Dreams: Honoring MLK's Dream & Advocating for Authenticity

Have you ever dared to envision a world where the color of your skin doesn't dictate the opportunities before you? Join me, Shaniqua, as we honor the indelible impact of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and unpack my aspirations for a future untainted by racial bias, mirroring his own dream. We navigate the complexity of parenting in today's world, advocating for the instilling of respect and boundaries, while considering the pivotal role of educators. In a heartfelt appeal, we confront the damage caused by dragging children into adult conflicts, especially within blended families, and confront the venomous influence of social media drama, calling for a united front towards nurturing a more supportive community.

Venturing further into the realm of personal integrity, we explore the courage it takes to shed societal masks and the freedom that flourishes in authenticity. Relationships built on truth, the quest for self-improvement without losing our core identity, and the embrace of self-love over the futile endeavor of altering others are central themes. Through evocative discussions, we discover how rejection can shield us and why the art of minding our own business can not only protect our peace but also allow us to live in harmony with our truest selves. Tune in for an episode that doesn't just aim to inspire but seeks to ignite a transformation in how we view ourselves and interact with the world around us.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Free Concepts, unmask, where we motivate, educate and elevate. I am your host, shaniqua. Thank you so much for tuning in. Before I begin my topic, I want to start off with prayer. Father God, in the name of Jesus, god, I thank you, god. I thank you, god, for all things. I thank you for family, my loved ones, friends, god, just everyone, god. I thank you, father, god, for the people that are listening, I ask that you give them open minds, open hearts, right now, to be able to receive whatever it is that you have for them, god, god, that they will be able to listen and want to transform into what it is that you need for them to be, to be the best version of them, that they can be God, that you protect them and that you love on them, father God, right where they are. God, I thank you for your grace, your mercy, your forgiveness and, most of all, I thank you, god, for your love, your everlasting love. Lord, I thank you, god, for this opportunity to have this platform to be able to speak to your people. God, and that they will leave feeling better than they did before they listened. In Jesus' name, I pray amen, amen. So I hope everybody is having a wonderful MLK day. I started to come on here tomorrow, but I want to go ahead and bless you with this word that I have inside of me. So listen, guys, we all know this is MLK day. Okay, so I went on Wikipedia and I wanted to just share this first before I jump into my topic.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Martin Luther King was an American Baptist minister, activist and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. A black church leader and a son of early civil rights activists and minister, martin Luther King, sr King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination in the United States. As we know, dr Martin Luther King Jr, though, was so much more than that. He had a dream. Now I want to share a little bit of my dream. Okay, my dream is similar to Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Speaker 1: 2:36

I believe that, and my dream is that we don't see color anymore, that there's no racism. I can't believe that there's racism here in 2024. But as I scroll through day to day, even out while I'm working. I see it, I hear it going on and it really upsets me. It really saddens me that we have not. I felt like we came a lot further, of course, than where we were, and that's a blessing. But for people to continue this disgusting behavior by discriminating against someone because of the color of their skin, it's just awful.

Speaker 1: 3:28

We need to get away from that. We need to love people, no matter who they are, no matter what their differences are, and just know that we're unique in Every way and that's the way we're meant to be. That's why we all have different fingerprints, I guess, because you know we're all different and that's okay. Now, my other dreams are Child, I need to look. I have to say this my dream is that we need to go ahead and throw away gentle parenting, because if you are out here trying to be your child's friend instead of their parent first, now it's nothing wrong with being your child's friend, but you gotta, you gotta. They have to know the difference between the parent hat and the friend hat. Okay, having respect. My other dream is that I wish that my little thing would stop going off every time I'm speaking on here. You know, to fragrance the room, okay, but anyway, because I know y'all heard that and I'm sure you've heard it in my other episodes. But anyway, my other dream is that we respect our elders again, we get to that place where we respect our teachers, our adults, especially our teachers, because a lot of times our teachers are with our children eight hours a day and as parents, when we're out working and for me I know I used to work two and three jobs, so I that's the time and I was involved, parent I come up to the school and be involved and help assist them and things like that in their classes. But If you think about it, they're with your child more than you are, especially if you are a working parent, because by the time you get home, say at five o'clock in the evening or six o'clock in the evening, you have just enough time maybe to help them a little bit with their homework, cook dinner, if you cook and have, maybe have a meal with them and put them in the bed. That's it. You may have a couple hours or a few hours with your children in the evening. A Lot of people complain when someone was here they can't wait to take their children back to school. Okay, I'm.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Another dream I have is that we stopped using our children as pawns Because you're bitter and angry that your relationship didn't work out and now you want to Treat them a certain way because you mad. You know You're doing a disservice to your children. Your children do not need to be in this whole Tug of war. Okay, when we do find new relationships, we need to have the new person respect the mother and the father of that child. Okay, so we're setting examples for our children and we have to understand that our children do not need to see the hatred and abuse and all of that that we go through as adults, because what's between me and your daddy is between me and your daddy, ain't got nothing to do with you and you shouldn't see all of that or hear all of that.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Okay, I scroll up and down on, say, facebook or Instagram or TikTok, and I see that a lot of people are shedding light on people In a negative manner, always talking about people, always got some drama and some negativity and toxicity going on. I'm tired of it. Honestly, you know, some people may Say something to a person and get them upset and then they want to record them. They're ruining their lives for one bad movement or one bad judgment. Now, if a person is racist and they're going off and being ugly and trying to get you arrested and stuff like that, you know you're not doing anything to them Then that's different because you're recording to protect yourself, but other things y'all know what I'm talking about. It just it, we, it just needs to go away because it's not fair, because we all have a bad moment. We all have that moment sometimes that you say something ugly to me. Now I'm gonna come back at you. You know what I mean. Just because I'm, I'm upset now again. This is not include the racism that goes on.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Another thing my dream is is that I wish people would learn how to to drive. You know, especially in Atlanta. Please learn how to drive. Stop blowing your horn when you wrong. Stop getting mad when you're wrong. You know what I'm saying when you're in the wrong. This is what I get mad about. When people are in the wrong, they want to get mad at you For tooting your horn at them because they wrong. If you wrong, take that out. You feel them saying I'm another thing.

Speaker 1: 8:23

My dream is that we will learn how to love people and respect each other and do the inner work that needs to be done and heal, so that we are not lashing out on people that did not hurt you. You spend all this money on name brand and trying to look good with all this hand lashes and all that stuff and guys you know y'all out here with the, you know the fasachi suits or whatever you know cause and spending all this money on materialistic items when you need to spend some of that money to do the inner work on you. Maybe that money needs to go towards a therapist, a counselor, some meditation, some yoga, I don't know. But we need to work on ourselves and spend more time on working on being the best version of of ourselves that we can be. Basically, you know what I mean. So we're all going through this journey. My path may not look like your path, but it's not for me to judge or condemn you, but to have more compassion and empathy and just love you and understanding, for you know where you are in your life, you know.

Speaker 1: 9:39

Another dream I have is for employers. If you know you have loyal employees that clock in early, clock out later than their ship. They come in for overtime. If you need them, you can call them and then if they ask for one day off or some time off, you got a problem with it. Now you need to keep those loyal employees, cause it ain't that many, especially nowadays. So stop treating them nasty, stop treating them bad. Okay, go ahead and get them that time off, cause they need it, because they've been dealing with you so much that you know they about to snap. So you need to go ahead and just let them have that time off so they can have some peace of mind and so they can come in and be more productive. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Another one of my dreams is that if you know that you are not that type of person when you meet somebody, if you are introvert and say the other person is a social being and they like to go out and hang out and say sing karaoke or go to social gatherings with their friends and things like that, and you know you just like to stay at home all the time and that's not you, stop, you know, introducing your representative in the beginning. If you know that's not you, when we lay everything out on a table and I say this is all my stuff and you say that's all your stuff, and if you want to walk away or I want to walk away. Let us just walk away, because rejection is your protection at the end of the day. Okay, don't try to act like somebody that you're not just to get that person and it. Once you get that person and they start seeing, you know who you really are and then you wonder why it don't work out. It didn't work out because you weren't honest from the start. You were phony, you were somebody else and that's not. You know what they originally wanted. Okay, so let's stop doing that. Let's stop a line to get somebody. Okay.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Another one is Be true to you, be true to your character, be true to who you are. Know that change is good. You know it's always good to change and be better. But, um, stop faking unmask, you know. Take that mask off and stop trying to be somebody that you're not. Stop trying to be what everybody else expects you to be, or what they want you to be and what you want to be for them, and just be who you are. You know. Do the inner work, of course, but just just be you.

Speaker 1: 12:23

If you're fun-loving and you're happy, don't let nobody dim your light. Don't let nobody try to make you smaller or lessen you and they say you too much, but you might not be too enough. You know you might be too little. You know, don't be. Don't listen to people when they say, oh, you're too much, you're too bubbly. You're always on a 10 and so you know happy all the time. You don't need to be around that person then, because if they can't take you being happy and high-spirited, then then no, you don't need to be.

Speaker 1: 12:57

If you see red flags run, don't make excuses for them. It's that. Oh well, you know he's, he has a hard day or he doesn't really like his job, or you know he's really going through it. You know his parents or he went through this abuse. No, it's not making excuses. If he went through some stuff, you can't fix them. God is the only person that can fix them and the person that Wants to be fixed. If they don't want to be fixed, you know, walk away. That's not your job to fix anybody. You struggling to try to fix yourself and sometimes you don't even want to fix yourself. You know, or even do the work on yourself. So you want to try to fix somebody else. You can't do it. Okay, just putting it out there. Let me see what else is my dream? My dream is just, basically, that we show more love, more understanding for one another, more respect. You know, stop inserting yourself in things that ain't none of your business.

Speaker 1: 13:56

You know, if you see somebody this was me one day I saw this baby that ain't have on no coat, no shoes and it's cold outside. But the mama had a coat on. Okay, she had her shoes on. I said you know what in the world, why she ain't got this baby on the? You know I'm getting upset. You know what am I getting upset for? That ain't none of my business, because I definitely ain't going over there saying you need to put a coat on your child. You know what I mean? Because that's gonna cause a whole another. You know that's gonna be some drama. So you know why am I getting upset to myself? I got enough going on in my own life that I got to worry about everybody else. Oh, why is he driving so fast? You know he's gonna get in an accident. He's gonna do this.

Speaker 1: 14:38

If it's not personally bothering you like personally doing something to you, then don't insert yourself in those people's situation. Get your blood pressure all high and you can ticked off and then you wondering why you upset and it upset your day and that ain't none of your business. Just mind your business. Just mind your business. Okay, because I say that to myself Just mind your business, shanique, just mind your business. If I see something that I, you know, I disagree with, I say to myself just mind your business. You know, and it's not easy, I understand that, especially like on social media. You know, you see something and you want to go ahead and comment, I get it. You know, but I didn't know it was a rule that if you put something up that you and now I'm not gonna be disrespectful, but you know I may comment. You know my opinion. I thought that's what it was for my bad. If it's not Okay, what else? Hmm, I think that's about most.

Speaker 1: 15:35

You know, most of my dreams, basically, is just to be able to see a country where they were supposed to be, free, freedom of speech and all of that. Then we need to have freedom of speech. We need to stop telling people what they can't be, what they don't need to be, what they should be. You know, let them be whoever God intended them to be. We don't know what God is doing in that person. Now, if somebody's hurting somebody, that's different. If they physically hurting them and you know mentally abusing them and and you know, then that's different. But again, if that, if that's not gonna affect you personally, then leave that thing alone, pray for the person, give it to God and let it go. Let go and let God. We have to learn that more.

Speaker 1: 16:23

I'm trying to think of some other things that I had in mind about my dreams, but if you could think of anything that you have or something that I missed, definitely go ahead and email it to freeconceptswithanestpodcastatgmailcom, because I'll definitely read it and maybe even get on here and discuss whatever it is that you sent. Okay, but I might just leave it here if I don't think of anything else. But I wanted to tell you guys to always just love you. Love you first, so that you are able to be able to show love. A lot of people do not love themselves, so they don't know how to love someone else or even receive love, because they have self-sabotage relationships that they're in, because they don't understand what real, true, genuine love is. Okay.

Speaker 1: 17:21

So start doing the work on yourself, the healing process, take that spiritual journey, self-love, self-care I know a lot of people talk about it now. I've been talking about it for a long time back on Facebook and I think it was another app I was on. But it's really important and I didn't realize how important it was until I was just going along with life. Going along to get along, being a people pleaser, trying not to have any confrontations with anyone, just kind of make you know. I want to make everybody happy. I'm that person. I want to see a smile on your face. I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable around me, so I try to make everyone feel comfortable, even at the expense of my own comfort level, and I just I said I'm not doing that anymore. You know on my last when I talked about even having boundaries. So Put you first. It's 2024, it's a new year. Let it be a new.

Speaker 1: 18:21

You Do whatever work that's necessary within yourself so that you can be that best version of yourself that you can be and who God intended you to be for your purpose. Just know that every season or anything that you go through in life is taking you to another level. Okay, if you look back at your life, you can see the levels that God has brought you through. It's been things that you didn't even think you could get through, but he brought you through it. Okay, it's things that you didn't even understand, but then, after everything played out, and his divine timing, his will and you know it's God's will at the end of the day, it's his will. You know it's his divine timing. We can't rush it. We can't rush it.

Speaker 1: 19:16

We pray for things and then when we pray for it like it's, for example, we pray for patients and then when he teaches us patients and brings things that will teach us patients, then we get mad and upset and ticked off. You know, ain't no need to get mad. You pray for patients and maybe you need patients right now to go into the next level that he has for you. You know what I mean. So just know that I love you. If nobody else has told you I love you, tell yourself and hug yourself and say I love you and we're gonna get through this. We're gonna be better than we were before.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Okay, no matter what it looks like, no matter what it feels like, just know that you are not gonna sit in this forever. Change is gonna come. Don't fight the process. Go with the flow, cause as long as you keep fighting that thing. Guess what? You're gonna sit in it that much longer, okay, so just know that I love you. I just wanna share some of my dreams with you, but just know that today is today. Live in the moment. Yesterday's gone, tomorrow's not promised. Stop being so hard on yourself, stop being hard on people, stop being difficult, stop wearing all that mess on your sleeve and stop hurting people that didn't hurt you. Much love and respect to everyone.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Again, I hope you guys had a blessed Dr Martin Luther King day and read his speech just to get more clarity, cause sometimes, you know, we don't know it word for word. We've heard the speech, but just read through it and see what it does to you or how it makes you feel. Because today, you know it's January 15th, which is my son's birthday. I would like to say happy birthday to my son. He is 32 today. Jury's happy birthday. I love you so much, so honored to be a mother, but look how far we have come from, way back in the day, you know, and my dream is for white people to understand what we encountered, what we went through, what we still encounter today, and all we want is just justice, equality and to be seen as a human being. God bless you all. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful week, and I will see you next Monday.