When hitting a glass ceiling is the very thing that can change your life

"For a long time, I was flailing,” she says. Roles would take her from New York to California and back, allowing her to pay rent and help her family, but that was it. It wasn’t until she returned to Mississippi, and took stock of the world around her, that she found purpose in her work." --Aunjanue Ellis, Essence Magazine

There is a moment in each of our lives when we feel we've reached an invisible glass ceiling.  We can see beyond what we've accomplished and believe that what we dream of is just beyond our reach.  Sometimes the dreams and goals seem impeded external circumstances: racism, sexism, chance, luck.   When blocks arise that have to do with many circumstances beyond our control or whether they are imaginary, there comes a time in each career when it's time to re-access our dreams and turn them into goals.  

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“I was taking care of someone in my family. I was back in Mississippi, back in the world of the Confederacy, and I was fighting constantly,” Ellis says. “I was fighting to keep my family member alive. I was fighting these Confederates. So what happened, in my blood and in my body, was a realization that with this acting thing, I may not be meant to be a celebrity red-carpet chick—but I can activate this thing in service of these battles that I’m fighting. And that’s what I did.” -Aunjanue Ellis, Essence magazine

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Goals are measurable things within our control.   Setting and reaching goals is how we align our lives with our core values.    Many times life will teach us that what we are reaching for is not in alignment and that lesson often occurs as blockages that seem beyond our control.  However, what the universe is placing in our path is often what we were meant to be doing.  

The universe (if we pay attention to the abundance we have) is showing us what our true gifts are and how we are uniquely capable of changing the world.  The time we spend on focusing on dreams that are not within our core value system is an exercise in frustration and disappointment.  This is how we miss the life where we flourish with the life that we see others having and think is the answer to our joy.

"Truth-telling would also begin to inform the roles she went after, with Ellis focusing on bringing to life the stories of marginalized Black women who’ve been stifled or completely erased from history. It’s why she’s played women like Price, Salaam, gospel-music legend Mattie Moss Clark (in the Clark sisters biopic) and, most recently, civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer in an upcoming project. In the current climate, where truth is being suppressed among debates about critical race theory, Ellis is more determined than ever." -Aunjanue Ellis, Essence Magazine

​I love  Aunjanue's reflections in this month's essence.   Because she hits on this very thing.  Believing we're meant to be the red carpet "it" girl when in reality we hate the red carpet is the perfect metaphor.  As long as we're convinced the path to our most fulfilling life is by following rules that have no importance to us, we will always feel an unusual resistance.  The universe is telling you that the things you believe you're "supposed to be doing" even when you dislike them or find them trifling is a sign that you're not in alignment with your core purpose.    That's when it's time to do the thing you should have been doing from the beginning: 

1. Figure out what's truly important to you
2. What you're meant to learn
3. What you are uniquely qualified to do 
4. Putting those values into operation in your life.

Thinking back on that time, she adds, “When I was doing those red carpets, I was wearing dresses that said, ‘Take it down, President Obama,’ in reference to the Confederate flag. I was like, I don’t like being on red carpets, but if I’m going to be on a red carpet, I’m going to use it to get this message out here about this Confederate flag in Mississippi. It just changed my life completely.” -- Aunjanue Ellis, Essence Magazine

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In other words, reframe what success means to you and follow that path unflinchingly.  When you do that, the resistance becomes a joyous stretching into your most supple, glorious self...
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Over the next several weeks, we can explore how to do this together.  

Please let me know what you're thinking, struggling with or questions that I can address in the blog comments.

Stay the course, goddess...

Love, Light, Power & all that GoddessShit, 

​April Yvette Thompson

While delivering truth is the motivation, the acknowledgement Ellis is receiving this Oscar season is a nice bonus. She knows what it’s like to work hard on a project only to have no one respond to it upon release. And she’s had the experience of trying to be the “It girl” only for it not to go as planned. Still, bigger than any award in this moment is the opportunity to be a part of something dear to her that’s being lauded by critics and loved on by moviegoers. To work with Smith and uplift the young actresses who play their daughters in King Richard; and to celebrate the legacy of Price, Richard Williams, and their girls. It’s why Ellis says the biggest reward of all is not just to have this moment but to be her truest self in it. “You want to do the whole,” she explains. “I felt like, Okay, well, I’m in these films and stuff. I need to be all this and be all that. But then I was like, No, I don’t. I don’t, because every time I feel like I make that effort to present in that way, it is an astronomical failure. I think that’s the universe saying to me, ‘Girl, it’s okay being you. You know what you want to do. You know what you want to accomplish. Do that. Put that energy in that place.’ So I’m good with that. I’m good with that.” From Essence magazine article, 'Aunjanue Ellis' Moment of Truth' by Victoria Uwumarogie.