook.Don’t answer for church.Don’t answer because somebody is watching.Ask God.Be honest with you.For, Him.Because He already knows what is there.And if the Holy Spirit turns the light on?👀Look.Listen.Repent where repentance is needed.Forgive yourself.Learn.Unlearn.Heal.Choose differently.And keep walking.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹God did not show me the chain so I could decorate it with shame.He showed me the chain because chains can be broken.And THAT?That will preach.❤️‍🔥🙏🏿Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!Unapologetically His.Unapologetically yours.
• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,I have been thinking about honesty.Not the kind we demand from everybody else.The kind that requires us to sit with ourselves long enough to tell the truth about what is happening inside us.👀Because sometimes the hardest person to be honest with is yourself.Sometimes we know something hurts, but we keep calling it fine.Sometimes we know we are tired, but we keep calling ourselves lazy.Sometimes we know we need help, but we keep calling needing help weakness.Sometimes we know something has changed, but we keep trying to live as though nothing did.And sometimes we are so busy trying to make everybody else comfortable with our reality that we stop being honest about our own.❤️‍🩹I have had to learn this in ways I never wanted to learn it.My life changed.My body changed.My speech changed.My independence changed.The amount of effort required to do ordinary things changed.And there have been moments when I wanted so badly to be the Cassandra I remembered that I became impatient with the Cassandra who was actually here.But she deserves honesty too.She deserves tenderness too.She deserves patience too.She deserves to be loved without having to pretend that everything is easy.🪑So I am learning to tell the truth.I can be grateful and tired.I can have faith and still have questions.I can laugh and still hurt.I can celebrate progress and grieve what changed.I can be strong and need help.I can love people and still need boundaries.I can forgive somebody and still acknowledge what happened.I can believe God is with me without pretending every part of this journey feels good.Those truths do not cancel each other.They can sit in the same room.Sometimes they can even sit in the same chair.👀🪑And maybe somebody reading this needs permission to stop performing too.You do not have to tell everybody everything.Privacy is not dishonesty.Boundaries are not dishonesty.Taking time before you speak is not dishonesty.But beloved, please find somewhere you can tell the truth.Even if the first place is inside your own heart.Say:This hurt me.I miss what was.I am angry.I am afraid.I need help.I don’t know yet.I changed my mind.I need more time.I am proud of myself.I survived something difficult.I am learning.I am healing.I am still here.🔑Because honesty can be a key.A key that unlocks shame.A key that loosens the chain of pretending.A key that lets grief breathe.A key that allows joy to be real instead of performed.A key that makes room for healing.And sometimes the truth is not:”I have figured everything out.”Sometimes the truth is simply:”I am trying.”And beloved?Trying counts.❤️‍🩹I am learning not to require perfection from myself before I offer myself compassion.I am learning not to make recovery another place where I have to perform.I am learning that one difficult day does not erase every good day that came before it.I am learning that needing rest does not erase determination.I am learning that receiving help does not erase independence.And I am learning that being honest about what hurts does not mean I have stopped believing that healing is possible.It means I stopped requiring myself to lie on the way there.👀So be honest with them when honesty is safe.Be honest with the people who love you.Be honest with the people helping you.Be honest about what you need.Be honest about what you cannot do today.Be honest about what you are learning to do again.But before all of that—Be honest with you.For me.❤️‍🩹Because I want you here.Not the polished version.Not the pretending version.Not the version exhausted from convincing everybody that everything is fine.YOU.The learning you.The healing you.The laughing you.The crying you.The figuring-it-out-as-you-go you.There is room for that person here.🪑Pull up a chair.You don’t have to resolve everything before you belong.You don’t have to perform strength before you are loved.You don’t have to have all the answers before your life matters.Your life matters right now.Exactly here.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹🪑Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
• THE CHAIR.
• WEDNESDAY 🌎
• WEDNESDAY 🌎

I love Goldfish crackers. They make me feel like a kid, again.

It’s hot. I’m tired. Turns out, I’m coming down with a cold. Or something.

This something, is something else.

Why am I carrying on about not feeling well and Goldfish crackers?

🤷‍♀️

I’m a bit of a crab apple when I get sick. I tend to be melodramatic and ramble on about inconsequential things.

Okay, so I do that when I’m not sick, but still.

Huh?

Whatcha mean I’m rambling so get to the point?!

Sheesh.

I don’t feel well. I FINALLY admitted this to myself, a bit ago. Told myself to go take some meds, and tuck into bed to get well.

It was ONLY after I told myself the truth, that I was able to track down my symptoms and find out I am actually coming down with something.

I felt this way yesterday but chalked it up to everything but not feeling well. I have been burning the 🕯 candle at both ends and it is catching up with me.

Beloveds, we MUST stop running our lives, into the ground, in pursuit of this, taking care of that.

OUR lives matter, as well. Time we do better, eh? Yes, it’s important to keep on keeping on. It’s also necessary to rest.

Rest, now. We have time, still. It’s time for us to just be. We can leave the doing alone, if not for just a little while.

Today is Labor Day. Ironic. Time to cease from our labor.

Rest.

As will I.

Thank you for giving me your ear. I got you. Be encouraged. Your life truly does matter to me.

Cassandra

• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,Ow.That is probably the best way for me to begin this.Ow.For the past few years, the Holy Spirit has been convicting my heart.Not condemning me.Convicting me.There is a difference.Condemnation tells me to hide.The conviction of the Holy Spirit calls me into the light.And sometimes?That light hits something in me that makes me say:OW!😳🥺❤️‍🩹I love living in my Black skin.I love Black joy.I love Black laughter.I love Black music.I love Black creativity.I love Black excellence.I love the beauty of us.The resilience of us.The tenderness of us.The absolute foolishness of us sometimes.🤣I love everybody.But I especially love my bros and sis.Which is exactly why what the Holy Spirit showed me hurt so much.Just before my stroke, I discovered a ton of Black romance movies.Beloveds…I LOVED THEM.🥰😍Seeing Black people in love was breathtaking to me.People who looked like me were falling in love.Being pursued.Being cherished.Building families.Laughing.Arguing.Reconciling.Getting married.Living.And many of these movies showed something else I loved seeing:Black affluence.Black professionals.Black entrepreneurs.Beautiful Black families in beautiful homes.Black men and women succeeding.Black excellence.I loved seeing us.But then something happened.And this is where I cry.😭Permit me to digress.Growing up, Black folk pounded something into my head:You have to be ten times better than everybody else just to earn a hint of a whiff of a chance at a decent job. At a decent life.So I worked.Hard.HARD.I learned.I became good at what I did.I loved Customer Service.You could hear that love in my voice.I trained people.And I watched many of the white people I trained receive the raise.The promotion.The opportunity.Over me.I offered my skills.I knew I was capable.Still…I was seldom selected.Not chosen.Again.Sigh.❤️‍🩹Now come back to those movies with me.Because one day I caught something happening inside myself.I was watching Black people on the screen.And somewhere in my thoughts I heard:They’re too loud.Too boisterous.Too…Black.😳🥺🥹😦😩😢😭OW.I am a Black woman.I love Black people.And there it was.Inside me.A measuring stick.A judgment.A standard about what kind of Blackness was acceptable.And the Holy Spirit would not let me look away from it.That is important.Because I could have defended myself.I could have said:I’m Black!I love Black people!Look at everything I’ve written!Look at who I am!I could have produced evidence for my own defense.But God wasn’t putting me on trial.He was showing me something because He loves me enough to show me what still needs healing.❤️‍🩹I had learned that Black people are watched.Evaluated.Measured.Judged.How we speak.How we dress.How we wear our hair.How loudly we laugh.How angry we are allowed to become.How professional we appear.Whether we are “articulate.”Whether we make somebody uncomfortable.Whether we are respectable enough.Somewhere along the way, the watcher got inside.⛓️Society didn’t have to sit beside me watching the movie saying:That’s too Black.Some of those old lessons had learned how to speak from inside me.And the Holy Spirit said:Look.👀Not:Hate yourself.Not:You are terrible.Not:You don’t love your people.Look.See it.Tell the truth about it.Let Me deal with it.And Beloveds?I did something important.I forgave ME.❤️‍🩹Not because bias doesn’t matter.Not because judgment doesn’t hurt people.Not because I wanted an excuse.I forgave myself because shame was not going to heal what God was revealing.I forgave the Black girl who learned she was being watched.I forgave the Black woman who learned she needed to work ten times harder.I forgave the professional who watched people she trained receive opportunities she wasn’t given.I forgave the woman who learned that being excellent, controlled, polished and respectable might make the road a little safer.And then I let the Holy Spirit teach that woman something new.🔑Over these last few weeks, I started watching those movies again.🥰Then:😍Then:😅Then:🤣😂And something began changing.I stopped grading everybody’s Blackness.Loud?Okay.Quiet?Okay.Boisterous?Okay.Reserved?Okay.Professional?Okay.Country?Okay.Hood?Okay.Affluent?Okay.Working class?Okay.Harvard?Okay.Grandma’s kitchen table and the school of hard knocks?Okay.🤣❤️Black people do not owe me one acceptable performance of Blackness.And neither do I.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿Because here’s another little piece of God’s sense of humor:After all those years learning how not to be “too loud”…Look at the name of my blog.WHY CAN’T I BE LOUD?!🤣🤣🤣Won’t He do it?!But this revelation went deeper.Because I realized something about Black excellence too.I LOVE Black excellence.I celebrate it.But Black excellence cannot become another chain.⛓️We cannot spend generations being told we must be ten times better and then accidentally turn around and require exceptional achievement from one another before we feel comfortable celebrating Black life.The CEO matters.The doctor matters.The professor matters.The entrepreneur matters.And so does the cashier.The janitor.The unemployed brother trying again.The sister working two jobs.The person without the degree.The person with the accent.The person whose grammar somebody wants to correct.The quiet Black man.The loud Black man.The quiet Black woman.And yes—the LOUD Black woman.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿❤️‍🔥Our dignity cannot depend upon our excellence.And that revelation made me ask an even harder question:What other measuring sticks am I carrying?Not just about Black people.About people.Period.What have I absorbed about disability?Poverty?Weight?Age?Education?Accents?Religion?Gender?Mental illness?Addiction?Homelessness?People who vote differently?People who worship differently?People who don’t believe what I believe?People whose lives I don’t understand?👀What if some of the chains I want broken in the world are also hiding somewhere inside me?⛓️Then I need a key too.🔑That is why I’m telling you this.Because the Holy Spirit convicted me.And the instruction in my spirit was:BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME.For ME.Him.God.🙏🏿Tell them.Don’t polish yourself first.Don’t pretend you arrived.Don’t make yourself the teacher standing above everybody else.Tell them what I showed you.So I am.I judged.God showed me.It hurt.I listened.I forgave myself.I kept watching.I started seeing differently.And I’m still learning.That is conviction.That is grace.That is growth.That is another chain hitting the floor.⛓️💥And now, Beloveds, I turn the question toward you—not from above you.From my chair.🪑Be honest with you.For, HIM.What hidden bias are you struggling to deal with?What measuring stick did somebody put in your hand so early that you forgot somebody gave it to you?And what might happen if you finally put it down?Don’t answer for me.Don’t answer for Facebook.Don’t answer for church.Don’t answer because somebody is watching.Ask God.Be honest with you.For, Him.Because He already knows what is there.And if the Holy Spirit turns the light on?👀Look.Listen.Repent where repentance is needed.Forgive yourself.Learn.Unlearn.Heal.Choose differently.And keep walking.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹God did not show me the chain so I could decorate it with shame.He showed me the chain because chains can be broken.And THAT?That will preach.❤️‍🔥🙏🏿Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!Unapologetically His.Unapologetically yours.
• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,I have been thinking about honesty.Not the kind we demand from everybody else.The kind that requires us to sit with ourselves long enough to tell the truth about what is happening inside us.👀Because sometimes the hardest person to be honest with is yourself.Sometimes we know something hurts, but we keep calling it fine.Sometimes we know we are tired, but we keep calling ourselves lazy.Sometimes we know we need help, but we keep calling needing help weakness.Sometimes we know something has changed, but we keep trying to live as though nothing did.And sometimes we are so busy trying to make everybody else comfortable with our reality that we stop being honest about our own.❤️‍🩹I have had to learn this in ways I never wanted to learn it.My life changed.My body changed.My speech changed.My independence changed.The amount of effort required to do ordinary things changed.And there have been moments when I wanted so badly to be the Cassandra I remembered that I became impatient with the Cassandra who was actually here.But she deserves honesty too.She deserves tenderness too.She deserves patience too.She deserves to be loved without having to pretend that everything is easy.🪑So I am learning to tell the truth.I can be grateful and tired.I can have faith and still have questions.I can laugh and still hurt.I can celebrate progress and grieve what changed.I can be strong and need help.I can love people and still need boundaries.I can forgive somebody and still acknowledge what happened.I can believe God is with me without pretending every part of this journey feels good.Those truths do not cancel each other.They can sit in the same room.Sometimes they can even sit in the same chair.👀🪑And maybe somebody reading this needs permission to stop performing too.You do not have to tell everybody everything.Privacy is not dishonesty.Boundaries are not dishonesty.Taking time before you speak is not dishonesty.But beloved, please find somewhere you can tell the truth.Even if the first place is inside your own heart.Say:This hurt me.I miss what was.I am angry.I am afraid.I need help.I don’t know yet.I changed my mind.I need more time.I am proud of myself.I survived something difficult.I am learning.I am healing.I am still here.🔑Because honesty can be a key.A key that unlocks shame.A key that loosens the chain of pretending.A key that lets grief breathe.A key that allows joy to be real instead of performed.A key that makes room for healing.And sometimes the truth is not:”I have figured everything out.”Sometimes the truth is simply:”I am trying.”And beloved?Trying counts.❤️‍🩹I am learning not to require perfection from myself before I offer myself compassion.I am learning not to make recovery another place where I have to perform.I am learning that one difficult day does not erase every good day that came before it.I am learning that needing rest does not erase determination.I am learning that receiving help does not erase independence.And I am learning that being honest about what hurts does not mean I have stopped believing that healing is possible.It means I stopped requiring myself to lie on the way there.👀So be honest with them when honesty is safe.Be honest with the people who love you.Be honest with the people helping you.Be honest about what you need.Be honest about what you cannot do today.Be honest about what you are learning to do again.But before all of that—Be honest with you.For me.❤️‍🩹Because I want you here.Not the polished version.Not the pretending version.Not the version exhausted from convincing everybody that everything is fine.YOU.The learning you.The healing you.The laughing you.The crying you.The figuring-it-out-as-you-go you.There is room for that person here.🪑Pull up a chair.You don’t have to resolve everything before you belong.You don’t have to perform strength before you are loved.You don’t have to have all the answers before your life matters.Your life matters right now.Exactly here.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹🪑Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
• THE CHAIR.
• WEDNESDAY 🌎
• WEDNESDAY 🌎

It’s Labor Day Weekend.

I’m alone.

Yet not.

I rose early, to have some delicious coffee ☕ and yak with mom, whilst she is up in heaven doing her some her.

Flopping this way and that, on my Cali King, whilst I wait on The Universe, to do It’s thing for me and my life.

Life is good.

I am good.

Yea, I’m waiting, for my posse, to arrive.

In the meantime, I am loving on me.

Too often, folk find themselves waiting around, for love. Life is short. Love on some YOU, beloveds.

Keep asking questions.

Keep doing ridiculously dumb things.

Keep trying.

Keep living.

Keep moving.

Forward.

Beloveds, these moments will NEVER come again. Enjoy, the growing. Enjoy, the bumps in the road. Enjoy, the heat of the day, as you journey towards your goal.

Try not to make the goal, the goal!

The gold, is in the TRY.

Life is so much more precious, to me, in the TRY. I can live with whatever happens or does not happen because I KNOW I gave all. THAT, I have found, is enough.

I am enough.

As are YOU.

So, enjoy your life, while you wait for your them, to show up.

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Note: Ah, I have already gotten tomorrow’s pieces written and scheduled. I have done all the walking laundry. I have gathered the trash to take out later. I have my 🚚 order scheduled to have ham and cheese sandwiches 🥪 for lunch! How great am I?!

• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,Ow.That is probably the best way for me to begin this.Ow.For the past few years, the Holy Spirit has been convicting my heart.Not condemning me.Convicting me.There is a difference.Condemnation tells me to hide.The conviction of the Holy Spirit calls me into the light.And sometimes?That light hits something in me that makes me say:OW!😳🥺❤️‍🩹I love living in my Black skin.I love Black joy.I love Black laughter.I love Black music.I love Black creativity.I love Black excellence.I love the beauty of us.The resilience of us.The tenderness of us.The absolute foolishness of us sometimes.🤣I love everybody.But I especially love my bros and sis.Which is exactly why what the Holy Spirit showed me hurt so much.Just before my stroke, I discovered a ton of Black romance movies.Beloveds…I LOVED THEM.🥰😍Seeing Black people in love was breathtaking to me.People who looked like me were falling in love.Being pursued.Being cherished.Building families.Laughing.Arguing.Reconciling.Getting married.Living.And many of these movies showed something else I loved seeing:Black affluence.Black professionals.Black entrepreneurs.Beautiful Black families in beautiful homes.Black men and women succeeding.Black excellence.I loved seeing us.But then something happened.And this is where I cry.😭Permit me to digress.Growing up, Black folk pounded something into my head:You have to be ten times better than everybody else just to earn a hint of a whiff of a chance at a decent job. At a decent life.So I worked.Hard.HARD.I learned.I became good at what I did.I loved Customer Service.You could hear that love in my voice.I trained people.And I watched many of the white people I trained receive the raise.The promotion.The opportunity.Over me.I offered my skills.I knew I was capable.Still…I was seldom selected.Not chosen.Again.Sigh.❤️‍🩹Now come back to those movies with me.Because one day I caught something happening inside myself.I was watching Black people on the screen.And somewhere in my thoughts I heard:They’re too loud.Too boisterous.Too…Black.😳🥺🥹😦😩😢😭OW.I am a Black woman.I love Black people.And there it was.Inside me.A measuring stick.A judgment.A standard about what kind of Blackness was acceptable.And the Holy Spirit would not let me look away from it.That is important.Because I could have defended myself.I could have said:I’m Black!I love Black people!Look at everything I’ve written!Look at who I am!I could have produced evidence for my own defense.But God wasn’t putting me on trial.He was showing me something because He loves me enough to show me what still needs healing.❤️‍🩹I had learned that Black people are watched.Evaluated.Measured.Judged.How we speak.How we dress.How we wear our hair.How loudly we laugh.How angry we are allowed to become.How professional we appear.Whether we are “articulate.”Whether we make somebody uncomfortable.Whether we are respectable enough.Somewhere along the way, the watcher got inside.⛓️Society didn’t have to sit beside me watching the movie saying:That’s too Black.Some of those old lessons had learned how to speak from inside me.And the Holy Spirit said:Look.👀Not:Hate yourself.Not:You are terrible.Not:You don’t love your people.Look.See it.Tell the truth about it.Let Me deal with it.And Beloveds?I did something important.I forgave ME.❤️‍🩹Not because bias doesn’t matter.Not because judgment doesn’t hurt people.Not because I wanted an excuse.I forgave myself because shame was not going to heal what God was revealing.I forgave the Black girl who learned she was being watched.I forgave the Black woman who learned she needed to work ten times harder.I forgave the professional who watched people she trained receive opportunities she wasn’t given.I forgave the woman who learned that being excellent, controlled, polished and respectable might make the road a little safer.And then I let the Holy Spirit teach that woman something new.🔑Over these last few weeks, I started watching those movies again.🥰Then:😍Then:😅Then:🤣😂And something began changing.I stopped grading everybody’s Blackness.Loud?Okay.Quiet?Okay.Boisterous?Okay.Reserved?Okay.Professional?Okay.Country?Okay.Hood?Okay.Affluent?Okay.Working class?Okay.Harvard?Okay.Grandma’s kitchen table and the school of hard knocks?Okay.🤣❤️Black people do not owe me one acceptable performance of Blackness.And neither do I.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿Because here’s another little piece of God’s sense of humor:After all those years learning how not to be “too loud”…Look at the name of my blog.WHY CAN’T I BE LOUD?!🤣🤣🤣Won’t He do it?!But this revelation went deeper.Because I realized something about Black excellence too.I LOVE Black excellence.I celebrate it.But Black excellence cannot become another chain.⛓️We cannot spend generations being told we must be ten times better and then accidentally turn around and require exceptional achievement from one another before we feel comfortable celebrating Black life.The CEO matters.The doctor matters.The professor matters.The entrepreneur matters.And so does the cashier.The janitor.The unemployed brother trying again.The sister working two jobs.The person without the degree.The person with the accent.The person whose grammar somebody wants to correct.The quiet Black man.The loud Black man.The quiet Black woman.And yes—the LOUD Black woman.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿❤️‍🔥Our dignity cannot depend upon our excellence.And that revelation made me ask an even harder question:What other measuring sticks am I carrying?Not just about Black people.About people.Period.What have I absorbed about disability?Poverty?Weight?Age?Education?Accents?Religion?Gender?Mental illness?Addiction?Homelessness?People who vote differently?People who worship differently?People who don’t believe what I believe?People whose lives I don’t understand?👀What if some of the chains I want broken in the world are also hiding somewhere inside me?⛓️Then I need a key too.🔑That is why I’m telling you this.Because the Holy Spirit convicted me.And the instruction in my spirit was:BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME.For ME.Him.God.🙏🏿Tell them.Don’t polish yourself first.Don’t pretend you arrived.Don’t make yourself the teacher standing above everybody else.Tell them what I showed you.So I am.I judged.God showed me.It hurt.I listened.I forgave myself.I kept watching.I started seeing differently.And I’m still learning.That is conviction.That is grace.That is growth.That is another chain hitting the floor.⛓️💥And now, Beloveds, I turn the question toward you—not from above you.From my chair.🪑Be honest with you.For, HIM.What hidden bias are you struggling to deal with?What measuring stick did somebody put in your hand so early that you forgot somebody gave it to you?And what might happen if you finally put it down?Don’t answer for me.Don’t answer for Facebook.Don’t answer for church.Don’t answer because somebody is watching.Ask God.Be honest with you.For, Him.Because He already knows what is there.And if the Holy Spirit turns the light on?👀Look.Listen.Repent where repentance is needed.Forgive yourself.Learn.Unlearn.Heal.Choose differently.And keep walking.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹God did not show me the chain so I could decorate it with shame.He showed me the chain because chains can be broken.And THAT?That will preach.❤️‍🔥🙏🏿Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!Unapologetically His.Unapologetically yours.
• 📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,I have been thinking about honesty.Not the kind we demand from everybody else.The kind that requires us to sit with ourselves long enough to tell the truth about what is happening inside us.👀Because sometimes the hardest person to be honest with is yourself.Sometimes we know something hurts, but we keep calling it fine.Sometimes we know we are tired, but we keep calling ourselves lazy.Sometimes we know we need help, but we keep calling needing help weakness.Sometimes we know something has changed, but we keep trying to live as though nothing did.And sometimes we are so busy trying to make everybody else comfortable with our reality that we stop being honest about our own.❤️‍🩹I have had to learn this in ways I never wanted to learn it.My life changed.My body changed.My speech changed.My independence changed.The amount of effort required to do ordinary things changed.And there have been moments when I wanted so badly to be the Cassandra I remembered that I became impatient with the Cassandra who was actually here.But she deserves honesty too.She deserves tenderness too.She deserves patience too.She deserves to be loved without having to pretend that everything is easy.🪑So I am learning to tell the truth.I can be grateful and tired.I can have faith and still have questions.I can laugh and still hurt.I can celebrate progress and grieve what changed.I can be strong and need help.I can love people and still need boundaries.I can forgive somebody and still acknowledge what happened.I can believe God is with me without pretending every part of this journey feels good.Those truths do not cancel each other.They can sit in the same room.Sometimes they can even sit in the same chair.👀🪑And maybe somebody reading this needs permission to stop performing too.You do not have to tell everybody everything.Privacy is not dishonesty.Boundaries are not dishonesty.Taking time before you speak is not dishonesty.But beloved, please find somewhere you can tell the truth.Even if the first place is inside your own heart.Say:This hurt me.I miss what was.I am angry.I am afraid.I need help.I don’t know yet.I changed my mind.I need more time.I am proud of myself.I survived something difficult.I am learning.I am healing.I am still here.🔑Because honesty can be a key.A key that unlocks shame.A key that loosens the chain of pretending.A key that lets grief breathe.A key that allows joy to be real instead of performed.A key that makes room for healing.And sometimes the truth is not:”I have figured everything out.”Sometimes the truth is simply:”I am trying.”And beloved?Trying counts.❤️‍🩹I am learning not to require perfection from myself before I offer myself compassion.I am learning not to make recovery another place where I have to perform.I am learning that one difficult day does not erase every good day that came before it.I am learning that needing rest does not erase determination.I am learning that receiving help does not erase independence.And I am learning that being honest about what hurts does not mean I have stopped believing that healing is possible.It means I stopped requiring myself to lie on the way there.👀So be honest with them when honesty is safe.Be honest with the people who love you.Be honest with the people helping you.Be honest about what you need.Be honest about what you cannot do today.Be honest about what you are learning to do again.But before all of that—Be honest with you.For me.❤️‍🩹Because I want you here.Not the polished version.Not the pretending version.Not the version exhausted from convincing everybody that everything is fine.YOU.The learning you.The healing you.The laughing you.The crying you.The figuring-it-out-as-you-go you.There is room for that person here.🪑Pull up a chair.You don’t have to resolve everything before you belong.You don’t have to perform strength before you are loved.You don’t have to have all the answers before your life matters.Your life matters right now.Exactly here.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹🪑Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
• THE CHAIR.
• WEDNESDAY 🌎
• WEDNESDAY 🌎