After meeting this man, we ended up kind of going out on a date, and I was already in love with him from that first moment, on that first date. And part of me was like, ‘Well, I can go home and cry myself to sleep, and be in bed for the whole weekend and just be in misery or really look at what I’m really actually in love with this person.’ And what I did was, like usually when you’re in love with someone, in my experience, is that there is something you admire about their being that maybe you feel like you’re not.”

-Maya McClean

“Hey B,” she left him the final text. This time she’s serious. She’s going to finally go through her 40 day fast. No chase. Just step into her inner power. She heard Brian Reeves’ no chase diet in her mind. She thought about Jesus in the desert, fasting, pushing through the temptations of the flesh. This time it’s for reals. No more false starts. No more sleeping around with other men, planting charm around their hearts to have her way about things, no more projecting her insecurities through food, sex, and baiting men.

Angelie knew the first time she laid her eyes upon him that he was the one.

A rose in concrete.

He was humble. He was grounded. He was the gravity where she gravitated towards. She knew the difference. She felt rejuvenated. The same way Sonny used to rejuvenate her when she was stressed out, her face planted in his chest when they embraced under the bedsheets. He was her rock, and when she buried her face in Branson’s chest that morning, it was the same rock she felt more than five years ago. She found her way home.

She saw the part of herself that she wanted to become in him.

Holding oneself in high self-esteem.

Self-respect.

Self-control.

Mindful.

Disciplined.

Grounded.

Focused.

Accountable.

In Integrity.

He fit into her body like a warm sunset. His body waited until she was satisfied before he was done.

“Want to go eat afterward?” she asked.

“No, I have errands to do,” he said.

It was discouraging knowing that he no longer looked at her as a companion but more so as a throwback chick. What took six and a half years for Angelie to undo in Sonny took less than a month for her to undo in Branson. He no longer considered her as his equal let alone worthy of his time…

fool me once shame on you…fool me twice… it’s abuse

… she had betrayed him….cuckold him before he could even begin processing the deep love he had in store for her. Just as fast as she had awakened his love for her she had cut him deep and shut him down just as fast.

 

Perhaps it was because she didn’t think highly of herself and had broken the bond of trust before love even had a chance to bloom. She was still treating sex as a sport and men like game so when Branson had requested to go sexually exclusive with her, she had defaulted to breaking it off with him. Then she started to toy with other men and began confessing her crimes to him because “Hey, Branson, after all, you did say that you would always be my friend right?”

Open relationship?

Men were toys or tools.

And the fact that he wanted to be exclusive sexually meant that he wanted to offer himself up as a toy.

A year ago, she would have taken him up on that offer but now she was just bored.

Bored of the same old dance.

So he just wanted her sexually?

There were resentment and indignation, never thinking twice that perhaps he was afraid to call it love, but he meant just that, at his own pace. Maybe it was man-translation for, “I am becoming emotionally attached to you and I don’t want other men to touch you,” for which she completely mistranslated as, “I just want your body and will emotionally cheat on you with other women.”

She had too many expectations after the first lay.
She needed him to be with her in mind, body, and spirit, and though they already were, she had a certain picture of how it would look. Steve Harvey had said in his book, Think Like a Man, Act Like a Lady, a man begins to fall in love with you when he professes, provides, and protects. Based on these definitions, Branson was already beginning to do all that: He began professing when he began inviting her to meet his close associates, he began providing when he had taken her out to what he later told Angelie was his equivalent of, his protecting when he had planned on having a conversation with her about her Pro-Trump Facebook comments compromising her professional dreams. But for Angelie, she missed the cue. Because his love didn’t show up like a “label” of girlfriend/boyfriend or a FB declaration, even though they were already acting as such. She had assumed he was just there for her body. Same old boring game. Toys or tools.

Mr. Green
When Angelie was in 7th grade she had a 7th-grade math teacher by the name of Mr. Green, who later became one of her favorite teachers. He was blind in one eye after a poisoning accident changing the pipes. He was married to Mrs. Green, her 7th grade English teacher, also a favorite teacher.

On the first day, he wrote out the word, “Assume,” on the blackboard. Then he said to the class, “Don’t assume anything. Because when that happens, this happens.”

Then he added two vertical lines:
Ass | u | me

Assumptions

Angelie had assumed that Branson wanted her just for her body. She had assumed that he was going to emotionally cheat on her and that one day when she really is in the thick of being completely and faithfully in love with him, she assumed he would cheat, manipulate, and lie about it the same way Sonny would, the same way Branson once did to his ex-girlfriend–living the fast life, the superficial life, the “label” life. After all, he was Sonny and her daddy reincarnate. He is also Black. And in 7th grade, it was a black guy by the name of Leon, who had taken her paper from English class, erased her name and added his name on it to pass it off as his work. It was also a black man, Mr. Damian, who had told her that if she had invested in his digital hip-hop company, she would see an ROI within a few months. And after five months of putting in full-time work and five thousand dollars later, he left her with broken promises and a sense of deep distrust among black men.  She had projected her fears of the lying, cheating, and manipulative man onto Branson. More so, she had added skin color to those fears.

Walls

Smooth, smart, sharp in his positive and manipulating, selfish and cowardly in his negative.

Generous, loyal, and loving in her positive and indecisive, resentful, and controlling in her negative.

“How does it feel knowing that we know the best and worst in each other?” she looked into his eyes with intensity, and he could feel the weight of her words. The weight of truth.

They were bonded telepathically as well as energetically. He knew everything about her the same way she knew everything about him. They had history in another karmic reality. Even though this was her second time in his home, her knees on his carpet, hovering over his body as he laid, languid, on his living room couch, it felt like they have been in this position many lifecycles over.

It was knowing that her vibrations could inspire or exacerbate his walk of the higher version of himself that he wanted to discover in this life that both attracted him and repelled him. Thus far, she was exacerbating. They both knew they each had lots of competition for each other’s attention, but the difference between them was that she had rubbed it in his face and used it as a carrot on the stick in an effort to control him. Both of them knew that this would push them further apart, especially Angelie. She knew exactly how to bring him closer. She had done it with Sonny when she was 19 and now at 32, this technique was easy breezy. But she chose not to hook him, at least her subconscious didn’t want to. Instead, she did exactly the opposite of what she had done with Sonny. She chose to hook, hurt, and push him. She chose to show the unsteady crazy front to push him away–mass texting, inserting her power, coming off both arrogant and rude. She didn’t care. She secretly hadn’t forgiven any of it. Those nights she was up, filled with anxiety and panic–those nights his ex-girlfriend was up with the same anxiety and panic, knowing the man they love so deeply were both in the arms of another woman–addicted to the flesh, the ego-stroking, the power.

Knowing the duality of the men they both loved, how did someone like Angelie and Branson’s ex-girlfriend both hold down men like Sonny and Branson?

Men like Sonny and Branson had trust issues. They were heavily guarded. Scared inside. Hurt.

Sonny was the kind of man who had so much trust issues, he had never once taken a girl home to meet his parents until he had met Angelie. After their second year together, he had taken her home every Christmas, for five years straight, and on the sixth year, he had married her. How did she inspire a man like Sonny to love her the way he was afraid to love any other woman? What was it about Angelie?

She had asked this question to Sonny many times while they were initially dating once upon a time ago. He would say to her every time, “I don’t know.”

But she knew. And that’s why he loved her. She had the kind of insight, of grace and beauty, that she carried. The kind that reminded both Sonny and Branson of their mothers who looked upon them with doting eyes. It was inherited from her mother and her matriarchal bloodline–it was sunshine for the rose. The kind of love–unconditional–for her lover. Somehow, it got lost.

She gave too much of herself away that she had almost forgotten who she really was. That became resentment and resentment grew into self-loathing and self-loathing projected into pushing the very person she loved away. He wanted her to be someone she wasn’t.

And so Angelie somehow knew that she had to get right on the inside…this part of her unresolved–self-respect, self-love, self-manifesting dreams–must express itself. It was forgiving herself for her own self-inflicted sorrows. It was owning her self-ish-ness by letting go of a way she had viewed her old self. She is worthy. Worthy to make mistakes, worthy to be in her process, worthy to want what she wants and getting it because she worked towards it–honestly, patiently, and forgivingly.

Hookers

She demonstrated to Branson how easy it was for her to hook a man but who was the one really hooking? Who is really the punchline of this joke?

She took it upon herself to remind him at any opportunity that so and so was jocking her, so and so invited her over to spend the night, so and so offered her his place and well, she would prefer it if he had opened his home to her because if he didn’t? Well, that’s fine, she’ll just go looking for someone else. She felt obligated to tell him every minutia of what her dating life was like outside of their relationship. She resented him by virtue of his past, by virtue of his being a man, by virtue of his being a black man, and by virtue of being someone she has completely fallen for and can’t stop thinking about–by virtue of all these qualities, this must be a man-trap.

Why would she fall for any man who actually is good for her?

Don’t fall for it. Push him away.

That was the operating manual behind her ways.

Why?

Because the thought of loving him was too scary. That would take faith, trust, and respect.

That would take the deep loving she had given to Sonny.

And that deepness, of getting lost in complete faith and trust and love, when it was gone….it was so so painful.

That would mean trusting him when he goes out on late night dinners in the name of business when other women will try and seduce him. That would mean having the faith and fortitude to trust that he would stay loyal knowing the odds– that he was an attractive man, an attractive black man, an attractive black man successful in the music industry. Cheating, lying and manipulating. That’s all Angelie knows from her selective memory bank of trauma, of pop culture, of societal conditioning of the sociopathic man–the corporate man–so that was the script running the show of why she kept pushing him away with her crazy….her creative fully-self expressed womanhood.

Men are not to be trusted. They’ll cheat.

Women are not to be trusted. They’ll seduce and take your man.

Black people are not to be trusted. They’ll take your money.

People are not to be trusted. They’ll take your energy.

Boomerang

She flaunted all the men in his face to assert false control over something that was useless to prove because proving to the ghosts of her past that she could also hurt men like Sonny, like the younger version of Branson, was moot. Angelie has been on this rodeo before–this type of “showing off” would only push him away. It also exposed her insecurities.

Complements

“You’re beautiful Angelie,” Dresden looked into her brown eyes. She smiled sadly. Knowing that she already knew this, knowing that this is how Branson saw her before she had taken him out. Now another man is telling her what she knew Branson already saw in her.

“You’re unique Angelie,” Branson had told her. When they had first met half a year ago, he had taken her to his favorite spot. There, they both confessed to each other their greatest possibilities and in the same conversation thread, their greatest fears. In that space, they had discovered they were living parallel but complementary lives. He was a former Christian turned atheist and she the opposite. She was a former educator getting into the music industry at a time he was leaving the music industry and getting more involved in education. They both had a deep 7-year relationship–one was the cheater and the other the one cheated on. Now, they were both starting their own company in search of something they had lost–hoping that the success of each other’s respective companies will fulfill that part of them they both were trying to avoid. Avoid the self-work, both stemming out of a deep fear of being abandoned and betrayed;

They had the same birthdays and the day after their birthdays, they had the perfect day. She wanted to complete 2016 by connecting with him mind, body, and spirit, but she had already cut him deep.

Chasing Pavements

She had somehow put off doing the inner work despite founding a company that is designed for others to do the inner work. She had founded a company based on discovering love after love and yet when love showed up…she missed the cue.

Now she, as Adelie would say, is chasing pavements.

She had left the Italian guy at the restaurant, knowing that her thoughts were with Branson.

She had left the Mexican guy’s house, knowing that her heart was with Branson.

She had left the Irish guy’s house, knowing that her body belonged to Branson.

She had left the English guy’s house, knowing it was Branson she wanted to be with.

She had left all the men’s houses because it wasn’t home.

Even the man who asked her to be his girlfriend after Branson had long ghosted her, she knew that no man would satisfy her the way Branson would satisfy. It’s a deep knowing. 

Perhaps, it’s because she knew subconsciously that she did all the unraveling in the relationship with Sonny. She was the one who told Sonny that she hated him and wanted a divorce.

She was the one who called Branson and told him she had slept with another man during a time she had already awakened his love for her.

Daddy Issues

It was all because she hadn’t forgiven her dad for hurting her mother when the many women came in between what was she witnessed from an early age of their genuine love together. She had witnessed how deep the wounds were for her mother and so the thought of her dad with another woman while mother was home taking care of them cut her deep too. Mixed feelings. Hatred for the betrayal and hatred for her mother for being so accepting and unconditional about keeping the family together. It broke her heart. Why didn’t she leave? She couldn’t figure it out.

Until she turned 33.

33

Now that Angelie is 33, she would wake up every morning to both her mother and father growing the vegetable garden together. Perhaps unconditional love grows gardens. She lets her dad know that his financial support has really helped this organization grow. It was his optimism for whatever she wanted to do that inspired her to want to become an entrepreneur in the first place. It was her dad who taught her the hard lessons–Letting go of so-called friends who didn’t serve, putting her mind and her discipline first, reminding Angelie how smart she really is ever since she was a little girl. He was the one who dedicated his thesis book to her when he graduated with his Ph.D. at USC. He was the one who invested in her dreams, even when she changed her mind or had taken it for granted, it was her dad who put the money where his mouth was even when all the other men in her life flew away. It was her dad who came back. it was also her dad who had saved her life when she had almost overdosed on lithium poisoning. It was her dad who deals with the mental and emotional anguish she now fully understands. Science calls it bipolar, but she knows better–it’s a genetic gift–the ability to feel, to sense the ego and spiritual antennas that are heightened–great for business but keeps her antisocial because sometimes the sensitivity to the darkness could get a bit too heavy. It was her daddy that she was able to live her mission–test the waters. A daddy who knows her better than she realizes but who expresses his love in very different ways than how she would express it. Perhaps, it’s first realizing this fact. That Sonny, to this day, still loves her very much, even though he may never tell her so anymore, but in his own way, she could feel it–the way she feels it when she asks herself, “Does daddy love me?” The answer always comes up, “Yes.”

So perhaps this is the starting point of her transformation. This knowing that the men in her life, though flawed as they all are–every single one of them–all love her, and that it shows up in their own way, not hers.

Can she accept this?

Can she accept it rather than project it?

She shows up as controlling, manipulative, and two-faced to Branson. This is deliberate. She is acting in front of him so that she could push him away. Flawed as she is, does that mean she loves Branson, or Sonny or her dad any less? No. It just doesn’t show up the way they all wanted her to show up.

She must now own hers.

Patience and forbearance.

She still had unresolved issues;

she has to workshop through the program God had tasked her to carry out.

Remember to be the mission. Be it, the first teacher, then teach it. That’s what all the kids are starving for–authentic, vulnerable, and creative people.

As if to rub it in his face for all those times he had cheated on his ex during the 7 years he was with her, as if to rub it in her ex husband’s face for all those times he came home late in the early mornings claiming it was this executive or that executive who kept him up while the entire time, Angelie intuitively knew he was out with another woman, disrespecting their marriage and disrespecting her, as if to rub it in all their faces…

she had gone out and seduced a beautiful stranger and bedded him that night. She had the type of blacked out drunk sex as an act of defiance and hatred for all the men she loved. Victimhood felt so good when you couldn’t remember a thing nor take responsibility for any of the actions, until those actions bled into the consequences of when she turned 33–she could have already been in his arms by now, she could have already discussed raising children, she could have already been empowering each other’s dreams, but all that she is carrying now are the consequences. She had put off the 40-day journey when she was 32, so now at 33, she must do it alone. Can she accept it?

When she was walking down the narrow path from the Arizona Festival of Books to the parking lot, she had come across lavender and pink cacti. Immediately, Branson was in her thoughts and reverberated in her heart.  The man she knew she was designed to be with was manifesting in different places in her reality. Though he was not physically there with her, he was everywhere–every space in her reality, he was there.
“I don’t want any responsibilities,” he had said to the night before their last in 2016. He was traumatized by the ex-girlfriend who had called the cops on him during their fight. The moments when she would burst out in anger because she knew he was lying the way Angelie knew Sonny was lying. Men like Sonny and Branson live in the world of game theory. As long as the other party doesn’t know, nobody gets hurt. It comes from an egocentric, hard knox, black and white standpoint that both attract women and hurts them because women like Angelie and Branson’s ex-soulmate were the ones who could transform that robotic part of their hearts–from Rock into Water. In many ways, Angelie reminded Branson of the last woman he loved. Hot, fiery, and poisonous to the touch. Nobody can save her but God. And it is through God that women like Angelie must have a relationship first before they can steer anyone else on a walk of higher self–lest, like sirens, they steer the men they love so dearly off course.

40 Days

The advice she gave Shaniya was to wait 40 days.

Love is Patient. Love is Kind.

Just master it by just being.

Just Be.

“Do you love him?” Angelie asked Shaniya.

“Yes.”

“Then don’t settle for anyone else,” she had told her.

“There was a woman I was dating after I had met him,” she said, “But she and I stopped talking too.”

“Well, is this the man for you? Is he the one?” Angelie asked.

She thought about it for a moment.

“Yes,” she said.

Angelie thought about her question as well.

She was well aware that she was projecting her situation onto Shaniya’s.

“If he is ‘The One,’ then it means just that,” she said.

Maybe Angelie should put her money where her mouth is.

She told Shaniya not to settle, yet it felt as though she was doing just that.

The man who came into her life recently, Dresden, just asked her to elope with him to Vegas. When she said no, he later asked her to be his girlfriend. She was beginning to develop feelings for him by sheer virtue that he was hanging around her all the time and advocating for what she is doing in her project, but it was not with Branson.

It felt off.

It felt like settling.

Even when the Brit guy a few weeks back told her that if she had pulled some shit like that to him, he would never get back with her.

When Angelie had told Dresden what she had done, he had replied, “Honestly, Angelie, if you had done that to me, I would also let you go.”

Her publicist friend told her how common it was for men in the entertainment industry to be seduced by other women, and that being with someone like Branson would be a lifetime of loneliness and sharing.

The odds were against them.

She had hope.

She had pushed “The One” away.

She had hope.

Holy Spirit told her that it was not too late.

Just pray and have faith.

Have hope and respect the delay.

God is working in your and Branson’s favor.

Take the 40-day journey.

Walk in the path of higher self.

Deliver what God has intended for you to do, dear one.

Create the journaling program for all to benefit from, but first…

You, my love, must walk the path of higher self.

Self-Love must first be created before you can teach anybody.

And the inner work must be done first before you can lead anyone.

Love unconditionally because you were created with unconditional love.