Frankly Speaking with Tyra G

There is always more.

"If by chance no one has told you that they love you today, I would be honored to be the first to say I love you today. I love you because you are and have been so willing to grow. And my, how you have grown. You have grown from struggling to searching, from trying to do something to learning how to do it. You have grown from fear to having faith to demonstrating your courage. You have grown in many ways, consistently demonstrating your willingness and courage to take the next step toward the profound and divine wisdom buried within yourself. The step toward knowing more about yourself." --Iyanla Vanzant, Until Today 2000.

Listen and learn about this week's phenomenal woman, Lezlie Revelle Zucker. She not only knew there was more, but she also pursued more. The results showed her becoming an award-winning playwright, author, and singer-songwriter.

Let me know how you enjoyed her talent. Then, share with your network.

According to one estimate, nearly 570,000 people nationwide were homeless on a night in 2019.

It is estimated that over 3,000 people sleep outside every night in Seattle.

By Associated Press, Wire Service Content April 10, 2021, at 9:30 a.m.

Man Sentenced 4 Years for Poisoning 8 California Homeless People, By Associated Press, Wire Service Content April 9, 2021, at 9:48 p.m.

No Address, No ID, and Struggling to Get Their Stimulus Checks.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It is easy to walk past the homeless, to disregard the guy lying on the street, or ignore the woman standing at an intersection holding a handwritten sign with a plea for help.

It’s harder to look away when you’ve seen their eyes.

Look past lines drawn by hard living or the still-soft skin of someone young but struggling to break the cycle of dependency or abuse.

Their eyes hint at lost promise or offer a glimmer of hope. Some are haunting, some placid. Others troubled or masking troubles. Some are warm and tender, others tough and anxious.

Have YOU ever looked into the eyes of someone who is homeless? Maybe not the eyes, but have you ever stopped to consider who was homeless.

Tom Barnett, Director of Fairfax County Office to Prevent and End Homelessness looks beyond the apparent, into housing policies, procedures, and practices.

The office to Prevent and End Homelessness, part of Fairfax County’s Department of Housing and Community Development, manages and coordinates services to help people experiencing homelessness regain housing stability, including street outreach, emergency shelters, hypothermia prevention, and supportive housing.  The agency also serves as the lead for the Continuum of Care and collaborates with other county agencies, nonprofits, faith and business communities, and those with lived experience of homelessness to achieve the vision that every person in the community can access and maintain safe and affordable housing.

Take a listen below and learn.

Author Kahlil Gibran in his 1962 book The Prophet says,

"And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of life longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness.

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

 

Be invited in and enjoy the multidimensional, contemporary, loving, and joyful conversation between a father and daughter. Mr. Jay Little and his teenage daughter Gia reflect on the joy, uncertainty, unrest, and hopefulness facing young people today. Listen beyond their words and be inspired.

Susan V. Bosak of the Legacy Project suggests,

“Legacy is about life and living. It's about learning from the past, living in the present, and building for the future. It is an interconnection across time, with a need for those who have come before us and a responsibility to those who come after us.

A legacy may take many forms – children, grandchildren, a business, an ideal, a book, a community, a home, or some of ourselves. How many of us live so that our legacy reflects all we genuinely hold, most near and dear? How many of us are living with integrity and courage?

Molecules don't connect the world. Stories, traditions, memories, hopes, and dreams connect it. The legacies connect us passed down from those who came before us and the legacies we passed down to those who come after us.

For children, legacy means learning from the past. It separates the timeless from the transient. We need to tell them our life stories, our choices, and how we made our decisions.

For adults, legacy means hoping for the future. It means developing and passing on a timeless part of yourself. We feel valued and valuable no matter how old we get.

For both young and old, the power of legacy enables us to live fully in the present. You understand that you are part of a larger community that must remember its history to build its future."

This week, our story begins with someone who did not have shoes to wear until he signed up to be in the army. However, what he did have was a dream and determination. We hear his story through the words of his son, Bruce Wesley of Wesley Sheos, in the Hyde Park Community of Chicago. For over 70 years, the Wesley family has nurtured this dream until it awakened to win a National Independent Retail Shoe Store Award. The journey in between has been filled with life lessons, overcoming racism, natural disasters, determination, creativity, and faith.

Today, Wesley's is a family-owned shoe store providing an individual shopping experience to all who visit. From measuring a child's first shoe to helping you find comfort and style, we have everything you need to take your best step. This week, we celebrate the Wesley's Shoes legacy with its second-generation owner, Mr. Bruce Wesley.

Be inspired! I was.

Legacy is about life and living. It's about learning from the past, living in the present, and building for the future.

The world isn't connected only by molecules. It's connected by stories, traditions, memories, hopes, and dreams. We are connected by the legacies passed down from those who came before us and the legacies we will pass down to those who come after us.

English writer Dorothy Sayers, "Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward, we must believe in age."

Today I have two guests that present legacy through different lenses. They are mother and daughter. manager and musician, and teacher and student. Additionally, they are building a legacy together across cultures and miles.

Click below and be inspired by Karen and Cheyenne Harris, Then please share.

This story deserved a rewind.

We all have times or seasons when it requires courage to make it from one moment to the next; to take the next step or to say the next word. And sometimes we let fear, shame, and guilt demonize our potential to overcome.

What we discovered is that the ability to have a courageous conversation is often a process, a journey, not an event. It doesn’t always happen when it logically should; sometimes you have to grow into it.  And sometimes courageous conversations happen in and stay in our heads... or our hearts. Sometimes our courageous conversations are dressed in silence.

To create a common thought space, please listen to the words of Ms. Susan Burton author of Becoming Ms. Burton From Prison to Recovery, leading the fight for incarcerated women.

Susan Burton knows just how hard it is to get back on track after being released from prison. It's an experience she lived through six times, once for each of the prison terms she served.

"One of the things about incarceration is that you're deprived. You lose all of your identity and then its given back one day and you're ill-equipped to actually embrace it and work it," Burton says. "Each time I left prison I left with the resolve to get my life together, to get a job, to get back on track. And each time the task became more and more and more daunting."

Click below and be inspired by a conversation with Ms. Helenia Bragg who beat the odds and transformed herself from Convict to Star Citizen. She is truly amazing.

JAIL is event-driven, choice involved, power stripping, and a visible shift.

However, inside each inmate's jail cell is the power of transformation. Transformation is process-driven, choice involved, and resides internally.

Opportunities, Alternatives & Resources (OAR) is missioned to rebuild lives and create a safer community with options, alternatives, and resources for justice-involved individuals and their families.

OAR is a local non-profit restorative justice organization providing human services since 1971. Its history has its roots in the highest principles of human rights and the most practical applications of a community's enlightened self-interest and citizen action. Its origins can be traced to a 1968 prison strike at the State Penitentiary in Richmond, Virginia. Several local churches convened a conference on Churches and the Correctional System in response. Following that effort, Jay Worrall, Jr. founded the OAR movement, which stood for Offender Aid and Restoration. His vision of citizen visitors helping jail inmates formed the original premise for the creation of OAR organizations around the country.

My conversation with Brandon Cosby, Director of Development at OAR, is story-rich, informative, and hopeful. He answers questions you may not have known to ask about this space and its residents.

You will want to know more.

"Little girls learn a lot from the women they grow up around, whether they are related or not. Older women are like midwives who assist in the birth of a young woman's consciousness. It is not just what they do. It's who they are and how they demonstrate who they are that provides young women with "womanhood training." Young women and girls learn about themselves and what it means to be a woman by watching older women in their lives. They watch how and what (and if) they cook. They care what they wear, how they carry themselves, and how they treat each other.

Whether they realize it or not, whether they intend to or not, older women, the "womanhood midwives," teach younger women what to expect from life. Some things are taught overtly, but the most important lessons are taught covertly. The words and actions of older women lead younger women to expect life to be peaceful or stressful, complicated or uncomplicated, honorable or dishonorable. Only a woman can teach another woman what it means to be a woman."[1]

Today, in Washington D.C., motivated, successful women are reaching out to inspire the next generation through a mentoring organization called the High Tea Society. Director, Mariessa Terrell, Esq, shares the power of the village as a change agent of positivity by providing love, positive attitudes, and alternatives to those living at risk.

BE INSPIRED!

1] Iyanla Vanzant, Yesterday I Cried (Simon &Schuster, New York 1999), 88

Life coach Iyanla Vanzant says in her 2000 book Until Today, "Listen Carefully as if someone were whispering into your soul. There is something you must know. It is very important, no, it is imperative that you receive these words into the deepest core of your being. These words are essential to your very existence. They will feed, nurture, and nourish you. They will support, assist, and guide you. When all else fails, these words will give you the strength and courage you need to weather the storm and walk through the fire. These are simple words, yet they are very powerful. If you can accept them in the spirit in which they are given, you will be blessed. Receive these words  --LIFE LOVES YOU!

Life loves you enough to live like you, to breathe through you, to express itself through you. Life loves you so much, it does everything in its power to stay in you, to be with you, and allow you to depend on it. Life is, at this very moment, totally and absolutely in love with you! Life wants to look like you, and live as you because it respects and honors all that you are.

When life sees you coming, it gets excited It can hardly contain itself! Life is ready to fill you up, spill over through you and experience the best it has to offer you, as you are. If you were to ask life what it is about you that makes you so loveable, the answer would be simple. You are alive! That is all it takes to make you love, loving, and loveable. Now, isn’t it good to know that you are loved?"

Be inspired by Ms. Linda Mann, my guest tonight, a retired nurse, current artist extraordinaire, and resilience influencer. Your heart will smile.

I want to open the door to a common thought space with some quotes from people who have walked into dark places and come up with dark solutions or who have loved others who have done so. I don’t know anyone who wakes up and say, “I want to be a criminal, I want to be homeless, or I want to be an addict. And yet sometimes the unlikely happens…

Anonymous from Birmingham Alabama says:

“I'm a good person. I'm a contributing member of society. I'm educated. I have a good job, make good money, have wonderful relationships with my loved ones. I'm so completely average. The only thing that sets me apart from that other young business professional that seems to have it all is that I'm addicted to opiates. And the problem is that I tell myself every day it's not a problem because I am able to carry my life on in a normal way...

I'm not a typical addict. I don't steal, lie to borrow money, I don't manipulate people, I don't engage in promiscuous activity...since it's not ruining my life in the way of major money, legal, or relationship issues I tell myself that it's not ruining my life. I'm delusional.”

Britany from Takoma says:

“I wish that people understood that heroin/opioid addiction has no face. It spares no soul, and once it has you in its tight grips, you'll spend your life fighting out of its hell hole. Opiate withdrawal relieves you of all morale and ethical codes you thought you once lived by and transforms you into a hollow shell of the human spirit you were born with. This drug was beyond a shadow of a doubt the scariest most difficult drug I've ever had to quit.”

Margie who lost her son in 2010, when he was 22

While I am a mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose, it does not define me, or my family. My son still matters, even though most people cannot bring themselves to even say his name, or recall his memory. I am forever missing my son, Mitchell, and he is my inspiration to wake up and live, every single day.

We are survivors of one of the worst wars in America. We cry every day. We cry for those that will die today, tomorrow, next week, next month and on and on. We cry for their families, and with their families. We are losing beautiful, creative, and loving people, every 19 minutes, and over 120 people a day. It seems like no one cares, that there is no outrage. This is a silent killer, and not enough noise is being made about this modern-day scourge in America.

That they never intended for this to happen to them. That they wish they never would have started. They feel pretty bad about themselves already without judgment from everyone else. They were still good, caring people. Addiction just completely overtook them.

Walk into the Fairfax County Virginia opioid crisis with our guide, Lucy Caldwell, Former Fairfax County Poice Spokesperson and current Director of Communications at Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board.

Take a listen. Learn things. Share.