So I have had some practice with this, and I am getting better at it every single day. I am not going to say that I am teaching YOU about how to create a network of stable equitable support around you, but I am putting down what I’ve learned so far, so that it’s on the record.
As you know this whole site is about creating a record of my journey, and so starting at the beginning stages of building my first real and stable network of supporters, means that I need to keep track of what I am doing that works and doesn’t work. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
The one thing that is absolutely true about me is that I forget nothing. I remember every slight, I remember every horrible thing ever said about me, but I also remember – even more importantly – all the good people that I’ve met, largely because there are so few of them.
The good people I’ve met, have done or said things that should far outweigh the bad, but as Colton Underwood most recently publically shared, that doesn’t mean that the “good” outweighs the bad.
“Everything you want in life is a relationship away.”
― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability
When you’re creating your network when you’re building a bot farm, for instance, you’re looking for specific kinds of computers, the same is said about people or car parts. Dom Torretto might not like that Shaw treats humans that way, but when you’re in survival mode that’s exactly what you’re doing.
Some people are meant to be in your life for a long time, and others for very short periods of time. That doesn’t mean that the effect they had on you won’t last your entire lifetime, it just means that the part of the journey that you’re on with them, is over.
“We had more in common than I thought we did. You were my priority. You were your priority.”
― Kate McGahan
So when you’re looking for people on the next portion of your path it is a bit like “yes to you and hell to the no to you,” because honestly, you’re trying NOT to repeat old patterns, that’s what moving forward is about.
I am a baby in the Content Creation / Influencer world, and I’m super okay with that, but BECAUSE of my mental health breakdowns – whatever the reasons they are for their existence – I feel like I have to work 10 times harder, but it’s only recently that I decided that I need to be a lot smarter, about when and how I release information.
I’m also being more careful about when I decide to tell my story and to whom. I am telling MY story and so I am learning to edit it for my audience, if it’s super important I am going to tell you if it’s not I won’t, when I am ready I fucking will, and not one moment before.
These boundaries are necessary for my survival because right now survival is my absolute number one necessity. I need to get out of this house, I need to get therapy, and I need to make sure that I am putting out information in a way that is consumable for those who need it the most.
I’m not just a victim anymore. I am a survivor now, I have reached the level of survivor hood where I am taking on more responsibility, and I am actually trying to turn my survival into an educational tool that provides those who are handing out information, know what the fuck they are talking about.
Yesterday I saw a thing on how to stay away from gangs, and one of the women said “the girls might have efancier clothes, older boyfriends,” and they might have older boyfriends who make them get jobs, who force them to sell their friends, there are a 1000 red flags that we’re not talking about. – Devon J Hall
I am so tired of bad information being passed around. Older boyfriends don’t always equal sex trafficking because often they ARE NOT BOYFRIENDS, THEY ARE ABUSERS, and so when I am building my future Loud Mouth Brown Girl network, I have to check:
“Does this person understand what it is that I do?” Because a lot of people are uncomfortable with my confidence and openness, but if you’re going to work with me, then you had better get comfortable because I’m not going back to the person I was before.
This person that people are meeting has already been through the drama, and the bullshit, and she’s not interested in going back to that. So the network has to reflect that.
When I think of the kind of people I want to work with right now, I’m looking at Educators, Mental Health Professionals, Business Women, who are changing the game for themselves, by showing others how to get started.
I’m looking for mentors now. I stayed too long in the land of faeries, and now that I am growing up and into my true self, I am looking for people who also understand what it feels like to get lost behind the pretty and shiny.
It’s not that I want money just to have money, it’s that I want to go back to the land of the faeries as I call my 20s, and help those who are ready to leave trauma and abuse behind, so they can move forward on their own journey.
There will be lots more people in my life, who come and who go, but my family? My Krisya Ohana? They will be with me forever. Either in person (about time,) or in spirit, the people who made me who I am, the heroes of my personal story, are the ones who lived it with me.
Anyone coming into my circle is going to have to understand that publically a lot of bullshit has been said about the people I care about and love, but that if I can get past the lies told in the press, and even here on this site when I first was recovering all my memories, then so should anyone else coming into my life.
I don’t think that keeping people from your past is a bad thing, but I do think that keeping the RIGHT people from your past is imperative to survival, and the RIGHT people, are the ones willing to ride, die, live, and thrive with you, whether you like it or not.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 