I have been volunteering at NC Works for a while now. Because of my incarceration, I know how hard it is to find a job when you get out. You have a record. You’re unhireable. The scary “have you been convicted of a felony” box is checked and you’re going to be questioned about it.
Being arrested and serving actual jail time was the hardest thing that I ever had to endure – then life decided to make me homeless afterwards. Surviving all of that and now thriving in my own place with everything I need comfortably, has been a HUGE blessing. I was a professional HR manager for over 20 years, and I know because of my record I can never work in my field again, so the least I can do is give back to those who are in need – and God willing, I hoping to obtain a career somehow, doing this kind of work that I love so much.
Knowing all that I know in Human Resources, and after conducting literally thousands of interviews in my life, I know what employers are looking for, and I know how to survive an interview. I know how to make someone hireable, confident, and help make an interview go seamlessly with the tools to get past that “criminal record.”
It’s most valuable thing I can give to those just coming out of jail and prison – just giving the knowledge of how to navigate finding a job, especially if they have been incarcerated a long time and have NO idea of how to do this. It is the greatest gift to me to have someone, (after taking my free class), tell me that they landed a job, or aced an interview, when they thought they would fail miserably.
It’s a job I do for free selflessly, and I love what I do.
Today’s most important lesson: Learning to Love oneself. I have a hard time with this one because of how much negativity surrounds my sense of self and being. Being sober now almost 4 years, I have learned to take great pride in myself and accomplishments. Acts of self-love are truly necessary – the manicures, pedicures, taking myself out on a date – these are all things that has helped me understand how truly special I am.
Falling in love with yourself is a gift, one I don’t take lightly or take for granted. It is important to do acts of love for yourself, even if it is in a small way on a daily basis. Having a clean apartment, or room, is an act of love that most people don’t even think about. An environment of cleanliness can boost one’s mood and invokes a sense of accomplishment which shows how much your love yourself. Cooking a healthy meal out of love for your body is also very important. Positive reinforcement, (having loving notes to yourself on the fridge), can make you feel good about yourself every time you see it. These are all learned behaviors that take time and practice to implement, but the repetitiveness of it can yield positive results.
Never forget that with all the negativity around us, it is up to us to make a positive bubble of our sense of self to keep us happy. Outside influences are fleeting because inner strength comes with a lot of self-reflection and work. I am guilty of not following these principles because I let people, places and things affect my inner joy – I need to be stronger in my self-conviction if I ever want to achieve true happiness.
Out of all my accomplishments in my life – being sober is what I most proud of. It changed everything about the quality of my life, especially the impact it has had on my mental health. I have struggled with bipolar disorder for so many long years, and I never stopped to think that it had anything to do with all my drinking. But taking bipolar pills early in the morning, then waiting for them to wear off, drinking all afternoon, waiting to sober up, and then taking more bipolar pills to go to bed at night, is the ultimate definition of insanity. THIS IS NOT NORMAL AT ALL FOLKS. Doing that same routine for many years, is EXACTLY how I was in and out of all the mental institutions in New York for many, many years. This is how I destroyed myself; this is how I suffered and endured so much pain.
It’s only after coming to North Carolina, going to jail, then spending almost 2 years homeless and in the recovery community, did I realize it was the addiction that was the cause of all my problems, stress, heartaches, headaches, and overall poor quality of my life.
Being sober is the best thing I have ever done with my life. I am so grateful for surrendering when I did, giving my addiction over to God, and having Him take it from me.My life has changed so much, being almost 4 years sober, and I couldn’t have imagined a better life today compared to what it was 10 years ago. I have my family, my friends, a wonderful healthy relationship with an amazing boyfriend, a path to an amazing career, and an independence unlike any I have ever known; I love living by myself so, so much – this is absolutely the life I prayed for.
In the internet age, people have become too complacent staying home behind a computer screen. Isn’t it a tragedy that most people don’t like going outside anymore? During post-COVID, more and more people are working from home, so simple interactions with three-dimensional people have become a thing of the past.
In my life, I got forced to go outside and live my life. I spent over 15 years in a cycle of eat, sleep, internet, and rinse and repeat. I had absolutely no idea of what it was like to have actual friends and what it was like to live a busy fun-filled life. My health and well-being were so damaged, and I had no idea how to change it – and with all the hospitalizations over the years, I just felt completely defeated. So, when I got the opportunity to finally change all that when I met my husband, I went for it. Needless to say, it ended up incredibly toxic and even more damaging, but it still led me to an adventure of a lifetime. #NOREGRETS.
These days, I have an incredibly full life. Even though I don’t live in the main city anymore, I still travel there a couple of days a week to catch up with all the events and the people that I know. During the week, I keep myself incredibly occupied as well. I admit that I find myself on the internet trolling chatrooms sometimes, but some habits do die hard, lol. But it is more a passing through attitude now, where it used to be an all day, everyday thing. But in my honest opinion, being offline for almost 3 years was the best thing to ever happen to me, and to maintain a healthy well-being is to stay offline as much as possible during the day. Reading a book, working out, go to an AA meeting, going to church, (even when it’s empty and just me finding peace), going to lunch with friends, walking around a bookstore or thrift shop, going to the library -these are all things that promotes a healthy well-being. Just being out in the world where you are out with people is the best medicine. I find it so sad when someone tells me they hate people – fellowship is the best part about being alive. We need people to elevate and promote our own healthy mental health. Maybe that’s just my opinion, I don’t know.
So, if you want good health and a balanced well-being, dump the computer, put down the phone, and GO OUTSIDE!!
Cheers to a good life! (with a non-alcoholic drink, well for me, anyway lol)
Stay tuned.
Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
Some would say hightailing it out of NYC to North Carolina on a whim, riding high and fast on pills, alcohol and cocaine an adventure – because when I turned 40 years old, something happened to my brain, quite literally. Suffice to say, it landed me in jail and then a homeless shelter/rehab for another 15 months and then getting placed in sober living for another long nine months before finally getting a place of my own. Since then, peace, and security, security being all I crave and am now seeking now in my life.
I would love more adventures with my new boyfriend, sure. But sober, boring adventures, lol. I would love to see places – go visit Roswell, see the sights of Los Angeles that I never have, show him NYC from the point of view from a true New Yorker, and just many, many more. But the only adventure I have known so far have been total self-destructive ones – my life in NYC was full of it. Full of mental institutions, one-night stands and all-around bad behavior. Sure, there were times in my teens and 20s when I ruled the club scene, when I danced and drank all night long, and experienced a night life that many wouldn’t in their lifetime, BUT it came at a big price – severe alcoholism and bipolar disorder.
So, you can say that I am seeking pure clean fun and security now. Just a nice boring life, lol. Sure, I can have fun sober, and since my boyfriend doesn’t drink or smoke, we could have nothing but late-night talks and plenty of sex while traveling the world. I suppose you could call that an adventure in itself, but to me that seems pretty tame than what I have been used to. I guess when you get to a certain age, (and you’re still on probation, lol), some things do seem more important than others.
There are so many risks I don’t regret, it’s hard to just narrow it down to one. Life is risk, walking out your door is risk, but taking chances with your life is one you shouldn’t take – but one that I have many times over. Being in the mental health system for so long, and also using drugs with my husband, I found myself in various situations where I could have died – either shot dead by a drug dealer, overdosing by the wrong drug, or just crashing into another car because of all the reckless driving I did while high – all of those are risks I don’t regret because it reminds me of where I never want to be again, and it also, (if I am being morbidly honest), let me experience life in a way in which I actually got to “live on the edge.”
But for argument’s sake, the one risk I will NEVER regret, is the one I took when I left New York. I had just gotten furloughed from my job during COVID, and me and my husband decided on just a crazy whim to leave all our furniture on the street and pack up whatever we could fit in my car and head to North Carolina. Being separated from him now, I honestly romanticize that part the most because we embarked on a wild adventure together that would land us both in jail for a year, then him in a pysch hospital for another whole year, and me in a homeless shelter/rehab for 15 more months. We took a lot of risks in those years, just going back in forth in the justice system, boosting stuff from stores to feed our habit, and just living a Bonnie and Clyde fantasy existence. I want to say I regret all of that too, but again, it was an experience like no other that was the epitome of adventure compared to my previous long, boring existence.
That move to North Carolina was something I could have never done on my own – I needed someone, the catalyst, the inspiration that a writer would need to make that leap into a book, that muse that artists crave so bad, that push that only God can give sometimes. I always believed my husband was my greatest downfall, but he was my rescuer as well. I would have forever lived my life in a room in a corner of my parent’s house like I did for so many years, with no hope of ever moving out on my own or getting my own life. Have you ever been stuck in a rut that lasted years? That’s where I was before this move.
“Even though we are not together anymore, thank you Giovanni for giving me that gift of gumption, so I was able to go on that adventure with you – even though we are in separate places now, living different lives, (you chose a life still following drugs), I know now that the season you were here with me was to bring me to the place I needed to be.”
Today, I live on my own independently, three years happily sober, with my wonderful little place, nice car and decent job. I may be single again, but my ex will always hold a place in my heart as the man who I took the biggest risks of my life with – the most beneficial one being the move from New York to North Carolina.
Without risk, there is no reward, and I am living that reward today.
This seems like a beaten to death lesson, because everywhere you look, someone is saying the “attitude of gratitude” is the key to a happy life. But is it really? I have to say, YES. I have spent a very long time beating myself up, feeling the worst of the worst for my sinful nature, enveloped in my own sense of self. This self-serving way of living kept me locked in a box for 15 years – feeling so fat and ugly I couldn’t even function in society – well, jokes on me because I am 50 pounds heavier than I was then living the best life I could possibly live now! Who knew?
It all comes from the art of gratitude. It is, in essence an art. Today was a crazy day. It poured like crazy in my city and I was running around trying to get everything done. I had one of the most productive days of my life, but not once did I say a simple “thank you.” That’s my biggest mistake right there, and I am working hard at rectifying it. So, every day, I am skillfully homing in on my craft and recognizing how I can master this art.
I sent my husband away months ago and have been living the best life I can live on my own. The sense of independence is intoxicating, so much so that I don’t need any kind of substance to replicate the high of being on my own every day. My comfy bed, which used to be my nemesis because it used to beckon me at all hours of the day where I wasted away my life, is no longer an enemy, but a friend to be made pretty every morning so I can be welcomed at night. I make sure I make my bed in the morning now, so there is no chance I will find myself crawling back in it during the day. It’s little practices like that I have adapted which make me grateful for everything I have today.
I turn 44 this year. I was at a point in where I believed I needed to be married with a family so badly, that living on my own would be such a sad and lonely existence, but I think it was the unknown that I feared. This unknown territory is scary, (the lights went out for a few moments earlier this evening, and I panicked at being alone here in the dark), but again I am grateful the lights came back on and can practice at least ten more things I am thankful for before bed.
Gratitude is a state of being. Vibrations dictate that if you exude gratitude, positive things will come to you – that’s the most basic principle of the Law of Attraction which isn’t just some “woo woo” nonsense that I once thought it was. There is an art to this practice, that has to be done with care and love as if it is a child you are nurturing. You are nurturing your own psyche, telling the subconscious mind, (which is like a child), the most basic affirmations: “I am beautiful, I am a millionaire, I am happy” simple action statements which you confirm throughout the day with life’s little gifts. See affirmations don’t work if they are not confirmed. All you need is a speck of proof that these affirmations work by practicing the art of gratitude to make them a reality, or as close to reality as possible. The confirmation that I am a millionaire is the most basic. I am a millionaire because I live 30 minutes away from my loving parents and spent every Sunday with them. I am a millionaire because I have so many friends and people who love me when I never had a single friend all those years ago. I am a millionaire because I have no want or need, my bills are paid, I have a full fridge, and I wake up with no worry, not a single one. It may not be in “dollars”, but I am a millionaire, nonetheless.
I am a firm believer, (especially after reading some of my old blogs), that God has blessed me with the one thing I am the most grateful for: peace. All the weight I gained, all the bumps on my face, the clothes that don’t fit me, the guys that don’t look at me anymore, the empty bed, the scary nights when the power goes out, the nights of loneliness, all of that does not compare to the PEACE I have found. All those things are infinitesimal compared to the epitome of peace.
And how do you get that peace? Gratitude. Just that simple.
And that’s the last thing that I have learned, the most important lesson of my life.
Always missing the target. Is this what we all do, like ALL the time? We don’t make enough money, we don’t have a partner, we can’t see to get down to an ideal weight, just mountains of complaints. But I think the big one is complaining that we are not happy.
Happiness is not something that can be obtained. I learned this through a lot of trial and error. There will always be something that we want or strive for, and we keep missing the actual blessings that we have already received. Have you ever noticed that we’re always trying to obtain that One Thing we think we’re missing? What I mean is, I have found myself in a situation with mourning over my failed relationship when I have so many other riches some people would kill for. I am living comfortably, with an OK job that pays the bills, I have a nice reliable car, some extra passive income, and my very own place with absolute peace of mind. So why am I beating myself up so much about this failed relationship?
It’s because it’s what we do, that’s why. The Human Condition is so effed up sometimes. I am literally tormenting myself to the point where my mental health is suffering too. I am not sleeping AT ALL, causing me more worry and heartache than anything else. And for what? For love? You guys don’t really know my story, but I have been chasing men for the past 20 years, hoping to find love so badly that I ignore everything else, including all the red flags. God has saved me so many times, especially through all the jails and institutions, and honestly, I need to start appreciating the blessings.
People keep telling me to make gratitude lists, but that’s not really my thing. Affirmations are a little better for me. It kind of solidifies the things I have trouble putting on the gratitude lists. But the complaining and the whining happens anyway. Sometimes I feel like a 4-year-old in an older lady’s body. What I do to myself is nothing less than a tantrum. So, today’s lesson is less complaining more thankfulness. I don’t know how well I can stick to it, but just for today, I am going to try my hardest.
An Inspired Odyssey Through✨️Ink & Stardust✨️ 