High five!!!

I work with a lot of kids. I tutor/mentor them and I am truly appreciative to be around their energy. Some are shy when they first meet me. Others are extremely curious about me. They'll ask any questions, kids say the craziest things. I'll also get the older student who thinks he/she is too cool to talk and then after a while I break em down because I'm cool like that. One thing that I really enjoy is creating handshakes with them. Below is one of my students and something we came up with! Remember to always be a kid!!!

The power of being vulnerable

I was speaking to one of my mentee's and we were discussing dreams, goals and visions. As we began discussion we started talking about things that he loved to do. I also began to speak about things that I loved. After a lengthy conversation we were talking about making ourselves open to life and allowing things to happen for ourselves by taking action. "We need to declare what we want, you know take risks. I guess make ourselves vulnerable to dreams.", I told him. When I said the word vulnerable he immediately responded with weakness. I had to pause for a second. I sat there and allowed that to marinate in my brain. Weakness, weakness...weakness. Does vulnerability mean weakness? Words associated with weakness are frail, feeble, powerless and uncertain. Of course as faith has it I came across an amazing video through a friend by Brené Brown on dun dun dun...vulnerability!! Brené Brown studies human connection and gave a great lecture at a TED forum. I watched her talk (3 times consecutively) and sat there reflecting. She actually spoke about vulnerability as being strong and courageous, not being weak or powerless. She spoke about those who are vulnerable believe they are worthy: 

People who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they're worthy of love and belonging...our fear is that we're not worthy of connection...they fully embraced vulnerability. They have a sense of courage...they had the compassion to be kind to themselves first...they believed what made them vulnerable made them beautiful.

She continued talking about those who are vulnerable are risk takers regardless of the circumstance:

They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness to say "I love you" first, the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees, the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram.  Their willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. 

Over the past few years I associated vulnerability with being guarded (It takes a lot of energy to be guarded until it becomes effortless). I always viewed being vulnerable as never allowing others seeing your emotions or never allowing others knowing how you feel; a life of a continuous poker face. Vulnerability in the world of war could lead to an open attack, a weakness in defense, it can lead to hurt. Was I always like this? No. How did I get this way? I've always been shy with certain things in my life (some people don't believe me) and I still am shy/reserved with certain things. Being honest it may have also been because I was hurt in the past and I once considered myself open and free with my love/vulnerability; I slowly started to shut down. It was difficult for me to confidently share my dreams because of the fear of rejection but I have grown much in stating my dreams and visions and making them happen. I guess I never related it to being vulnerable but hey, I’m growing like a big boy! 

I still need to allow vulnerability to grow in my love life. This has always been tricky for me and many people out there. That whole letting someone know how you feel thing is sssccarrryyy. Maybe you told someone you really liked how you felt about them and your conversation went like this: "I really like you. How do you feel? Do you like me? Not that way. Oohhh ok. That's cool, I didn't like you that much anyway. I was just playing." Ha! It's not funny but you can try and play it off that it didn't mean much to you but that fear of rejection keeps us from making moves. Not just in relationship stuff but with our goals, with our dreams. But being fearless and vulnerable could also lead to this type of convo, "I need to tell you that I like you. Not like a hand high five kind of like but a high five involving our lips kind of like", and as your heart pounds as they stare back they respond with, "You know, I like you too. I was just afraid to say anything. I was afraid you didn't feel the same way." Bamn! Just like Brené Brown said, we have to be courageous. We have to be vulnerable to give ourselves in a relationship in order for it to work. I realized that I wasn't giving all of myself in my past relationship. It wasn't fair to her and I was always sorry about that and apologize because she deserved the maximum amount of love, which she will get. For a while I thought I was making a mistake when we broke up but realized that in my heart I wasn't 100% in love the way I know I should be and could be. But I did learn one thing. She took a risk. She said I love you first. She wasn't afraid to be courageous and I was truly thankful and appreciative of that. I had a great example to pull from. Her courage was amazing!

After seeing Brené Browns vulnerability talk I decided to take a few steps toward being courageous in my life. I have been creating for myself and I'm taking risks with my endeavors. I started my own business’s and taking a risk in creating my own art and future.  

Pharell and Daft Punk- Get Lucky

Pharell and Daft Punk have teamed up to create the song 'Get Lucky'!! This is my new joint to kick off summer. This makes me wanna dance and just have a great time. Listen, get up and DANCE!!!!

Daft Punk - Get Lucky ft. Pharell Dj Naawz Video Edit Tagged from DJ NAAWZ on Vimeo.

Pick up of the day!!!

I love shoes. I love sneakers. I believe that an outfit starts from the foundation and the foundation is the shoes. The Reebok Shaq attacks dropped today and I had to pick them up!!! I was hesitant because of the $160 price on them but after picking them up I'm glad I did. These are a great addition to my sneaker rotation.

Birth of Cool

Today's music selection for myself has been gospel (pandora), Nirvana and some Jazz. I was scrolling through my music and came across an album I haven't heard in a while, 'Birth of Cool' by Miles Davis. This album is such an important album to Jazz and me in general. I found the whole album online, it's not long (about 40 minutes). Take a listen and let it take you away. Enjoy!!!

Music, Müzik, musico...

If you know me (slowly, right?) then you know that music keeps me going! I just wanted to share a couple of tracks that have me nodding my head right now. Enjoy!!!

Make good art...

In an earlier post I shared a speech given by Neil Gaeman. He spoke about going out there and making good art. Following your dreams is a great journey and when you couple that with hard work you get greatness. Acting is a realm I am very familiar with and I wanted to simply share a great documentary on actor John Cazal. Who, you may ask. You may know him as Fredo from the Godfather or his strong performances in Dog Day Afternoon or Deer Hunter. Cazal was the actors actor and the documentary interviews greats such as Meryl Street, Sam Rockwell, Al Pacino and many others. Check it out, you'll def like it.
                                      

OOTD

I'm a day late posting this photo. I'm also over a week behind in posting on my blog. I have a few posts coming soon! Anyway, a simple Outfit of the Day shot. I'm rocking a Shades of Grey jacket, sublimated tee, levi jeans, Puma YO MTV Raps Big Daddy Kane sneakers, a rosary given to me by a kind lady, multi-colored crosses bracelet from Top Shop and a shamballa bracelet to cap it all off. Boom! What did you rock? Until the next post.  

Got some change?

This past month has been cray for me in regards to receiving tickets. I have to pay almost $600 for a ticket I got when I crossed a red light. Then I've gotten three tickets in the past two weeks for parking. Two were improper park times but these signs are so dang confusing! I contested one and won, yyeeessss! The last one I just received was super wack. I was walking to my car and from a long distance I could see the meter person just waiting for my time to expire. I got a tickets about a minute after my meter expired, aarrrggghhhh. Meter people all seem angry, why is that? The whole point of this post is not to complain. The whole point of this post is to appreciate the little things.

I received an amazing and thoughtful gift today. I recived a bag of change. A bag that read, "To Kevin Parking". I looked at this gift and though to myself, 'wow, this is great'. Regardless if I needed change or not for a mater I will always remember this act of kindness. I'm just writing this post to say thank you. Thank you for the thoughfulness. Thank you for caring. Thank you for putting a huge smile on my face. Thank you God for blessing me with great people, great family.