I have a Youtube playlist where I read aloud from 19th Century American literary texts, and I thought I’d share those here. In addition to reading the texts, I add my own commentary and analysis. I hope you enjoy them.
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft, part 1 video 3
I have a Youtube playlist where I read aloud from 19th Century American literary texts, and I thought I’d share those here. In addition to reading the texts, I add my own commentary and analysis. I hope you enjoy them.
You Do Not Have to Journey Alone
When I registered for my masters program in 1998, I didn’t know how I was going to pay for it. I prayed for a miracle, and God showed up. Literally the day before classes were to begin, I received a call from the English Department offering funding for my studies in exchange for working in the Graduate Writing Center. I accepted and shouted my praise for a good 5 minutes after hanging up the phone. I started graduate school the next day.
The following year, I got funding that would last me throughout the rest of my masters and my doctoral program, and I knew God intended this road for me. I believed in my spirit He wanted this for me, but many things in the natural told me otherwise. My first two years of financial miracles reminded me that I was on the right path as my doctoral journey began to take difficult turns.
I completed my MA in 2000 and finished my doctoral coursework about 18 months later. I had just written a seminar paper, which my professor suggested I use as a basis for my dissertation, and we provisionally decided to work together. I felt elated and confident.
Then my professor took a position at another university out of state, and I was left with no clear direction. I floundered for the next several years.
I was technically a full-time student, but I was just wasting money on non-value added credit hours that helped me maintain full-time status. I wasn’t making any progress. Eventually my funding ran out, so my husband and I started paying my fees on our credit cards. Every semester I didn’t progress, I wasted our family’s money. My husband was awesome and didn’t say anything about it, but I felt so much guilt that it eventually paralyzed me.
I got to a point that I couldn’t even drive by campus without feeling sick. Guilt and shame weighed so heavily on me. I was wasting my family’s money. I squandered my funding. No one seemed particularly interested in my ideas. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I was depressed.
So I pretended like everything was fine and like I wasn’t in graduate school. I threw myself into church activities and reading. I had always been an avid reader, but reading became a means of escape for me. I couldn’t bring myself to read anything related to my topic, so I read any random novel I could find. By this point, my husband and I had a daughter and another baby on the way, and I really didn’t see how continuing down the sinkhole of the hot mess of my graduate career would serve them or anyone else. I wanted to quit, but I wasn’t even brave enough to do that.
Then I got called in to see my department chair.
She told me about a teaching fellowship in the African American Studies department (not my field of study) that I might be interested in. I got the position, which laid the foundation for my world to change.
At first, I just taught my classes and left. I didn’t socialize with departmental colleagues at all. That had always been how I had operated in my home department. I never fit there. At the time, I was the only black student in the department, and I felt so unlike everyone else there. Discomfort and inauthenticity characterized my mindset while there. So to avoid those feelings, I did what I had to do and went home. That behavior, however, didn’t work in the African American Studies department. They loved on me by letting me ease my way into their culture, and before I knew it, I had found a home.
I had a community of black women who understood what I was going through. I didn’t know I needed that, but I did. Desperately. I spent many hours laughing and crying in the common area where we sat for meals and impromptu discussions on life. I made a lifelong friend. I began reading books that fascinated me, prompting me to explore my curiosity. These books didn’t necessarily align with my dissertation focus, but reading them helped me think about my work in new and beneficial ways, which led to a fortunate reframing of my dissertation topic. And I received mentoring from the department chair, who eventually became a reader on my dissertation committee.
Goodness, I still experienced many more difficulties on my journey, but forging community with other black women helped me face them. I learned to manage my expectations, forgive myself when I failed, and seek support when I needed it. Which was often. I saw examples of how to balance my church and family life with my academic life, and I learned how to use writing and reading as self-care that supported my doctoral journey, instead of as a way to escape from it.
I continued to face setbacks and didn’t graduate until 2009. By that point, I was married with 2 preschoolers and working full-time. But I still had the support of the community I found in the African American Studies department. Their continued support, mentoring, and life lessons gave me the balance I needed to manage my expectations, my family’s expectations, and the demands of doctoral work. I would have gone crazy without that group of women.
I realized I didn’t have to travel my doctoral journey alone. I realized God provides in ways we never imagined, because I’m here to tell you that group of women was a beautiful gift from God. I realized strong black women need and deserve support. I realized other black women are willing to support me. I realized my path and timeline didn’t have to look like anyone else’s. But in the learning process, I lost a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of myself.
So many black women suffer in similar ways, but you don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to be lost and overwhelmed, stranded by yourself on Strong Black Woman Island. You don’t have to waste time and money floundering.
You can have the support you need to survive the challenges of your doctoral journey, whether that support is community connection, spiritual recharge, self-care, or even writing help.
How does that sound to you? Would you like to learn more?
Check out Sistahs on the Doctoral Journey, a new online community for black women to find connection, resources, and coaching while on their doctoral journeys.
If this sounds interesting to you or you have any questions, type ME! in the comments, and I’ll reach out to you.
You do not have to journey alone.
STEP Method for Managing Your Emotions
I took a very cool course through WGU about neuroscience and learning, and in it, I learned about the STEP Method for managing your emotions.
In brief, this method helps you pause, think about why you’re so riled up, and plan how to respond to an emotional challenge.
In the course of pursuing a degree, you face any number of emotional challenges: technology problems, a chapter returned covered with red ink (Oh, I have a good story about that for another day!), group projects (enough said).
But you also face emotional challenges in your daily life. In my example in the video, I talk about how my son gets under my skin at the dinner table by acting just like my brother did when we were kids. Of course, it was my brother’s job to get under my skin when we were kids, and truth be told, I gave as good as I got. And, of course, it’s my teenage son’s job to get under my skin now, but I need to respond with adult strategies, not childhood strategies.
Check out the video, then comment on how you have handled emotional challenges and how the STEP Method might help you.
Get Comfortable
Today’s journal prompt is to write about what’s making you uncomfortable and uncertain and your plan for becoming comfortable and confident in that thing.
And go!
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft, part 1 video 2
I have a Youtube playlist where I read aloud from 19th Century American literary texts, and I thought I’d share those here. In addition to reading the texts, I add my own commentary and analysis. I hope you enjoy them.
Sistahs on the Doctoral Journey
As you know, I’ve been shifting and refining my coaching focus since February. Well, here it is December, and I’m refining again. I’m shifting to serve black women on their doctoral journeys. All of my moves since February have been leading me here, and I’m excited about what’s on the horizon.
Part of that horizon includes starting a membership site. I’m in the mood to get my projects underway, so I created it today! It’s called Sistahs on the Doctoral Journey.
I created a membership site where women can connect with one another through posts I’ll add weekly, monthly events, mastermind groups, and 1:1 coaching.
If you resonate with this shift, I invite you to become a member. If you don’t personally resonate with this shift, I invite you to share this information with someone who does.
Please check out Sistahs on the Doctoral Journey and consider joining. Let me know if you have any questions.
Get Started, Even if it Means You Need to Shift
Check out the next episode of Real & Raw with Roshaunda where I talk about how I’m shifting my coaching business to serve black women on their doctoral journeys. If the video resonates with you, type ME in the comments. And if you’re moved to start something new today instead of waiting for the new year, type that in the comments, too. I’ll be praying for you!
You are Enough
For today’s journaling, we’re going to do something a little different. We are going to do a t-chart exercise. Today, your t-chart will be about describing how you are enough.
If you are using pen/pencil and paper, draw a vertical line down the middle of your paper. Next, draw a horizontal line through just the top portion of your vertical line. What you have should like like a lowercase “t.” If you’re using your computer, you can just make a table with 2 columns.
Now you will need to add 2 headings, one to each column you’ve created.
- Heading 1: Areas where I feel I am not enough.
- Heading 2: Ways I am actually enough.
So that’s your journal exercise today. Face the areas of your life where you feel insufficient, inept, or inadequate. Then consider how you really are enough. You may not be everything, but you are enough.
Ask God to lead your thinking on this; otherwise, it will be easy to get stuck in a negative loop and miss how mightily God is moving in you, even when you don’t feel like enough.
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft, part 1 video 1
I have a Youtube playlist where I read aloud from 19th Century American literary texts, and I thought I’d share those here. In addition to reading the texts, I add my own commentary and analysis. I hope you enjoy them.