Because joy is your birthright ..........December 4th, 2009IN THE RAIN FOREST .....THE WATERFALLNiama Leslie Williams, Ph.D.Copyright September 2009859 wordsfor josephIt is that his faith is an immovable rock, and his satisfaction, his confidence, his pleasure is in me. I look at the stack of bills, the empty bank accounts, the two days of work coming and no money for gas, and I see failure, that all too familiar "What am I doing wrong?" stick drawing bloody streaks from my hide.I wanted to lie down, curl up in him and sob, let him comfort me. Busy with God's inspiration, writing a message for a bright and sunny twenty-six-year-old whose lung transplant gave up after only two years, he is occupied, and I sit silently, turn my back to him, tears rolling down my face but no shuddering, no sound.A momentary respite of comfort as I rinse out a dish in the kitchen, his arms open wide and his neck warm, soft, but we have this one-sided conversation too often and I know the fault lies with me. He evinces a faith and contentment I cannot reach and I turn away aggrieved, saddened, enraged once again with myself, determined to do something different.And that, dear faithful reader, is the key: the decision to do something different.Michelle, my #1 business coach and apostle-in-training, confirmed what all of the new spiritual leaders are saying: the Secret is true; you must focus on what you do want, not on what you don't. I hate that ideology, that spiritual truth for a hot minute because I want to scream to God "reduce the bills; evaporate the debt" and not have the Universe only hear "debt." I want to be able to scream to God in my language, from my desperation, and not have to constantly, consistently work on focusing my mind.Yet Universal Laws are what they are, and I knew without going deep down that the fault lay in my thinking. So I chose to do something different. I lay down, carefully and with set intention, the "What am I doing wrong?" cudgel. I put it in a nice flower box in which had come long-stemmed roses, covered it in the finest, roughest white tissue paper, and sealed that puppy with Death Ray Magic Visible Tape.Death Ray Magic Visible Tape glows bright yellow around whatever it seals off and it seals within an inch of your life. Takes a death ray to remove.I sealed that puppy in his tomb and left him in there squirming, breathless and very uncomfortable.Then I went to my computer, my beloved eMac, and clicked play on that Abundance and Success teleseminar I'd stumbled upon while listening to Raven Blair Davis the other day. Soon Jennifer McLean and her several "Heal Your Life, Heal Your Business" guests were talking and meditating me into a better frame of mind.One of them, a woman whose name I don't remember, had us envision a place of abundance. I was filing as I listened to the teleseminar, but paused, took a deep breath, and let my inner dream-maker take a run. Within a millisecond I was standing by a pool of beautiful light-green water, my abundance water, and the air was cool, the sunshine bright, the vegetation rich and green and plentiful, and the pool with its nearby waterfall babbling peacefully in my ear.The new information that I needed? The glitch represented by my frequency with the cudgel? I dunked a boisterous, clear, bar half-glass into my pool of abundance and tried to drink. The water was like acid on my tongue. The teleseminar was talking about beliefs that no longer fit. I thought, desperate and shocked, I'm choking on my own abundance water? This is information I need!I quickly reviewed possible reasons for my body's rejection of the nourishing green drink and like past events that have truly faded into a more pleasant present, none of them seemed to fit: it had nothing to do with my mother's possible inability to balance a checkbook or my father cheating her out of thousands in the divorce. None of that relevant; no emotional tweaks or pangs as they floated by on the memory. Absolutely no relevance. About then, the teleseminar coached to take a deep breath, and I did.And the something different burst into flower.Suddenly, I saw myself stepping under the waterfall, into its dark cool wetness much as I would step under the showerhead to feel the water pour over my hair, neck, and stream down my back. Suddenly I was stroking my hair and head and arching my back as I do everyday and opening my mouth to gulp my own pure abundance water.As I had suspected, the problem lay with me. The cudgel now wrapped and put away, the waterfall at the ready to be summoned and to soothe.Tomorrow I hear back from a man who has capital and is looking for companies in which to invest. I also meet with a business consultant at Temple's Small Business Development Center.It will be a good day. I've showered in and drunk my pure green loving abundance; my thirst is sated and my mind is fertile.Love and peace,Dr. Niama L. WilliamsBlowing Up Barriers EnterprisesNorristown, PennsylvaniaAS THE HOLIDAYS ARRIVE .....Remember that love is a gift given freely and by choice. As entrepreneurs we exist to satisfy the needs of our clients, and as an intuitive counselor, I am sensitive to my clients for whom the holidays are still problematic.One of the greatest gifts I took away with me from 12-step meetings were the concepts of families of origin and families of choice. For many of us, our families of origin are toxic for our mental and emotional health. I live, quite happily, in the Northeastern region of the United States because at a critical time in my life I needed geographical distance from my family of origin. Such distance was essential if I was to survive.Many call this "doing a geographic," and I am here to tell you, sometimes it works. 3,000 miles of nation gave me the safe distance and perspective to work out who I wanted in my life and to what degree. I was able to think clearly about whom I wanted to interact with and who was dangerous in terms of my mental health.As the holidays arrive, many of us feel "forced" into visiting and spending time with family. You may be a corporate king, but Mama's whining will have you on Priceline.com in a New York minute purchasing a ticket home. You may have worked all year planning to send your father the best Christmas present ever, but one bark from him and you are heading home with your stomach in knots and your holiday season already ruined.Don't do it. Just don't do it.Use the same steel you found in your back to make those cold calls to eventual customers. The same steel you found to call on that fifteenth bank that eventually funded your loan. Listen to that same "Inner Winner" as Mark Victor Hanson and Richard G. Allen call it that told you this, this was the business idea to follow.The holiday season is yours, YOURS, to do with as YOU please. It is a time of renewal and celebration, and if time with your family is not going to be pleasant for you, you have your answer: your holidays need to be spent elsewhere.Take your power back. Do what you need to do.My spiritual transformation began when I started fantasizing about spending the week between Christmas and New Year's in a cabin in the woods, alone, just me and my Maker. I never got to that cabin, but I did develop a case of walking pneumonia so severe the emergency room physician instructed me to go nowhere, and I do mean NOWHERE.One final word: this is not dishonoring your father or your mother. If being in their presence is not healthy for you, you will not be honoring them to spend the holidays in their presence. You will be directly corrupting your personal relationship with God. He knows and sees all, and will see right away the misery and stress building up in your heart.Lying to yourself and your family is not loving the Lord.Enjoy your holiday season. That is why it was created.AboutJUST FOR ENTREPRENEURS is a publication of Blowing Up Barriers Enterprises, founded by Dr. Niama L. Williams and Rev. Joseph W. Massey of Norristown, Pennsylvania.The publication grew out of frequent mailings to women Dr. Ni met at a Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network event. It has no affiliation with WEEN though the founders support WEEN's agenda and mission.JFE exists to inform entrepreneurs of opportunities that could improve or grow their businesses as well as to share personal essays about the stresses of entrepreneurship.For more information about Blowing Up Barriers Enterprises, please visit our company website: BUB-E website. You will see all of our books, memoirs, poetry, workshops and counseling services.{!contact_address}
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