Shadow Work Sunday: Entry 1

  

So my best friend and business partner, Queen of Spades (AKA, The Unleashed One), invited me to be a part of something called "Shadow Work".

For those of you who don't know what Shadow Work is, it s a spiritual venture to explore self-healing and spiritual wholeness. During the Shadow Work experiment, Queen and I will be addressing one question per week that dives deep into our soul outlook on various topics.

This speaks loudly to my heart because at my core I am a very spiritual person. As some of you may also know, I am a psychic. However, throughout my life I have faced some adversities that have made it very difficult to reach my spiritual matrix and apex. Something moved me to want to participate in this Shadow Work venture so as to mend that break and hopefully obtain what I so desperately yearn for.

With that said, let's dive right in. Here is this week's question ...

What cliché makes your stomach turn and why? Is it the inaccuracy or the accuracy that bothers you?
The Unleashed One
The way I'm going to start this will make you think of Miss Sophia from The Color Purple, but the sentiment is how I've felt throughout my life.
All my life I've had to fight.

I have had to fight against a narrative crafted by others due to my origins. You see, my mother was extremely young when she got pregnant with me. This played into the cliche of "Girls from teenage mothers become teenage mothers themselves".

On top of that, my mother did not graduate from high school, also producing another belief, "Children who are products of high school dropouts end up not finishing school."

At a very young age, my mother moved away, leaving her parents to raise me and concerns about "how well adjusted I would be, due to lack of mother and father".

It made me feel as if it was me against the world the moment I came out of the womb. I already felt aged. There wasn't that carefree ambiance of my spirit because I felt the pressure ... the residual left behind from the pain of the past. Restraint was placed on my actions to prevent a repetition of history. A history that caused my grandparents a great amount of pain that my mother probably did not factor with her decisions.

Girls from teenage mothers become teenage mothers themselves.

This statement is a bit of a double-edged sword. There is accuracy in the statement, particularly for people of color. It is hurtful because although there's more birth control available, there's still those who don't use it or who aren't using it properly.

The percentage is greater in the South (where I'm from), particularly those areas who constantly preach abstinence, leaving teens to sneak around and have sex instead of being able to have an open dialog with their parents about the subject. I believe that abstinence is something to strive for, even waiting until marriage, but for many, it is unrealistic, simply because of peer pressure and overall curiosity. Therefore, it's better to get one prepared, in the event that it does happen.

For me, my mother getting pregnant so young was a teachable moment. It was a teachable moment on what not to do. Maybe it was the empathic connection I had with my grandparents and my surroundings that drove that point home. Hyperfocus was placed on education and extracurricular activities. I was busy fighting a narrative, a narrative I refused to let the neighborhood or society place on me.

Children who are products of high school dropouts end up not finishing school.

Pregnancy is one of the main factors why a teenage mom drops out of school. However, the automatic assumption that the child will also be a high school dropout upsets me. Not only did I finish high school with honors, but I also continued on to college, making me a 1st generation college student. I even graduated from college.

I don't think a person should be counted out based on poor beginnings. Not every person is suppressed by the environment. Some are able to thrive and make the best of things. 

Children who aren't part of a two-parent household (mother and father) aren't as well adjusted as those who do.

It's the inaccuracy of this one which makes me shake my head. 

This standard bothers me because it places too much focus on presence rather than participation. Let me see if I can elaborate.

Just because a mother and father are in the home together, it doesn't mean it is a happy home. Mom and Dad could constantly be fighting. There may be a situation where one or both parents have to constantly work, barely having time for their children. Is it really better for Mom and Dad to stay together, to keep up appearances because a two-parent household is more beneficial than the alternative?

To be honest, it's a toxic narrative. Children pick up the message to endure, even if they are miserable. It teaches them that their happiness isn't as important in their relationships as "the look" ... the look that everything is copacetic.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that single parenting isn't rough. In fact, it's highly difficult. But it is better for children to see a parent that is happy by one's self than in a relationship but is miserable.

I did miss out on having talks with my mother about boys, although I was more invested in books than boys (and still am