Reflecting on the quotes that stayed with me.
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There are a couple of new series I would love to start on Confessions of a Person Carrier. This one specifically is an ode to my addiction to a good quote. I look for quotes everywhere, on social media, in books, on graffiti walls and other street art. And don’t let someone say one and I can’t get my Notes app open fast enough to write it down, only to have the nerve to forget. Enraged. I love a good quote. I don’t know what to do with all of these quotes that I have accumulated throughout the years, so I thought why not write about them on my blog that I love so dear.
The other day my Instagram feed gifted me a quote from entrepreneur and coach Myliek. It read: call your energy back and stop auditioning for belonging.
I was like, oh damn. I had to read it a few times again and then screenshot it for safe keeping. You know Imma keep it really real and raw and honest as it pertains to my life especially on my blog. Of course I have opinions about other nouns and love a good critique, but even that only stems from my lived experience. That’s why critique and opinions are always subjective. We don’t have the same brain or life, so the things we share will differ. So my truth is this quote gut punched my apron belly and leaned in and bit my ear off like Mike did Holyfield. Myliek, you trynna square up or nah?
I don’t know the day I began identifying as an artist. I do believe it is a part of my DNA. My parents both were unidentified artists. My mom recognized it in me early but was afraid I’d be weird walking around in Jesus sandals in the winter, but she supported me and nurtured my gift. And that gift was undeniable. Theater became my medium of focus, but I was a multi-hyphenate. Still am. A lot of the oration part of theater began in church for me. I had conservatory style acting training since I was around 12 years old and part of that training is audition technique. Auditioning is how you get cast, generally. Yes, that generally is accompanied with a side eye.
I spent the majority of my adolescence auditioning for everything. I went on into adulthood and continued auditioning. Today, I will occasionally see something of interest, pull out my equipment, and send in a self tape just to say I did it. It is a part of me habitually. There is no greater anxiety than walking into a cold room of casting directors or getting a call back. There is no greater feeling than walking up to the call board and seeing your name or getting an email that you have been cast. There is a bit of heartbreak when you don’t get cast and a lingering trauma when you find out that it’s not because of your talent, it is your physical appearance.
I carry a lot of understanding, experience, and trauma from the audition process. Continuing on into the administrative side of theater, the auditioning continues. In social settings you are asked what you are working on and judged on your answer. In meetings you are trying to get your opinions and ideas across the table. You are fighting to get shows on stages knowing that in order for this to happen you have to run a political race. Every engagement, meeting, discussion, email is an audition and I have had to lean into what my conservatory training prepared me for in all of it.
It sucks the life out of you honestly and I mean a slow continuous pull and tug like a very thick milkshake and a paper straw. To cope and stay the course, a different type of energy begins to brew, one you are not really quite sure what it is. I started looking at it as a scab protecting a wound. It is not cute, rough, but it is protecting not just the scarred area but the infection of the scarred area that could seep off through the entire body.
I have been making choices as scabs during the audition process. Silencing myself, agreeing to get along, down playing my gifts, erasing parts of my journey off my résumé to fit in, remodeling my general make up to squeeze into these smaller spaces. And baby I am a big girl literally and figuratively. It is hard to Ozempic my essence and artistry but I have done it. I have done it in all of the industries I have walked through, politics, entrepreneurship, marketing and education.
With this energy shift to fit in and belong I am not only exhausted but I am unrecognizable and can’t even afford Mounjaro to do the work for me. And it is not that I don’t like who this woman leading the charge is. She is likable, adaptively likable. I just don’t know her like that. She appears when she has to and scabs me up so I can navigate spaces unscathed. And actually we both felt personally attacked by Myliek and her quote. Her more than me because she’s skinny and didn’t have enough belly fat to soften up the blow.
Since July 2025 I have been intentionally spending time realigning with me. My goals, passions, thoughts, and joys. I have gotten to a place where I don’t want to lean on her protection for the sake of belonging. I’ve realized it doesn’t honor the core of my purpose and that is the audacity to belong to myself.
I hate self help books but recently finished Homecoming by Thema Bryant and I highly recommend it if you find yourself wanting to come home to yourself. Those of us shifting back into our authentic selves, Dr. Bryant has a word for every type of homecoming seeker in this book. She includes real stories from her clients and people she encountered, her personal story, clinically informed advice, spiritually informed healing strategies, and so much more. She says:
“I wrote this book for all of you who at different points in your life have found yourself living like someone you are not. You may have started acting different because of how you were treated, or what other people told you about yourself, or how you saw others acting. You have not felt comfortable or safe enough to truly be yourself or to feel at home in your identity. The recognized and unrecognized traumas of your past may have taught you to hide your gifts and voice in order to survive. This book facilitates your journey back to who you really are, so you can own your full identity and fly.”
I finished this book feeling understood and clear that my quest home to myself is independent but not isolated. No matter how superhuman we project to be we all at some point have yearned for a place of community and belonging and too have made choices outside of who we truly are to fit in. From childhood to adulthood. And we get exhausted and irritated because we can’t fully commit to the pick me behaviors and hazing some of these rooms, groups, and seats at tables require.
Dr. Bryant even had a word for the struggling multi hyphenate:
“Single gifted people will never understand multi gifted people. To them, you will always look scattered, because that’s why they want you to choose. Like, what are you? Because it defies their box. I thought you do yoga, so what are you doing over here? Who told you that you could come out of that box? I do it all. I do all these things, all of the things in me. So, I think it’s also giving each other permission and celebrating cutting up the box. It’s also about when we respond to each other, not responding out of our fears, because I think when people are trying to discourage us, it’s based on their fear that that’s impossible, right? That you’re going to get hurt, you’re going to get disappointed, so let me tell you now to play it safe and just enjoy what you have.”
So here’s to the journey back to yourself with the understanding that the scars, bruises, and mistakes along the way shape us and do not need to be hidden and in fact can draft the roadmap towards healing not only for you but for someone who needs it. I am just starting to feel more like myself after intentionally working on it for about 9 months now. A rebirthing. Hopefully, I will let her stick around this time and if she ever steps back into the bushes like that Homer Simpson meme…
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