MAD Questions with MJ: Recent Episodes
Melissa S. Jackson
Everyone around you reflects back to you a piece of you. At some point, many of us have sat in the company of people who simply did not like. Or did not like us. We do it because we've known them forever, or they're part of ‘the group', or most of all because we love them. Or something about them.
When you sit around someone who SEEs you, you truly get better. They see you and want to help support you thrive. Sometimes that looks like doing heavy lifting. Sometimes that looks like being an encouraging conversation or a shoulder to lean on. When you're reminded of your worth, it's hard to sit around the first batch of folks.
This was an interview with Willa-Mae ‘Debbie' Johnson about her Uncle Abraham Jackson when she quit her job….
[Pictured: Statue of Liberation @ Gorée Island and the Door of No Return (Île de Gorée et la Porte Sans Retour)]
So after running up and down the eastern seaboard, you realize one thing. You're likely running from something and because the mind has ways of making you think that the environment around you is somehow ‘dangerous' or ‘unsafe', even when it's perfectly fine, you have to go.
After awhile, you'll discover that you're likely building a mental model. One that is so real that you feel like it's really manifested in the world. Getting out that mental model is recognizing you, first of all, built it.
After I quit my job in 2017, I left NJ and was on the run ever since. I found myself in my friend Madison's living room just talking. He said, you need to speak to a friend of mine...this conversation was part of a much longer one about how the spirit moves you to find yourself.
You don't have to be religious to understand and know what the spirit is...it's literally the thing that's going to MOVE you.
In 2018, I was committed to go to Cuba. Even if it was by myself. I captured about of my time there in audio notes. And even when I got back…more audio notes.
This is a reflection of my conversation with my dear friend Chad on what that experience was like.