Tag: Tina Turner

Foreground Friday

Happy Friday!!! Happy Best Day of the Week!! Happy Memorial Day Weekend!! I hope that it’s a fabulous “unofficial” start to an amazing summer for all!! Before I get to my usual “Favorite Things Friday” favorite for the week, I want to get a little unusually serious, for a Friday on the blog, first. I need to get something that’s been wrangling around in my brain, down in writing. If you aren’t in the mood for some serious thought, please just scroll down to my favorite for today, as I typically like to keep Fridays on the blog, footloose and fancy-free.

Now the serious part: When I was reading some articles about Tina Turner earlier this week, I came across some film clips from the movie about her life,What’s Love Got to Do with It, starring Angela Bassett as Tina Turner. I then ended up on a clip of Angela Bassett in another movie from the 90s that I remember liking called, Waiting to Exhale. I vaguely remember enjoying both movies, decades ago. Watching these clips reminded me of what an amazing actress Angela Bassett is, in just about any role that she plays. The Waiting to Exhale clip was of Angela Bassett’s character, Bernadine, going ballistic when she finds out that her husband is leaving her for one of his employees. In the movie, Bernadine had given up everything of her own self, in order to support her husband and to help him to create his company, and she is feeling justifiably full of rage. As she is filling his high-end car, full of his high-end clothes from his enormous closet, before she lights it all on fire, (This scene underscores the proverb: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”), she is crying and ranting and raving. At one point Bernadine is angrily mocking something that her husband implied in the past, “I need you to be the f-ing background, to my foreground.” Ouch.

Background people are needed in every entity. Background people are typically what makes ‘the whole thing’ go round. Think about every music concert. There are a helluva a lot of background people – roadies, lighting, promoters, assistants, bands, managers, background singers, etc. that make the actual concert happen. The lead singer/star is in the foreground, but she/he couldn’t be in the spotlight, without all of the background players and staff. There is a time and a place for us all to be background players and support staff. The hive only has one queen. Still, sometimes we individuals tend to play it a little small, and we keep ourselves in the background, perhaps playing martyrs, when there are times that we need to let go of our fears and uncertainties, in order to venture into the foreground a little bit, of our own interests and lives. I think that in transition times in life, such as the newly empty nest, this is a good thing to ponder: “Where in my life do I need to step up into the foreground of my own choosing?” We women, especially, tend to take pride in being the supportive background players to our families, and to our spouses, and to our kids, and even to our bosses, and that’s great, and we don’t have to give all of that up, by also inching into areas of our own foregrounds. And as we discover and explore our own “foregrounds”, we can use this experience to learn how to ask for, and to lean on a little background help of our own.

Okay, that’s way too much seriousness for a Friday. What was I thinking?! As usual, I was thinking too much. My favorite for today, is my new favorite brand of mascara. (This happens a lot for me with mascara. I am fickle. I love one brand until I just don’t like it anymore.) I found this mascara at Sally Beauty Supply and it is my new “holy grail mascara” until it isn’t. This makes my slowly dwindling, shrinking, getting sparser with age, eyelashes pop, like they haven’t in a long time: Lime Crime Astronomical Volumizing Vegan Mascara (I am not clear why it is important to say that this product is “vegan” since I don’t know anyone who eats mascara, but c’est la vie. I’m open and learning.)

Have an amazing Friday and an outstanding weekend, friends!! See you tomorrow!!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Happy With Myself

My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself. – Tina Turner

RIP – Tina Turner. That voice, those legs, the hair, that huge, gorgeous, light-up-the-room smile . . . what a loss. We were lucky to have her, and her resilience and the inspiration that we all got from her ability to spring back, and own her worth, and share her glorious talent.

I honestly read Tina Turner’s quote above, just a couple of weeks ago, before she passed yesterday, and when I read it, I thought to myself, “That’s the absolute truth.” Whenever I have gotten compliments about how I look, it’s never about my hair being just right, or the outfit being perfect, or my body being in excellent shape. No. It’s always at a time when I feel completely radiant and excited about life. The light of happiness always shines through, and it attracts others like moths to a flame.

I believe that we are all attracted to the light of happiness in other people because happiness is what everyone wants. Everything that you do, or you achieve, or you buy, or you strive for, is because you believe that “whatever it is” will give you the end product of the feeling of “happiness.” We all so easily forget that happiness is a choice. We can choose to be happy no matter what. Yes, is happiness harder to achieve when loved ones are sick, or we are injured, or “times are tough” or “finances are tight”? Sure, of course it’s harder to feel happy during these times in our lives. These times in life bring up a lot of turbulent emotions, but you can work through these emotions. You can always get back to your baseline of “happy with myself”, as Tina Turner puts it, when you compassionately accept your own feelings, work through them, and look in gratitude at your own life, and your own experiences, and your own resilience, and then just bask in the awe of the very experience of being alive, as the one and only you, in a world teeming with beauty and astonishments, everywhere you look. If you work through what’s bothering you, and you come to an acceptance of “what is”, wondrously notice that even if “what is” hasn’t changed and maybe even will never change (a chronic illness, an annoying boss, a tummy bulge, a loved one with an addiction, etc.), you can come to an unbothered, detached state about it. You can still find your base level happiness in any situation . You can deliberately clean off the lens of fear, and uncertainty, and of anger, and of pain, and your own light can brightly shine through it all.

There are people in this world who are physically “perfect” specimens in this world, and yet they are not beautiful, because when a person is unhappy, they are dim. Their energy is dark and cold. The people in this world, who other people are most jealous of, are the people whom others perceive to have things that we believe would make us feel happy . . . fame, beauty, wealth, love relationships, etc. But the truth is, happiness is an inside job. Nothing outside of you can make you happy. Nothing. You can get fleeting feelings of satisfaction and joy, but think about how many times that you have achieved one of your goals, and how surprised you are in the end, that it didn’t quite fill the hole like you were expecting “it” to, and how quickly you move on to a new goal or aspiration.

If you want to be one of the most beautiful, rare, exquisite people in this world, make it your highest goal to be “happy with yourself.” Make it a daily project to find your inner peace, satisfaction, and happiness. Make it your daily practice to constantly bring your mind around to thinking thoughts of gratitude, curiosity, authenticity, acceptance, kindness, hope and light. When you are in that state of happiness, notice it. Feel it. Describe to yourself what it feels like in every molecule of your body. Give your happiness “muscle memory.” Know that this constant light of peace, acceptance, knowingness and happiness resides in all of us, and make it your main goal to let your own light shine. Let your own light shine so bright that others remember that they have that same light inside of their own selves, too. Happiness is everyone’s greatest beauty secret, available to all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.