(UN)BLENDING BOUNARIES W/ SHAWANA
“There’s not a title in this world that should get an all in pass to bring toxicity into your life.... that is a lack of wisdom.””
— SHAWANA
When I initially thought of asking our latest contributor, Shawana to share her story, I thought I would bring back gems from this spiritual power house. What I knew is that Shawana was raising two children, as a single mother after divorcing from her daughter’s father. From a distance, I was witnessing her find and share her power and spirituality, while waiting on God, and just knew we’d get to water our seeds with the details of the blending of their two families when her patience paid off and she found and fell in love with the man of her dreams. Instead, I got a reminder that what we see on social media and what we think we know, isn’t reality, and an uncomfortable lesson on creating boundaries. From her experience as a child, marrying a man she'd later find out she knew nothing about, and managing the growing guilt of despising her unappreciated role as a step mother Shawana fought hard to define a healthy definition of family and I found her still swinging.
Since her families modern day Brady Bunch photo, one I loved, Shawana’s dream to be the cool step mom had been derailed, “indefinitely”, and she was in the middle of a nightmare that was forcing negativity into everything she’d work so hard for. Talking to people she knew about what she was going through revealed that most people default to excusing bad behavior. Advice came with an expectation that she should be miserable for the rest of her life, and uncomfortable in her own home for the sake of family and titles. We couldn’t speak about finding love without Shawana keeping it all the way real and blending her new family was affecting everyone, including her husband, herself and their kids. Shawana shared with me how her husband gave her permission to release her guilt and take a step back and how her past left no room to revisit existing in dysfunction of any kind. Fist raised, she says more people need to step away from the dysfunctional relationships that are expected of them in their families, or any where for that matter. And no, it doesn’t matter who it is!
Before we go on, I should mention, my initial conversation with Shawana was over eight months ago. Yes. This post has made a record for the longest standing draft in R&V history. When Shawana and I first spoke, I was going through a hard time and struggling to create boundaries within my own family, specifically with my father and had no idea what was really going on with Shawana. Remember, I thought we’d be sharing a different story. When Shawana talked about feeling guilty, ashamed, and questioning God about how she felt while confused over how she wanted to feel, I completely understood. I spoke freely with her towards the end of our convo, and ironically it’s the only part of our convo that was never taped… However, I left our conversation still conflicted with the idea of boundaries within such personal and permanent relationships, and decided to pause both of our stories. I thought maybe things will change, and she’d have a different story to share soon enough. I’d leave it in drafts and check back, but what I was really hoping for myself, to be comfortable with her story and my own. That decision, stopped me from sharing Shawana’s story and truly hearing it. The nerve. The absolute nerve of me — on so many levels. To disregard my own intentions for this site, and for myself, to learn through the experiences of other people. I found the details to see her, but I didn’t search them to see myself. Don’t make the same mistake.
With very little edits from my original draft, making it even more more pointed that we don’t miss clear lessons, I share with you the story that has been poking me in my ribs for months. Shawana has helped me, as I hope she will you revisit or journey towards one of the most difficult lessons the most kind hearted of us must learn, that it’s OK to create boundaries without guilt, when it comes to living authentically the life you want to live, with peace and purpose.
“What my childhood made me become… can’t a lot of stuff break me. It made me cold hearted at first, but when God fine tuned that.”
— SHAWANA
Shawana
Mother. Wife. Spiritual Gangsta. Podcast Host. Personal Development Coach. Root & Vine.
““The enemy had to send him at a time the I wasn’t on my toes.””
— SHAWANA
Smile & Pretend
Shawana’s son was conceived out of a platonic friendship after she’d been spending a lot of time with the best friend of her best friends boyfriend. They hung out all the time she says and it wasn’t unusual for them to spend a night hanging out until they fell asleep. Although he’d tried to push up on her before, she’d shut it down and their friendship resumed as usual, which she admits was a part of her naivety at that time. She thought she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested and they continued to hang out. Then one night while sleeping, a deep sleeper, she said he initiated a level of intimacy she’d never planned for and instead of telling him to stop immediately, she began “talking through” what was happening to her, asking him what he was doing, and was he wearing a condom when he said “never mind”. It all happened quickly, and Shawana thought nothing else about the night.
When her best friend, who was 5 months pregnant at the time took inventory of symptoms she was experiencing weeks later, she urged Shawana to take a pregnancy test, and it was positive. Knowing she’d never have an abortion, and not wanting to raise any child she did have without a father she planned to tell him, but the news had already gotten gotten back through her friend. When they did speak over the phone, she said “he went completely nuts.” and told her to have an abortion, and when she told him she couldn't he let her know she’d be raising the baby by herself and hung up. Eventually, they did try to raise their son together, and Shawana says her mother had even let him move into her home when he was born, but their relationship was forced, and wasn’t built on anything solid. She told me she’d told him she loved him only after their son was born, when it seemed like she should. Again, her idea of family was someone being present with her, and a father was a man who’d be physically present with his child. For Shawana though, he’d never really been there when she needed him, and was only a father when it was convenient given they weren’t in a real relationship.
When her mother was diagnosed with cancer she asked her son’s father to come and be with her at the hospital, and he refused citing her mother never liking him as the reason they should catch up after. In that moment she was finished considering what little they had as her family. It was a new man, who’d eventually become her first husband and her daughter’s father that came through with no hesitation, and the small gesture of support was just enough to win Shawana over and set the tone for their relationship. She’d replaced one vision for another, and checked off the boxes for what she needed at the time. He kept the same energy towards her through her entire sickness. He was patient, supportive, loyal and showed her a level of devotion she never had. “He was absolutely necessary for the passing of my mother, he was with me every step of the way. He was the one that was picking her up, he was a life saver. I fell for that person. I fell for the person who supported me when no one else could.” Death had invaded her family. Her maternal grandfather had passed in December, her maternal grandmother earlier the same year in May and then her aunt months before her mother, who passed away on June 28th, Shawana’s 26th birthday. It was her mother’s final betrayal to her to die on a day that she’d never let be “filled with anything less than fairy dust and gumdrops” but, after grieving the life she lived through her mother’s she’s found clarity in changing the narrative, saying “she had to birth me again by dying on my birthday.”
The adults in her family couldn’t handle all the loss that was taking place and offered what little they had to give, and were glad she had someone with her when they’d call to wish her happy birthday and offer condolences in the same breath. Her unwavering support system recapped all they’d been through and told her he’d never want to go through something so difficult with anyone else. It was his proposal, and she says she “fell for the father he would have been and the ride or die [she] never had.” They stood over a calendar, and when they pointed at the same square the date inside of it became their wedding day, and she went out and purchased her own rings. Her family asked if she was sure. She convinced them she was. Her son’s father called her out for marrying someone she didn’t even know, and she told him off for being outdone in every way by a stranger in four months, when he’d had four years.
Shawana’s mother was buried in July, she was married in August, and by September she was pregnant. Then, and only then did the masks come off.
Keep Smiling, Keep Pretending…
A few days after their wedding, things came crashing down when the first bit of reality hit and she found out her new husband wasn’t a citizen. Then correspondences between him and another man, required more research and she learned the magazine he told her he’d posed for was actually a gay magazine and that up until the day she married him, his entire family had begun questioning why a 30 years old man was room-mating with a homosexual man. They’d formed their own conclusion. The news woke her and the fairy tale she created in her mind was a wrap. “He had caught me off the notion that I wanted to love him, but I didn’t. For me, I figured you got with someone, you grew to like, then you grew to love.” Though she knows it sound silly to some, for her it was the framework for her past relationships. Working towards love after you had something in common was normal.
Shawana’s began showing quickly but didn’t say she was pregnant, and was trying to figure out what she had gotten herself into, while confronting him and hiding her shame and embarrassment from her friends and family. If that wasn’t enough, she then she lost her job and her landlord made the decision to sell the home she lived in. She was having trouble finding a place to stay, and a last ditch effort to stay in New York, she was putting in applications for public housing. All while her husband who’d been pursuing a career in music as an A&R, kept his schedule free for potential opportunities and studio time.
In a previous discussion, an early “sign” before she began trusting God she learned he’d always wanted to move to Georgia, and decided with an aunt of hers there, it was her last option. Nothing was coming through, and she was running out of breathing room. The relationship wouldn’t work but she let him know they’d leave together, and once unpacked on Georgia soil, go their separate ways. “So, I did the fake baby shower and smiled.” she says while still finding out more about him, including about his criminal record, and that he didn’t have a license and wouldn’t be helping her with the drive. For the next few months Shawana packed up her entire life in New York, while he stayed away, alone and pregnant and had her cousins, brother’s dad and high school friend helped load the UHaul for him to show up just in time for the ride down. She was living out a nightmare, the silent film kind and dealing with emotional abuse as he used everything he knew about her against her including raising her kids without a father, and their marriage that she no longer wanted to be in. “He knew my vulnerabilities. I knew if I got married, it was going to have to work out and he took advantage of that.”
After they got to Georgia, he bought more time, staying away for weeks instead of moving into his own place, and going back to New York to take care of his citizenship. One evening he told her after having a car accident, the it was a sign that he needed to work on their family, because he’d been on his way to meet another woman for a date. She’d heard it all. With her son five, and her daughter four months she set up a plan to be the one to move out, the last thing he believed she would have the nerve to do with two kids. “Now I realize God had me pack an entire house by myself the first time, because I’d have to do it again.” she said, and she didn’t look back.“If I didn’t go through it I couldn’t have fathomed it. No other time could he have gotten me, because I’m too sharp for that. The enemy had to send him at a time I wasn’t on my toes.”
Step 1: Let Go. Step 2: Receive
Ok. There’s a lot of detail in Shawana’s story but the net net is that she did what she had to do. She wasn’t going to pretend for the sake of titles, for the sake of having a husband and raising her children with him, and she was no longer forcing anything that would cause her stress and anxiety. . Family wouldn’t be about the surface. Her reality and her vision didn’t align and for that she’d have to do a whole lot of work to disassociate herself from it.
It’s probably the hardest thing for anyone to do when they realize just how much they’ve contributed to the lack of order and clarity in their life, to actually pack up everything you own, working day in and out to start fresh. Shawana had to literally run from her old life. She changed cars, counties and her phone number. Some of us can’t even stop repeating ourselves. Reshaping her life with two kids was not only hard, it was a liberating wake up call to just how much her decisions were affecting her and her children’s lives, and so Shawana set out to work on the single most important relationship, the one with herself and her reality.
It’s no surprise that five years later, after settling into her life, and reclaiming her power, that meeting her husband on an online dating site, made her want to be cautiuous and extremely overprotective of the work she’d done. She’d redefined her vision of family to include just her and her two children, and by then decided she’d pay off the house she bought on her own, with the earnings of her new promotion. She’d taken a hard look at herself and knew she was a sucker for a love story, and wasn’t making the best choices. “I started to look at all the areas in my life where there was lack and was like, no, I don’t want it, no I don’t want that. And I looked at Florida dude. And I asked him was he happy.”
Shawana had just ended a long distance relationship of few months, with another man she’d met online, she calls “Florida Dude”. They corresponded for over three years and never met in person, but he supported her need to feel “special, and like a woman” from a distance. It was safe for her, but she knew she was wasting both of their time, especially when he told her he’d want to marry her and invited her to meet him and his entire family in one shot. Shawana had to be real with herself, and level up her consciousness again, she wasn’t happy and though he wanted to keep a friendship, she decided against it saying “It’s always wisdom for the person who’s done to really make it done, because the other person is always a victim to the person who’s truly over it. That’s not fair.”
Florida dude’s three years outlasted “Alcoholic Dudes” time, another man she’d met on a dating site, a place she found comfortable to maneuver. That ended after she realized she was investing too much energy, she’d even started going to AA meetings with him, trying to save what she said was a nice guy who just needed to get his life in order. She decided once again, she needed to chose herself, even if it meant being alone.
“The enemy will send you a carbon copy of someone that God has for you, so that it can scare you off when it comes”
— SHAWANA
An Original
She remembers. It was October 8, 2016. The same night she’d told her aunt her plans to be single, raise her kids, and pay off her home. It’s important to set dates for new beginnings and record endings. Then on October 27, 2016 a friend calls, excited to share she’s going on a date with someone she’d met alone. The conversation inspired Shawana to go online, for just a second. It didn’t take long for her to remember she’d been #here before and she went to log off when someone in her Inbox caught her attention.
She read his message and then his profile, and was confused about how the brother had ended up on a dating site. He was an ordained minister, played the piano at church, a teacher, divorced, and father of two among other things, and when she asked what he was doing on there, he turned the question back to her. He was given the name “Christian dude” to keep with the trend. After their first FaceTime time, which she answered in her bonnet she said she knew there was something different about him, but decided he was too good for her and off limits. She settled in her mind they’d be friends and she’d help him maneuver the online dating site scene until he found himself a wife.
“The enemy will send you a carbon copy of someone that God has for you, so that it can scare you off when it comes.” she says of how and where they met, she still wasn’t convinced she’d give him a chance. When I asked Shawana why she told me, “His parents were still together, married for over 20 something years, raised in a house. This preacher, teacher, real estate agent, that had both of his kids in wedlock, who’s only not there because she walked away. I felt like [I] didn’t fit in, like I would have been the stain in his life. I’m dope but, I’m not that dope. He intimidated me. The fact that he even liked me, and I wouldn’t tell him that… but he would say things like I intrigued him and I’d be like ‘really?’. That night she prayed and asked God to help him find a nice wife, and God told her “your his wife.” They’d spoken a few times when she told him she didn’t think it would go much further and only wanted to be friends, but after getting to know her, he wanted to get to know Shawana outside of a friendship. She was firm, and though he’d told her he’d call her back and always did, for the first time he didn’t.
The next day when she decided to call him, he told her she raised the bar for any other woman that walked into his life, but if she was only interested in being friends, it would be their last time talking. They hung up.
For thirty minutes Shawana told me she had a complete breakdown, and feeling she’d made a terrible mistake she’d called two friends to lend their ear. Eventually she decided to text him, telling him she’d reconsider and would be open to trying if he promised not to hold it against her. “If you’re patient with me I can be the best version of myself with you, but I have a lot I need to work on.” she said and he let her know he was willing, wasn’t a quitter, and would be there. It was a formal “reset” That was November 2016 and in December of that same year while celebrating New Years at church, Mr. Leonard told her it would be the last year she wouldn’t have his last name. It was “charming” but she was used to charmers and wanted to get to know him on a deeper level, and let him know in order to do that and commit to being with him, they couldn’t have sex and she took it to another level. She told him, “I need to do something I’ve never done. But I need to do something that will ensure that, I can’t kiss you.” He, feeling he had never been challenged in the area, and wasn’t sure he’d have the discipline but for Shawana to make that ask, solidified the journey ahead. “We’d never met people who were on the same wavelength. He was with it.”
For the remainder of the year they did “so much building, it was ridiculous.” she told me. They did premarital counseling before they were even engaged, took an STD test together, and had even pulled out their finances and laid it all out on the table. “It no longer was a let’s see if this is what we’re going to do. It was let’s identify our weak areas…”
On April 7, the very next year, he put a ring on it in a public proposal that was much more, for Shawana “…it was confirmation that yeah, he is a man of his word.”
The couple kissed for the very first time on their wedding day after a year of building a foundation on transparency, honesty and defining their own idea of family. Shawana for the first time was able to create something real, without the expectations of titles, standing back and aligning the vision of what she wanted with reality, that’s manifestation energy at it’s core isn’t it.
(Ok. Yes, listen. I asked every which a way I could, trust me, I held us down. They kept their word, for an entire year, not even a kiss. Y’all so nosey.)
It wasn’t long though before Shawana says her vision, and especially her husbands to have “this big happy Brady Bunch” with their four kids combined, two boys and girls even paired, similar in age, was left ruined when her stepsons behavior, heightened by her husbands custody battle with his ex wife and her impression on the kids, and personal agenda left her picture of family once again hanging by a thread. Clearer than ever though on what she wanted she wasn’t going to let that happen, saying after all she’s been through she’s a “beast when it comes to fighting for [her] happiness.”
“The hardest thing you can tell someone in the world that’s going through something is that later will be better.”
— SHAWANA
TAP. TAP. IS THIS THING ON!?
“I want to speak to the women who are step mothers because I don't like being a stepmother and honestly I felt guilty for that. It’s not fun.” She said they’d had a hard time with her step son from the beginning, her “baby girl” as she calls his daughter, was sweet though things have recently shifted with her mothers influence on how she feels “Baby Girl” should behave with Shawana when she’s there. She’s been struggling with it. “Where I stand right now is that I am not interested in being a step mother.”
So. This is the part where the lesson paused for me, and hear me out because I want to make this clear for anyone who may be struggling with boundaries in families, or with “permanent titles” like I do. There are no titles in boundaries. There should be no acknowledgement of titles in boundaries. When you are uncomfortable, unappreciated, hurt, ashamed, angry, sad, hopeful still, exposing yourself to toxicity, low vibrational energy — there are no titles. Except one, self. There is no waiting for peace, and at the time when I spoke to Shawana battling toxic behavior with my own father, I was so caught up in but, it’s [insert title here]”, I thought, I can/probably should wait this out, be patient until we are on the same page. We have to be in the same place at the same time to move as one, and if you aren’t someone is being dragged. Who?
Shawana says, “The hardest thing you can tell someone in the world that’s going through something is that later will be better.” and her position right now is that she’s just not interested, and her stance is that’s OK. It doesn’t mean things will always be this way “when he’s ready in a few years he’ll have to be subject to if I’m ready.”
Drastic, to you? Yeah, maybe. I thought during our conversation “he’s a kid…”, how can… but, do we excuse behavior based on who it is? And for reference, we are talking about a child who’d been turning ten. The details include disrespect, hitting the other children, using his feet to get her attention, and false accusations pushed by her husbands ex that sent child services to Shawana’s home during their custody battle. No, step-parenting for her hasn’t been fun and according to Shawana, “Everyone in this world needs to understand cause and effect.” That doesn't ever remove the guilt and the shame of wanting to be something you feel you can’t be in the way that you’d like, or in a way that serves the highest purpose of everything you believe it should be. “Sometimes when God blesses us with something its comes with portions of things you don’t want. I would have never thought I’d be going through this with the man I have.”
But here they are, dealing with something a lot of people may be dealing with in a different way, and though the circumstances may be different, at what point do you find a way to create peace? For Shawana it was her husband recognizing how it was affecting her, and the him giving her permission to take a step back. “I almost felt like I needed his permission to be done.” Shawana says now, she makes sure the children eat, their clothes are clean when they come over and that’s it, she doesn’t even interact with her step son, while she’s starting to see things change with “Baby Girl”, her youngest (step)daughter. A manipulative way of playing the homes against each other, she said her Baby girl, at nine years old is citing her mothers’ preferences on what she should do, or how she should behave while she’s there.
“People downplay it with excuses and it the most frustrating thing in the world when no one sees something except for you.” and to hear “Those are your husband’s kids, it’s like so I have to deal with this behavior for the rest of my life?”
“There’s not a title in this world that’s going to get an all in pass to bring toxicity into your life. You don’t let anyone someone just come and bring disorder and a lack of peace, that is a lack of wisdom.”
— SHAWANA
Boundaries
Boundaries may look different for everyone, but they start with identifying and understanding where you want to be and how you feel about your current situation, not from a place where empathy is always the answer for toxic experiences. It’s through love the you are able to have boundaries, so you can do and behave from your highest self, not just by going through the motions. I see it now, what Shawana saw, and though our stories are so different, I can see myself. The need to let go, shows up in different areas of my life, alongside my expectations that things will be perfect because that’s the way I want it to be. So, you act in a way that’s uncomfortable until they are, but nothing changes
Shawana could be all that she wanted to be as a step mother if it was received, instead she says she’s drawn a line with the help of her husband at making sure the children eat, and have clean clothes when they are at her home. For her stepson, until his behavior changes their communications are limited to “Hi and Goodnight, because that’s respectful.” She said a family meeting it was agreed this was the boundary that needed to be put in place. Her husband would manage all communication, and interactions and she would separate herself physically and emotionally. Is this permanent? Who knows. Shawana does know that she has peace with the finality of it.
The truth of the matter is you cannot be who you are if you are not at peace, and being at peace comes with boundaries. Are there some relationships, that you’re just stuck with? Why? And again, if you’re getting caught up with titles here you’re missing the point, and you’re probably missing it, like I did in your own life too.
Shawana and I jumped on a call recently, she’s doing well, boundaries in place and is moving forward with her life, creating more outlets to be who she is. Things are working, meanwhile I was at a standstill, recycling the same old energy and ruminating in it. Unhappy with not being able to be myself. See the difference? When we caught up we talked again about why we create boundaries, and how sometimes we feel that protecting ourselves comes secondary if it means there’s a potential we’re hurting other people. In the last few months I have to tell you, the weight on me for not making that decision has been very clear. My loyalties to others have completely compromised my loyalty to myself, the energy I want around me, my relationships and my peace. There are times when you’ll have to pack up and run, times you’ll have to limit your dealings to Hi’s and Goodnights, because it’s just respectful — but understand that relationships aren’t perfect, but peace is.
I’m so thankful to Shawana for sharing her story with me earlier this year, and for the water she’s poured out by sharing her experience with us. I hope her journey to pushes someone to evaluate how (in small, and big ways) they can reclaim their power and make necessary adjustments in their life. it’s OK and time to recalibrate. And for leaving me with this final quote, that lingers with me as I hope it will with you, when I shared the gravity and disappointment in my hindsight and the time I wasted outside myself… “If hindsight is the only way you learn lessons, that’s a problem.”
Check out Shawana’s podcast, StriveNInspire on Sound Cloud/iTunes/Google Play/Spotify/TuneIn where she delivers faith inspired words of wisdom, as only she can. You’ll feel as if you’re getting a call and pep talk from your girlfriend… you’ll see!
Thank you for the bars, girl.
- Kimmy.
IG: @therootsandthevines
&FAMILY, &LIFEOCTOBER 16, 2019
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