Life Lesson: The Tests of Life

Life is a balance if you have good, uplifting, genuine people in your life there is usually a similar amount of people that suck and are hoping to drain you. It’s a fine line to walk, by not losing your cool and not being walked on. This week has been an interesting test for me and I’m realizing that these are people are just a TEST of faith, of control and of my inner light. Only thing to do is shake my head, clench my jaw and shine brighter. 🙂

Black Actress Indie gogo…if you don’t ask you’ll never receive

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I have some very exciting news! I’m taking my biggest leap of faith to date by writing, producing and starring in my first web series. The series is called “Black Actress” and it is a scripted mockumentary about a character named “Kori Bailey”. Kori is a struggling actress pursuing an unconventional career in an upside down world. The show is going to incorporate interviews and stories from some very well known black actresses such as Tatyana Ali (Fresh Prince of Bel Air), Tracee Ellis Ross (Girlfriends), Keke Palmer (Nickelodeon) and many more.

I’m producing, “Black Actress” with Issa Rae a very successful, producer, writer, actress who created the most popular African American web-series to date, “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl”. Issa is also producing a TV show with Shonda Rhimes who is the creator of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” on ABC.

I’m very excited about this project because it is a story that I’ve wanted to share for years. The show is not just about black actresses but it is a show for anyone who has pursued and believed in a dream when it didn’t make sense to everyone else around you. I’m so happy to finally be bringing this project to life with Issa and as the first show from my own production company, “Jungle Wild Productions”

This project would not be complete if I didn’t allow you all to be apart of it! I’ve created an Indiegogo campaign for “Black Actress”. For those of you who don’t know, Indiegogo is a crowd-funding website that allows people to donate money towards creative projects that they want to see brought to life. I am officially launching on Wednesday March 6th but I wanted to share this with all of you earlier because as I said before you’ve supported me thus far and I need your support more than ever now. Check out the link below and donate what you can, and spread the word about “Black Actress”!

Black Actress Indiegogo Campaign:

http://igg.me/at/blackactress

 

Thank you so much for your continued support!


Introducing Jungle Wild Productions

Big Announcement! Big Announcement! I’ve finally started my own production company! Jungle Wild Productions aka my baby! I’m so excited for this company because it is literally a dream come true. I’ve always said that I eventually wanted to have my own production company and follow in the steps of women like Debbie Allen, Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore, Angela Basset and so many others who have taken their career and brand into their own hands. For whatever reason though I’ve always felt like I needed to wait until I was “more established” or a little older etc etc which were all just excuses and fears making me delay my dreams. But now I’m like “EFF THAT!” I’m doing this, I’ve done it, I’ve got it! My own production company and the power to finally create uplifting and inspiring content for the web, film and television. Be the change you want to see in the world.

30 Days of Juicing makes you a better person

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I’m a juicer! If you follow me on instagram or twitter than you’ll know that about 60% of the time I’m posting about healthy eating and all the juices and smoothies I make on a regular basis. Juicing is something I believe in and will gladly preach about to anyone willing to listen.

My journey with juicing started about a year ago when I watched a documentary called, “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” by Australian business man Joe Cross. This is hands down the most inspirational documentary I’ve ever watched in my life, it completely changed my life and my perspective on food. At the time I was already becoming more and more interested in changing my diet and my body. The last few years my weight and diet have been a huge struggle, I love bread, sugar and cheese and these are all things that are really not good for me and no matter how I tried I wasn’t able to remove any of these things from my diet. Watching “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” made me realize how much will power plays into making a big change and how often most of us automatically think we can do it, or I could never, or I love food too much blah blah. The basic synopsis of “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” is successful business man Joe Cross is sick and overweight, he’s tried everything to cure himself and nothing has worked. He decides to go on a 60 day juice fast (he’s ONLY drinking juice for 60 days) across America and talk to Americans about what he’s doing and what they’re eating. Every single person he came across said they didn’t have the “will power” to do what he was doing. Watching it was sad and a big kick in the stomach because I realized that this whole time I was no different from the strangers he interacted with. The fast changed his weight, his health and his overall life. The next day my boyfriend and I bought a Breville Juicer, went to the farmers market and bought $300 worth of vegetables and fruits started juicing. You may not believe me but we saw a change right away, we had more energy, felt better inside and out and our skin started to look better and this was just with the simple addition of one juice a day to go with our regular diet. During the summer I did a my first15 day juice fast, it was difficult, at times I hated it but by the end of it I loved it! I lost weight, I looked younger and I overall felt better.

On February 4th I stepped my game up and did a 30 day juice fast. The rules were 5 days of eating and juicing fruits and vegetables and then 10 days of just juicing, and I kept doing that until the month ended. This time I didn’t have the same “hate feeling” I had when I did the 15 day one, as a matter of fact it was the complete opposite, the entire time I felt amazing! There’s something about challenging yourself and seeing yourself succeed that builds your confidence and throws those old thoughts of “not having the will power” to the wind! I lost about 12 pounds, challenged myself with new workouts every week and started to actually believe in myself and love the change that I was seeing not only in my physique but in my mentality. Mentality is everything! If you think you can then you can, if you want it then go and get it. 30 days of juicing changed my health, my hair, my skin, my body, my mentality and overall made me a better person.

 

How to make a juice: Green Monsta! 

Kale

Spinach

Swiss Chard

(a big handful of both use the whole thing, stems and all)

2 Cucumbers

2 Broccoli Stems

4 Green Apples

Chunk of Ginger root

Put this all into your juicer one group at a time, press it slow and enjoy!

The Color Run

This is my birthday present to myself, I’m a little early since my birthday isn’t until August 15th (Leo Power!!!) lol but anywho this run is long time in the making. As a lot of you know I’ve been on a serious health/fitness journey since the beginning of 2012 and I’m so happy to take it the next level. A few months ago I was in New York at an event and I met 2 of the most inspiring women I’ve ever met. Robin and Samantha, best friends, one being a lawyer and the other a celebrity stylist and boutique owner, both are apart of the social media team for Nike Women and they are both committed to love, health and being the best them they could be. They told their story and how they run 5k a day and go around the world doing marathons in their spare time for fun! This story was like a huge light switch to went off in my head, I wanted to be them! Seriously, I wanted to be able to say I run 5k a day and I run in marathons around the world. It was the sound of the freedom, the release of fear and the strength of their self love that had me so inspired. I made a choice right then that I would go for it, I didn’t force it I just let the wind take me where I’m supposed to go and then I saw a post on instagram about “The Color Run” and I knew that this was it! They have runs all over the world, and 60% of the runners in this marathon this is their first run ever! The idea is to be splashed with powdered color every leg of the race oh and it’s not really a race, they don’t count your time, which removes all of the pressure. I’m so excited about this, on Aug 17th in Montreal, Quebec I’m going to do my first run. Join Me? Or if you know someone who has done this run before let me know how it was, do something every day that scares you!

 

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Self Cleanse/Self-Esteem Experiment

Self Cleanse

One night a random idea popped in my head to help with my own self confidence. I always found that even when I felt like I was being confident and feeling good about myself I still had that slight amount of doubt within me that would whisper just loud enough to make me only believe in myself 85% or 75% or sometimes 55%. I truly was tired of feeling like this and I wanted to be able to say I have 100% self love in, out and around me! So when night my intuition told me very loudly to write everything out and I mean everything! My fears, insecurities, any jealousy, doubts, regrets and anything else that might be holding me back from being who I really want to be.

I wrote out everything read it out loud and then on a separate piece of paper I wrote out my solutions to all those problems. It was so weird writing out the solution because it felt like when your girlfriend tells you some big dilemma she’s having and because you’re on the outside looking in, you give her one simple piece of advice and its solved! All of my solutions were so simple and reading out some of my doubts looked and sounded so stupid that I was almost embarrassed that I felt this way. After writing out my solutions I ripped up the piece of paper that had my fears and threw it away and I pasted my solutions to my vision board. It was that easy and it was THAT easy to change my mentality! Dead seriously I did that exercise about a month ago and have had no issues since. Any sign of doubt or fear quickly vanishes for me when I remember all the solutions I wrote and tell myself that “ain’t nobody got time for that!”. You hear people say it all the time and never really give it a chance but if you want to change you have to make a conscious decision to do so and then commit! I’ve done that and it’s safe to say that it’s working.