For Black History Month: One thing I'm leaving behind
I never want to see it unnecessarily used again
It’s the last day of Black History Month, and it just came to me that I’d love to leave something in history that has been carried too long by Black people:
The unnecessary idea of “strength.”
It took the last journey with my mom to see how much “strength” actually tore her down.
And it took her death to hear nearly the exact same thought process about strength, being echoed by her mother.
The cycle ends here.
Decades ago, it took a certain type of strength to carry Black people forward in America toward change.
Not everyone lived to see it, but actions led to future generations who got to and still continue to live in progressions made by those before us.
And even though we still have a looong way to go… We don’t need to live out “strength” the same way we used to.
I’ve witnessed so many who are so tired of being “strong.”
I got to see firsthand my mom, who was consciously an advocate for tears shed by anyone for nearly any reason, turn that permission away from herself during the hardest time of her life.
I watched her stand in the mirror and through a strained voice and gritted teeth, tell herself that God made her stronger than this.
And after she passed, I sat in the living room with her mom a few days before the funeral and heard her say how she’d try to be “strong” during the service, but wasn’t sure how successful she’d be.
No more. We are no longer living our lives where we need to place walls up around our vulnerabilities, our sadness, our softness…
Giving ourselves permission to open up enough to receive love, help, clarity, rest, or even an exhale gives us the capacity to holistically live better lives ourselves. To become people that can be examples of what life gets to look like. And show others how growth gets to be experienced.
We’ll be able to give others a taste of what giving from a full cup can do for their community and themselves.
The people before us always have a chance to change, but sometimes that change never comes.
That’s why it’s up to us to be the change we wish to see in OUR world first. The only thing we can control is ourselves, and how we react, perceive, and reflect on the history before us–both from the historical icons, and the ones sharing our closest bloodlines.
We get to show those who continue to believe that fighting feelings, and creating a facade built brick by brick to block-out vulnerabilities and everything else that makes us human is no longer needed.
The kind of “strength” that’s been carried down by Black families for generation after generation no longer needed in most circumstances. Only for survival; when you’re up against a wall and need to stay afloat.
So why have so many of us carried the strength necessary for survival into every area of our lives? Romantic relationships, parental relationships, in our work lives, our holistic health, and even the relationship we hold with ourselves.
A kind of strength that’s so dense and solid that no depth of purpose goes into its construction. It just exists. Exists to protect.
But today is the day we need to begin using our voice to ask, “protect us from what?”
What ideals and beliefs are we continuing to live out, and never question? Why are we not questioning traditions carried down from generations’ pasts? What does life look like for those who never questioned it?
And how is it beginning to look for us, if we never change it?
I won’t go into more detail about how I recognized “strength” showing up generationally for me.
But I will share that that part of Black History ends today for me: the only thing that I can control.
And I will live to show others what’s possible when we release the need to be “strong” all the time. When we can collapse into someone’s arms and sob because what they’re going through is hard.
Let’s give ourselves permission to allow compassion, gentleness, vulnerability, and pause for deeper understanding to whoever we want to have access to those pieces of us. Including ourselves.
We can CHOSE.
And we can begin to understand that we hold much more power over our lives than we were ever taught.
Life doesn’t have to be binary. We can have power over our lives without letting that mean we’re trying to compete with God.
But that’s a story for another day. Black History Month should be daily for all of us, after all.
Until then, let’s learn to admit when we’re tired, when we’re sad, and when we want to be held for once. Let’s curate safe spaces that allow us to grieve moments lost in our lives, or people who are no longer with us on earth, or even people who were only here for a season.
Let’s get curious about how we can lead future generations toward the type of openness it takes to truly start to understand their own unique needs, and start embracing them.
We all deserve to treat ourselves much kinder; I refuse to see anyone else shame themselves for feeling anything other than anger and happiness ever again.
❤️