ProtectSHUN

When we hear the word fear it makes us feel a way. Even worse when we hear the word insecurity. These two aren’t even part of our daily vocabulary. Reason being is because we all have one thing in common; shunning away our emotions because we think that we are protecting our fears & insecurities. This cycle has been popular for far too long & it’s about time that we change that. Getting to the root of why we jump to protecting our emotions will not only tell our insecurities to have a seat, but it will eliminate our fear of protecting ourselves from life experiences that actually help us rather than harm us. 

Just the thought alone, of dealing with why we feel a way about something or someone, is too much for us. Who has time for that? When someone has said or done something to us that goes against who we are, we jump to one of three things; exploding with emotions that shows just how much we are not in control, putting on a mask to cover up how we really feel or leaving the scene all together. The common denominator for all three is the avoidance of actually dealing with our emotions. Instead of shunning them away, we must become familiar with the question of “Why?”. Why is it that when someone speaks on our bitterness, we instantly are ready to rip them a new one? Is it because we know how hard we have worked to break the generational curse of anger, jealousy & unhappiness? We sometimes forget that some of the emotions that we carry around aren’t even ours. It runs in our bloodline so deep that we lose sight of it. Not realizing that it’s even there. This is why in order to protect it we must first acknowledge it. Once we have opened the door to acknowledging it, then we can begin to have a better innerstanding as to why it was even there in the first place. Protection starts with us. We have to become clear with ourselves about what parts of our being we want to protect. If we know our roots to our insecurities & fears then doesn’t it make it easier to protect them? 

As women there are a few insecurities that we share, including the feeling of being taken advantage of. Whether it’s at work, in our relationships, or just simply getting back the correct change at the grocery store; we have all experienced a “don’t do me like that” moment. Then there’s the insecurity about our worth. Oh yea, that’s a big one. We put up a fight for our worth so many times that we sometimes have no more fight in us. Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves because we have forgotten our power in eliminating that insecurity. We forgot because we started listening to what others were telling us about our worth, forgetting that we are the creators of our lives, not them. This then leads us to the door of our next huge insecurity; failing. Failing not only in our everyday lives, but as a woman too. Now the door of ‘fear of being open to experiences that adds to our lives rather than taking from it’ is open as well. Oh boy, do we see how this cycle of events leads us down a rabbit hole of emotions that we simply rather not deal with? Yet, they are all capable of becoming nonexistent through one action; our power of choice. 

By making the decision to protect our insecurities & fears through acknowledging & dealing with them, we illuminate the energy of getting rid of them for good. After the step of acknowledgement there’s this crazy thing called crying that may happen. You know, that one thing that you “better not let anyone see”. This has been such a generational loop of words that we will even beat ourselves up for crying behind closed doors; where we stuck to the code! So now, not only do we have to deal with the beating ourselves up part, but now we have to deal with whatever caused us to get behind that closed door in the first place. We have to remember that crying is a form of healing. That is why your body reacts in one of two ways; relieved or exhausted. The relief is because the tears have washed away the emotion that came with the insecurity or fear. The exhaustion is because there is now a period of rest needed due to all that baggage you were carrying. I bet you’ll listen to “Bag Lady” by Erykah Badu a little differently now. Maybe even play it the next time that you need to release an insecurity or fear; music is always a good healing tool. Familiarizing ourselves with ways to heal, shines the light on no longer needing to shun away our emotions. Turning protectSHUN into power (because we decided to choose to face our fears & insecurities), is a strength that we all possess ..we just needed to be reminded of it. 

We were never born to just always feel like we have to protect ourselves. Life has so much to offer us, but if we are constantly shunning away from those experiences that allow us to grow (facing ourselves), then we will never enjoy those offers. Part of living is going through challenges, hardships, hurdles and a bunch of experiences that we will not like. So let’s make the choice now to get over that because it will make our lives just a tad bit easier. If we continue to allow fear to control our choices then all we are doing is creating unwanted experiences. Remember that not only do we attract what we want, but that we also attract what we don’t want. The difference is that one is fear based & the other is not. Fear holds no space for protection, it does the opposite. It leaves us open to negativity and guess what sis; society already gives us enough of that to deal with. The strength of protection will open doors for us to remember our voices & confidently speak on our insecurities. This will allow other women to remember their power, face themselves, learn themselves, love on themselves & most importantly BE themselves (unapologetically living through their fears to protect their birth right of living like the fearless Queens that we are).