You Were Created for This and More: Reimagining Higher, Frustration is Teacher

I woke up this morning frustrated as hell. It could be because Mars entered my sign of Cancer on August 11, or simply the state of the world: a completely crazed political system, the continued complete disrespect of Black bodies, the media’s silence of fresh, ‘strange fruit hanging from Poplar Trees,’ or my constant encountering of folks who talk liberation, imagination, and community who lack the will do the work and each requires real work.

Truth be told, I think I have been in an almost constant buzz of frustration for a couple of years.

Now, we know that several states can exist at once and none can be held constantly. In these last two years, I have experienced entrepreneurial stagnation, incessant internal questioning about purpose, place, and impact; the deaths of friends gone too soon and mentors whose lives were well lived. We have collectively experienced the retrogressive turn of this country that would have us perish in an old past rather than flourish in a new future. Concurrently, I have experienced deep moments of happiness, joy, contentment, inspiration and revelation. Indeed, we are a multitude.

The true frustration comes from a feeling of being stuck in the mud of life—being where you are (and being grateful for it) while also desiring and feeling pulled toward more. The call of the more beckons, its light visible through the viscous mud and its soothing warmth felt in contrast to the cool mud. Yet, the more you struggle in the mud, the more deeply entrenched in the mud one becomes. The true frustration is knowing that you were both made to rise from the mud of the current circumstance and created for more, but not being able to move toward the more at speed and the velocity that you would like.

As I write, the image of the lotus becomes clearer and clearer. The mud—nutrient rich—is a place of growth and strength anchoring it to this plane and protecting it from the various storms and dis-ease it is sure to encounter. The mud is gestation before the blossoming. Perhaps, this period of my life and maybe yours too is gestation, protection before the blossoming.

I am always grateful for protection that I did not know I needed.

What a beautiful thought, but it does not ease the frustration one bit.

Deep breath. And another. And another.
Freedom is my birthright and ease is my resting post.

We Have Never Not Been Held By Universe
I was talking with a dear sister-friend last week in a marathon Friday morning convening of minds and spirits. We all need sister-friends and conversations like the one I had last week—they pierce the veil and feed the soul.

In the conversation, we reminded one another that there has never been a time when we—you or I—have not been held by the Universe. As I often say, there is not one storm that you or I have encountered to this day that we have not weathered.

The mud. Earth. You and I are earth held, together, by the Universe.

Sit here and with this for just a moment.

Deep breath of gratitude.

In our conversation, she reminded me that it was time to turn my own practice of imagining and reimagining back upon myself. She is right.

Is it not always the case that we teach most what we need to practice?

The frustration, I am realizing, is not that I have failed to imagine my life and therefore, create it.. But I have failed to reimagine it, and create it anew in the dynamic process of onto-evolution.

That is, while I am assisting clients of all types in imagining and reimagining, I have forgotten to turn that energy back onto my own life. To practice critical imaginative reflexivity; to build a new room, change locations, buy new furniture rather than rearranging furniture in the room of life and calling it new. I failed to imagine beyond the limits of my current circumstance, location, entrepreneurial positioning, definitions of freedom and success and fullness. I have done what Uncle Jimmy Baldwin and Aunt Audre had asked us all to do, ‘to define myself for myself’ and while the definition is expansive, yes; it must be revisited frequently because this too is a practice. But, even as expansive as it may be, is it stuck at the edges of societal acceptability; is it formed in an image not of my own making or likeness because I have failed to both embrace the mud and imagine beyond?

It just may be that the frustration is the energy necessary to catalyze the new; an affective response that moves from intuiting to knowing that one is meant for more. If you are like me or the audacity of rooted things, then you know the buzz of frustration will not allow you to sit idly—it forces us to move toward the light: our highest good and greater calling.

No mud, no lotus.
The more beckons.

Deep breath of embrace.
Thank the frustration; it is teacher.

By Now
I came across a clip on Instagram over the weekend of a dialogue at an event of three Black women entrepreneurs. The clip focused on the woman seated at the center between the other two and what she said stopped me in my tracks.

In summary, she said, the thing that is blocking most of us; the thing that is damming up the flow of our lives, keeping us stuck mired down in the mud of life is one simple phrase, “By now.” She says, ‘by now’ is killing us.

I sat with the clip and this image, and realized the number of ‘by nows’ I was recalling to myself on a daily basis. Ahhh, the ultimate source of my frustration!

And she is right. Again, I am realizing more and more that the ‘by now’ is actually a failure to reimagine.

Remember, reimagination is a second-order imaginative practice; it goes beyond simply imagining and asks us to consider:

What becomes possible, intelligible, actionable if the assumptions producing the present reality were no longer taken-for-granted or treated as inevitable?

The ‘by now’ tells me that I have done the first-order work of imagining. It tells me that I have done the work of conjuring a vision for my life, but have come to take that vision as static; I have come to treat that imaging as inevitable. And it is killing my spirit because while the conditions around me have changed; I am clinging to a vision that can no longer exist without being re-imagined in these new conditions.

This image of the lotus in the mud with the ability to perceive streams of light and fill the warmth of the sun, while being anchored to some thing or idea that keeps it submerged. This image is me today and I bet it is some of you too. I sat with the clip and this image, and realized the number of ‘by nows’ I was reciting to myself on a daily basis. The effects of this recitation can be devastating to the spirit and psyche.

Ahhh, underneath the ‘by nows’ is the ultimate source of my frustration: Knowing you were created for more—to meet this moment and the future with your giftedness—while enduring the utter exhaustion of toiling in this purgatory of emergence, stuck in the now, ready to move on to the more: to feel the warmth of sun and blossom fully in the light of day.

Deep breath.
With a silent scream, release your ‘by now’ image.
Deep breath.

Welcoming the More, Embracing the Now
Today, I am welcoming the more in a new way and I am working to embrace the now.

Again, to reimagine is to engage in the critical and generative practice of returning to and dwelling in an inherited reality to expose the assumptions, mental models, states of being, and imaginaries that make it that reality appear inevitable, and then working to configure it otherwise toward a different horizon of possibility.

The same energy and expertise that I give to my clients, I am gifting it back to myself. I am releasing myself from the ‘by nows’ and embracing the ‘it will come’. I know it will surely come—all of it—in its own time, at its own speed and I will help it emerge by embracing the preparation phase of the now and acting toward the vision I have (re)imagined.

It is through the practice of (re)imagination and the works of our hands that we have the power to create new worlds and make real new realities and futures. Toni Morrison reminded us, if you cannot imagine it, then you cannot have it.

As I watch others flourishing and living into their fullness, I relish in their delight and understand that being veiled is different from being hidden. The lotus teaches the necessity of consecrated hiddenness before emergence.

Even through the frustration, I embrace the now and welcome the more.

May your frustrations become fuel for imagining, reimagining, and creating new futures.
May you embrace the present with gratitude.
May you welcome the more.
May every lesson in this season be learned to perfection, so that it is not repeated in the next.
May we make justice real.
May you know the Universe holds you, always.