I watched an incredibly inspiring interview with Dr. Tererai Trent. It’s worth watching.
She is a woman from Zimbabwe who had every single odd stacked against her. She was in an abusive marriage with 4 children living in extreme poverty carrying the “baton” of poverty passed down to her by all of the generations of women before her.
I loved the metaphor of the baton.
The patterns, beliefs, thought patterns, and limits are passed down to us by the people who came before us.
If you don’t break the pattern, you pass it on.
Dr. Trent broke the pattern by first allowing herself to dream, she didn’t even know she was allowed to dream until a stranger asked her what her dream was, and then by following that dream.
Her grandmother told her, “you have the power within you. It’s not your past that’s going to define who you are but it’s what you believe about yourself; what it is you expect from yourself.”
Is the life you’re living meeting the expectations of yourself?