A Personal Reflection by Sais Husia

Be Present has changed my life. I am grateful to the Be Present family, and especially Lillie Allen, for seeing me, hearing me, and supporting me when I couldn’t support myself. Participating in the Black & Female: What is the Reality?® Training and Retreat planning and implementation has been life changing.

Most of my life, I felt like an outsider, not fitting in and feeling that I was not an integral part of any group, including my own family. When I attended the Trailblazing Conference a year ago, I was on the edge of insanity trying to find my place of belonging and my people, in a world that felt so unsafe, confusing, and lonely. I had no trust in other women, especially my black sisters. I didn’t know how to come out of depression, isolation, and feeling lost and alone. Though there were always people around who loved me and told me how wonderful I am, I could not hear them nor believe it. I arrived feeling like life was passing me by, and I didn’t have time nor strength to grab hold of living a happy life at the age of 79. I often felt that I had lived my life pleasing and taking care of other people and had nothing left for myself. When I stepped through those Trailblazing doors, all I wanted was to live before I die. I left that weekend feeling that there was hope and maybe some chance of making trusting connections. I committed to attend Monthly Developers’ meetings to learn more about the Be Present Empowerment Model® (the Model). I attended every meeting I could: board meetings, trainings, vision-based fundraising, etc. When the Black and Female Leadership Team planning meetings began, I took a risk and volunteered to be on the Registration committee.  

That decision was a major turning point in my development. Involvement has helped me make genuine connections and to begin trusting other women. I came to Be Present with not only trust issues but with a lot of shame, physical issues, and emotional deficits, resulting from a life of trauma. By opening and sharing with others, I learned that a lot of us have suffered, and some are still suffering from betrayal and the lack of trust resulting from the harm we’ve done to ourselves and what others have done to us. The good part, the magical part, is that we have the Model that helps to remedy this phenomenon. I put forth effort to establish a support group along with two other wonderful sisters who are awesome and empowered.

Through utilizing the Be Present Empowerment Model in my support group and in all other meetings and conversations, the shame, embarrassment and anxiety I felt at the beginning has decreased significantly and is now manageable, and the depression no longer exists. Learning to live within the structure of the three realms of the Model has been challenging. It is a change in lifestyle. It’s a new way of living for me and my family. Practicing communication using the Model has improved my personal relationship with my spouse, family members, friends, and myself.  

The support that I receive from my support group and others in the organization has been phenomenal. The more I listen, the more I realize that I Isolated myself from others to protect myself from hurt, and the more I isolated the more I feared and the less trusting I became resulting in a loop of more anxiety, more depression, and more isolation.  

The Model and all who practice it remind me that involvement is necessary; that trusting and sustainable relationships are important and necessary for the expression of happiness and the enjoyment of living.

To know myself outside the distress of oppression is also challenging. I didn’t know that I was being oppressed. I had to figure out how I am being oppressed and what distress means. I have discovered that I am one of the greatest oppressors in my life and understand some of the many ways I oppress myself:  self-sabotage, self-denial, self-deprivation, self-criticism, self-shaming. I often set myself up for betrayal and for rejection. These are a few oppressors that I have discovered. As I uncover other oppressors, I now have the tools for transforming them into positive supportive roles.

In the second realm of learning to listen in a focused way, I uncovered the committee in my head that is having conversations with me when others are speaking. I am aware now that the committee sabotages my relationships and when the committee is present, I am not present and therefore, I miss hearing, miss understand and mis-take other people’s stories for my own. In other words, I really miss out on connecting and having a genuine relationship with the other person. However, with the Model, my listening skills are improving daily, and I am aware of body indicators that let me know that it’s the committee and not I who is present.

My goal is to improve my relationships by trusting myself to allow openness and connectedness in a loving, caring way that is supportive of my needs and the needs of others.  With all I still need to learn, I am having the best time of my life.  

I am taking the risk to speak up, to step out of the shadows of fear and shame and risk getting involved in trusting and deeper connections. Day by day, I am building trusting sustainable relationships. As I get to know myself better, I get to know and trust others more. The Black and Female Training Retreat has been my lifeline. With support from my sisters, I stepped out of fear and anxiety of rejection and into the light of my own powerful self.  The Be Present Empowerment Model and all of the sisters and allies of the Black and Female gathering contributed to my feeling alive again and that it is worth living my best life. 

I am forever grateful for the Be Present Empowerment Model®; for those who live and practice it; for my support group; for the sisters and allies who support the movement in magnificent ways; for the staff and many volunteers who work so hard to make it all happen; for the Black and Female program; for all of the youth elders who are showing me how to be creative in fun and play; and for the men and boys who are participating in modeling a better way for our future men and boys. Most especially, I am so grateful and appreciative for Lillie Allen, our visionary who works so diligently to stand in her truth to include all people in this movement of social change and self-justice.

~Sais Husia, Atlanta Regional Organizing Core Group, B&F Leadership Team