The powers that free - tapping the spirit within

THE POWERS THAT FREE

We have a power within us that defies imagination. If I'd accepted this truth earlier, I might have spared myself a lot of pain. But I believe that life is a journey. Sometimes you have to travel down some hard roads just to get to the main highway. Believe me, I did.

Everything I experienced in my early life told me that a dark girl like me wasn't worthy or lovable. My mother died when I was very young and my aunt raised me until I was 2. At that time I went to live with my father and his new wife in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. A numbers runner and gambler, my father lived in the streets. Without his protection and supervision, I was physically and sexually abused at various points in my childhood. When my father and his wife separated, my overwhelmed stepmother couldn't provide for me, and I was sent to live with an aunt whose husband was an abusive weekend drinker. Even though no one encouraged me, I managed to make good grades in school. But that wasn't enough. Feeling as low as I did about myself, I engaged in teenage sex as a way to get affection and attention. But instead I got my first child at 16. I was married at 18, and by the time I turned 21 I had three children and a physically abusive husband. I accumulated several black eyes, three fractured ribs, a broken jaw, a displaced uterus and something far worse: the death of my personhood. In a fit of depression, I attempted suicide.

I now believe I recreated my childhood experiences by choosing a husband who was every bit as abusive as many of the adults of my youth. When I tried to kill myself, I didn't realize that my life had a purpose that had not been fulfilled. But finally, after nine weeks on a psychiatric ward, the power within me rose up, and I decided to try living again. In spite of my enormous fears, I left my husband.

So there I was, a single mother with three children, no skills and no money. My only recourse was public assistance. I was ashamed of being a welfare mother, and in the beginning I fantasized about getting off welfare. But I had so little self-confidence that I believed it would take a miracle for me to become self-sufficient. On a very ordinary day, I found one.

Having received public assistance for eight long years, I'd gone to the welfare office for recertification. Sitting in the drab waiting room, I heard a caseworker say loudly, "You welfare mothers are a menace to society." My rage was so immediate that I was startled. And suddenly a thought popped into my head like magic: I'm outta here. It was like a chant. I'm outta here. An affirmation. I'm outta here. Those three words empowered me, taking up all the space in my mind, leaving no room for usual doubts and fears. I began to realize that I could reach my goal if I had a plan. And it was simple: I'd go to school, get a degree, find a job that paid enough money to support my family, and leave welfare forever.

That week I saw an ad in the paper that said: Come to Medgar Evers College. But when I asked my family to help baby-sit for me, they refused. "Why you wanna go to school?" they asked. For a moment I panicked. Then my mantra filled my mind: I'm outta here. I'm outta here. I went ahead and enrolled in school without asking myself how or why. Slowly and inexplicably the people I needed appeared in my life. I said good-bye to public assistance three and a half years later when I graduated from college summa cum laude with a B.S. in public administration and landed a job that paid more than my former caseworker made! And four years later I finished law school.

I am not the same person who grew up abused and dependent. My life changed when I got in touch with my spirit and the power that resides within me. For while I was changing my life intellectually, I began spiritual and religious studies, and this new knowledge propelled me forward. I found that the Yoruba culture, one of the ancient religious traditions of our African ancestors, gave me a strong feeling of connection to the universe. Although it may seem exotic to some, the Yoruba message to Black women is actually basic and universal: What goes around, comes around; whatever we give to life in thought, words and deeds is what we get back. Now I realize that when my mind was crowded with fearful thoughts my thinking condemned me to poverty--and that's what my life reflected.

In my present spiritual work as a counselor in the Yoruba culture, I see many sisters suffering from physical ailments, bad relationships and economic deprivation. I tell them that both the fault and the cure lie within. If our lives aren't working, I believe it is because we don't expect them to, and we send that message out to the universe loudly and clearly. And the universe is repaying us in kind.

I don't consider myself special in any way: It wasn't easy for me to get off welfare. As I started understanding my strengths, as well as the weaknesses that held me back, I began to think more positively, and my thoughts attracted good things that made my life better. That's when I began to heal myself.

The power I tapped is available to all of us. It is time to let go of worn-out thought patterns that create the words and deeds that limit us. It is time to release the power within and heal ourselves.

African-American woman are besieged. When we are stretched beyond our limits by obligations and demands from our husbands, lovers, children, bosses and parents, is it any wonder that sometimes our minds rebel, exploding into negative thought patterns that reveal the degree to which we feel desperate and frustrated? I have learned that healing our lives means cleaning up our minds. Here are a few of the thought patterns I believe we need to eliminate: * I don't deserve to be happy. Society tells African-American women that we don't have a right to happiness. A woman I've been counseling had dreamed all her life of owning a restaurant. She saved up the money herself, but then her husband vetoed the plan. Instead "they" decided to buy a house with her savings, and gradually the woman became more and more miserable. By the time she came to me for help she was ill, and her marriage was in jeopardy. When we talked she started to realize that her depression and ailments had begun when she and her husband had bought their home. For her that house represented the death of her dream.

It is classic for Black women to get into relationships and set aside everything to please a man. We tell ourselves that it's okay to accept less than we want. But instead of compromising our happiness, we must believe that we deserve what we want, whether that's a college degree, a caring husband or good health. * I am not beautiful. Out of touch with our culture, we pattern ourselves after whites. We experience frustration and even shame when our looks don't approximate the blond, blue-eyed standard of this nation. These ideas convince us that we aren't good enough and cause us to hang our heads. But we must start to see our own beauty, and when we do, the whole universe will see it, too. * I don't want others to have what I don't have. Since we don't think we deserve to be happy, we aren't generous and appreciative when someone else is. When Miss Sally says to your face, "I'm so happy for you!" she really means, "How dare you have the nerve to do this when I can't?" The oft-cited "crabs in the barrel" mentality stems from not wanting to be abandoned. At its most extreme, some sisters even sabotage the success of their own children, because they can't see themselves moving forward and desperately don't want to be left behind. When we truly believe we have the ability to change our lives, we can rally behind others who are progressing, knowing we are following our own paths. * My life is out of my control. Feeling powerless, we seek to control and possess whatever we can call our own. Worry is a form of control, and sisters certainly do enough of that. We worry that we can't pay our bills, that our man is going to leave, that our kids don't have the latest fashions. Instead, we must learn to expect good things and begin to trust our hopes, not our fears. * I need the approval and acceptance of others. We feel cut off from this society, so we overemphasize the need to belong. We do things that we know are not good for us in order to gain acceptance from those we seek to please. But to deny our own intuition and bow to the wishes of an all-important other is dangerous. When we trust others more than ourselves, we give someone else charge of our destinies. As the originators of mother wit and good common sense, we need to begin to look inward for our answers and our direction. * I deserve to be poor. Why are Black people afraid to think rich? It's almost as if we think money is bad or that having it indicates wrongdoing. We limit ourselves by dwelling on what we don't have and cannot do.

But we must keep in mind that every great accomplishment was once considered impossible. Think of Famous Amos. He managed to turn a pleasant hobby into a multimillion-dollar business because he learned to think beyond what he could see or touch. When we think thoughts of self-acceptance and self-love and flood our minds with our dreams, we soar. We must visualize our dreams and develop a plan for making them come true.

We are more than meets the eye. Our lives exist on four planes. As we begin to improve ourselves, we must be aware of these planes and keep them in balance: * Physical. We pay more attention to the physical plane than to any other. We feed and clothe our bodies and give them pleasure or pain. We like the way we look or bemoan our features. Many of us believe we are our bodies. But we are much more. * Emotional. We interpret our experiences through our emotions. When we hold on to negative emotions such as anger or frustration, we attract more of the experiences that caused the emotions in the first place. But when we let go of hostility and fill our hearts with love, the world will offer us love in return. * Intellectual. This is the rational, logical plane of our existence, the part of our being that won't let us walk into traffic. * Spiritual. This spiritual plane is the presence in us of a higher power--regardless of whether we call it God, the Creator or something else. By staying connected to the spirit, we receive truth and guidance. We must know and trust our spiritual selves in order to tap our own hidden power and move ourselves forward.

When we neglect any of the four planes, nothing works. For example, striving to accomplish something on the physical level while questioning and doubting it on the emotional level generally results in disappointment. If someone is trying to lose 50 pounds but really doesn't believe she can be fit and healthy, she is likely to sabotage her diet and remain overweight and unhappy.

We probably know how to take care of our physical selves (although many of us don't do it), but we must learn to care for ourselves on every level. We can take care of our emotions by being honest and forgiving and by expelling hate and jealousy. We must be true to ourselves about motives and feelings and not be clouded with false notions and expectations.

We can care for our intellect by using it for higher purposes and by letting our minds guide us, instead of listening to what others say is right for us.

Finally, and most important, we must care for our spiritual selves by acknowledging and accepting the existence of the Creator in our lives. That presence, when recognized, can give us protection, guidance and a sense of security and freedom from external forces. We must not burden our spirit with emotional and mental trash such as worry and denial. The key to a harmonious spirit is to accept and love ourselves and understand our mission on this planet and begin to fulfill it.

One way to strengthen the spiritual self is through communication with our ancestors. While I was in the midst of my turmoil, a friend of mine who practiced the Yoruba faith told me, "Call on your ancestors. Pray to them for strength." I didn't know then what in the world she was talking about, but I do now.

We can acknowledge our ancestors by practicing the rituals that gave them power. Family dinner, Sunday worship, wash day, shopping day--many of us have abandoned these simple ceremonies because of our helter-skelter lives. Especially in this land of computers and rockets, we must set aside a place for some of the basic, simple rituals and ceremonies that made our ancestors so strong and sure. We can call upon the spirits of our grandmothers and grandfathers through prayer and affirmation, and ask them for strength, guidance and energy. Don't think of this as weird ancestor worship, but as asking for help from a powerful source.

Tapping into our own power means bringing all four parts of our existence into harmony. With the spirit as a guide, our intellect will give us a plan. Our emotions will know the plan is right, and we will physically set out to accomplish our goals. We will be in tune and in time with nature and the elements. We'll be filled with a spirit that expects the best. And that is what we'll get.

Iyanla Vanzant, a Yoruba priestess and practicing lawyer, is working on a book about spirituality for Black women. Bebe Moore Campbell is the author of Sweet Summer: Growing Up With and Without My Dad (G.P. Putnam's Sons).

COPYRIGHT 1989 Essence Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group