🔵 By Adl El-Shabazz. Photo by lauragrafie.
I am a father, grandfather, son, brother, uncle, seeker, student, teacher, writer, believer, and a King. I am a loving, giving, understanding, carefree, individual, with a purpose of becoming the best version of myself. I truly believe that anything is possible, as long as I have faith, know who I am, and approach life with confidence. The type of confidence that propels me to heights beyond my wildest dreams. I remain open to all of the blessings, gifts, and opportunities God and the universe has for me.
While on this journey through life, I have had a lot of “if I would’ve, I should’ve” and “if I get a chance I’m gonna do this or that” moments. Always second guessing my every move. Knowing that the things I was doing, the way I treated people, and the way I allowed my own life to spiral out of control were wrong. Most of these things held me back in life, messed up relationships, and caused me to self-destruct along the way. I put on the mask and pretended to be in control. I was a good actor, because no one caught on to my deception.
I wore the mask all of my adolescent years and majority of my adulthood because it allowed me to hide my insecurities. Being antisocial, hanging in the streets, smoking weed, drinking cheap wine, always angry, and entertaining negative behavior was a recipe for disaster. It was the things happening around me that made me put on the mask and not care about nothing. Seeing people being stabbed, beaten, shot, and killed made it hard to stay focused.
When I was others being disrespected, bullied, and in some cases hurt very bad, I made the decision that this wasn’t gong to happen to me or anyone I cared about. I didn’t want to do wrong, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to allow wrong to be done to me. This is when I became unaffected by the violence, desensitized to others feelings, and stopped caring about what was going on around me. The mask made it easy to do anything to anyone, not care about it, and hide the shame, pain, and guilt/fear. I had real issues, I dealt with them by getting high, being destructive, and denying the fact that I was the problem.
Most of the people in authoritative positions expected me to adjust, overcome and/or just let it go. How could I deal with something when I couldn’t even recognize it, explain it, and/or accept the fact that it was me that had the problem? People were always asking questions, but had no answers or any intentions on helping me achieve a better life. “What cause you to feel this way?”
“Why are you opposed to the established social order?”
“Why do you encourage in behavior that violates conventional norms?”
“Why do you continue to partake in activities that only destroy you, your family structure, and your own community?”
I always thought it was fucked up when people on the outside looking in would form an opinion, place blame and be so damn judgmental. When it came to surviving, the only decision I had, you have, and everyone else makes, is the one we feel is best at the time.
I must admit I was loved, taken care of, and had good people in my life that taught me the difference between right and wrong. I tell people all of the time that I knew what was right, but when I was placed in some of the worse situations and circumstances imaginable, I chose to do whatever was necessary to survive. Being in these negative actions was really unfortunate. I must admit, there were times when others had to react to my negative emotions. My favorite quote at that time was, “It is what it is.”
I didn’t recognize it as being evil when I was participating in my own lower self. That type of evil didn’t come in its true form. They were dressed up and was passed off to me in the form of money, cars, drugs, alcohol, sex, lies, crime, and lack of knowledge, oppression, racism, and my unfortunate choice not to love my own people as I should enjoying some of the finest things in life, I was only surviving. I didn’t realize this until after I lost my so-called freedom. I say so-called because, it never felt like freedom even when I wasn’t locked up. After realizing that I had not been living only surviving I went in search of knowledge to change everything I didn’t like about myself.
The first thing I noticed after gaining self-awareness, self-control, and getting right with God, was how people in my life treated me different. Most of the people around me assumed that something was wrong with me. I questioned my own transformation at times, because I felt alone, and unsure of myself. Even when I was having conversations with and/or standing in a room full of people, it seemed as if I was there alone.
I quickly learned how to control my emotions, channel my thoughts, and have absolute confidence in myself. Then I changed my outlook on life, other people and the way I viewed my surroundings. I stopped dwelling on the past, worrying about the future, and started concentrating on my present. I no longer thought about what others could, couldn’t, and/or was not willing to do for me. I trusted in God and did it for myself. I’ve gained inspiration from unexpected people, places, books, and other things. All of these have their values, but the treasures that was already inside of me inspired me the most. I stopped looking for and expecting others to give me what I already had.
Although, along the way some good people provided keys to help me explore my inner wealth. I listened closely to those that spoke from experience, I embraced their wisdom and gained understanding. I always weighed the external guidance against the wisdom on my own heart. Now, there were times when I trusted myself, made decisions, and was totally wrong.
As I became aware of my inner wealth, something wonderful happened. I started to remember the lessons my great grandmother, and grandmother taught me long ago. At a very young age listening to my great grandmother, Ms. Mandy Johnson talk about God, Love, how they are “one in the same”, and how we need them in our lives. She said, “We are all God’s children, and we all have a place in heaven.” We are all born good, we learn how to, and then we choose to, “be bad”.
“The more we take of this world, the worse be become.” I was too young to understand this at the time. God blessed my grandmother, Ms. Dollie Sims with enough love, compassion, knowledge, patience, understanding, and wisdom to aid the entire world. She taught me the true nature of right, wrong, love, hate, good, evil, and the truth about God. She would say, “You only know what you think you know, and that’s what some else wanted you to know.”
“We are always looking for what we already have, we just don’t know it yet.”
She wanted us to learn the truth about who we are, who God is, and how we coexist together as one. Once I remembered, understood, started to realize the power of these words, and applied them, everything within and all around me changed. I started to love myself, my family, and my people more.
I acknowledge that the Divine is always in my life, and I am so grateful for the blessings I’ve received along the way. I feel more whole, healthy, and freer every day. My character is never called into question, because of my actions and deeds. I pride myself for having integrity, and every chance I get, I try to instill these values in my family, friends, and others. I feel overwhelmingly loved by the Divine, and in return, I love everyone, and everything. I give it back accordingly, no matter what’s going on with me. Once while in the administraitve segregation unit for fighting, in the chapel of all places, I asked the chaplain of the prison to send me a Qur’an, however, the man filling in for the chaplain brought me a Bible instead. I didn’t trip. Maybe he made a mistake, maybe he didn’t, but it was all good with me. I went to the mail slow to grab it and when I looked out at him, he had a smirk on his face. It was obvious he expected me to confront him, say mean things about the mix up, and disturb my peace. Instead I thanked him, turned in walked back over to the bed, sit down and started reading it. I open it up and started reading the story about Solomon, son of David. The story was about two prostitutes that lived together. They both had a baby around the same time. One of them woke up and found that her baby had died during the night. She got up, noticed the other mother sleeping, took her baby, and replaced it with her dead baby. To settle the dispute Solomon told hem to bring the living baby to him. He said, I will settle this by cutting the baby in half and give you both a portion. The real mother quickly said, please do not do that. I would rather you give it to her. The other mother was silent the entire time. Solomon took the baby and gave it to the real mother. His decision was based on her reaction to what he had said about killing the baby, and the lack of emotions from the other mother.
The story was about Solomon asking God for wisdom to decipher between right and wrong. God gave him all of the other blessings, wealth, and knowledge of how to build things, and other talents because he didn’t ask for them. That night when I prayed, I asked God to put the people in my life that He wanted, because it seemed as if I was always dealing with the wrong people. Also, I asked that He give me the understanding to gain wisdom from the Holy books. Now, when I read them or go in search of knowledge of any kind, understanding comes with ease. With the wisdom I gained from it I show respect, share with, help, and associate with everyone I come in contact with. To this very day, I associate with everyone, but there is very few people in my life.
A few days later the book cart came around and to my surprise a Quran was on it. I got it and immediately thought to myself, “Everything happens for a reason.” The following night I read Sura 18 Al-Kahf (The Cave) It was a story about Moses going on a journey with one of God’s servants, to obtain patience. Moses asked the sage for permission to follow him. Before starting the sage said to Moses, “You will never be able to have patience with me.” He went on to say, “How could you have patience about something you don’t even comprehend with your limited experience?” Moses: „You will find me patient, if God so wills, and I will not disobey you in anything.” Sage: “If you follow me, do not question me about anything that I do until I give you an account.”
The Sage came across a boat. He put a hole in it. Moses questions his actions. Why did you make their boat unserviceable, they will surely drown? He said, “You can’t have patience with me.” They went on and the sage killed a young boy. Moses said, „How could you kill an innocent human being?” Sage: “I told you that you can’t have patience with me.” Moses: “After this if I question you, keep me not in your company.” The two of them went on until they came upon a village. They asked for food, but the people refused them hospitality. The sage was a building about to fall over. He fixed it up to make it useful again. Moses replied, we could have asked for payment for this work. The Sage said, “This is where me and you part ways. Because you are unable to have patience.” The sage explained why he did the things along the way. A couple of months had passed and I was out of segregation. I was still searching for knowledge to assist me with my transformation. My focus was on finding the reason behind my people looking for any excuse not to be there for each other no matter the circumstances. I was reading a book that was comprised of short stories. I cannot remember the title of the book, but I remember the story I read, it was called The Brotherhood.
This story was about some guys in a war. One of them got seriously injured and needed immediate care. When the medics made it to where he was laying on the ground, they heard someone yell out for help a little further up in the field. The injured man said, “Go help the brother that’s screaming, he may be worse than me.” They hurried to get to him, and upon arriving where he was, someone a short distance away yelled out, “I need help over here”. The man they were attending to said, “Please go help my brother, he may be worse off than me.” By the time they made it to him, he had died. They hurried back to the second man only to find that he had died. Now they were rushing over to where they left the first man. When they made it to him, someone informed them that he had died also. They all sacrificed their own lives for their brother’s well-being. I gained a lot from this story.
I have become a complete person that holds no anger, grudges, or animosity towards anyone. Acknowledging my true place and purpose in this world as being upright, fearless, and independent. Not being submissive to any person, influences,, or circumstances, has empowered me to grow into my True Self. I’ve gained control of me, my thoughts, and my reactions to everything around me. I have accepted my rightful position under the Law of God, I’m no longer a willing participant in the reign of evil. It was confusing when my mind and body were in conflict with each other over which would govern my actions. I was divided for so long, it became second nature to do wrong, cause harm to others, and not to take responsibility for my own actions.
I have been reintroduced to Absolute Truth, and by doing so, I’ve gained total control of my True Self. I’m now a wise used of and is totally in control of my creative energy. I travel this journey through life unapologetic, upright, fearless, independent, and undeterred by anyone or anything. With a clear vision of who I am. I will never bow to anyone’s “will”, but stand strong with the confidence and conditioning of being undecided. I no longer feel sorry, ashamed, disappointed, have guilt/fear or regrets about things, activities, and/or desires that were unfulfilled. I am truly complete. Peace.