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Thursday, April 18, 2019

How your perceptions become your reality? What if they have a negative impact on future generations?

How do people become so broken they resort to drugs, eating disorders, violence and racism?
As someone who has written a lot about my struggles regarding my distorted perception of myself, there are parts of my story that unfortunately were left out because of editing.

 As an artist, mentor, actress and story teller...I felt it was important to expand on the value of forgiveness. Many years ago in recovery one of the first books I read was a daily devotional book called Forgiving and Moving On. I read this book many times. I clearly understood what it meant to forgive others for the things that I had experienced in my life. Yet...It would take another twenty years to forgive myself for things I didn’t quite understand that were holding me back from growing as an adult

Our experiences shape the way we think, the choices we make and give us the opportunity to choose how we will react to them.

How are we as parents influencing our children to think differently about co-existing in a world of such high level of racism and tension?

As parents we know we must lead by example to guide our children to co-exist in a complex society we are living in today.

Don’t let your passed define you. Every day is a new opportunity to grow and evolve.

As I watched the movie Best of Enemies,  I thought about my personal experiences and what those experiences had on my life. If we all took a moment to watch this film and shared our experiences with each other I truly feel society would have more compassion and understanding for each other.

This is my story... I grew up in a mostly white school. However, we had just a fee blacks in our school. One of which was my very best friend. Her name was Latrinda Slater. My life was turned upside down when her father was called to duty and left the Ravenna Arsenal. I knew I would most likely never see her again. As kids we didn’t see color. We played equally and life was just...simple!!!

As I approached high-school, I had the complete opposite experience with our dance coach. Was it the color of her skin or a clash of the alfa females? I will never know.

As I gained my footing as a young adult and went off to dances and met boys It was made very clear that black boys liked me and their female friends “despised me”. This was a very difficult period of my life knowing I had lost a best friend who was also black. I felt completely misunderstood and targeted every weekend when I would meet my friends to go dancing. I know many of you can relate to this on some level. Even if it isn’t racially charged...middle school was just different. My perception of myself was changing and I hated it. This angered me but, even more so it made me sad for so many reasons! I didn’t look at blacks the way people talk about. It was as if I was being forced to change my perception based on how “I” looked.

During this time my father who had nothing more then a high-school education worked his way up the ladder at the Coliseum where all the huge concerts were held at the time. Then he became the VP of a program that trains individuals skills to get them off welfare. He worked 50-60 hours a week. He loved his job. He loved helping others feel like that had a purpose. During this time some of the students  stole his car with all our Christmas gifts in it and caught it on fire. This destroyed me. This was life changing...
I lived in fear. I began fasting and so the story of my eating disorder continued...

Over the next few decades I had some really amazing personal growth and experiences in the film industry that re-shaped my view of the world. Particularly when I worked on Alex Cross with Tyler Perry and Cicily Tyson. The entire cast and crew was amazing!

My hope is that by watching Best of Enemies society will realize we as adults have a lot of waking up to do! Addiction is at an all time peak!!! Nothing is to big to overcome. Sometimes we make it out to bigger then what it is in our mind. WE HAVE ALL GONE THROUGH SOMETHING....YOUR NOT ALONE!

No matter what you go through in life....forgiveness is a game changer!  Forgiveness keeps your heart open and your soul alive!


BEST OF ENEMIES IS IN THEATERS NOW🎥🎥🍿🍿




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