If you’ve been reading my columns, you know that life isn’t always about the parties and fabulosity, even during Grammy week. While parties and networking are always fun, I often talk about the need for balance in our lives. We are bombarded with messages and lured by the life that we seem to want (or they seem to make you think you want) at whatever price. During Award season, it is easy to experience that disconnect when you fail to listen to God.
You may be able to recognize that things are off kilter, but you are powerless to do anything about it on your own. It is important that our spirit remain open to receive that message from God, which usually comes through people in your life; it is as simple as energy attracting energy.
There’s no need for me to give a blow-by-blow Grammy week recap, you can see those all over the web instantaneously. Suffice it to say that there were, as always, more events that you can count. My time in L.A. kicked off with Essence’s 2nd Annual Black Women in Music Event, honoring Janelle Monae. As you saw from the photos on the website, the event was magical!
My time ended in Los Angeles with 48 hours and counting with no sleep, which was due to insomnia. Usually that happens when a message is on the verge of breaking through. I can’t move on to the next thing until I clear this blockage and receive my message.
Some friends recognize what your spirit needs and they help remove the obstacle that is blocking your blessing or your message. They serve as that same beacon of light (energy) that I am told that I provide to others. But I wouldn’t have this offer of light to give if I didn’t have family and true friends who serve as that laser of light for me.
During my time in L.A. for Grammy Week, it was partially business as usual; client meetings and work, I hit some fashionable parties with friends and had time to balance my spirit. However, it was the frequent collective time with friends, and one time in particular with Bevy, that opened an age-old problem about a person who no longer served, or perhaps never served as a positive energy force in my life, yet I often defended her as a friend.
The irony, since there always is one, is that my girl San, from St. Louis, my close friend of 30-plus years has questioned why I consistently give this person access to my friendship, and she has questioned this for a good duration of our friendship. This conversation with Bevy, like the ones before with San, challenged me to analyze that relationship and realize that it is not a friendship at all. But this time, apparently, I was ready to be okay with it.
A relationship with any person, friend or family member should be based on love, and each of you should feel supported. When this isn’t the case, your energies clash and in some cases this can create a negative vibration. Most spiritual advisors speak of relationships that will often need to be left behind as you grow, and that person’s energy stays in the same place. As I mulled over that friendship question for a few days, I finally came to terms with the end of the friendship and I felt my spirit lift.
When you lighten your load, God brightens your life. Just as a friend helped me fix a spiritual barrier, God gave Bevy and me an angel in the form of an incredibly gifted makeup artist, Ghen at Saks, who was literally dropped as an unexpected gift in our lives as we perused the makeup floor. Ghen got us camera-ready for the Grammy-filled evening, and I looked up in total awe and appreciation. We were now ready to hit the Cash Money party and we finished it off at the 7th Annual Roots Pre-Grammy Jam Session where Chaka, Estelle, Ne-Yo, Marsha Ambrosius and other and others rocked the party well after our 3 am departure time.
I arrived at the hotel exhausted and I hadn’t been able to sleep at that point for 24 hours. I had plenty of work and meetings to tend to and knew that something was going to have to give. As the music industry set the Grammy stage on fire at the Staples Center, my soul stayed grounded in peace in my hotel room with some unfinished work. As I settled in to write, a client with whom I’d met with earlier in the day called to check on my insomnia and my writing. She offered to pick up dinner for me and bring it by my hotel room, a wonderful gift indeed, one that God knew that I needed.
As I approach 48 hours of no sleep, I know that I am now ready to lay my head down and sleep, knowing that all is well in my life, now surely able to sleep, something that has, until just now, alluded me this entire weekend.