Through My Lens: God's Timing Is Better Than Mine

                                            The light was there, even when I couldn't see it.

Photography by Andrea Stallworth | Brown Girl From Boston

Last year, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate the light shining in the various areas of my life because I was coexisting with darkness. I was hurting, grieving, searching, and trying to understand what God was doing in my life.

I often refer to that season as my Job season. Yet even in my brokenness, God never abandoned me. He did not shy away from my tears, my questions, or my pain. Instead, He stayed close and continued to shine His light on the places within me that needed healing, restoration, and growth.

As Psalm 34:18 reminds us:

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

Day by day, God began repairing the hidden places of my heart. He revealed wounds I needed to confront, lessons I needed to learn, and strengths I didn't know I possessed.

Today, I still don't have everything figured out, and that's okay. I've learned that God's timing will always be better than my own. What I do know is this: I have come to appreciate the many ways His light appears in my life. Sometimes it arrives as peace. Sometimes, as growth. Sometimes, as unexpected opportunities. And sometimes as a quiet reminder that He has been with me all along.

The darkness did not last forever. The light was there, even when I couldn't see it.

 

                                        Peace arrives when we stop rushing God's timing.

Photography by Andrea Stallworth | Brown Girl From Boston

Equipping U’s Sister Talks | Episode 37 | Living Vs. Thriving - How Do You Close The Gap?

Brown Girl July's Journal Prompts: Self-Improvement and Self-Determination

Journaling is an emotional and non-judgemental release done in a private setting. Journaling is a self-expressive and therapeutic tool to help with healing your inner self, reprogramming your self-talk, and rediscovering who you are, where you are currently at, and where you want to go. As a Clinician, licensed social worker, and Professor, I highly encourage my students in my various classes to journal to monitor growth, areas of self-improvement, trials, triumphs, aha moments, areas of healing, triggers, and trauma. Personally, journaling helps me to navigate the good, and bad, and life challenges and keeps me accountable to enhance my inner and outer self. 

Journaling can be a few words, a paragraph, or pages! It is all up to you, your energy, and the level of releasing you need while journaling. Journaling can be recorded via written content, visual content, or audio content. Challenge yourself to do a mixture of all three, especially if you are on the go and can't access your journaling notebook. Do not limit yourself and self-expression when it comes to journaling. It is the living document of your lived experiences. 

Drea's Entrepreneurship Intentions for 2017

New Year. Same Drea. More laughs. New Intentions and Less Bullshit! Yes, less bullshit. 
I have created a short, sweet, simple list for my intentions for 2017. I had to get it off my chest because until you learn the lesson the first time around, it will continue to repeat until you fully grasp the lesson at hand. Get your mind right, life right, business tight for 2017!

Drea's Entrepreneurship Intentions for 2017
1. Remember, if you want to pick my brain, a fee will be associated.
2. If you want to collaborate with me on a project, we are going on a date, I am evaluating your work and I am asking for references.
3. If we mutually decide to collaborate, legal binding contracts will be drafted.
4. I know my worth and I hope you know yours. I put my heart and soul into my work and if you don't respect that please keep it moving. 
5. Please don't play yourself nor waste time talking about you want to work with me and you can't even follow through with the prerequisites. 

Prices went up after speaking at The Massachusetts Conference for Women! Sorry not sorry! 

"No thank you very much
For those don't wanna pay me, but want a verse from me
It ain't getting no cheaper for you baby" -Rapsody, Thank You Very Much

What are your intentions for 2017?

Stop Wasting Valuable Time! (Video)

Manifesting Your Goals & Greatness for 2016: SMART Goals Printable Worksheets!

Shift Your Mindset from Poverty to Possibilities and Prosperity!

“When you can shift your inner awareness to how you can serve others, and when you make this the central focus of your life, you will then be in a position to know true miracles in your progress toward prosperity.”  -Wayne W. Dyer

Are you going through life basically struggling to survive, walking with your head down scared to look in the mirror and face reality? Many of us are striving to basically survive. Our mindset and our environment play a major role in our survival or thriving. Many of us possess a poverty consciousness which means we don't even like ourselves and we often validate ourselves through other poverty conscious people who also don't like themselves. We were not created to struggling, we were created to prosper.  

How is your mindset? Does your mindset match your environment? Is your mindset filled with suppression, oppression and lifeless?  Is it filled with life, hope, and prosperity?

Three ways to shift your mindset from Poverty to Prosperity:

1. The Power of Our Words:  The words we speak over our lives have power. Words become things and things have influences within our life. Therefore, if we keep proclaiming how poor we are, we will actually remain in a poverty state of mind and environment. We need to speak and receive positive words and let them enter into our life without a rebuttal. We need to surround ourselves with individuals who are going to pour truth, love, and vitality within our lives and we also need to provide the same to others. Optimism is key to shifting your mindset from poverty to prosperity.

2. People in Environment (PIE): As a young social work major, I remember learning about the Person in Environment (PIE). The person in Environment basically discusses how one will adapt to the environment that the individual is placed. If we are residing within an impoverished environment doesn't mean we have to possess a poverty mindset. We can still prosper within an improvised environment by shifting our mindset and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, courageous and hopeful.  You don't have to be a product of your environment! Even if you are in a prosperous state of mind, you could possess an improvised state of mind by being selfish, negative and playing the blame game blaming others for our current situation. Look at various people with riches and fame? They may be prosperous but many are existing with a poverty state of mind due to greedy, loneliness, and other toxicity within their environment. Being worthy instead of worthless!

3. Assessing your lonely thoughts: Many of us are afraid of being still and assessing our lonely thought! We rather go to war with others instead of attacking the warfare within our minds. How to be still in oversaturated, a digital world filled with microwaveable thoughts? Many people are afraid of being alone with their thoughts. Hence, why many people sleep with the television on. Always in need of a distraction because we are literally afraid of inner and lonely thoughts! We need to silence the negative chatter and focus prosperous thoughts and attracting prosperous people. 

Coaching question: When a particular thought enters into your mind, how do you react? Do you over-think it? If so get out of your head and enter into your heart and listen to your intuition? Write down feelings, emotions, and triggers?

Thank you for reading Brown Girl From Boston!

XOXO,
Andrea

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