Be Brave

At this time last year, I faced a few life changing choices and challenges that defined my truth and led me to write a small workbook I entitled “#BeBrave.”

I was in a place of unfufillment, a place of grief. I cried tears of brokenness every day and couldn’t see anyway of shifting my mindset and heart because I honestly didn’t know what was wrong. Why was I so emotional? Why did I feel so empty, so sad, so alone, so broken?

I could blame a myriad of situations and unhappy circumstances that I’d welcomed into my world, but the blame game wasn’t going to be my saving grace.

How many times have we all been in a place where we felt like something was missing and everything provoked you to tears. That place where we sit and ponder our past mistakes, heart breaks and short comings.

For some people, like myself, it’s a familiar place that always leads us to defining moments of truth, when we have to rediscover who we are and who we are not; when we accept accountability for what we do and what we do not choose to do. We have to make choices in order to climb out of the pit that our hearts and minds fall into, and to provoke change that may challenge us in areas that we have been bound to for so long.

I used to call it my “not good enough,” but I learned during these moments that it was fear of stepping outside of the box that was stopping me, and that would require for me to be brave.

We have to break some of the rules we’ve become complacent in to reset the goals, the visions, to begin again. We have to do it in truth, and unfailing love for who we are.

For me, emptiness stemmed from not tapping into my full potential. I was operating in the gifts that I had, but not walking in my purpose. That purpose aligned with my passion, and it would refocus my vision for my life. I suppressed it for so long out of fear of not being accepted, not receiving the good ol’ nod of approval from others, and wondering what people would say if and when I made the shift.

Honestly I did not want to retreat from my current life into something new. What if I failed? But one day, I thought, “What if I don’t?”

I would never know the outcome of my defining truth unless I worked toward it and did it intentionally.

I still remember the day I made up my mind to go for it. I was on a work trip. It was a breezy day in Chicago by way of North Carolina. I was in a hotel room that overlooked the airport and my eyes glanced at all the shuttles going to different hotels, and I knew that was my confirmation. It was time to finally get on board with Khalilah and go wherever that would take me.

I tapped into my circle of friends, who I soon revamped into a cloud of witness. I started breaking the ice with other powerful women, and I accepted full responsibility for my next and I expected to win.

My made up mind changed my thoughts, my conversations, and my path. I began working towards empowering other women to be powerful, speaking to a room of two as of it were a room of thousands, investing in the tools I needed to share my story and the story of others who had to be brave. Finally I felt free.

I felt like I was in the moment, every moment. I realized that my potential and possibilities are not based on popular opinion, but on my love for myself. My failures became steps that would force me to want to go higher, my shortcomings became just enough, and my emptiness only reared its head when I was hungry. I was full, full of excitement, full of laughter, full of life, and full of amens and gratitude.

If you are at a place where you feel empty or fearful of digging deep and tapping into who you are and what you really want for yourself, I want to encourage you today to be you, be brave, and be empowered to be powerful by screaming, “Yes! I owe myself this and more!”