Tears to Triumph:. Dawn Marie Daniels
helping Mommy “concentrate” on writing the book by bringing me action figures to play with, rocks to count, puzzles to finish, and arguments to solve when I am at the computer. You remind me every day the reason why I write and the reason why I live.
For your love, support, and encouragement, I have to thank my Fletcher family: Jackalynne, James, and Taunna. To my Agee family: Ron, Helen, and Robert, Sr. Then I have to especially thank my dad, Gene, and mom, Karen, for all the things you have done for us and for all the reasons that are too heavy for this little piece of paper to hold.
I am lucky enough to have my very own set of super-friends who have provided inspiration and support along the way. Thanks to my Wonder Women: Siri Brown, Dawne Westbrook, Lorissa McMillan, Sonia and Soneka Anderson, Sadie Eubanks, Diana Dikes, Kaiya Swanigan, Sharron Herron, Sheila Morgan, Gina Abrams, and Jenise Gonsalves. My Supermen: Brian Olowude, Brian Cravanas, Sr., Jeff Gardere, jeff obafemi carr, Phillip Eubanks, Henry Long, Jerome Green, Groesbeck Parham, Michael Chan, Reverend Floyd T. Tramell, Reverend Amos Brown, and Eddie George. I had it so good at UC Berkeley and these people helped me so much: Chris Mclean, Claytie Davis III, Ron Coley, Stephen Hinshaw, Stephen Small, Gloria Chun, Ula Taylor, Lance Page, David Scronce, Pat Lavelle, Makalia Aga, Beth Luke, and my Berkeley writing group.
I am so grateful to the entire staff at the Counseling Center, the Departments of African American Studies and Psychology, my friends in Human Resources, and the chancellors and vice chancellors at UC Berkeley! I also appreciate the administration and faculty at Miles College, the staff from NFL Europe, as well as the staff at Lemak Sports Medicine for their encouragement. Special thanks to Mary DeShaw, Inette Dishler, and Jennifer Berkeley because sometimes angels walk into your life and they may not be wearing their wings, but they might just bring you strawberries.
Some days I wake up and smile thinking of how grateful that I am for my agent, Nicholas Romain Lewis. Who would have thought that this partnership would have come out of Trinity’s Youth Choir?
Right here is the space I am devoting to the people who I have not named. I know in my heart that you are one of the reasons why this book has come to reality. I am grateful to our old and new friends, the women that shared their stories on and off the record and told us honestly what they thought about our idea and then still candidly shared theirs.
Finally to my co-authors, Candace and Dawn. Thank you for making me a part of your Souls of My Sisters legacy. Dawn, I am inspired by your talent and your wisdom, and I am so glad that I got to work with you in this way. Candace, it was seven years ago when I met you in New York City and something about your presence gave me permission to dream of creating what we now hold in our hand. I thank God for you both!
Introduction
Based on a decade of experience, we have found common strategies for turning women’s tears into some of their greatest triumphs. By talking to thousands of women, men, and families from all walks of life, we have heard common trials and similar themes for what it takes to rise above life’s toughest challenges. These stories have been illuminating, heart wrenching, revealing, and consciousness-raising. But we have found that these stories can also be a solution-focused literary prescription for the traumas that others have faced. For every story of triumph, there is a set of steps, a personal plan, a self-actualized revelation that moved the writer from tears to triumph.
The Lesson in the Story
Until now, the transformation of Maya Angelou from a confused and broken teenage mom to one of our country’s most confident guides was a change that we have understood as unique to a exceptional sage. In reading her memoirs—I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas—you learn of how she survived childhood sexual abuse, exploitation at the hands of older men, and traveling a long winding road through gritty Southern injustices only to find herself traveling the world to overcome obstacles as a confident black single woman in entertainment and with child. Until now, if a person read Angelou’s memoirs, one would feel that it was something about who she is and not what Maya does that has made her so exceptional. This would be a fallacy to believe. Memoirs and stories cannot tell us only what someone did to triumph, but we can also follow their path and learn how they did it.
After publishing the bestsellers Souls of My Sisters collection and the eye-opener Souls of My Brothers, we have decided to turn each of the stories that we have heard into a lesson that people can duplicate in their lives. These lessons were revealed when as authors we looked back at the sagas that have been shared, and by developing with Dr. Jarralynne Agee a system of analysis involving “coding” to determine a pattern and set of steps to make success from the real-life tales.
These stories are not only descriptive, they can also be prescriptive. We have learned that people triumphed through a set of personal characteristics, a way of thinking, and a pattern of behavior that helped them better deal with adversity in their lives. Although they were successful with dealing with a problem in their life, it did not mean that they never experienced drama again, but it did instead give them a resource to rely on when times got tough…again.
How to Use Tears to Triumph
This book will discuss the stories that we have heard over the years in the context of a pattern of success that can be gleaned from these triumphant stories of real women. Every era, every time in our life has its own unique challenges, so we are also sharing some very real and current stories of women who are meeting that ultimate challenge with that same set of traits, behaviors, and thoughts that have helped women overcome their issues in the past.
The book is broken up into sections that share the patterns of women who were successful at beating the odds. In the first section, we will discuss the purpose of crying and the concept of tears as it relates to our current lives and as it has been shared in the lives of women that we have met over the years. Then we will define the ever-fluid concept of triumph and dispel some myths about what success actually means for women who have risen to face many of life’s toughest challenges.
We will provide a portrait of triumph by sharing the traits, behaviors, and emotional responses of triumphant women. Finally, we will share with you exercises that help you apply these steps in your own life through a series of activities that will help you better make your own change.
I
Why Do We Cry?
Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.
—blues legend Billie Holiday
In the last several years we have spoken to thousands of women, individually and collectively, and they’ve shed some tears and we have, too, right along with them. There is something cathartic about crying that seems to take all the stress of the situation off your shoulders and puts it out into the universe. Scientists have found that in our emotional tears—not the ones caused by peeling an onion—there are higher levels of endorphins and certain proteins that are natural soothing agents to the body. These types of tears also release stress-related toxins from the body.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. We keep it a secret, but the burden of shame and disappointment becomes front-and-center and we blame ourselves for something we had no control over. It seems that as we see pain coming into our lives, we try harder to control it. Trying to bridle what we cannot wrap our own minds around involves more personal feelings and energy; hence, we are always negotiating our mastery over pain.
We all know that pain can be fear, pain can be failure, and pain can be shame. Pain is both simple and complex. So one is led to ask: Is success, which is triumph, really the exultation, mastery, and prevailing over a challenge, or over our own pain? It is actually a combination of both, and although it seems strange, we should silently celebrate our pain as well as our triumph—celebrate our pain in the sense that it is the precipice on which we make a choice to overcome by triumph or fall into failure. Every time we choose to overcome, we open ourselves up to victory over our pain as well as a new opportunity to grow mentally and emotionally.
1
PRAYERS