AOL & Jeep ® “Life is Legendary” Campaign

What inspires you? This is the question I was asked in reference to the Life Is Legendary campaign that AOL & Jeep® are running. The mission of this campaign is to connect with single ladies like myself and express that single women are marvelous pioneers living inspired lives, and living life on their own terms, embracing their womanhood and freedom.

So, what inspires me? What inspires me to live a legendary life?

The first things I think of are my daughter, my freedom, my nation’s history, beautiful art, and satisfying music. Going deeper, my own experiences inspire me daily to press forward and keep moving. It would have been too easy to have given up at this point. To accept the little voice inside my head that keeps ranting you can’t! I’ve fallen victim to the voice before, but I’ve kept moving, grasping my dreams one by one. Being able to go through the wondrous miracle of being able to give life to a child, I realized that I would be doing my daughter a disservice if I merely existed in this world. That wasn’t enough. I wanted to live. I want to live.

Selfless people who have given their time and often their lives to help others inspire me. Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Mother Theresa, Ghandi, and Ella Baker to name a few. Reading about their journey, about the severe challenges they faced, knowing that they were change makers using nonviolent means, all to make this world a better place for myself and my child, makes me grind harder. I’m not in this life to be a cheerleader on the sideline; I’m in it to win it. Go hard, or go home.

What inspires you to live a legendary life? I encourage you all to upload your own Inspiration Board by clicking HERE. AOL & Jeep® have created this custom destination where you’ll be able to develop an Inspiration Board online outlining everything you represent and what you aspire to be. Everyone who engages in the above site will be entered for a chance to win a random sweepstakes rewarding a weekly $50 gift-card, and all users have the opportunity to win the Grand Prize: a $4,500 gift-card!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by AOL & Jeep® , opinions expressed are the blogger's own views not influenced by any outside biases. 

Interview with Nicole Lynn Lewis

I came across Nicole Lynn Lewis's site last year, and ever since then I've been a huge fan of hers. Shes a mother, author, wife, businesswoman, public speaker, and former teen mom. She inspires me and continues to pay it forward everyday. 


Below is a part of my interview with Nicole:


I think you have to turn setbacks into challenges. Don’t let them stop you in your tracks. Look at the problem and try to think of a solution. You can either accept your situation or you can decide that you want more for yourself and work your way out of it. It’s going to be difficult and embarrassing at times and people are going to doubt you, but if you are able to turn your story into a testimony, the rewards are great. Not only do you change the course of your life, but you inspire others, and that’s an amazing feeling. It’s special. 


Head over to The Pushback and read my entire interview with Nicole!


http://www.nicolelynnlewis.com/
http://www.supportgenerationhope.org/

I've been gone for a minute, but now im back in the jumpoff

Let me talk to ya’ll for a minute…

So I know I haven’t been blogging very much lately. What happened? Life. I get overwhelmed very easy and realized I had way too much on my plate. See, I’m what you like to call an overachiever. I like to be involved in as much as possible, but doing everything I easily forgot about myself. I was having daily breakdowns holding it all in. Not good. I recently reached out to my mama and confided in her about some of my troubles, which felt really good, and not something I’ve ever done. I realized that I don’t have to carry around all this baggage with me, and I’m lucky to have a few close friends whom I know will support me.

So I took a step back from blogging and twitter for awhile. I felt like I was forcing it a bit. I got caught up and forgot the reason why I created Mommy Glow. I created this blog to document my travels as I navigate being a mom, an employee, a student, a young woman. This was a place to share my lows, my highs, my accomplishments and challenges. To gain support from others and at the same time support others, to show that young mommies are competent and not failures!

But somewhere somehow I got caught up. It all started seeming to be a game, a game I didn’t want to play. This whole follow me and I’ll follow you business rubs me the wrong way. Started feeling like it was all about numbers to some bloggers. But I soon learned that a high follow rate does not mean a lot of support or quality information. I felt like I was slacking, I wasn’t getting enough followers, I wasn’t going after sponsorship or hosting giveaways or teaming with companies. While my hope is to grow my blog, I want to do so in a way that is genuine to me. I want people to follow Mommy Glow because they like what I write, not because they want me to follow their blog back, know what I mean? So I needed to take a step back and regain my focus, my desire to write and connect, to remember my purpose.

I have a lot to blog about and hope you’ll all stay tuned and continue with me on this journey.

Happy Monday.

In 2011 I choose....

In 2009 I initiated Africa 500. An effort to collect 500 books for an impoverished primary school in Zimbabwe. Together with friends and professors I completed this task and was able to ship close to 500 books over to the library of the primary school. After the first shipment of books arrived, the community decided to name the new library after me. Little did I know, but my efforts all the way in Massachusetts sparked a change within the community in Zimbabwe. My seemingly small effort enacted a sense of excitement within the community, and the principal encouraged everyone to learn how to read.

In 2010 I created Mommy Glow. I created Mommy Glow because as a younger minority mom I didn’t hear the voices of other young moms (especially minorities) represented positively in media and print. So I brought my voice into words and have the joy of connecting and collaborating with other moms of various backgrounds and nationalities. And what a wonderful journey it's been.

In 2011 self-love is the journey I’m undertaking. I can honestly say that I don’t have much self-love. My love is showered on my daughter. She is my joy. She is my heart. She is love. I don’t take the time to learn myself and love myself. And, I suppose I don’t know how. I grew up in a household where my Mother wasn’t openly affectionate with me and my siblings. When I was a teenager, she wasn’t around much and I was just sort of wandering. I was lonely. My Father was not a part of my life, and I leeched onto boyfriends to fill the void within my heart. Looking back now I see that I was looking for a cure. A cure for an unfulfilled heart. A heart quenching for love and admiration. A love that I didn’t get from either parent. And when I loved, I loved hard. Too hard. Fell too fast. Hurt so badly I bled. I put up with so much that I shouldn’t have. For what…love? I’m not sure I know what love is.

My solution to the end of a relationship was to fill my time with someone else. I didn’t want to think, I didn’t want to hurt, I just wanted to f-e-e-l. To feel something other than numb. Silly me, huh? I have yet to heal from my past relationships. Left are wounds that still hurt, that still bleed. These wounds are left unattended, because I’m afraid to go back and fix them, to remember the pain. And I hold so much guilt inside. The guilt weighs so heavy on my mind. On my heart. I’ve realized that no one else can remove this weight. Regardless of how much they love me. Because if I don’t love me, no one can ever truly love me. Which begs the question, who am I? I feel that my purpose has been clearer since giving birth to my daughter. But am I just a Mother? I eat, sleep, and bleed for my daughter. And she knows that. People who know ‘me’ know that. I cannot be away from her without having a slight asthma attack. But I’ve gotten to the point where I have too much baggage. I have so much hurt within that it’s starting to seep out of me. I don’t want to feel hurt anymore. I don’t want to lean on relationships to mend my heart. It’s up to me.

So in 2011 my journey is self-love. Self-acceptance. To find out who I am. To find out what makes me happy, because I’m unhappily unhappy, and it's not ok. It’s not ok.

Favorite Quote Friday!

I’m a quote fanatic. I am forever jotting down quotes I adore from books, movies, signs, or lyrics in the most random places. On receipts, homework, my hand, seriously: everywhere! I must have at least 10 word documents saved on my computer that have collections of quotes that I live by. I love reflecting on them and wanted to share them with you all every Friday, in what I’m calling:

Favorite Quote Friday!

Drumroll please………

To everything there is a season, and a

time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a

time to plant, and a time to pluck up

that which is planted…

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a

time to mourn, and a time to dance

                                Ecclesiastes 3: I-2, 4


I enjoy this quote because all too often I want to rush through life, to "get to the good stuff". But what I have slowly come to realize is that I have to experience all that life throws at me, allow it to have its time and then move on. You can't rush life, all you can do is prepare yourself for the ride.

Have a great weekend!