SELF CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Readers. This year I will be discussing various aspects of self-care and mental health.

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People say that ” self-care is the best care”. I say, we in a society where we don’t have meaningful conversations about and how to enforce self-care thus taking supporting our mental health on a daily basis. We talk about mental health and protecting our peace, but how can we protect our peace when we lack good self-care practices? 

What is your mental health worth to you? Think about some of these points while you’re grinding yourself into exhaustion and developing poor eating and sleep habits. 

Do you lack a productive social life and I am not referring to Happy Hour. Is family time something you avoid or take time to plan for the wellbeing of your family’s emotional and mental health? 

How many people reading this will admit that they are overwhelmed at home and overworked at the job. 

You feel drained, angry, have become an emotional eater, gain weight, lost weight due to stress, and are short tempered.

Have you allowed your mental and emotional health to suffer due to remaining in dysfunction relationships? When I say relationships, this includes intimate situations, family, and friends.

People bottom line we all need down time, alone time, spa day, a weekend getaway, and a night out on the town. We need to laugh more, increase our listening skills, and practice disconnecting  from technology and all social media, and have old fashion conversations. 

I am going to leave that right there. Throughout 2023 I will be offering suggestions like, good books to read on self-care, reminding you to step back and take some down time and more topics on the importance of good self-care and mental health practice.  

A Women’s Worth

Dear Readers,

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Happy New Year.

We need to stop applauding women for being exhausted due to forsaking self-care and their mental and emotional health, while supporting families, working outside the home and wearing multiple hats. I don’t believe in the myth of superwomen. Society is overwhelmed with women who are physically drained, suffering from health issues, emotionally empty, depressed, oppressed, feeling trapped and ignored. Women are told that women complain too much and are never satisfied. Women give so much and get little in return. 

A Few Words.

DEAR Readers,

When a woman says, ” she doesn’t want a man in her life” that’s not an open door for people to throw shade, condemn or label her a lesbian. You have not lived her life nor her experiences. She might be on a path of healing and self-discovery. So, before you become judge and jury respect and honor the fact that these women choose to remove herself from dysfunctional men so she can be all she can be for herself. Respect the journey.

Thank you for stopping by dragthepen

Fire

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SUNRISE

The fire in your eyes,

Reminds me of a sunrise.

Soft words you whisper slowly drifts

From your lips to my ears.

Reminds me of the sunrise that is so far

Yet near.

The robust laugh vibrating through your lungs,

Reminds me of the sunrise busting through the clouds. Yet it is not loud.

The brightness of your sparkling smile blinds me,

So I shield my eyes from the rays of the sun.

The warmth of the sunrise penetrates my soul, 

Just as you do when you hold me

So I won’t get cold.

The sunrise brings life, love and light

To the awaking day. These stirring feelings

You have given to me, since you have come my way.

Thank you for stopping by Drathepen

Forever Pure

Warm and Secure

You have a special way of making me feel warm and secure.

Your strength and power inspire me to adore you more.

Life constant changes drives me in sane. Your love I can depend on to remain the same.

I’ve never desired a man for riches or fame.

All the gold in fort Knox’s can’t compare to this burning flame.

I hunger for your touch.

Love so gentle, kind, forever pure.

I can climb the highest mountain, swim from shore to shore and weather any storm

Because I have your love to keep me warm and secure.

I would be lost without you, for you know this is true.

Don’t ever stop making my skies starry and blue.

It’s your love that keeps me alive,

This I shall not deny your promises I can always rely.

Every day with you is like being born again

Because I have your love to keep me warm and secure.

Thak you for stopping by dragthepen

Decision, Decision, Decision

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WHAT WE DO

We always say the things that are true

This we should do.

We always do the things we feel

This we should not do.

Just because you feel, doesn’t make it so.

We always image the things we cannot see

This we should do.

We often smile, instead of frowning

This we should not do.

We weep to express pain

This we should do.

When we fall, we raise up again

This we should do.

We cheat, steal, and lie

This we should not do.

We spread rumors of the untrue gospel

This we should not do.

We dream the impossible

This we must do.

Thank you for stopping by drathepen

Spoken Word

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As I Wait

As the sun is setting beneath the earth and the wind returns to embrace my soul,

I shall grow old and die here as I wait for your return.

Nights so dark, long, and empty, a new day bright, airy, and lonely.

The dew lost its moisture, the flowers their scent, gone is the absence of

Your crispy breath that once blew upon them.

Sorrow abides within me rooted, grounded, growing into a sharp aching everlasting pain.

I do what I must to live through each moment.

Will death come to me before my eyes sweep past your face? Before my lips drink life from

Yours again. So many riddles to solve.

The rainbow the color of your hair, has not appeared since you’ve

Been gone.

Chills creep into my bones yearning for your warm touch.

Time should stand still and wait for you as I do.

Thank you for stopping by Dragthepen.

The Choice Is Yours

Dear Readers,

Dear Readers, in 2018 I made the discussion to end my engagement. The choice was painful, l had to be honest with myself I was going into the marriage for all the wrong reasons. For a period of time, I felt lost, broken, unloved and unwanted. I decided to journal my way through the healing process and what I’ve discovered about myself was life changing. The biggest lesson I don’t have to settle to be happy. Read 90 Days of Reflection, Discovery & Renewal.

The Conversation is a collection of my short stories, poems, my award-winning play and an intimate conversation with my mother.

Both books are available on Amazon.

Did You Understand the Assignment?

my best buddy Peanut

Dear Readers,

Do not close your heart to LOVE. I do not know your experiences because I have not lived your life. I do not know who disappointed, neglect, abused, used, cheated, and committed acts of violence against you, that is not LOVE. I know that it is difficult to heal from the trauma of physical and emotional abuse. I know that what people do not see on the outside is broken on the inside. I know that it is not easy to bounce back from the cycle of dysfunctional relationships. But do not give up on LOVE.

I agree that you should protect yourself from people who have no good intentions towards you. I agree that you should guard you heart, mind, body, and soul from people who will drain you of kindness, compassion, and authentic LOVE. But, if you build a wall around your heart high and tight, shutting yourself away from engaging in social setting that will help you to heal, laugh, smile and to hope; you are robbing yourself of the chance encounter of meeting the one person who will give you authentic LOVE.

When you shelter your heart and mind locking yourself away soaking in the pain of the past, this will result in becoming a bitter, angry, resentful, sad, lonely, and depressed person. I agree that it scary this complicated world of TRUST and LOVE. It is saddening to observe the high number of people who live alone because they choose to give Love only to have their life devastated by an individual whose purpose was to steal, kill, abuse, and destroy because they did not understand the assignment of LOVE.

I was young when I gave my heart away. And after years of dysfunctional relationships and living a life of trauma and emotional brokenness; thankfully, I found the path to healing, forgiveness of myself and other it has been a difficult but necessary journey. I am that person who have built the wall locking myself away from the evil hands and cruel heart of the wolves in sheep clothing. It is a lonely existence, but I feel safe. I long for the joys of companionship, the touch, kindness and warm of another loving human. Life is different when it is just one. I hope that one day that I will meet the one who understand the true assignment of LOVE .

Thank you for stopping by Dragthepen.

WHO SAID YOU HAVE TO CHANGE?

dragthepen aka conversations with J. R. Floyd

Dear Readers, 

It is not your responsibility to change someone or make them into someone different. People are capable of change, but that should be their decision. When we encounter people, the choice is to either accept them for who they are or move on. I know that it is not easy learning to deal with other people’s pet peeves, faults, and what we see as habits. Ladies there is no prince charming so get your head out of the fairy tales, and rethink revising that long wish list of requirements for what you think will be the perfect mate. Men stop fantasizing about Beyonce or Kim Kardashian. Those are plastic Barbie dolls surgical enhanced superficial women who will not look twice at your sagging belly and receding hairline. People snap out of your daydreams and look at the person in front of you growing with disappointment because you wish she or he would change. 

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be with a physically attractive person, however sometimes beautiful people come with ugly souls and bad characteristics. It is not our responsibility to nag people into becoming the ideal mate according to the impossible Standards of beauty and materialistic needs. I have learned from years of bad choices and reading and believing self-help relationship books about ” how to have the man of my dreams” for years I worked out and starved myself to create a body that men would like, only to be ignored and ill-treated. Do not feel sorry for me this was my fault, why, because the men I encountered did not asked me to change. If they were getting their needs met, they did not care about changing me because I was already what they wanted weak and desperate.

I spent thousands on clothes, hair, make up, lingerie and time and energy to improve myself to be better, so when my prince arrived there would be nothing about me that needed to change or improve. Oh, how shallow was my thinking. I was preoccupied with my outer appearance that I was not paying attention to the fact that I was suffering from low self-worth. When people struggle with low self-esteem and self-worth that is when others prey upon them because people who struggle with lack of self-confidence will allow people to change them because of the desperation to be like, love and belong.

I strived and arrived at the age of fifty-eight. Learned many lessons through difficult experiences that did make me stronger, wiser, and proceeding with caution. I do not wish for people to change to suit me because I have learned to let people be who they are and keep checking on who I am. Remember the saying, ” be careful what you wish for because you just might get it”. When you create the monster, you must learn to live with what you created.