By Ademidemeji

Truth: 1: real state of things 2: true of accepted statement 3: agreement with fact or reality

Noun: the quality or state of keeping close to fact and avoiding distortion or misrepresentation

Lie: An untrue statement

One day, I took stock of my life. The doctors had told me I was going to die very soon. My breasts had just been removed and I was sick as hell! I was not only sick in my body, but my very soul was sick. That was the "real state of things." On top of that insanity, my life was in mo!betta chaos and had been from birth. But did I know that? Hell no, I thought that shit was normal.

My own reality was that I was bleeding all over the place, and not just the incisions from the surgery. My mind and soul were bleeding and I was just walking wounded, waiting for the morgue to put on the requisite toe tag. At that point, was in "agreement" with that piece of reality my Sistahs. And something else occurred to me, I was 120 degrees past pissed, and didn’t know it. I did not know how to define anger or any other emotion besides hurt, pain, humiliation, shame, disgust and fear. I even thought that was the way I was supposed to feel.

I finally came to the conclusion that if I was going to die I might as well die feeling something other than those negative emotions. I remember thinking that if this was going to be the sum total of my life, then I needed personal transformation before I left this world. I wanted to feel at peace. I wanted the scars on my soul excised. I decided that as far as my marriage went, I could be miserable by my damn self. I did not need his help. I needed to find "me." I realized that I actually wanted to know the real truth about me, not someone else’s truth about who I was. I was no longer willing to settle for the truths of my husband, my family, my job or anyone else’s "truth" about who I was.

My own truth was that I was done saying I was done saying how tired I was. I was so tired of being tired, that I was too tired to consider that fact. My hair and teeth were tired, if that gives you a clue about where I was in those moments. I was tired of being told I needed "redemption" for sins I could not erase. I just could not figure out what I had done so wrong that all these "plagues" had been visited upon me. And to top that off, the Jesus of my "salvation" was either dead or deaf because he was not trying to hear my prayers. I was told to just accept "His" will for my life. Damn! After serving him all of my life, this is how it goes? In the last months of my life, I was supposed to feel mo!betta shame and feel dirty on top of that because I was not worth his saving me to raise my child to adulthood? I always felt shame for things that happened to me that I had no control over and the endless victimization. It had to stop! I could not die this way dammit! God you are VICTIMIZING ME TOO!

But it seemed to be an endless cycle – repression, oppression, suppression led to depression. Then my now ex-husband told me I had no right to even be that! Damn! That was my wake up call and my "state of "keeping close" to "fact." I had hit the wall, hard. I wondered what the hell I was put on earth for? I actually told God to cut the lights out already or I will help you!

I knew I needed to be set free at this point. And no amount of speaking in tongues and shouting helped me. This god had deserted me as he had done all of my life. I began to realize that those that abused and oppressed me didn’t want me empowered. Truth. Hit me square in the face.

At that point I had already been introduced to the Yoruba Thunder god Shango. Or rather he introduced himself to me. By then, as well, my godmother, who is an Oshun Priestess was teaching me the mysteries of Oshun, my own "Spirit Mama." We had a reading with my husband and Shango told him right on the spot, "if you ever hit her again, I will hit you back." Ha! I needed that justice right about then. My mother Oshun brought up the rear and told me I did not have to take abuse. She told me I could have everything and give up nothing. Now some would take this to mean, not to leave the fool. I knew there was a better life for me. And I took the chance, since Shango healed me from the breast cancer. I had a grip on life, and a new lease and I wasn’t wasting it on the functional idiot. I wanted more of this "Truth" that was setting me free. I just did not give a good goo-hockey what the man thought by then. I could smell the freedom. That beautiful smell of freedom was not in our home, where we both lived. Do you know what freedom smells like my Sistahs? It is one of the finest smells in the entire universe.

Now I wanted my wounds healed. I demanded they be healed. Those emotional ones, along with the physical ones needed to heal and heal quickly. Those wounds could no longer be bandaged because they were too numerous and blood was everywhere. I knew by then that I had heard enough lies about myself. I began to wonder why I chose to believe lies that others told me about whom and what I was? Why was it so hard for me to believe the truth? Lies almost killed me. Lies held me in bondage for many years. I was a virtual slave to lies. Why? I had to find out.

My Ancestors and the gods of my Ancestors spoke through divination and told me directly that I was not to be a victim any longer. I had always had power. I just needed to access it. It was that power that my perpetrators saw in me that made them afraid and made them keep me oppressed. I was told to always speak MY truth. I was told that I was to be a spiritual mother to many. Dang, I said, this is hard to swallow. Me? No longer a victim? I was Queen of the victims. I was Queen of de Nile. Cleopatra did not have anything on me. I was so used to floating down that river with no direction but where I was told to go, I did not know how to stop it.

Then Shango came out and said that I was already a woman of power! Basically Shango, who does not mince words said "my child, shit or get off the pot. I got work to shake and bake and you are helping." I grabbed the toilet tissue Sistahs because Shango only speaks once and waits for nobody! Have you ever tried stopping a lightening bolt or a firestorm? I was not fighting the feeling. It felt too liberating to me.

My truth is that I was not born to be a victim or to be oppressed, repressed, suppressed or depressed. I had no proper role models to allow me to make healthy choices in my life. My truth was that I was not introduced to the ways of my ancestors to be able to "draw upon the power of the deep like before." This would have afforded me the tools to make those healthy choices in life. Those Ancestors would have given me their wisdom and guidance, along with their protection. My truth was that my very soul was traumatized so early on that I learned to be quiet and learned to hide what the "truth" really was. I had to cover so many people’s lies over the years, but I didn’t know what the word "truth" meant to me. Just as our Ancestors did for generation after generation after they were brought here in chains. For me to explore the truth would mean exposing someone else’s, and it would mean they lied to me and about me. No one could risk my doing that. So "masking" the truth was the name of the game.

My Sistahs, why are we so quick to believe lies about ourselves? If we can believe a lie, why can we not believe the truth? I know I was in this situation for many years. I had everyone tell me who I was, how I thought, what kind of mother and wife I was, what kind of sister and daughter I was, what I had done, what I was supposed to do, what I was supposed to be. I heard so many lies about myself from others that it mucked up the truth. The boundaries between lie and truth got muddled. These lies formed the very core of me. They set me up for failure and when I failed, I proved everyone right. For a very long time, I did failure just fine. It was all I knew and it was comforting. Until I became the professional, I was. I was no failure at that! But did I believe what my bosses told me? Did I believe my clients? No! My husband told me they had to be lying because I was worthless. So I believed him instead and handed over to him those big ole paychecks. (Kick me somebody)!

Then as I became stronger, they used Jesus! I threw one hell of a tantrum then. They had never seen me do this. I railed at the white man’s sky god and his "original sin." That was not my truth! On top of being traumatized by men and one in particular early on, beaten by a man during my marriage, you mean to tell me I was going to HELL because some white man didn’t have sense enough not to eat an apple he was specifically told not to? And the "original sin" was blamed on whom? A woman! Now I am not only supposed to stay in "my place" because I am Black, but I have a monthly reminder and it is preached at me by another man, that because I am a woman, the sins of the entire planet are on my damn shoulders. Damn all I did was be born! I had to throw that tantrum! It was one of the most liberating moments of my life. It ended that particular phase of victimization.

Victimization my Sistahs is a process that takes years. It is a cycle that is used to enslave us. In order to break free, we must get to know our own truth and be able to speak it LOUD and strong!

This cannot be the truth someone feeds us to quiet us or to control us. But the truth that feels good, deep in the soul, where no one gets to go but us. That is where our healing begins and where our freedom comes. In the soul. It is as if our soul has surgery when we begin this process. Lies must be excised or removed. Truth must be put in its place.

My Afrikan culture’s truth sounded better, felt good in my soul, and made intellectual sense. It also tracked with history as we know it. It took me many more years to come to grips with the fact that we as a people our Black women specifically would rather believe and be controlled by lies told to us for the purpose of keeping us from our own original power.

Shango stands for justice and truth. And he fought tooth and nail for it in my life. He chose me as his servant, his Priestess. That is my truth. I would not be, and alive today was it not for him. He gave me the name – Sangofunmilayo which means "Sango brings me joy!"

If you want to discover the truth about yourself, turn off the tapes playing in your head that others made for you. For many of us Black women, it is an ancestral issue that has been handed down as a legacy from generation to generation and can be stopped. But it must be addressed with your own Ancestors, and I mean those from the beginning of time. This can be done with a knowledgeable Afrikan priest. And I am not talking any white man’s ghosts. They can make up mess can’t they?

The Yorubas say, "speak the truth, tell the truth, that is what the deities support." This is not about "dishonesty" this is about healing us, healing our people. This is about allowing joy into your soul, in the depths where no one gets to go but YOU. This is about being thankful for your very existence because you feel something besides negative emotions. This is about having hope that each day is better and better because you know your own truth and no one can take that from your soul.