Tonight, I watched with tears in my eyes as Barack Obama accepted his party’s nomination for president.  

I cried for a lot of reasons.  But mostly because on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ’s famous “I have a dream” speech, a man of color, a bi-racial man at that, has a real chance at occupying our nation’s highest office.

There was a time in his lifetime, that people who looked like him were denied the right to vote.  That children who look like his daughters were educated in segregated schools.  That people who looked like him had to ride in the back of the bus.  

Tonight I watched the dreams of my grandmother, who marched with Dr. King in Alabama, come to fruition.  I saw the dream that my mother, a politician in her own right, come to pass.  I saw the hope my daddy held in his heart, for a country that still doesn’t live up to it’s ideals, pay off.

With Senator Obama’s nomination, I realized that the fears my parents and grandparents had living as black people in this country, never put their dreams to sleep.

As I sat and watched Stevie Wonder sing, I could feel my mother, father and grandmother’s spirits.  Their strength, their love, their hope, surrounded me.  Not only because of this historic moment, but as a reminder that although I may be afraid, so afraid that I cannot access my dreams today, that the dreams I had for my life cannot be put to sleep by that fear.  And to help me decide that tonight was the night for me to start dreaming again.

Tonight was a reminder to us all, that dreams, especially the unlikely ones, can come true.

Dream BIG and Live More BOLDLY!

Lisa

My friend, coach and mentor, Jenny wrote a post on her blog about The American Dream.  Jenny and I are on a similar journey–she calls it “peeling back the layers” and I call it “removing the mask”.  In the end, we are talking about the same thing–expressing our Divine Uniqueness.  Thank you, Jenny for being YOU and teaching me how to play.

Here are my thoughts in response to her entry:

News flash:  WHO YOU ARE is MORE THAN ENOUGH.

Where did we go wrong? As I sat down to write this morning, I was struck by the cliche, “we are the typical American family.”  In my head, the words we’re screaming, “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN AND WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE?”

There’s a boarding school in the Northeast with the slogan, “In a world that wants you to fit in, we teach you to stand out.”  I know what they are trying to get across, but in our culture, “standing out” is all about the list of accomplishments: house, job, trophy wife/rich husband, degrees, cars, etc. 

Now I am beginning to understand why I have always been attracted to people who are “real.”  Standing out, to me, means being and living the unique expression of God/dess that is YOU.  If the Creator wanted clones, exact replicas, why didn’t S/He create nothing but trees??   As we look at the diversity of life in our world, why do we still choose to be like everyone else? The tulip doesn’t try to be a rose, the dog doesn’t try to be frog.  Why then, do we insist on being like the Jones when that choice is crushing our spirits?

That choice of trying to be like everyone else almost cost me my life.  And although living my truth in the past has been difficult, I intend now that life is actually easier when I embrace and express my uniqueness.

Will you join me?  Come out and play as YOU.  At this party, no masks are allowed.

Rockin’ in paradise….

The Resident Diva