Manifesto

At the end of each week, I take the time to revisit my post performance. I look at instagram/facebook insights, my blogs performance, feedback I receive, and most importantly I reflect on how I feel about the content I created that week. I do all this to make sure I attain the goals I have set for myself. While reflecting, I realized that although I love sharing and being authentic, I was only sharing the safest parts of me. I didn’t share the negative comments, DM’s or gossip. I don’t do this because you give life to whatever you put your energy towards. However, after a recent message, I wanted to clear the air. I am going to be transparent with a quick story and then share the reason I started my blog and what I hope to get out of it.

As a kid I was always teased about being dark-skinned. I hated it so much that I began to hate myself. Whenever, I complained about being teased I was always told that I was too sensitive, and not to worry about what others say. While that is great advice, and one that I retained to this day, how do you ignore the opinions of those that you value most? I went on for years suppressing how I felt. I tried not to cry publicly, and for a long time I rarely spoke about things that affected me. Often times, I would be called stuck up, or standoffish because of my quietness. I remained uncomfortable in what I can only describe as a cage for years. Once I became enlightened, I promised myself that I would never remain uncomfortable. For almost a year and a half, my weekday responsibilities have become more and more challenging. I found myself angry, anxious, and annoyed most days which eventually lead to me being uncomfortable. I knew then I had to plan an exit strategy, so I decided to start blogging. I knew it was something I enjoyed doing and could do effortlessly. Not that blogging isn’t hard work; because trust me, it is! When I decided to blog it was not just a leap of faith, I truly believe it is what I was destined to do. In my short time blogging, I have been able to monetize with less than 1k followers on instagram, and my audience is growing daily. The best part of it all is that it does not feel like work. My ideas of content creation are two pages long and are continuing to grow each day. I have connected with women in many parts of the world, and I am able to curate ideas in an environment that I am most comfortable in. If this isn’t what I was aligned to do, I don’t know what is. With just one platform, I have been able to accomplish the one thing that is most important to me which is doing what I love.

Somehow, doing what I love has caused the opinions of others to re-appear. For a quick second, I allowed it to affect me. I started asking myself why am I blogging? Is it because I want to show off or boast? My mind quickly replied “Hell nah, that aint never been you. (Read it again, and say it in the most rachet voice ever) That is far from who I am, or what this blog is about. I believe that blogging can appear that way for those who aren’t familiar with what it is, but it is absolutely not the case. I share to inspire others, I share to make others feel accepted, I share because I have a gift, I share because I can. I share because I learned to love the skin am in, I share because my sensitivity now allows me to connect with like minded individuals. I share because this is truly my life purpose. Most importantly, I share because I decided to do something about being uncomfortable. If you are somehow triggered, or cannot support what I post, please do what is best for you. If it requires you to unfollow me, I am okay with that. Because, why would you remain where you are uncomfortable?

Lastly, I couldn’t close this out without some sort of positive insight. If you are someone that allows other peoples opinion to affect you, I need you to know this, opinions are just that, opinions. They are not facts, they do not change who you are, and they certainly do not define you. Understand that not everybody in life shares the same journey. Some of us are strong in one area, and broken in the next. For that reason, we all need to create boundaries. Unless the opinion actually aligns with something you personally want to improve on, it has no value. Period.

So again, I am not boasting or showing off. I am simply doing what I love in hopes of inspiring others to do the same.

Thanks for receiving my Manifesto. Now that we’ve cleared the air. What are you looking to buy next? What can I help you find?

xoxo

Tiffany