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Hello Black Girl!

How are you?

I’m good. How are you?

I am doing okay. I wanted to have a quick conversation with you ’cause I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and we were talking about all the expectations that we get from friends and family and society as a whole. And I know for myself, and I definitely know from you.

We step to the beat of our own drum, and I know that there’s a lot of other women out there that do the same thing, and when it comes to self-reflection and doing things for yourself, it can, be kind of challenging. And I know you have your workbook “Framing Our Visions”. So I, I’ve been reading it and I just wanna go over a few things with you just to get some insight.

Yes. So my, my book “Framing Our Visions,” is really an instructional workbook on how to get to your visions. A lot of people, go into these vision board workshops, and a lot of people feel like they have to be creative. They don’t know where to start. And let’s be honest, people have forgotten how to dream, and they’ve gotten their visions and dreams confused with other things that they’re inundated, and they don’t know how to get back to that. So when it’s sitting down trying to do a vision board or what have you they get lost and they don’t know what to go for. And I think that. A lot of times they just need a little bit more instruction. So I wrote Framing our Visions, which, is an activity based opportunity to sit down and really delve into what is it that you want. And we talk about the reality versus the idea of what it’s that you’re going for.

So the first chapter of your book is “Close Your Eyes” and you talk about dream a dream.

So when I talk about that area of closing your eyes, it’s just that it’s really about stillness. When you close your eyes, it’s  what does your heart ask for? What does your spirit tell you? What does your mind tell you? And if you close out all the noise and close your eyes, the answer comes to you of what you want. It’s very difficult to see and know what you want in the presence of other people or even just being convoluted with so many things back and forth. Stop, breathe and ask yourself the question, what does your spirit speak to? And it’s an opportunity for self-reflection, honestly.

And I also think it’s important for people to realize what posture they need to be in, not only just to be still, but to hear God speak to them. So for me, it’s me taking a break laying down. Not necessarily falling asleep, but just allowing my mind to rest and allow my imagination to do what it does for someone else.

It may be a walk in nature for someone else, it may be cooking. So I think it’s important for each individual to identify what that posture looks like for them.  The second chapter of your book you talk about visualize.

And so once you get to a point of where you’ve asked yourself that question in the visualization process,  what is it that you can see? What is it? How, what do, where do you see yourself? And once you begin to visualize where you see yourself, ’cause. Deep inside. Even if you’ve forgotten how to dream, you have some visions that still come to you.

Something that comes to you while you’re driving, something that comes to you while you’re sitting at work or just, in the doctor’s office or wherever you are. Just shopping. Begin to visualize those things that your heart and your spirit and your mind begin to open up and tell you. Because the visualization is the beginning of the manifestation. We start getting into the framing of the vision, the, the structure of a vision isn’t overnight, it’s little things. You know how you sometimes you might be daydreaming. Nothing is wrong with daydreaming because you begin to think about those visions and they start to grow and they get bigger and bigger.

You have here in the workbook, you say you have a, actually a quote from Mark 2:22, where you say, well, you don’t say, but the Bible says, “No one puts new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is lost, and so are the skins. But one puts new wine into fresh wine skins.”

Right,

Anything that is going to be of value you, we continue to hold on. Like, the old skins are old skins. They are the past. And when you are developing new dreams and new ideas, you can’t be attached to that past; that new skin needs, new casing, needs a new vessel, needs a new everything. And so that’s the same thing with your vision. I love that scripture because it really talks about in, its, biblical way of the past is the past, and you can take what is positive in that and even the negative if it’s something that you’re learning from, but you are, you can’t try to put a new vision into an old creation. You just can’t do it because it’s already old and tainted and it needs a new vessel, and you might need to become a new vessel in order for it to live and for it to flourish.

And I think that’s a, that’s an important point right there, that anything that you decide to do, self-evaluation is important because sometimes we want certain things, and we’re not in an emotional state or mental state to even thrive in that area of what we’re asking God for. So I think that’s a very important point that you made. In your book.

You also talk about in the visualization aspect  of it, you talk about focused thoughts. What does that mean?

It’s just going into the next area of when we talk about the old wine or the new wine. You have to have focused thoughts, and we talked about this talked about the power of your tongue. Your tongue has to be disciplined. Your thoughts have to be disciplined, and you have to think differently and wanna see different things in order for the visions that you saw to become a manifestation because God wants to give us the things that our hearts desire, but a part of giving us the things that our hearts desire is being in alignment to receive those things. And if your heart, and your thoughts, your tongue, and your attitude is of yesterday,  and you still mad about yesterday and the day before yesterday. I don’t see how the new wine can’t live. The new wine can’t flourish. And so really being disciplined with your thoughts, like even if you gotta check yourself, sometimes I have to do it.

If I’ll start thinking something and it’ll be, I’ll be like, not today, Aita. Not today. We are not doing that.  And you have to shut yourself down because.  That spirit that self-doubting spirit or that, I know she didn’t say that to me. And you be like, think about it five hours later, like that lady said, what?

The disposition is important because, like you said, we were talking the other day about the power of the tongue because the. The things that you say are a reflection of your heart posture. So if that’s where your heart is, that’s where your mind is and what you think is gonna dictate what you do, and it’s gonna dictate how you move.

So if you’re trying to operate in that new wine, or go into that new season with the same mindset that you had before, more times than not, you’re not gonna flourish in that new place.

Absolutely. And that’s a part of the structure of the vision.  Like people believe that, okay, I’m just gonna put it on this board, and that’s it. And the reason why I wanted to create an instructional workbook was because I hear so many people tell me during a workshop that they will have laid out this stuff at an event and then they’ll roll it up and it’ll sit in the corner of their office or their room and they never put it up. So I said, maybe if it looked like art, if it looked like something that you can walk into and you begin to frame the vision to what is a reality you can put on there that you wanna own a baseball stadium, but what is the reality of that? Okay. Like, it’s not to discourage people.

You’re putting down things, but you’re not allowing things to represent in a certain kind of way. And I really want people to use it as an exercise, even if they don’t, even if they never put together a vision board or a frame vision, which is what I call it, a frame vision.  Even if they never do that through the work. With the workbook,  they’re at least able to write and journal in some sort of way that allows them to get closer to the things that they believe that is blocking them. And a lot of us are not moving, not because we are not capable, we are not moving because we are blocked. Something is blocking us, and there is something that we. Have to go through or get over to get to the other side of the things that are waiting for us. And I always say our visions and dreams are already created.  They’re there. They’re just waiting for us to meet it where it is. They’re not like be waiting to be created. They are created. just gotta get to the other side of what is blocking us and typically it’s ourselves.

I think that’s another thing people need to consider when they are framing our visions or framing their visions: is that you need to have a plan. I feel like most people, when they do a vision board, there’s no plan assigned to it. So, you know, as a life coach, I help people set their goals, meet their goals, and have accountability.

So when you’re going to a vision board event, or even if you decide to do something at home, pretty pictures are nice. But then to your point, when talking about the stadium, if you don’t have a plan of how am I, gonna get the financing? What construction company am I gonna have to build it? Who do I know and permits office to get me permits to build this?

So there’s an action plan that needs to take place outside of pretty pictures and hopes and dreams.

The next step you talk about  is what is it? The work of art.

The work of art then becomes your life is a piece of art and sometimes we just getting up and we just waking up and we are alive, but we are not living. And the whole point of life is to create a living. And living is the art of it all. And so how do we make our life beautiful no matter where we are? How do we make it a canvas? This is your gift. And I always say, God’s gift to you is life. My gift to God is what I do with the life, and that becomes the living. And the living part of it is the art. So when I talk about framing your life, it’s like. Let’s zero in on the things that you can accomplish. The stadium is a nice, big thing.

Now, if that stadium may represent you doing expansive things, that stadium on your vision board can represent. You being at a big event, or you may have a dream of singing the national anthem at a stadium. But you owning a stadium when you not making that kind of money or you don’t understand what it takes to own a stadium. That’s another story. So, let’s bring this in. This is what I’m saying. Let’s bring this in to where you are based on what you have. And then also let’s bring it in based on the bandwidth you have, because let’s be for real, we have a lot of ideas  and dreams and hopes for all of us that are not running outta ideas and visions and dreams, but we don’t have 10 of ourselves to do that work. So you have to think about your bandwidth. So when I talk about the work of art or framing it, it is now what is within my wheelhouse that I can create between in, in this skin that I’m in, in this new skin that I’m in.

What kind of wine am I gonna put in? And then when that gets too big, I go to the next skin.  Okay? And then I create new visions into the next skin. So that’s how I see it.

A conversation with a friend of mine just.  Yesterday, I had some potatoes sitting on my counter, and I was like, “When do you grow potatoes? Are you supposed to wait today sprout?” And they were like, “Yeah.” And I said, “Y’all need to grow me some potatoes.” And I said, “I’m not gonna grow potatoes.” I said, “That’s just something else I gotta do.”

And I don’t have the time for all of that.

And that’s pretty much what you find out in the process of these true workshop exercises that are meant for serious development and, like you like you, life coaching type of activities. You find what it is that you can do, you’re willing to do, and the things that you know, goal-wise, are within reach that allow you to look towards something in the near future or maybe a five-year future, whatever it is, it’s within your bandwidth to do it. And that is how you set your goals and your dreams.

You don’t need to check it off your list like. Because you’re in a new head space.  How you’re moving is new and you will walk into it without even realizing as it’s happening. Yes.

And if you have that plan, the vision board, yeah, you don’t have to always go back to, because you’re executing your plan. And what you’ll find yourself doing when you look back at the vision board is, oh wow, I did this, I did that, I did this. You know, to your point, and I think another way to narrow stuff down is for people to discover their purpose.

When you’re running aimlessly at different things, it’s kind of hard to stay focused because I’ve been guilty of that, just the next shiny object. It’s like, Ooh, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that. But just because that was something that I’m capable of doing and I can do it well, that doesn’t mean that that’s God’s will for my life or my calling at that particular season.

So I always encourage people to find your purpose. Set your goals and then have some type of accountability in place to keep you on track to where you need to go. You talk about the vibrant life. What does that mean?

The vibrant life is like your vision board.  It’s a kaleidoscope an abundance of different things and experiences. You know what you’re doing. Places you visit thing, places you go, how you contribute to your community, those things that make life worth living and and there’s an area of my book, I talk about trying, and the thing about having a vibrant life is also understanding that in that vibrancy is also a mixed bag of unexpectedness too. Unexpected good. Unexpected turmoil sometimes unexpectedness is inevitable. But how do you remain resilient in all of that? Is understanding that this is all-encompassing. It’s all-encompassing, and it doesn’t just stay good in one area and then it’s all bad in another area. You can’t maintain the good, but guess what? You can maintain the bad.  And that’s the thing. See good in order for you to get to the good; the bad is going to come no matter what you do. But the bad is a part of the lessons to increase the good I. The

Right.

Of the test to increase the good because the good feels good. We would wanna feel good all the time, but if we felt good all the time, how would we grow until the next wine skin, how do we grow into the next area and era of our life? And then may have a shifting in your purpose, but the shifting in your purpose has to be challenged as to, you ready for that  area?

That’s what I was gonna say, like you can’t even accomplish what you wanna accomplish in the next season. If you haven’t been prepared for it in a previous season. So it’s like anything with sports. So when you go to war, you have to practice, you have to put in a sweat, you have to put in the tears.

So when that season comes, it’s like, okay, now, yeah, this is no longer rehearsal, but I’ve prepared for this. So no, it can’t be always good because good doesn’t  develop a person.

No,

So, what is a planted garden?

A planted garden is a garden that, that represents what you want to flourish. And matter of fact, today I’m actually about to go do some garden preparation. I’m about to prep the soil.  I’m about to, get my seeds and different things together, and I know that the minute that the seed hit the soil, I’m not going to seed cucumbers jump up.

I’m not gonna see peppers jump up. Matter of fact, some of those seeds not gonna make it. And the ones that do we gonna celebrate the things that do, we are not gonna sit back and be upset about the ones that didn’t make it. All of the dreams and all the visions that didn’t make, because sometimes you could look up and then you see something sprouting that you didn’t think oh my goodness.

So when we talk about planted gardens, we are talking about going through and laying the seeds to your vision. In spite of what you don’t see, and the Bible speaks to, faith unseen. You know you have to do that, which is unseen. So when I talk about planting gardens, it is not just your own garden.

It’s helping someone else’s vision, helping someone else’s garden. You see someone that is in need in a certain kind of way and needs direction. Help them water their garden, especially when they’re moving in the positive, especially when they’re moving in a space that is going to be for their betterment.

Because the greater good we, the greater good we need to keep maintain a connection in that. So that is definitely what I’m thinking about when we are talking about planting gardens. The more positivity you give out is the more positivity you get back and not to do it like, as some, like just false kind of thing. Okay, I’m gonna just do this for 40 days and let me see what I get back.  No, it’s. It has to be in you, but when you’re planting for yourself, when you have a harvest, what do you do?

You share in the harvest. So share in the seeds and share in the garden.  So yes,

There’s a parable in the Bible that’s the Parable of the Sower, and it talks about how the sower sows on different ground. And based on the ground that you sow in, it will reap. So when you were saying you’re going into the garden and all of the seeds won’t sprout. Well, the seeds that you toss on good ground, that will definitely produce a harvest.

But the seeds that go on rocky ground or soil, that’s not deep, it’ll grow up. It’ll grow up quickly, but it’ll assume weather away when the heat comes because, or the sun comes because the roots weren’t, strong enough, and that’s a representation of those. I don’t even wanna just say get rich quick kind of schemes, but it’s okay.

You, you did this, you’re out here, you’re producing this, but you did it so quickly, you weren’t able to put good roots into the ground. So as soon as a challenge comes, or as soon as turmoil comes, it wipes you out because you weren’t steadfast and you weren’t, as we say today, 10 toes down in the situation that you got yourself into.

You planting your feet in quicksand, okay. You can’t plant no garden on something that doesn’t produce if the soil is too acidic, how are you gonna adjust it? And if you know a farmer, if you know anybody that is into gardening, it isn’t easy. It’s not easy to cultivate roses.

They are coming with thorns as beautiful as they are, they’re still coming with some thorns. So the vision and the dream does not come without its challenges.

But we never reflect on the work that it takes to get there.

For the last section you have ‘For Your Life.’

So, for your life really is about what is it gonna take? And I talk about trying again because a lot of times you feel like you’ve done the work, you put it in, and some things happened, but some things didn’t come totally into fruition.  Part of the vision that you need to set is for your life is trying again.

There’s still more work to do, and you have to be prepared to, accept the good that comes with your dreams and visions but not become complacent. Not to be so complacent with I accomplished this is all I ever wanted to do in life. I did this; I’m good.

And so, as a people, I believe in many ways right now, we’re being sharpened. We need to be resharpened. Our knives and our irons are dull. We’ve gotten very complacent. Very comfortable with people who are uncomfortable with us, okay? Because we are manifesting our dreams and manifesting our visions.

The reality is that you’re gonna have to try again. It is not over. We have to continue to make this wheel go and we’ll have moments of rest, and then we’ll have moments where we gotta get back up again.

There’s a beauty in trying because. The beauty is in the failing. The beauty is, okay, this didn’t work out, so how can I make that adjustment?

What do you feel like are the next three steps I should take? To share with others in regarding to framing their vision.

The first step is forward, is moving forward in everything and in the relationships you have where you are holding any sort of resentment or bitterness.  I don’t care if it’s your mother, your father, your brother, past relationships forward is a future. And in order for the future to make sense, you have to be able to let go of a lot of things.

And when we are framing a vision is most healthy, as in any garden that you plant is the soil that you plant that vision in. And you are the soil that the vision is being implanted in. So it’s important for you to clear out the weeds and clear out the space because the vision is forward.

So what would you say the second step would be?

The second step would be, and after you move forward, is to create bigger visions. You have to create bigger visions that you can walk into. And even though I talk about things in ideal versus reality,  there are some things that you need to envision that are so big that you’ve talked yourself away from, that you’re truly capable of doing, but you’ve run away from it because you are afraid.

We have to create bigger visions for ourselves, collectively, individually, for your family’s goals and ideas. If it is about acquiring land and creating a homestead, that’s a big vision.  And it’s possible.

What would your third power play be?

My third power play would be to stay flexible and focused. Staying flexible because we don’t control the world. We don’t control the circumstances and some, and we don’t control the outcome. Some things are part of the test, but you have to stay focused and you also have to re remain flexible. So those are my three power plays right there.

Well, thank you Alita. I’m gonna, I’d like to end this call with a prayer.

Okay.

So Heavenly Father, we come to you at this moment once again to say thank you for your presence. Thank you for allowing Alita and I to come together and share in our visions and sharing your word. Heavenly Father, we ask that you bless any woman that hears this call that they just get inspired to not only become the person that you have created them to be, but to walk in purpose and know that they at work created to do great things heavenly Father, we thank you. We praise you. And in Jesus’ name we ask these things. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Bailey. But thank you, Black Girl.

Yes, yes, and Hello Black Girl again.  It has been my pleasure.

About Alita Carter

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