He said, “You know, Shannon, depression is a spirit. It’s a seductive spirit. Because, while it’s tearing you apart, it’s also feeding you chemicals that feel good. Good enough to make you keep it around. Good enough to not cast it out… You can be free.”

“Lean in,” I heard. It was a simple, quiet statement. I knew what it meant instantly and it scared me. It meant:

\ Stretching a little farther in embracing (even the idea of) joy and hope for the future.

\ Releasing more fear that the bottom might drop out. Again.
\ Trusting that the worst is behind and the best is yet unfolding.

Lean in. Drink deep…

Our room faced the backyard and gave a wide-windowed view of a pomegranate tree they’d had for decades - bare, stripped-down limbs devoid of any fruit, flower, or leaf. It was the end of October, smack dab in the middle of fall, and the barrenness of that tree would go on to mock my own every single morning for months…

When had the abject misery and despair I was listening to - that I remembered knowing would never end - become something unrecognizable?

...I still either have to brace myself or forget and get spin-cycled through the day/week/whatever.

Is that you?

I’m praying for you - for us - today so you know you’re not alone. You’re not forgotten. You are loved.

One of the hardest things in the world is learning and then confronting who you are. Who you really are when everything that’s made you “you” isn’t around anymore. But now we’re all doing it. We’re all finding out who we REALLY are. Together. Right now. And it’s happening fast.

So what’s the last thing you heard? Do you remember? Have you finally stopped long enough yet during this quarantine to ask?

Resting is about more than jumping on a plane and getting away from it all or having a whole five minutes, hour, or day to oneself. You can be in either of those scenarios and many others and still not run into it. Why??

GUILT 

Good ol’ fashioned guilt. 

Suddenly, I saw myself making my way thru LAX - prophetic, forward-moving, life-giving paintings in my right hand and Jermaine’s urn under my left arm - and heard:

‘NO EXTRA BAGGAGE’

boom loudly and clearly in my spirit. I knew what it meant instantly…

Yesterday Nipsey Hussle died. Rapper to some. Visionary to others. Father, son, brother, and friend to a few. Humanitarian and man of the people to most. We met a couple times, were from the same hometown on Los Angeles’ westside, and we travelled in some of the same circles in the LA entertainment orbit but I can’t say I ‘knew’ him. Still…I can feel it.

I wanted her to be wrong. I really did. But I knew she wasn’t. The problem was that, with the new video series I was about to release, if bad hair and bad breath was an issue, some of the intimate details of my life that I’d shared in those videos – details I’d ONLY share because I knew they would help someone – yeah…those were really going to be an issue.

Every time you become romantically involved with someone, what many fail to fully acknowledge is that most people have had several romantic relationships before you came along. Usually, what has been left is a series of half-made buildings – some of them greatly decayed/decaying because they were half-erected and abandoned so long ago. Someone else moved in and didn’t necessarily start building on the last erection (no pun/all puns intended) but, rather likely began building in another part of the ‘city’.