Give yourself permission.

Give yourself permission to fail.

Give yourself permission to try.

Give yourself permission to rest.

Give yourself permission to stay.

Give yourself permission to do absolutely nothing.

Give yourself permission to ‘be lazy’.

Give yourself permission to be loud.

Give yourself permission to be silent.

Give yourself permission.

You do NOT have to ALWAYS being doing what you THINK is expected of you. Put down the weight of your own expectations. Put down the weight of the expectations of others.

Give yourself permission to be whatever the world your heart feels the need to BE. Just BE. Folk are so worried about what others may think of them being they forget to just be.

Enough with that!

Kick rocks, expectations. Our expectations are from Him. And, ALL God asks for us to do is to try. That’s it. We do NOT have to be perfect. We do NOT have to walk this earth all dolled up and lovely.

There are times when we feel like running around in sweats and having a bad hair day. Give yourself permission, beloveds, to have a bad hair day! God loves you. Just as you are.

And, if folk in your life can’t love you when you are in scrubs, sweats, shorts, frumpy clothes they are just not the right ones for you.

Kick off those high heels. Put down your bajillion dollar hand bag and go grab a burger at a fast food restaurant or something!

Too hooey with having to have a billion dollar mansion before folk will love you.

And, for the beautiful men and women out there, STOP treating yourselves like trophies! You are NOT! it is NOT your fault God made you beautiful. You are much more, though, tha your outward beauty. STOP allowing folk to parade you around like Barbie and Ken dolls! Yall have much to contribute.

Men, STOP allowing yourselves to be the wallets of the world! Yall are amazing. Yall are deserving to be loved. Give yourself permission to tell a woman to get out of your Porsche if that’s ALL she sees you for! What’s more, you do NOT need to be in a damned Porsche to be valued. There will be plenty of women who will love you for the amazing man that you are. Get to know YOU, beloveds. You have much to share.

Women, good grief, put down the damned Tik Tok and get to know YOU, again. You do NOT have to compete with jillions of Tik Tok folk who are faking it! Stop wasting all your money on stupid organizers and all kinds of junk you are told you need to be happy. Give yourself permission to just be you.

Married folk, STOP listening to a world dumb enough to try and make it a shame for folk to be happily married. Love your husband. Love your wives. Love your kids. Even when everyone is acting like a moron. It’s what families do. We drive one another up ten walls and back.

Christian folk, STOP listening to a world gone crazy who are trying to talk you out of YOUR faith. Keep walking. Give yourself permission to love folk and tell them to kick rocks, without apologies.

Sports starts, STOP listening to dummies who have never picked up a ball or have worked as hard as you have. ENJOY your money. You have earned every dollar. Get your bag!!

Content creators, STOP chasing algorithms! Do YOU! Be YOU! What benefit does it do for you to make a bajillion dollars creating content only for click bait sake?

Young folk, STOP apologizing for being young. Yall are NOT lazy. Yall are NOT entitled. Yall are just smart enough to have recognized the trap us old folk fell into regarding working ourselves to the end of our lives. Give yourself permission to figure out YOU. Give yourself permission to listen to some of us oldies as we have much we can share and teach you. Give yourself permission to pursue excellence. Give yourself permission to learn the value and joy in hard work.

Old folk, STOP working yourselves to death! STOP chasing the ridiculous dream of piling up billions of dollars to make you happy. Look around you! You have ruined many a relationship chasing the dollar bill. Enough already. Put down the plow, pick up some flowers and romance somebody! Give yourself permission to dream. Then, get on up and do.

It’s high time, beloveds, we ALL get some act right and give ourselves permission to start living. Enough of this existing and barely scraping by life tired, exhausted and discouraged.

Okay, I think I have covered everyone. If not, someone else take up the mike and help us all get some act right….lol.

asking for A Friend,

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Note: Life is short. What in the fresh hell are you waiting for?

One step.

One step.

One step.

You are loved.

You are NOT alone.

Keep on being…YOU!

• SUNDAY WITH CASSANDRA. IT ME!
• MOVIE SATURDAY WITH CASSANDRA🌎🎬👩🏿‍🦼🍿🌎
• (no title)
• Today…
• 🎬 MAYBE THEY WEREN’T “TOO BLACK.” MAYBE I WAS STILL HOLDING THE RULER. 🪑🔑Beloveds,I told you I caught myself watching Black romance movies and thinking:Too loud.Too boisterous.Too Black.😳And the Holy Spirit convicted me.Then I watched Deliver Us from Eva.WHEW.👀Because suddenly I wasn’t only watching Eva.I was looking at the ruler I sometimes used to measure everybody.Let’s start with Eva.She’s intelligent, professional, beautiful, protective, loving, bossy, controlling, loyal and complicated.All of it.🔑She doesn’t have to become either the Angry Black Woman Who Needs Taming or the Strong Black Woman Whose Every Choice Must Be Defended.Eva needs correction AND Eva deserves dignity.She helped raise her sisters after their parents died. Protection became part of her identity.But eventually protection sometimes became control.⛓️ If I don’t manage everybody, everything will fall apart.🔑 I can love grown people without controlling grown people.Her sisters need a key too.You cannot keep handing somebody the clipboard to your life and then get mad because she keeps writing on it.🤣Eva has to stop managing.Her sisters have to start owning.Everybody gets a chair.🪑And YES—THE MEN TOO.🤣🪑🪑🪑🪑Ray begins by deceiving Eva.That matters.But eventually “the problem” becomes a person to him.Eva.And Ray changes.🔑 Sometimes genuinely knowing somebody destroys the caricature we created from a distance.But Ray deserves his own humanity too.He’s working, dreaming, saving, flawed, funny, romantic, masculine and tender.He doesn’t need to become a CEO before he’s worthy of love.There’s that ten-times-better ruler again.👀Then Mike.Mike has a legitimate frustration with Eva’s interference.His solution?SIR. SIT DOWN.🪑🤣Because here’s another key:🔑 A legitimate grievance does not automatically make every remedy legitimate.Pain deserves acknowledgment.Choices still require accountability.Then Tim made me ask:What does a Black man have to look like before we consider him “man enough”?Dominant?Always in charge?Never soft?Never uncertain?Why?Tim doesn’t need more masculinity.He needs his voice.🔑A loud Black woman shouldn’t have to shrink.A quieter Black man shouldn’t have to perform dominance.Both get chairs.And Darrell?🤣Some people are intellectual heavyweights.And some people are…Darrell.🤣❤️HE GETS A CHAIR TOO.Intelligence isn’t the admission price for dignity.Sophistication isn’t the admission price for love.Black people are allowed to be ordinary.Goofy.Messy.Wrong.Funny.Tender.Brilliant.Ridiculous.Rich.Poor.Loud.Quiet.Human.And suddenly the Holy Spirit’s conviction went deeper.Maybe I had become nervous when Black characters weren’t representing us “well enough.”What will THEY think?Why are they so loud?Why aren’t they more polished?More educated?More professional?More respectable?More…acceptable?😳And suddenly I’m not watching a movie.I’m conducting a performance review of Blackness.⛓️That’s exhausting.Because Black characters should not have to carry the reputation of an entire people on their backs.And sometimes, without realizing it—we help load the backpack.That was part of what the Holy Spirit showed me.Not merely:Cassandra, look at them.But:Cassandra, look at your ruler.👀Who handed it to you?Why are you still carrying it?And I knew part of the answer.Ten times better.There was love and survival inside what Black folk taught me.They were preparing me for an unfair world.But:“You may have to be ten times better to receive the opportunity”can quietly become:“Black people SHOULD be ten times better.”NO.❤️‍🩹I reject that.Black excellence is beautiful.Black dignity is unconditional.Eva gets correction and dignity.Ray gets tenderness and accountability.Mike gets frustration and responsibility.Tim gets quietness and voice.Darrell gets goofiness and dignity.The sisters get love and agency.Nobody has to become less Black.Nobody has to become ten times more human.EVERYBODY GETS A CHAIR.🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑And maybe that’s what the Holy Spirit was really asking me:Cassandra, why are you still holding the ruler?😳My answer?I’m learning to put it down.🔑And maybe you have one too.Race.Education.Disability.Age.Money.Accent.Religion.Politics.Body size.Mental illness.Addiction.Sexuality.Somebody whose life simply doesn’t look like yours.Don’t perform an answer for me.Be honest with you. For, HIM.🙏🏿What ruler are you carrying?Who handed it to you?Who have you measured with it?Have you measured yourself with it too?And if the Holy Spirit is showing it to you, maybe He isn’t giving you the ruler so you can beat yourself with it.Maybe He’s saying:Child. You don’t need that anymore.Put it down.🔑❤️‍🩹Pull up your chair.🪑Let somebody else pull up theirs.And let people be fully human in front of you.Including—you.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿❤️‍🔥🌎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.