Want to take charge of your life? Throw out the ghostwriter. Here's an AYA maxim: Authenticity > Authorship > Authority. When we are emotionally authentic, we are writing, creating the story of our lives and relationships. When we write/create the story, then we become the authorities in and over our lives.
On the other hand, when we are emotionally inauthentic, (numb to what we are feeling - all of what we're feeling, or when we're not true to what we're feeling) the story of our lives and relationships (intimate, familial, organizational, or business) is being written and directed by the ghostwriter - the person or group that has written, and implanted the "script" for our inauthenticity.
- Who's writing your story, pullin' your relationship strings.
- Why, when closest to success, does our communication turn to conflict, and trust erodes or explodes?
It's the ghostwriter.
You've heard it before - "change your communication; change your life!" You try.
Still the same patterns return. It's the ghostwriter hiding, secretly influencing, shading, directing, controlling.
We look under our words - maybe we change them. Not there. Hmm... We examine our non-verbals, maybe we change some of them too. Not there.
The root of both our verbal and non verbal expression are our emotions. Ahh... see there. You have to look closely-very closely because the ghostwriter hides there - pretending, substituting, morphing, amplifying, confounding, falsifying the messages our emotions send.
He hides in the very place where he told you not to look, a place he told you to suppress.
Slick.
There in your well of emotions, undetected, the ghostwriter rules and predictably orchestrates our words and actions against our best interest.
You've heard the expression:
"I was so mad that I could cry!" Typically, it's a woman's voice saying those words. It's the ghostwriter directing. Nothing in a woman's DNA causes her to have a "crying" emotional response to "anger." It's the ghostwriter.
And just why does a "hurt" brother hurt others" when you'd think that being "hurt" would increase his sensitivity?" It's the ghostwriter.
And just why is it that we "feel" better when we shop at some expensive White establishment, and As Amos N. Wilson noted "feel" cheated each time we shop with a Black person?" It's the ghostwriter. Of course, you could blame yourself, but that's another alien script. We'll get to that one later. One at a time, please!
Oppression - the ghost writer - is the work of generations-old psychic, social and physical brutality that has scripted our learned emotional responses. It's also new. In our new found "freedom" to copy Europeans and embrace their way, we openly invite inauthenticity as the standard. It is their standard. So when we measure our success on how much of their standard we've achieved (actually, devolved to), we embrace the ghostwriter. The result from the old or the new practice is the same. We are often not authentic with ourselves or each other- even when we tryin' to be.
"Keepin' it 100,” “Keep it real” reveals our value and quest for authenticity. Sadly, these sayings have also become an excuse for abuse - playing the wrong chords, only painting with the boldest colors, the loudest notes, ignoring the black notes on the piano and the others emotional tones that give meaning and context to the communication.
Falsified Emotions:
Being emotionally authentic is not just a simply a moral choice, not just a character thing. Our emotional responses have been falsified, scripted by oppression to they serve the oppressor's bidding by inducing intra-psychic and interpersonal conflict between us.
With Love:
Sometimes the deadly ghostwriter entered by hitching a ride on my father's love, or my mother's milk, or other act of love from my family or community. This makes is harder to find. It takes even more skill to keep the love and while giving dumping the devilish ghostwriter.
A very slick system - is this injected oppression.
No worries, you have some powerful allies. “When the syndrome is around, don’t let you guard down, all you got to do is to call on the funk.” Some missed it, we didn’t! And we’ll make sure you don’t either. The syndrome is the ghostwriter - oppression. The “funk” is your culture. Don’t just play it, let it guide your actions. “Sir nosed devoid of funk” doesn’t stand a chance.
Don’t worry, we make it plain. Getting rid of the ghostwriter by practicing emotional authenticity is a key skill we introduce in our Taste of Warriors -Healers-Builders” workshops and full WHB retreats. This summer we've changed it recently to include what we've learned from the artists.
Circle of Culture:
Our cultural creations can lead us through. The “Circle of Culture” has been a healing, building and conduit for resistance since before the ghostwriters were ghost. Before their brutality was injected in our psyches. When the whip was their pen and our blood was their ink.
Even then, especially then - our memory, our music, our languages and dialect, our singing, dancing and art were doors to the safe haven of authenticity - to our reality; not that imposed by the barbarians who most wanted our spirit.
Our artist knew and still know that...
Emotion has tone.
Emotion has intensity.
Emotion has duration.
Emotion has volume.
Emotion has color.
Emotion has shades.
At some level we all know it. In our hands this emotional proficiency is powerfully healing and communicative. In the ghostwriter's hands they are deadly. Even artist, when not performing, too often betray their gift and surrender to the ghostwriter in organizational and relationship communication.
Any wonder we can't build or sustain our unions. Trying to communicate with with the ghostwriter holding the Cue-cards guarantees inauthentic communication and dooms trust-building internally and externally.
Maybe we should sing our responses to each other.
Stevie Wonder asks:
So...
If it's special
Then with it why aren't we as careful
As making sure we dress in style
Posing pictures with a smile
Keeping danger from a child"
Trust. We all know that it's special. It’s the key to every success. Give the ghostwriter the boot, nurture emotional authenticity and trust.
Trust. Earn it; you can’t demand it.
Trust. Restore it; it will be one of the greatest accomplishments of your life.
Trust. Grow it even in the hostile oppressive environment that induces distrust in ourselves and each other. Nirvana!
James Ingram’s "Just Once" said it best: "I know we can through it, if we can just get to it."
Come, using the Circle of Culture, we'll help you find the ghostwriter, and get him out of the way, so we can get to it, so you can take charge of your life, so you can author your relationships in your life, so that you become the authority in your own life’s story!
Have a taste - A Taste of WHB. That’s followed by brothers only and sisters only sessions this summer on WHB Super Saturdays in Cincinnati, DC, ATL, Chicago.
PS: There's another kind of inauthenticity that we get to as well. It's the "alien" River of Touches. We use Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Mausiki Scales, Gregory Porter, and Marvin Sapp to help get to that and through that!
Register:
http://ayaeducation.blogspot.com/p/warriors-healers-builders.html
http://www.ayaed.com/whdc/emotion.htm
Here's some music:
Mausiki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vidoYoubxFY
Stevie: https://youtu.be/mlz3QwnMBok
James Ingram: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1Er_8rih4
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