Dem Timbs Though

"History is a potent tool used to undermine the self-worth of black children when the full history is untold."

We can pretend that we are not affected by what others say and we don't care. However, we are all humans with feelings. In today's episode,  I share additional gear you need to protect yourself from harm during the mining process representing self-worth, self-acceptance, self-respect, masculine & feminine energy, and self-love.

 
PROTECTIVE GEAR:

GOGGLES
Self-Worth

EARPLUGS
Self-Acceptance

STEEL TOE BOOTS (TIMBS)
Self-Respect

GLOVES  
Masculine & Feminine Energy

FIRST AID KIT
Self-Love

RESOURCES FOR OTHER PROTECTIVE GEAR:

Previous Episodes

Episode 5:  Tune in… to Intuition

Episode 6: You &Self Compassion

Episode 7: Let The Canary Sing

Episode 8: Are Your Lights Bright?

Episode 9: Pardon Me, Pardon You

References:

 https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/maslow-hierarchy-needs

 https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/esteem-maslow-s-hierarchy-of-needs

 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-love

Transcript

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Hello, I'm your host Charmaine and welcome to Beautiful JEMMS!

Host:  Well, hi there. I see you have your protective gear on which is great. You'll need it because I'll be sharing some experiences today that may trigger you. Before I proceed with the episode though. The Great Excavator asked to see first, just knock on the door over there.

[Knock Knock]

Voice of God: Well, hello. Thank you for stopping by my office. I'm happy to see you today. I hear you're doing quite well on the job from the site managers archangels, Michael and Gabriel. However, I like to check in regularly with my workers on an individual basis. Please keep that in mind. Today we are making sure that your protective gear meets regulations. Let's see here. You have the hard hat of self-compassion, check headlamp and heavy-duty lighting of thought. Check a canary for emotions. Check respirator of self-forgiveness, check. Durable workwear to forgive others check. Goggles of self-worth. Check. Earplugs of self-acceptance, check steel toe boots, better known as Timberlands of self-respect, check. Gloves of feminine and masculine energy check. First aid kit of self-love. Check. There is one thing Charmaine forgot to mention in her episode number five. Here's your walkie talkie. It's her direct to a communication link with me. The channel is already preset. Just make sure it's on. There you go. Tune in whenever you need to. It's called intuition. Charmaine.

Host: Yes.

Voice of God:  Let's get them up to speed on the protective gear of goggles, earplugs, steel toe boots, gloves, and that first aid kit. Then send them down to meet me in the mining site after you're done. Now you remember your walkie talkie. You'll need it to navigate the mind. And I'll see you soon.

Host:  This is phenomenal. You spent time with the great excavator God and got everything you need, including your walkie talkie of intuition. I'll make a note for the next person. It's probably best that you picked it up directly from God. I mean, who better to get your instructions from preset with no outside interference straight from the source. Now that's what I'm talking about. Okay, about those goggles of self-worth. Try them on. Are they clear? You know, when I first put them on, they were hard to see through, I had to adjust my eyes, especially when I went to the mind. They required constant care and attention. I found myself wiping them frequently, it will probably be the same for you. My self-worth as a black person, a woman and the many roles I play in life affected my sight. When you're digging for gems, and your goggles get dirty, that can be dangerous. Like most people, as a very young child, my sight was on par with a healthy sense of self-worth. I was learning how to use my goggles, then the life experiences of hard rock came at various stages from childhood through to adulthood, I had to learn how to care for my goggles of self-worth. Sometimes, I would need to replace and upgrade them, making the necessary adjustments to see clearly when I went mining. I knew a new set was needed when no matter how much I wiped, it wasn't clear, or it just didn't fit anymore. In one situation, I remember being in a relationship with a man who would be labeled today as an extreme narcissist. Almost every time I interacted with this person, I would feel bad about myself. Let me tell you, I do not use the word Narcissus lightly. If you have ever been in a relationship with one thing, you don't take it lightly either. This experience exposed cracks in my goggles of self-worth. I turned on my walkie talkie of intuition for guidance and was shown away out of that part of the mind. A great excavator directed me to build myself back up with a new set of goggles of self-worth. So when I went back into the same area of the mind to face the rocks of bad experiences and situations with the dust particles of unforgiveness, I can see clearly. Then I understood why the great excavator sent me back there so deep into the mind, because it was where the Hard Rock of all beliefs and foundations were. You see, they were the source of the problem from childhood. As I began to chip away at the Hard Rock, I wiped my goggles of self-worth, with questions like how do you truly see yourself? How are you perceived by others and affected by it? How am I seen as a black person, as a black woman by society? How are others influenced by this perception? And how does it affect me? What do I think about myself in relationship to being a black woman and to having a relationship with a black man? What I came to realize is that I was angry at myself for accepting some of the lies I was taught about who I am and angry at those who perpetuated those same lies, we can pretend that we are not affected by what others say, and we don't care. However, we are all humans with feelings. And technically, the only ones who are devoid of feeling for and about others are labeled as psychopaths, which is a small percentage of the world's population. As you keep digging up the hard rock of old beliefs and foundations, you will find pivotal childhood stories that you will need to see clearly. One such story for me happened when I was about eight years old. I had a day I will never forget. I went to an elementary school that was mostly white for the first time in my life. My mother had transferred me there because my grades were good. And it was a better school district. To say the least. It was a culture shock because I was used to seeing more black and Latino people in school than white people. This day, we were asked by a teacher to take out our history books. We have been studying European and American history. We learned about the kings and queens of England. Then about how Columbus had come over to America and Spain with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. We even had a play about it that year. The teacher told us which page to turn to. On this page, there was a black and white picture of black men standing in line with chains around their feet, hands and nets. The only clothes they had on look like underwear to me. The teacher began to talk about how Africans were brought over to America as slaves. After that, I didn't hear a word she said I had So many thoughts go through my head. I knew about slavery, but to see the dynamic contrast between the kings and queens of Europe, and the slaves brought from Africa. My feelings were more than hurt. I was sad, angry, embarrassed and ashamed. I sat at my desk crying in silence. While the teacher ignored me. I was hurt for the slaves in the picture, and humiliated at the same time. I did not understand at eight years old, all these mixed feelings. I went home and spoke to my mother, who assured me that our history did not begin with slavery. Just as she had explained to me before, we had a rich history of empires with kings and queens. It just wasn't taught in school. Unfortunately, damage had been done, and will continue throughout my formal education. It took years to heal this part of me to build my self-worth up, sometimes while it was simultaneously taken down by outside forces. What I've learned from this experience, history is a potent tool used to undermine the self-worth of black children when the full history is untold. The same black children turn into adults with distorted foundational beliefs, where issues of self-worth appear and their relationships with self and others. So when you go in to do the work of breaking this hard rock of all beliefs and foundations continued to wipe your goggles of self-worth, with questions similar to the ones I gave you earlier, clear sight will show you the areas of self-worth that need healing. Remember, you can only address that which you are aware of. As you go through your process, know that workers on the mining site will affect you understand, they are meant to play a role in your process. Like the example I gave you of the narcissist, you have two choices when dealing with them to be blind, stuck and stagnant in your self-growth, or to move forward and grow with the power of clear sight. All right, now that we made sure your goggles of self-worth are squeaky clean. Let's talk about the earplugs of self-acceptance, which actually ties in nicely because what you hear affects you just as much as what you see. In fact, when sight and sound are combined, whatever you are experiencing or learning is more easily absorbed for children all the more so I'll share another childhood experience with you. Today, it's commonplace to find black dolls. When I was growing up, though, that was not the case. Black dolls were not easy to find. And when parents did find them, they grabbed them quickly. The same happened for my mother when I told her I wanted a cabbage patch doll. She searched for it high and low and finally found a black one. So she took me to the store to adopt my doll. When we got there, she picked up the black Cabbage Patch Doll. I immediately told her no, I don't want that one. We went back and forth for a few minutes. My mother looked confused. She then asked, well, Charmaine, what do you want? I told her, I wanted the one with the red hair. You see, I already had this in mind before we got to the store. Why was my mother confused? Despite her best efforts to build me up as a little black girl. I didn't want that black doll. She had always gotten me black dolls in the past, and I love them. So it didn't make sense to her. Well, it made sense to me. Especially when I look back in hindsight, the images and sounds that I took him through various types of media, the experiences I had at school, and life in general created a distorted self-image. To put it plainly, I didn't want to be me. I didn't want to be black. My mother did her best to combat this growing self-hatred that I had never had before that time. The problem is, as I grew up, she couldn't protect me from the world which I became more and more exposed to daily. The world in general didn't have too many good things to say about who I was. Things were set up to do exactly what it was doing to me and everyone that looked like me. At that time. I didn't know its name, but I know it when I hear it now. systematic racism. Why do you need those earplugs of self except Since, because of the loud explosion of systematic racism, I hate to break it to you. But remember those workers in the mind? Well, there are different types of workers on this mining site. Unfortunately, some are saboteurs, and they come as agents to interfere in your process. One way they do this is by setting off explosions to collapse the mining shafts, where the most precious gems are found. They don't want you to know about it. So they can either take it for themselves, or to simply just cut you off, so you don't have access. So what do you do? Well, first, always have your walkie talkie intuition. The great excavator is aware of their every move. So He'll guide you through to the areas where he wants you to dig for your gems. Second, keep those earplugs of self-acceptance in your ear to protect your hearing. If your hearing has already been damaged, that's okay. You are giving your ears an opportunity to heal by popping them in. Did you happen to notice a theme and my two stories? Right? They are childhood experiences. I use these experiences. Because we are all more susceptible when our foundations are being built in childhood. This is where your allies come in as well. We're going to need help from them too. On the mining site. We won't go into detail about them here. But be sure though, we'll address allies and enemies in the near future so that you're prepared. In the meantime, you can start healing your hearing, with a few questions to start you off, then come up with some of your own. What have you heard growing up about you? Or about black people? How did this affect you? What beliefs have you heard growing up that you took on that are not your own? When did they become your beliefs and why? Now when you go to do this, and you answer these questions, all the other protective gear will be important. The hard hat of self-compassion, the headlamp of thought a canary for emotions, respirator of self-forgiveness durable workwear to forgive others, goggles of self-worth and again, your walkie talkie of intuition. Remember, if you need a protocol refresher, go back to episodes numbers five through nine. Okay, next on the list them Tim's Dow or steel toed boots have self-respect. What do they do? They protect the toes, and we need our toes right. They provide balance, stability, support and grounding when we walk while our toes keep us standing tall. The steel surrounding them in the boot creates a boundary, the boundary of self-respect. Unfortunately, I've seen some workers go to the mining site without steel toed boots, injuring themselves badly. Why? Remember those saboteurs I spoke about? Well, they can interfere through misinformation or hiding information. Think about it. If you hurt your feet, you hurt the very part of you. You need most to stand your ground or to move and take any kind of action. At the very least it disables you, making it harder for you to mine your gyms. Oh, you want me to explain how that can happen? All right. I know I said wait to talk about allies and enemies. But this has to do specifically with the steel toe boots of self-respect. So have you ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It's a psychology theory suggested by Abraham Maslow. It refers to five different stages of human needs, that when met, make an individual come fully into their true potential. So, picture a triangle. The stages start from the bottom and go to the top. The first level is physical needs. This is basic human needs like food, water shelter, for example. The second level is safety needs. This has to do with your personal safety, lawn order jobs, schools, a need for peace versus war. The third level of belonging This deals with a feeling of belonging and acceptance. So socially within your community, and your relationships with family, friends and others. Fourth Level Up this thing. There are two types of esteem here, a lower esteem and a higher esteem. The lower-level esteem refers to being respected and recognized by others, closely tied to the third level of belonging. The higher esteem refers to self-respect, believing in and building yourself up, having dignity, holding yourself in high regard. Only when you go through these four stages, will you be able to reach the fifth level of self-actualization, which is fulfillment of your true potential. The goal for everyone is to reach this last final level and live there so to speak. Well, what happens when some of the needs and these five stages are unmet? Right, you never come into your true potential. Remember that explosion of systematic racism? Well, the saboteurs can set them off at any level they choose. So if they target levels one through three, by creating the conditions of poverty, unsafe neighborhoods, financial instability, access to unhealthy foods, and a racially biased academic system, why would these workers be focused on the fourth level of esteem, high esteem at that, wearing the steel toe boots of self-respect? What did you say, you know, some that do wear these boots in those conditions? You're right. In my experience, one big reason why is because they took the time to self-educate, they made sure to know their protocols. So this is key to build and self-respect. Educate yourself. Also, you can build yourself respect and respect for others in your community by sharing knowledge, not only book knowledge, but your experiences. This interconnectedness, strength strengthens and reinforces just like the steel in those boots. This is why I share my personal experiences with you. I'm sure there's someone out there that identifies and if not, that's okay, too. It may help them to understand someone they know in their circle. Being open to learn about yourself and others without judgment can empower you and other workers to fend off the saboteur. So we spoke about the protective gear for your fee. Now, what about your hands, this may be a no brainer, but you need the protective gear of the gloves of masculine and feminine energies to work through the mind. You see these gloves come as a pair for everyone, the right glove of masculine energy and the left glove of feminine energy. Of course, you want to have both gloves on at the same time. And most of us will favor one hand and glove over the other by using it more. That's okay. As you use them. Sometimes the inner work in the mind will require the action of the masculine right glove, and another times it will require the rest and nurture of the feminine left glove.

If you want to change something for example, you may journal your thoughts, see a pattern, create a plan and then execute it. When you do this, you are using both feminine and masculine energies. By sitting with your thoughts. Seeing a pattern and planning you are in your feminine energy. When you take action to execute the plan. This is your masculine energy. Balanced use of your gloves of masculine and feminine energies will aid you throughout the process. Find your rhythm and flow. So the last piece of protective gear we are going to review is the first aid kit of self-love. With all the explosions and rocks falling in the mining environment. This will definitely come in handy. Whether we realize it or not. We all have the innate ability to heal ourselves with the first aid kit. There are a few definitions of self-love I like one is proper regard for and attention to one's own happiness or well-being. That's because even though the mining process is hard, it's rewarding. Many workers don't bother taking this in the mind with them. They just toughed it out and get through. Let me tell you there is nothing like having the supplies you need and this self-love first aid kit to soothe your soul. like Al Green said, with love and happiness. It may be last on the checklist, but its value is high. Just like you are worth it. Treat yourself as such. Let me tell you one more story. Sometimes in life, you have to remix the lies you were fed about you with the truth, to dance to a new be somewhere around junior high, you know where most of us go through an awkward phase, I really started to see people for who they are including adults. I knew what I was taught in school, what was on TV, what society may have said about being black, but it didn't resonate with me. I remembered my perspective as a younger kid, when I was protected from the world. Then I gathered the experiences I had with my family and those within the black community. It still did not match. I saw people that others admired and secretly hated, or the opposite, hated and secretly admired. I saw those within our community who had hearts bigger than they gave themselves credit for. It hurt to see some of them buy into the lies, they were told, just like me. On the other hand, I admired those who just seem to know how to fly despite their situation. Self-growth had always been important to me, even though I didn't label it that back then. Seeing people in the black community both encouraged and saddened me at times. But through deciding to see myself and others for who we are, I started to remix the lies I was fed with truth about being black, what it meant to me. And what I saw in us, beauty. Unbeknownst to me, I saw gems and knew they never left. No matter what we went through how we were treated, or even treated each other. We had a natural raw shine that no one could take away. And I knew that this is where the admiration and jealousy of others came from. So that first aid kit, I grew to learn how to use it on myself, and so will you to wrap up the protective gear. If you notice, I did not give you specific techniques to work on today with the protective gear of goggles of self-worth. Earplugs of self-acceptance, steel toe boots, better known as Timberlands of self-respect, gloves of masculine and feminine energy, and the first aid kit of self-love. The reason why is because to thrive in these areas, you must be honest with yourself to see and hear with clarity, then stand in that same place with strength, dignity, and a fierce love of who you are. As you are now the goal of protective gear as a whole is to protect what's of highest value which is you. The thing is that you have to know you are valuable enough to put it on. Yes, we talked about how to use the protective gear. However, it can only be used if you believe you are good enough to use it. That my dear friend is your decision. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I pray that you build your relationship with God. Love yourself unconditionally and put in the work to mind refine and shine those JEMMS!