Whitney Houston - Million Dollar Bill (Official Video)

 

Dear Whitney, I Get So Emotional Every Time I Think Of You (Originally Posted 3.14.12)

    I remember February 11 all too well. It is my brother’s birthday and it was also the day of a health and wellness event at our church. The previous day our church had a GoRed! Gala. Needless to say I was very tired when I got home. I passed out for many hours. As I struggled to get up later that evening I received a call from my niece about Whitney Houston. Now the need to get up was urgent. The texts and calls were coming through. Many I didn’t respond to. I was numb, stunned, emotional……

    Only last night did I pick up and read one of the many magazines I have purchased in memory of Whitney. They are sitting on the counter for me to glance at as I come and go throughout the house. For the very first time as I read about Whitney not one tear dropped. Whew! The article took me back to 1985, two years before I would graduate from high school. I remember hearing her sing for the first time and wishing I had the courage to use my voice to sing. She was like a part of me that I wished I was. A part of me that to this day still stays dormant.

    I was fortunate enough to see her when she came to Riverbend. Thinking back on that now, I just wanted to see Whitney Houston in concert and now I realize that I witnessed the beginning of an icon. One of my dreams when I was in school was to become a tour manager and to work with her. Now that never happened but it solidifies my adoration for her music early on. After her passing I had a person say to me, when was the last time you listened to a Whitney Houston song. Please believe that she is and has been in rotation since the beginning.

    While “How Will I Know” is my absolute favorite Whitney song. My favorite album has to be I’m Your Baby Tonight which contains the song “Miracle”. That song speaks volumes to many life experiences that I was going through at that time. I believe that is what her music did, speak volumes to her fans. So much so that after hearing “The Greatest Love of All” in 1992 I decided to name my son Alexander because I knew he would be great and so would my love for him. Years later I would go on to name my younger son Xander.

    I pray that Whitney’s spirit feels the overwhelming support of so many people who loved her so much and appreciated her. We all have flaws, we are all searching for the dream that makes us feel whole, and we all want to experience great love. In many ways, many of us are similar to Whitney Houston constantly searching out that which the Creator has already placed inside of us.

    The music of Whitney Houston is timeless and she was blessed to be given songs to sing that will forever hold meaning. Since February 11 I have listened to so many songs and had so many memories but there is one song I can’t listen to yet, one video I can’t view yet. I can’t manage to hear her sing learning to love yourself, is the greatest love of all… I get too emotional.

Every Role Informed the Other (Nothing Was Wasted)

 

What I thought was a company to help others share their stories became a deeper realization—that I am the bet, perfectly packaged, with nothing to prove.

    When I look at my life now, I no longer see fragmentation. I see formation. What once felt like too many roles, too many pauses, and too many pivots now reads as preparation. Mother, educator, writer, believer, survivor, each role shaped the next. None of them existed in isolation, and none of them were accidental.

    Being a mother taught me patience long before I ever named it as leadership. It taught me how to listen beneath words, how to respond instead of react, how to keep showing up even when I was tired. Being an educator sharpened my ability to translate complex ideas into language people can actually receive. Writing became the place where I processed what I couldn’t yet say out loud. Faith taught me how to trust seasons that didn’t make sense while I was living them and that all things work together for my good.

    Then came the roles I never asked for but still had to inhabit, patient, survivor, griever. Illness slowed me down in ways productivity never could. Recovery forced me to confront my limits. Grief stripped away any illusion of control. And still, even those roles informed the others. They deepened my compassion. They clarified my voice. They reshaped how I understand leadership, not as authority over others, but as stewardship of truth.

    At the time, it didn’t feel purposeful. It felt disruptive. Inconvenient. Like I was falling behind while everyone else was moving forward. But distance has a way of revealing design. What once felt like interruption now feels like instruction. The pauses weren’t gaps, they were classrooms. The lessons learned are invaluable. 

    This is why I no longer believe in wasted seasons. The work I do now is stronger because of everything that came before it. I can sit with people in uncertainty because I’ve lived there. I know fully the pain of rejection and what it's like to become ill and have to solely depend on others. I can guide others through storytelling because I’ve had to find language for my own becoming. I can lead without rushing because my life has taught me the cost of forcing outcomes.

    So when I say I am perfectly packaged, I don’t mean finished. I mean integrated. I mean whole. I mean I no longer need to separate who I’ve been from who I am becoming. The throughline was always there. I just couldn’t see it until I stopped trying to edit my life and started honoring it.

When “Niche Down” Costs You Parts of Yourself

    I told myself my niche was self-publishing and writing. I created the website and the social media pages. I did all of the things. That wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t complete. What I didn’t understand then was how much pressure that advice carried, or how quietly it asked me to leave parts of myself behind.

    “Niche down” started to feel less like guidance and more like an eraser. It suggested that my story needed trimming. That my experiences needed editing. That the parts of me shaped by illness, grief, faith, recovery, leadership, motherhood, and survival were somehow extra. I felt like I had to choose one lane when my life had clearly taken many—and none of them were accidental.

    Every role I’ve held informed the other parts of me at the same time. Niching down didn’t make my work clearer, rather it made it feel disconnected from me. And over time, that disconnect created quiet resistance. Not because I lacked discipline, but because something in me knew I was being asked to shrink.

    There’s a particular grief that comes from trying to make yourself more “marketable.” It doesn’t show up all at once. It shows up in hesitation. In daily self-reflections. In the feeling that you're leaving too much unsaid. I didn’t realize it then, but I was grieving parts of myself while trying to brand the rest. In those moments, the branding didn't feel fulfilling because so much of me was being left out. 

    I was leaving out so much that makes me relatable to single moms, divorce moms, women of faith and women who can't see it yet but they are thriving in adverse situations without having the language to it. I named the whole of who I am. Mom. Believer. Educator. Writer. Survivor. I'm every woman. A multi-talented woman who has a publishing company designed to help others tell their stories.

    Now, the writing comes easier. The ideas connected. The resistance softened. Not because I had finally figured out the “right” strategy—but because I stopped abandoning myself in the process. 

    This is what perfectly packaged actually means to me now. Not polished. Not minimized. Integrated. Whole. Honest. Every role informing the other. Nothing wasted.

Unraveled - (Originally Posted December 17, 2016)

    So, it's been 7 weeks and 1 day. How do I know that? I just do and today is my birthday eve so I have all kinds of thoughts and emotions. Back in February 2009 a relationship ended that broke my heart, left me sad and hating snow days. If I were real honest he and I shouldn't have been together then. I was separated and nearing divorce and he had stuff going on. We tried. It didn't work.

    When it ended it was like "ugh" another failed relationship. So for the past 7 years I've focused on my sons, ministry, work, you name it and I was doing it. I was busy. When I wasn't busy, I was sleepy because.... Well, I was busy.

    Honestly, I remember the weekend leading up to him reappearing. I had made a candle of hydrangea, lavender and chamomile. On that Sunday I lit it and said, "He would love this candle." I'm so serious when I say that the very next day I heard from him.

    What I believed to be that moment of openness and forgiveness quickly moved to the cover being removed off a hurt that I had carried and masked as being ok. I had to face myself and say honestly, "You've never healed." It still hurts. Now I was becoming not myself. It felt like my perfect ball of yarn had become unraveled. My truth about yarn is that I buy it and 1 of 2 people put it in a neat ball for me because I don't know how. Boy! Was this now more evident as I tried to maintain. I couldn't put the yarn back into a ball.

    I became frustrated, sad, and angry. I called on my friend Lauren, who is always a beacon of light. I called on God because now isn't a good time for dude to show up. As gentle as God is, He softly said, "I knew he would come. You have to deal with it because you never really have."

     My friend and I have had hard conversations and I mean hard. One day he repeated to me things I said to him or I did while we were together. I never voiced it but I thought, "Did I say that?" I'd always shared what he did or said. I had to be honest with self, yet again, I seldom revealed my hand in this. This is not to defend him but to disclose that I wasn't perfect in that relationship. To top it off one Sunday, Quiera came all the way from Atlanta to tell me through a sermon that sometimes it's not everyone else, sometimes it's you. "Who?" Smh. Yeah, it's time for me to self reflect.

     About 19 years ago I met him. He had me at hello. Our friendship survived downsizing, Katrina and failed relationships on both ends. We'd always had each other's backs until we became a couple. We were so used to always going to each other when crisis hit that we had no idea how to be out of crisis and at peace with each other.

    When I lit that beautifully scented candle I had not idea that at the thought of him, he would appear. Just maybe this will foster healing for both of us so that we can move forward. I know one thing for sure and two things for certain being unraveled is for the birds. I need to learn how to patiently put this yarn back into a ball.

*written 11.15.16 #mybirthdayeve

Relaxing Sleep Music

National Wear Red Day 2.6.2026

I have been supporting the Go Red For Women initiative for several years. It began with me attending "Have Faith In Heart" meetings. At those meetings women from local churches would come together to learn about Go Red and how we could share that information with out local churches and faith based organization. 

Why is that important?

Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of women. 

Wear red to be seen, to be counted, to be heard, and to make an impact.

Wellness Webinar.2 | Practice Gratitude

 

Releasing the Pressure to Niche Down

 

    For a long time, I heard the same advice over and over again: niche down. Make it smaller. Make it clearer. Make it easier to explain. I thought my niche was simply self-publishing and writing. And while that’s true, it was never the whole truth.

    What I didn’t realize then was how much pressure that advice carried. It made me feel like I had to flatten my experience to fit inside a category. Like I had to choose one lane when my life had clearly taken many. Writing wasn’t separate from healing. Publishing wasn’t separate from grief. Coaching wasn’t separate from lived experience. They were all informing each other at the same time.

    Now I see it differently. My niche isn’t a single service or skill, it’s the intersection of my story, my voice, and the season I’m willing to write from. It’s creativity shaped by recovery. It’s guidance rooted in lived experience. It’s helping others give language to what they’ve survived and what they’re still becoming.

    So no, I didn’t niche down.
    I named the whole of who I am.

    And that’s when everything began to make sense.

    I realized that I'm perfectly packaged. I am a

• Writer 

• Coach 

• Survivor 

• Mother 

• Faith-rooted woman

• Creative who understands grief, recovery, and rebuilding

Every role informed the others. Nothing was wasted.

Olivia Dean – Millionaire (Kelis Cover / Live From KOKO)