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It’s been 913 days since my last blog post, and truth be told, I’m not exactly sure how many more days it’ll be until the next one. What I do know is that today’s my birthday (the big 3-2), and I’ve been wanting to write another blog post for quite some time now. So I figured what better day than today to pick things back up! A lot has changed in 913 days. I proposed my dissertation. I failed to match during the first phase of the psychology internship process, which led to my subsequent match in Phase II, leading me to spend a year in Rochester, New York. I met friends/colleagues who helped make that dark place shine a little brighter, and I got the opportunity to provide mental health services to kids that I’ll remember forever. In the last 913 days, I defended my dissertation. I graduated with my PhD. I got engaged to the man of my dreams. I celebrated my graduation and engagement with my family and friends. I secured a postdoctoral fellowship at my TOP clinical site— which is a story for another day because I’m still in awe of how this thing came full circle. In the last 913 days, I spent quality time with my loved ones, celebrating birthdays, gender reveals, weddings, and graduations. I’ve smiled big and experienced deep belly laughs on a CONSISTENT basis. And you know what else I’ve experienced on a consistent basis, feelings of……unworthiness. 

You might be wondering how that feeling of unworthiness presents itself. Well, mostly it looks like me relishing in the beautiful moments for like a day or two (or maybe even a week) before going right back to finding something to worry about. You ever heard the phrase “waiting for the other shoe to drop?” Essentially feeling like things can’t be THIS good. Allowing my mind to be consumed by what ifs. Instead of allowing unwanted emotions to visit, I let them unpack and reside with me. My therapist asked me if I feel undeserving of my blessings. The immediate response was “of course, not!” But when I close my eyes and take a deep breath, the truth comes to the surface and is evidenced by the fact that sometimes I’m more open to sitting with fear than I am to sitting with joy. So I’ve spent probably about a third of the last 913 days unpacking this, and here’s what I know—

1. It’s unloving to myself to avoid my unwanted emotions, but it’s also unloving to allow them to reside longer than they need to.
2. I’m two feet planted. There is no other shoe to drop. 
3. Old stories don’t fit this new season that I’m in. I can let those narratives go. 
4. In the words of Alex Elle— “Joy has my name on it. I’ve learned the importance of inviting you [joy] into my life and space without second-guessing if you’re truly there for me.”

This year, I’m continuing to unmask feelings of unworthiness. There’s so much more beauty to come in this new year, Chapter 32, and I’m determined to not allow it to pass me by without me being fully present and fully grateful. I love this season that I’m in. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s mine. There is no other shoe to drop, and I’m worthy of experiencing a fullness of joy. Cheers to a beautiful, love-filled, joyous year. Happy Birthday to me. 

As much as I wish I could explain away my four and a half month hiatus by saying I was swamped with academic and clinical work, that’d only be partially true. The real reason was actually vulnerability hangover. According to Dr. Brené Brown, vulnerability hangover is that icky feeling you get after putting yourself out there. Despite having sat on this blog idea for at least two years, actually launching it, and being four posts in, I thought “Who do I think I am starting a blog?” and “Why on earth would I start a blog that’s so…. vulnerable?” Pretty much all the things I wrote about in my previous posts—perfectionism, imposter phenomenon, and self-sabotage— woke up and chose violence just as I was preparing to write my next post. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, to be vulnerable means to be open to attack or damage. Despite the consistent positive feedback on my writing, I felt exposed and open to attack. And who would want that?

So, I sat for the last few months unmasking what has really kept me from writing and pondering why I even started writing in the first place. Brené Brown talks about vulnerability much differently than Merriam-Webster. While she does describe it as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure,” she also emphasizes the great courage associated with that risk and the beauty on the other side of it. To be clear, when I talk about vulnerability, I’m not talking about oversharing. Responsible vulnerability involves an awareness that boundaries are our friend. And getting comfortable with vulnerability involves coming to terms with what we’re actually afraid of.  

Turns out, a fear of vulnerability is often less about the act of being vulnerable and moreso a fear of how one’s vulnerability might be perceived by other people. How might people judge me if I say how I really feel? Will people not like my personality if I show up as my full authentic self? For me, the judgment I fear receiving from others is merely a reflection of the judgment I place on myself. But what I’ve realized is that sometimes I spend so much time overthinking my vulnerability that I overlook who actually connected with it. 

I’ve so desperately desired to shed perfectionism and show up more fully in my authenticity, to unmask if you will. And these last few months have been proof that even when I’ve felt ready to jump in, there’s still that voice that tells me to put my mask back on, to go into hiding, to be quiet. And I know there are so many other people who deal with the same thing. I launched this blog on my 29th birthday with a goal of sharing my own journey of unmasking and evolving, in large part because I hope to inspire other people to take off their masks too. Brené Brown refers to vulnerability as “the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.” My vulnerability is what frees me from the very things I’ve written about so far on this blog, and it releases me to honor my humanity. So, here I am again, unmasking, vulnerably and responsibly. Because in this season, vulnerability looks like speaking my truth and allowing it to connect with the truth inside other people. It looks like me knowing my ideas are meaningful and sharing them. It looks like giving myself permission to fall apart, giving myself the time and space I need to regroup, and showing up again. It looks like me telling you about my own struggles with vulnerability hangovers to normalize them, while encouraging you to examine the reasons behind your own vulnerability hangovers. So, here’s to us being vulnerable (responsibly of course), showing up as our authentic selves, and not apologizing for it 🙂

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word self-sabotage? I’d imagine that many people think about things like risky behavior and physical self-harm. According to Psychology Today, self-sabotage is defined as behavior that “creates problems in daily life and interferes with long-standing goals.” Given that the definition is pretty vague and pretty broad, there’s probably hundreds of behaviors that could be considered self-sabotaging that vary from person to person and take on various forms. While some people may have an awareness of their self-sabotaging ways, for others, it may show up in ways they haven’t even realized yet. 

My simple way of thinking about self-sabotage includes anything that involves me getting in my own way. So, with that in mind, I hope to move your thought process away from the more obvious means of self-sabotaging. When we think of self-sabotaging as only occurring in the form of overt behaviors, we miss out on the sometimes less obvious means by which our behaviors come about. A lot of times, our behavior is very much connected to our thoughts and beliefs. *Fun fact– in my counseling work, I largely operate from a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) lens which posits that our thoughts impact our feelings, which then impact our behaviors. 

Have you ever gotten so accustomed to things not going how you wanted them to? Are you someone who’s always “waiting for the other shoe to drop?” Maybe you’re quick to push people away. Or maybe you’ve become the villain that you once experienced in relationships. Maybe you stopped pursuing opportunities that excited you after multiple failed attempts. Well, my friend… that, too, is self-sabotage. The kind that’s rooted in a deep sense of fear and feelings of unworthiness. It makes sense though. Disappointments happen, and we start to tell ourselves a certain story. The longer we tell ourselves that story, the more we start to believe it. In the words of the great Dr. Thema Bryant, “we do not fully believe we are deserving of wonderful things. And when I do not believe I’m deserving of wonderful things, I cling to mediocre things.”

I can’t tell you how many mediocre things I’ve clung to in my past and present. And the reason I’m able to cling to mediocre things is because of the mediocre mindset that tells me that I have to. I’ve come to realize that my self-sabotage looks like a fear of being fully happy. I say fully because I don’t think I’m walking around like Eeyore, feeling gloomy and pessimistic on the daily. But I also don’t think that I walk in the fullness of joy like I could and desire to. I’m currently in the process of re-reading The Four Agreements. I’ve started re-asking myself the tough questions about the lies that I’ve come into agreement with. I’m tracing the origins of the stories I’ve told myself. Truthfully, most of them originated from a place of hurt and disappointment. I’d encourage you to trace your story origins too. What lies have you come into agreement with? 

I’d be lying (for a lack of a better word, lol) if I said that breaking ties with the lies is a walk in the park. But unmasking in this area, for me, looks like awareness. It looks like me recognizing when a self-sabotaging mindset is showing up. It looks like me trying my darnest to lean into joy. And I hope the same for you (I know I say this everytime, haha). I wish you a life that doesn’t consist of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wish you a life of excitement and peace, one where you get out of your own way. Maybe take some time this week to think about the areas in which you’ve been getting in your own way and start taking some intentional steps to break ties with the lies you’ve told yourself. Happy Unmasking ❤

Hey y’all! First and foremost, Happy Black History Month! At the beginning of my last post, I mentioned that my next few posts would share a similar theme. So, I’m back again, to unmask something that often tends to go hand in hand with perfectionism… impostor phenomenon (but with a twist). Before I go there though, let me tell you what this is. Wait. Before I tell you what it is, let me tell you how impostor vs. imposter is trippin me up, LOL. Seems like it’s spelled both ways so just vibe with the spelling I’ve chosen and that I see used in the literature! Impostor phenomenon is a term coined by Dr. Pauline Rose Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes in the 1970s to describe “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness” despite evidence of academic and professional achievements. It’s a feeling that you’re not as competent as people think you are, and that it’s only a matter of time before they find out. This is often characterized by a few different traits, many of which are shared by individuals with perfectionistic tendencies:

• a tendency to attribute success to external causes
• difficulty accepting others’ compliments or positive feedback
• fear of being evaluated
• the tendency to overestimate others
• the need to be the best
• fear of failure
• fear and guilt about success
• the tendency to discount personal competencies 

The initial research conducted by Clance and Imes (1978) focused on high achieving women’s experiences with impostor phenomenon. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of this term until I started grad school. Since then, I’ve attended workshops about it. I’ve even co-presented at a workshop about it. Research projects are conducted about it. I just had to watch a TED Talk for a class that mentioned it. And here’s where I hit you with the plot twist. Because on this here Black History Month (and anytime really), I’d be remiss if I suggested that everyone experiences the phenomenon to the same degree. In fact, many articles and research studies highlight that minoritized individuals experience impostor phenomenon at much higher rates, and for individuals with multiple intersecting marginalized identities (e.g., Black women), it’s at an all-time high.

With this in mind, I feel like it’s important to talk about how sometimes, the masks we wear aren’t so easy to just take off. Sometimes we feel like impostors because we exist in spaces where people quite literally do not see our value and affirmation is nonexistent. We exist in spaces where we cannot show up as our authentic selves without scrutiny, and so, we wear the mask. What about when “fake it ‘til you make it” doesn’t apply because there are systems set up so you don’t make it? Or the fact that there are voices in the room that take precedence over yours? The whole “you have to work twice as hard as them to get half of what they have” type vibe. 

I recently discovered a poem titled We Wear the Mask, written by Paul Laurence Dunbar in the 1890s, which tells the story of what it’s like to be Black in America, feeling the need to present a brave face to the world, while falling apart on the inside. Maya Angelou’s rendition of the poem combines her own work with that of Dunbar to tell the story of a woman who wears her smile as a mask, or what she refers to as “survival apparatus.” Which got me thinking about another level of unmasking. What about the people who wear masks for survival? 

I want to acknowledge that unmasking also looks like understanding the impact of systemic oppression on our mental health, how we interact with others, how they interact with us, and the masks we wear. Unmasking, for some of us, is an act of resistance. Coming into a fuller awareness of ourselves involves a breaking of mental chains that have held us captive for centuries. Impostor phenomenon plagues me daily in the academy, especially now as I begin my dissertation process, which ironically explores the systemic factors that contribute to the way that Black women see themselves. Am I actually incompetent? Not at all. But I do exist within a system that sometimes makes it hard for me to show up as my authentic self, so I inevitably feel like a fraud. Here’s to me acknowledging that sometimes it’s me in my own way, and sometimes it’s the system. Here’s to me showing up anyway and learning how to bring my full self with me. Here’s to me unmasking not only myself, but the systems in which I exist. 

I’m thinking that this will be the first part of a series of posts with a similar theme. Mainly because the thread of perfectionism has run through my veins for as long as I can remember. It’s the reason I’ve procrastinated in writing this blog post. I questioned what I would title it, how long it should be, whether I would post it on my Facebook or Twitter, whether there were certain people that I did not want reading it, etc. The list goes on. It always goes on and on and on… I’m always running through as many possible “what-if” scenarios in my mind in an effort to course correct as best I can on the front end. I’m basically an Olympic gold medalist at this point because the mental gymnastics I’m able to do are impeccable. You want to know what else they are, though? Exhausting. 

Of course I could spend time talking about the bright side of perfectionism. I’m a hard worker. A go-getter. I’m detail-oriented. Motivated. Persistent. On the not-so-bright side though, my ability to not care about what people think feels painfully impossible. I procrastinate often because anything less than “perfection” and the thought of making a wrong decision feels unbearable. I waste time and energy beating myself up when things don’t go as planned. So, as you can see, there’s some pretty weighty costs associated with this seemingly favorable trait. 

For many of us, when we were younger, people praised us for how prim and proper we were. We got the good grades. The awards. We excelled. We smiled. All the while, we were cementing our sense of self-worth in our accomplishments and the praise of others. The reality is, perfection stems from a need to be in control. We found what we deemed as the “formula” and stuck to it. And if your life is anything like mine, the moment when it all came crashing down hit you like a ton of bricks. The moment when you realized that control is actually an illusion. That the formula failed because it was fake. It couldn’t help you dodge the pain of rejection or heartbreak. It couldn’t help me when the life I planned panned out differently. Like when I graduated from Johns Hopkins with a master’s degree and couldn’t find a full-time job to save my life? Talk about a hard hit! Or even worse, the time period between graduating and finding a job when I was stuck trying to figure out how to love a version of myself that didn’t have to perform? Perfectionism, over the years, has been quite the thief. Stealing my joy, my peace, my ability to be in the present moment, and sometimes even stealing my voice. Perfectionism taught me to the wear the mask that I’m currently in the process of shedding. 

For so long, I wore my perfectionism as a badge of honor. Then, in more recent years, I’ve dealt with the shame associated with the shadow side of perfectionism. And now, I’m ridding myself of the label entirely. I no longer want to shackle myself to my insecurities. So… here’s to me, breaking ties with the version of myself that has awareness without any action. How am I shedding perfectionism and all of its ugliness? Well, I’m committing myself to doing the things that scare me. I’m committing myself to honoring my humanity. I’m committing myself to coming into a fuller awareness of the fact that I am worthy by virtue of my mere existence. My commitment to ridding myself of this label is evidenced by the unmasking– layer by layer. In writing the next blog post, I’ll be aware of when procrastination is rearing its ugly head. In my day to day life, I’ll be aware that there’s a chance I could make the wrong decision, and still, I’ll make choices as opposed to staying still. When things don’t go as planned, I’ll remind myself of the other times they didn’t go as planned and still turned out pretty freakin’ amazing. I hope the same for you too. That you’ll choose peace over perfection. May you come to know and love a version of yourself that is whole and complete, and better yet, imperfect. 

I’m fortunate to have a January birthday, and I aways find myself engaging in double the reflection as I prepare to enter a new year and a new age at the top of each year. I made plans on NYE to be all deep and watch virtual church + sit with my journal and process the year. Instead, I fell asleep by 8:30PM, woke up around 11PM (ish), stared at the wall until the new year rolled in, ate a churrro cupcake (see recipe), toasted to the new year, texted some loved ones, and went right back to bed.

Listen. I am extremely elated to be on the other side of 2020, and let me just say, right off the bat, that I’m not here to over-spiritualize the year. While I would love to think that when the clock struck twelve on January 1, 2021, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief, I know full well that this new year comes with a myriad of emotions. Joy for some. Rollover grief for others. Confusion. Optimism. Disappointment. Maybe a mixture of all of that, and then some. Whatever emotional lens you’re reading this through, I honor it.

Now… it may seem unfitting to release a blog titled unmasked evolution, in the midst of a global pandemic and unprecedented mask wearing mandates. I mean, I had to write a whole 10-page comprehensive exam response about increasing mask use (which I am 100% in favor of, btw). While the greater part of 2020 was dedicated to masking up literally, I spent it leaning into my ongoing journey of unmasking, figuratively. So, here’s my first post, dedicated to unmasking the year that led me to this moment— finally releasing this blog that I’ve been sitting on for years.

I should start by letting you know that I’m your classic Type A perfectionist who never leaves home without a plan. As you can imagine, 2020 was hard on people like me. So, how did I handle it in the beginning? Like any figurative mask-wearing perfectionist would— spiritual bypassing! Spiritual bypassing is when someone uses spiritual practices or explanations to avoid unpleasant emotions or experiences. I’m sure most of you are quite familiar with this given that we’re socialized to find the silver lining in situations and focus on the bright side as opposed to honoring our humanity (but that’s a story for another day). I dubbed 2020 the year of self-love after realizing I’d been selling myself short in that department. Naturally, the stay-at-home order felt like the perfect time to really go inward, and “do the work.” Well, boy did 2020 teach me a lesson because little did I know, I would quickly learn that doing the work required something I was terrified of— being honest with myself. No wonder I’d been avoiding “the work” for so long. The work, in my opinion, looks and feels just as ugly as it sounds. And in 2020, it looked like the ugliest of cries, it felt uneasy, lonely, and raw; it looked like blocking numbers that I should’ve never kept. Over the years, my unmasking has looked like being honest with myself about:

• the fact that I have allowed my worth to be determined by the opinions (or rejection) of others
• feelings of envy + comparison
• the fact that all the degrees and accolades do not amount to happiness
• the fact that an old heartbreak still had a hold on me
• feelings of inadequacy 
• me being my own worst enemy a majority of the time 

This unmasking started several years prior to 2020— layer by layer, with a lot of therapy, tears, prayer, family, and friends. And it’s ongoing! That’s what has led me here. What is here, you might ask? Well, freedom. Not the freedom that makes me exempt from experiencing the things on that list above. But the kind that allows me to be on top of those things, instead of feeling like they’re on top of me. The fulfilling kind. Freedom looks like admitting to myself when I’m feeling sad. It looks like crying when I need to. I’m also learning that freedom looks like being happy (still unpacking this one, lol). It looks like telling myself it’s okay to feel a lot of different things at once. Because I’m human. That’s what this blog is dedicated to— our humanity. To living as our most authentic selves by taking off the mask that hides our humanity. Here’s the thing though, unmasking is an inside job first. As you start to be more honest with yourself, you’ll be more likely to show up authentically with others too. 

I feel inclined to end by saying that “this blog is not meant to be a substitute for therapy.” In fact, I’m quick to send some therapist links, and I have a therapist myself. But here’s me giving you a teeny tiny bit of tea about my own unmasking, in hopes that it’ll inspire you to go on your own journey of unmasking too. Cheers to us unmasking more layers of ourselves in 2021.