Loving Inward, Living Outward, Looking Forward

An old high school acquaintance of mine author Brittney Pressley, recently wrote a book titled,  Loving Inward, Living Outward, Looking Forward: Life Lessons that Enlighten, Encourage, and Empower You to Regain Control Of Your Life. I noticed it on her FB timeline as I was strolling and thought what a great concept. I hope she doesn't mind that I titled my post this for tonight but a lot of my therapy and coping skills came from these ideas with out even knowing. When you connect with self and began to look at the things that cause you hindrance, you start to acknowledge that once you deal with an issue it no longer stops your flow. It's no longer a stumbling block preventing you from your purpose. I caught a glimpse of what the content entails on www.baucemag.com. I will be purchasing and supporting her and I hope you all do too, she truly has a presence to her. You can buy a copy of her book at

https://gumroad.com/l/brittp

I spent all day on FB and on the phone with family members. I'm mentally exhausted trying to get people to see things differently. During supervision with my boss one day she said to me, "Christine, stop trying to carry everything on your shoulders and just do your part. After you do your part and something is off, I will step in and do my part." That is how life is, sometimes we have to just do our part any let other sources step in. When I began sharing my experiences with others on other social media outlets, I didn't think much about the effect it would have on my family members or their close friends. I believed this to be my story and now that I had the appropriate platform to expose what goes on in households around the world, I was going to use it. I did, I took a risk at others emotional expense for the greater good.

I knew it would stir trouble, I knew it would cause controversy but that was my intention, to bring this to the forefront as I said in my earlier post. I am doing my part, this organization, this ministry is a testament to those who have gone years unaware of the damaged caused throughout their lives because of the detrimental acts that remained in their subconscious mind. No, Im no expert in psychology or am I trying to diagnose people, but it is a fact that the conscious mind reacts unbeknownst to the memories or feelings of the subconscious mind. That's why relationships are hard to retain, that's why spirituality seems like a folks tale, that's why families are continuously passing on generational curses because we are not DEALING with matters that have been swept about, put in the dust pan and moved to the garbage like it's going to disappear. No, like the trash, abuse lingers. I have had so many failed relations, either from dating, friendships, or work relationships, all because I was the victim. I couldn't cope, I wanted everyone and anyone to give me attention because this "happened" to me. 

Don't be mistaken. I'm not asking for your sympathy but more so your empathy so that we can come together as a people to get to the root of all of this, be supportive and start the healing process. I was speaking to a family member yesterday and we could not get on the same page because they thought that I was adding to the discord, dysfunction, and drama in our family. What? I was terribly taken aback, I continually tried to reiterate what The Yellow Teddy is about. This organization is about healing and bringing about positive family values and reunifying us, not tearing us apart.  How does an abuser and a victim belonging to the same family start to heal? How will the family respond amongst each other when they become divided trying to point blame and accusations? Whose fault is it when a brother and sister engage in sexual activity because they are acting out afflictions done to them by family members? Who will fix this? The church? What does give it to Jesus really mean? Does that mean "I don't know how to fix this and it's too complicated to deal with"? Come on, we have to do better. These are real issues that need to be solved and until they do our communities will continue to suffer and be oppressed. I believe this is the core of so many issues in the world and many sub cultures.

Saturday night I decided to go out of town to relink with a family member who I haven't seen in almost eight years. I won't tell her story because it is not mine to tell, however what I will say is we share similar experiences although her story might be more detrimental and psychological to some. When we were young we would hang together at family functions and dance and laugh and just be kids. Then time would pass and I didn't see her anymore, and the changes that I noticed about her when I did get to see her were significantly different, it was distant. So for the first time in about eight years we got to hang and we partied and we laughed and we danced and it was like old times. My heart felt warm, I noticed her shift back. She has embraced her identity and has blossomed into such a gorgeous soul. We spoke of positive things and uplifted one another and let our creative juices flow entertaining how we are going to bring change to the world. It so happened that in the process of vital moments going on in our lives we found one another.



We found LOVE in a hopeless place...

In looking forward, I want to inflict change and thought, something that this generation lacks. I'm a strong activist and advocate in things I believe in, and "online" my presence is known, people know what I'm thinking because they read my posts. Offline I have been blending in amongst the John doe's and Mary Jane's of this world and no longer choose to continue in it. My action is in speaking on it outwardly to people I bump into, causing awareness and alerting parents to be more attentive. I've been researching different groups and other organizations supporting the same cause. Point is I need a team to get the message out and the funds to market the idea and the resources to solidify the movement in promoting change, like getting families access to affordable therapist or volunteers that can help find activities and creative ways on rebuilding positive family relations through effective communication. Will you share and support what matters? Have you been looking to join an important cause? Will you join me and be apart of change? Please comment and share your thoughts. . Please continue to follow my blog at www.theyellowteddy.blospot.com and share with your family and friends.

Thank You.

"For all my yellow teddies"

 Quick thanks to fellow blogger Sherry Blossom who has been an amazing help to me so far in my new  blogging career. She has a few interesting blogs and the hook up when it comes to busy writers! Check her out at www.sherryblossombeauty.com and tell her that I sent cha'! Lol. She also told me about gofundme.com which is a blessing in a disguise, so thanks love!

Titling the Movement + Sharing the Cause

It honestly didn't take much pondering to come up with a name fitting for what I want to portray to the people once they hear about The Yellow Teddy. I want to elaborate on the innocence and not be prejudice toward gender because child abuse effects everyone. The reasoning behind why I selected yellow in particular is because when an excited couple is ready to have a child and want to be surprised by the gender, yellow is the most neutral color that everyone selects. Currently I am playing with the idea of getting a local artist to create the logo for The Yellow Teddy. I'm so excited about this whole process and I see the number of people who have been able to read the blog, however, tell a friend to tell a friend and remember to write a comment and get involved. Let's brainstorm the next moves. I'm community driven and ready to network. "Be the Change that You Want to See"....

"For all my yellow teddies"

Once Upon a Time...Lullaby Blues

Growing up in the small city of New Haven, Connecticut, I never thought about becoming an advocate of anything. Like most inner city urban communities, there was poverty, violence, drugs, and abuse. Yeah, we were on food stamps and yeah there were sounds of gunshots around the neighborhood that everyone heard, and the drugs, come on, everyone knew at least one  person in their family that made you put all the valuable items away when they came by to visit. However, the abuse was swept ever so gently under the rug. Heavens no, who touched who? Girl ain't nobody touched you, get out of them boys faces, go read a book. That's how it went down around my neck of the woods.

My "neck of the woods", consisted of my grandmother (maternal), her husband (R.I.P. Granddad J.J.),  my brother, my adopted uncle, my three uncles conceived by my maternal grandmother, and my other two step uncles by Granddad JJ. Yes, that's right, I was the only girl.  Now I'm sharing my background with you all because it's important to see where the break down in responsibility and dysfunction began. You might ask where my parents were in all of this? Well my mother was a young single parent and because she had two children as a "teen mom" by 18, we lived with my grandparents until she got on her feet. I'll just leave it at that for now. There wasn't many programs back then that provided help to teen parents raising multiple children and integrating these children into the parent's immediate families, it just happened. With that came frustration, financial woes, jealousy, and overall complications in the black american household. You had rivalry between the children fighting over attention, finances were limited, grandparents overwhelmed, children confused to family members relationships to them, and angered resentful aunts and uncles who felt like their parents shouldn't be taking care of their sibling's child(ren). Ok, it wasn't hypothetical. These were some of my family issues.

How does one recover from so many obstacles in their way before they can even blossom? It takes resilience. Don't get me wrong, I have been a victim of unjustifiable acts, however I have developed a mindset to not be a victim. I live my life the way I want, I pick up the pace to my walk and if I trip, I walk purposefully and more careful the next. During my intensely purpose driven walk recently, I realized that I don't walk alone and that the purpose of walking is to get to a destination. My destination relies on my ministry and the lives that it touches and changes. So many people that I've came across during my journey of life are broken and torn because of deep rooted family issues that began in their foundation, and they have cut family ties and moved far away, or gone crazy because they couldn't cope. So I have been in between the fences for quite some time with starting an organization for those who have been walking with me, hence The Yellow Teddy.

The Yellow Teddy is an organization that I want to launch nationally for children and families who have faced or are facing abuse and want a way out without having to be "the victim". I have been sexually abused as a child and know what it is like to have feelings of rejection, feeling used, dirty, inadequate, confused, neglected, hurt, feelings of rage, hate, betrayal, and loneliness. There are so many more, and the list goes on. What I am aiming for with TYT is to bring awareness and prevention to the forefront and to establish a secret free generation of strong minded individuals who are able to take their lives back and pass on the message that this is a disease. Families that love one another doesn't hurt each other.

If you would like to know more about my background and upbringing continue to follow my blog at theyellowteddy.blogspot.com on blogger and become a supporter by sharing with others. If you'd like to help and or be apart of The Yellow Teddy movement please email me @ houseoffreeart@gmail.com. I can use some valuable help in getting this organization active so if you know anybody please share and send them my way.

Thank You.

"For all my yellow teddies"