Treatmebetta

I hate gatekeeping. It is really low behavior. Withholding valuable information because it took a lot for you to learn it, and why should it be easy for someone else? Trash. Or because you think people need to learn lessons the hard way? Trash, I say.

And my next question is why? Why does it have to be hard for the next person? Where’s the value there? What do you get from withholding the information? The pleasure — yuck — of watching someone have a hard time? Again, trash.

Now, it’s a fact that sometimes folk don’t want you to tell ‘em nothing. That’s a different thing. They may not be listening, or they may not be interested because their path is more attractive. That’s cool. That’s the privilege of being an adult. 

The student must be receptive to the lesson. But here are six things I wish someone my age had told me when I was in my teens and twenties. They would have shaped the course of my life infinitely for the better. They would have saved me time, money, energy, and led me to a host of wonderful places that I have not currently been.

Lessons Passed Down From Older to Younger Black Women Have Value

1. Learn how to handle money. I was taught how to save. That’s it. I am a prodigious saver. Excellent in fact. That skill learned from my mother has saved my bacon many times throughout my career with layoffs, and positions being eliminated, and whatnot. I always have a substantial nest egg put up to lean on when it rains. Kudos to me! For real.  

But I was taught nothing about investing, for instance, except that you can’t trust it. In hindsight, that was a huge disservice to me. Even if you don’t know finance, you should encourage your children and younger female peers to learn about it. High interest savings accounts, CDs, negotiating for higher salaries, not telling anyone that you have multiple savings accounts, whatever! Women need to know about all of these things young, so they won’t be afraid of them. 

2. Conquer your shopping habit. I learned at my mother’s knee that shopping was a panacea for bad feelings. Have an attitude with your husband? TJ Maxx is open until 9. 

Get a cart, and walk slowly through the aisles adding things to your basket until they announce they’re closing. Then listen to those comforting beeps at checkout, and let bags weigh you — and your child — down at the end of the night.

We also had to sneak the bags in the house so my daddy didn’t see them. As this would start another argument about unnecessary spending. 

This was my foundation, and it took me many, many years to conquer my shopping habit. I still wrestle with it, for real. 

Instead, I would encourage every woman, hell, every person, to spend intentionally, thoughtfully, and with purpose. I’m not saying you have to be a minimalist living with a French sized capsule wardrobe and two individual sets of dishes. But accumulating things is not it.

The purpose of procuring things should always be to live well. You want to have exactly what you need and some of what you desire. You do not need to mask what’s hurting you with mindless buying. 

If you don’t spend intentionally, you will end up with a house full of things — which need to be cleaned and organized, another headache — a head full of things, and a heart and spirit full of unresolved trauma, angst, and low grade self-hate — ‘cuz you know you don’t need that shit, now you gotta figure out how to pay those credit card bills, and you may have to keep working at a job you don’t like to do it!

Resource: The Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living with Less

Live Intentionally and Live Well. That’s One of the Most Important Lessons of All

3. Be selfish. The world loves to put a Black woman in a cape and attach words like strong and superwoman to her. That shit is a straight up scam. A con! One that keeps you tired and broken down from overwork and a lack of real rest, and bending yourself like a pretzel to help other people — even when they don’t want or need your help!

Get your own house in order. I’m not saying don’t care about other people. Caring is a natural human state of being — and you are a human being — I’m saying don’t care so much about others that you neglect yourself.

You cannot listen to everybody. You have to listen to you — what you want, what you need — because people will dump their unresolved shit on you and won’t even know it. But unintended hurt is still hurtful, you see what I’m saying?

That’s why your voice has to be the loudest as a dictum for how you live your life. 

I think it was Zora Neale Hurston who said the Black woman is the mule of the world. She’s always working and saving other people, often to the detriment of herself, her dreams, her wants, and her needs. 

The world wants that. It wants you to constantly be focused outward. To think that putting on your mask first is selfish, and how could you even want such a thing? 

I’m here to tell you, you fucking better want that. 

Even if you are a caregiver or a parent, you can’t always come last. Nor should you! That’s a gag. A setup being perpetuated on a societal level to keep you constantly working for other people’s happiness and salvation. 

You can’t pour from an empty cup. And if you run yourself into the ground, what happens then? Will all those people you’ve been helping help you get back on your feet?

Think about that, and then think about the simple things you can do, and the attitudes you can adopt, to avoid hurting yourself with overwork and lack of care.

4. Nurture your entrepreneurial spirit. This one is related to learning how to handle money. You need multiple income streams, a hustle. Period. That way you don’t get stuck in situations because you need a paycheck, or you need someone to pay your bills. 

I’m not saying you need to be a unicorn startup founder, or that the traditional workplace is all bad, never go there. But it can be challenging for Black women because too often it’s not about the work. Sometimes they make it about us — or who they think we are or who they think we should be. 

And when that bullshit happens it won’t matter how hard you’ve worked, or what you’ve done for the company or the team. Politics and nonsense will trump your work ethic and integrity almost every time because at the end of the day you are in somebody else’s house/job. 

That’s why you should never put all of your financial eggs in one basket. Multiple income streams is that shit. I don’t care if you sell hair, nails, cakes, or pictures of your feet on the internet. Have a hustle — maybe two or a few — that you enjoy doing on the side that bring in money.

Being Selfish Isn’t Always Bad. Sometimes It’s Necessary

5. Prioritize healing and caring for yourself. Healing takes many shapes. Some of these are foundational: eating well, exercising more days than not, consistently sleeping enough at the right time. These are critical. But you gotta dig deeper. This isn’t about the superficial.

I’m talking about reparenting, healing childhood trauma, all that type stuff. Whatever the problem is or was, get it out of you. Give it some air, some light, whatever it is or whoever it is. Face it, so it doesn’t fester, and cause you to make mistakes more than once, or to devolve into patterns that stymie your growth or lead you down unnecessarily rocky paths.

Take accountability for what happened. If you acknowledge the role you played — even if you played that part against your express will — then you also acknowledge that you have the right and the sack to clean that shit up.

Being strong is important, but it should not be a way of life. You’re a woman. You should be soft. You can be vulnerable sometimes, that is not a weakness. You are human. You may be hurt sometimes — even if you don’t announce it — and that is ok. That’s why healing is so important.

Things will go wrong. Things will be fucked up. But prioritize fully healing from that which has hurt you or gone wrong.

6. What other people think about you is none of your business. I love this idea. It’s so freeing. It helps to bring things, big or small, into perspective and focus. 

“Your racism, your discrimination, is not my problem,” said Steven Bartlett in a recent Linkedin post. “What happens if I walk in believing that I’m at a disadvantage?” 

I’ll tell you: Nothing good.

To dwell on others’ opinions and ideas of who you are will only hinder you and make you feel like shit. It will stop you from taking chances, from learning, from raising your hand to take on new challenges that might bring significant rewards. 

Racism, sexism, discrimination, all these big, dated, ridiculously negative constructs exist. But they are not your problem. Don’t let someone else make them your problem. They are real, but they should not be allowed to stop you from doing shit. They should be allowed to permanently or perpetually hamper or hinder you.

Your job, as Bartlett said, is to control how you show up. To make sure you are your best. That you are hardworking, strategic, disciplined. Do that, and you’ll find a creative way around all that other shit.

I think we need a part two for this topic. Let me know if you want that. We don’t gate keep around here!