Our lives begin the day we are silent about things that matter - Martin Luther King, Jr.
I'm gonna start off like this... I'm not one to read all those self-help books. I actually think they're pretty silly and everything that's in them people already know already anyway. However, there has been one idea that I have talked about in the past that I did get the DVD for The Secret. Now I know a lot of people have heard of it and some get it and some don't.
I can completely understand that becasue what the secret doesn't tell you is how to get rid of the negative thoughts that we all have. Simple thoughts like, oh I'm not going to pass this test or I doubt they're going to give me the job, etc. It just tells you not to have those thoughts because that's what you'll get. Which I firmly believe.
I went to a booksigning yesterday that was sponsored by my job at EsoWon Bookstore. All I knew was the title of the book..Black Pain. I take that back I knew it was about depression but that's about it. Didn't even know the author's name. Was just going out as a business obligation sort of.
Anyway, once the Author came in I recognized her as the Author of a book that I read years ago and have tried to make a part of how I deal with people. The Personal Touch. The Author is Terrie M. Williams. Well now after she went through a dibilitating depression she wrote this book that discusses depression. She says that we all have depression and it all comes from something in our lives that we just have not dealt with. Well that's a given. But what she emphasizes is our finding out what these things are and talking about them. I guess I kinda did that with my previous post What's Inside?
Black people don't talk about our pain and this is what she stresses that we need to do. In my mind have have always known that much of our pain and depression stems from slavery. I know some white people might say oh here they go talking about slavery again but it was a pivitol event in our culture, that's shaped not only who we were but who we are today.
Think about this. Did you come from a family that always told you that they loved you? Many of us haven't. It's not that they didn't but more than likely was inherited from Slavery. Slaves couldn't express love freely to their loved as to either try to mask their pain of possibly never seeing a family member again or so that the vindictive master didn't take out his viciousness on our family members.
I haven't started reading Black Pain yet but I plan to...and I think that this book will be a good companion with The Secret in teaching me how to get rid of my Black Pain. Cuz I for one and tired of masking the pain that I have to endure 5 days a week constantly feeling like I have to prove myself to my white counterparts at the workplace whom I always more productive than without recognition.
Are you ready to rid yourself of pain?
4 comments:
I totally agree that we don't talk about our pain! It is either embarrassing or a shot to our pride. We seem to feel like loners and can manage ourselves but can't! Then we won't admit it...
I don't know about the pain of slavery. I can imagine it and I can see it being passed down from generation to generation. But there should be a time when that pain must be replaced by something more positive, otherwize we will just be left spinning in circles willowing in our own misery going nowhere.
Now if you want to talk about the pain of 21st Century racism and bigotry, the type that seeps insidiously into your bones and before you know it makes you wonder about the value of your own worth, then...
The past, no matter how long ago, can influence the present. Whether it be a person or a people. This I have never doubted because the evidence is in how many of us carry ourselves. So, I agree with you.
BTW,
Thank you. ;-)
You sure speak some truth here. Having to wear that "mask" everyday causes a weariness beyond description. Some days I can barely put it on. We carry our history around with us, 400 years plus, whether we realize it or not. I don't think people in this country realize the extent to which the legacy of slavery is rooted within us and within the american culture. I remember Henry Louis Gates once saying that if he were President, he would give every Blackperson a psychiatrist.
I also think Blackpeople don't want to talk about the pain of being Black because doing so is like thinking about slavery - you can't think about it for more than a couple of minutes because thinking about it at all is unbearable. So I write. It's the only thing I can do to make some sense of the chaos. It's very difficult to find people to talk to.
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