soulmate

At least a year or so ago, I had the thought to bring together a group of single women to have a conversation to share their purpose, dreams, and various intricacies of where they are in their lives. This was partially inspired by my purchasing and viewing “Soul Mate”, among other books I’ve read and my own life experiences.

This weekend I finally held in my home a gathering (to kick off my own celebration of life as my birthday approaches) where various women shared openly and candidly their lifestyle, past, growth, challenges, hopes, dreams, desires, life lessons, and their overall experience in being single women.

It was a profoundly open, revealing, and truly uplifting experience.

We began by viewing “Soul Mate”, a gripping cinematic journey into the realities facing today’s successful, saved and single African American women. After viewing this deeply personal portrait which reveals the trials, and triumphs of some unforgettable women, we then quickly went into a dialogue about our own experiences in relationships, what we individually seek and desire, what societal challenges and expectations exist and their impact, as well as our personal and collective questions, challenges, and more. This led us into immensely personal sharing, which allowed us to reveal, discover, and face moments of insight.

There were quiet moments of those that individually reflected, as well as intense ones that challenged us all to see things that we may not have previously realized. There were instances that prompted us to question and face things we needed, and to even be reminded of things encouraging us to continue to find strength in the journey of our lives.

In an age of so much social networking, text messaging, creating representatives to show others and hiding our own shortcomings, painful experiences, pushed aside dreams, as well as being so busy, distracted, or even not knowing or being out-of-touch with who we truly are, many of us as humans don’t take time to simply be self-aware or share and allow others to connect with who we are.

Though I will not share the details of our conversations, I do want to share and encourage us all to engage in authentic and transparent dialogue that we as human beings can share a connectedness that allows us all to grow, look in the mirror, heal, offer compassion and understanding to one another. Even more importantly to recognize in doing so and sharing with others, we allow ourselves to be vehicles through which we encourage and empower others to do so and in that we are equally encouraged and uplifted.

I look forward to prompting more experiences like this where various individuals can come together and engage with one another, including much needed dialogues between men and women, discussions on how we view our each other, our community, our value, societal ills, expectations, where we seek to be and how to get there, and much more.

I believe that in continuing to create experiences of authenticity, openness, vulnerability & encouragement through sharing our innermost self, we can pour into each other, touch one another, and allow for nurturing spaces of growth for us all to become the powerful beings that we are meant to be.

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