A Special Request...

Happy Birthday to Me

Teach Something, Share Something, Do Something

Well I have a big birthday coming up. It’s not big because of my age, but big because of the age and time we are living in.

This is a time of change and transformation and you have a choice; be a part of the change for the better or not. Choose wisely.

Typically, when folks ask what I’d like for my birthday, I tell them world peace.

This year, I'm giving instructions.

For my birthday, I’d like for you to teach something you know, share something you possess or do something that you can for the Greater Good.

But wait, there’s more.

I’d also like you to spread the word. Take a picture, write a post or just tell someone about the good you’ve done. Good news travels fast and I’d like it to move at the speed of light.

Tweet about it, post it, snippy snappy chat with your friends.

Be the good that we need to feel and see.

The opposite of fear is not security; it is love.

Let’s love the world right.

Use the hashtag womeninpurpose and tell me Happy Birthday @DRBERTICEBERRY on Twitter.

That’s it. That’s what I want, need and desire more than anything else; for us do so much good that others feel the need to do the same.

My birthday is Saturday, November the 12^th, but I celebrate for a month, so you can do.

Be the change we so desperately need to see in the world.

I love you.

It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday, it’s my Earthday.

BE you, Be well, Be in Purpose

Bertice Berry, PhD.

Energizing Your Spirit

Reenergizing Your Spirit: What’s Missing?

Last weekend, after a long and exhilarating week of travel and work and meeting amazing folks who were doing amazing things I was, in a word-- exhausted.

One would think that the last thing I needed was to do anything, but that’s exactly what I needed.

I needed creativity and young folks who laugh at seemingly nothing only to reveal a meaning deeper than I could have known.

I needed creativity and understanding and I needed hope.

So when I got the call to give a 5 minute talk at my church, another to take care of my granddaughter and one to get together with a group of great young minds, I could only say “yes.”

Because what sounded like more stuff to make me tired, was in truth the stuff that I needed to lift me up.

I needed to wrap my mind and creativity around a parsimonious representation of the heart of my spiritual community. 

I needed the infectious smile of my granddaughter and the squeal she makes as soon as she sees me.

My soul and mind deserved the gathering of young, energetic and wise lights who could hold 5 conversations at once and listen intently to all of them.

Energy begets energy and light begets light.

If you are tired and weary, exhausted from doing the thing to do the thing and then drained from actually doing it, try the following:

Meditate

Be Creative

Smile at every child you see.

Stop and listen to the laughter of children.

Surround yourself with young folks and actually hear what they are saying.

Read a book.

Watch a documentary.

Listen to a book.

Know that you are loved.

Be you, be well, be ENERGIZED

Bertice Berry, PhD.

The Real Issue

The Real Issue:

Can You Be Happy for the Happiness of Others?

 

Can you genuinely be happy for someone else’s success? Don’t answer too quickly. Take a moment and ponder this question.

When you hear that someone has fallen in love, gotten engaged, is having a baby; when you see that someone has lost weight, gotten a promotion or graduated do you immediately think of all they’ve been through or do you only see the outcome and wonder about their secret advantage?

We have been fed on the notion of competition and comparison. It’s not enough to get exactly what you want, we’ve all been brainwashed into wanting what others have.

Before you know it, we’re all jealous of someone else. This is bad enough, but to make matters even worse, we’ve all come to believe in the theory of the “unfair advantage.”

Now, we think that the folks who’ve been the disadvantaged have somehow become the advantaged.

All attempts to right hundreds of years of wrongs are seen as handouts to an undeserving minority of folks who have never ever worked as hard as you have and therefore did not earn what you so rightly deserve.

When you look at things through the eyes of equality, you can see that privilege is not the issue; entitlement is.

When we argue that we deserve something because it’s always been that way, we are arguing for the right to be entitled.

The whole this is mine because of who I am is the core of entitlement, and entitlement comes from a diet of keeping up with the Joneses, the Kardashians, the Hiltons, and anyone else you think of as having IT.

If this all sounds too simplified, then just sit with it for a day.

Try to go about without thinking about what someone else has and then try hard not to wonder how they got it.

Try your best to be happy for each and every piece of good news and then try even harder to not gloat when someone misses their own mark.

Our stuff runs deep. It lives in a pit of despair and fear about you not being good enough.

Wake up to the fact that you are wonderful as you are; that you deserve what you work for and we all can be and have our just deserts.

There has never been one pie that only feeds a few. There is so much more and even more to be discovered.

Be you, be well, be your own.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

Come and See for Yourself