Naima Mora's Blog, page 5

Me with and up and coming model at the Pink Soles Model Clinic In Charlotte, NC.

In the first installment of my “Model Tips” I discussed the importance of maintaining a healthy body by way of a great nutritional diet and exercising regularly.  In this second installment I want to touch on the other side of Health a model must maintain – keeping a Healthy Mind!

2. Maintain a healthy mind:

When I first began modeling after winning America’s Next Top Model, I didn’t understand how booking jobs would affect my mental health. A lot of working models tend to be young, and some of them teenagers even. Modeling does not have the security of a regular nine-to-five job where you get paid every other week based on a secure amount of hours you put in.

Modeling is a job that takes great effort, time and devotion. Models have to stay in good shape and devote time to working out. They must get monthly hair appointments (if not bi-weekly) to keep their hair in great condition. They must get weekly manicures and pedicures. Models must get facials to tend to the condition of their skin. Models must also put in a lot of time and foot work in going to castings and go-sees. Once you do book a job, a shoot or runway show can consist of three or four hours of work. Or a job can consist of travel to different cities or countries with thirteen hour days. The demands of this career are more than what people may often think and require a clear, strong-minded head on your shoulders.

I loved travel and working on photo shoots. Run way shows are super fun as well! I really enjoyed modeling and I worked very hard to book the shoots and shows I did. However, like I said in the first installment of these model tips, booking the job was the most difficult part of modeling for me.

Of all the demands put on me by my modeling career, castings and go-sees were the most stressful. Models will go on hundreds more castings than the actual amount of jobs they will book.

The reason why is this: Different clients want different looks. As a model, I offer only one look… me! My look is going to be perfect for one vision and not so perfect for another. Most of the jobs I booked were looking for someone with a little more edge, someone with a little bit of androgyny. I normally wouldn’t book a job where the client was looking for the all American girl next door.

The point is that we are going to be right for some jobs and not right for others. In the meantime a model must continue to hone in on his or her craft and presentation. Eventually we will start to book more work and become more knowledgeable on how we individually fit into the fashion industry based on the current trends.

I had to keep this idea in my mind often. It is hard going to castings and go sees for two weeks, sometimes a month and not landing any jobs. It can take a toll on one’s self esteem. The stress of not knowing when your next pay check will come in is even more consuming at times. But we all have our own individual beauty and someone will see that and want to take advantage of that for the vision of their artwork and design.

In the meantime, we often have to get part time jobs to pay the bills. Trust me, I have been there. What I would suggest is getting a part time job in a retail store. The more high-end the store, the better. Working in retail locations, I further developed my knowledge of fashion, design, style trends and presentation. I learned skills that only help my career as a model and I appreciate all my day jobs! They have helped me stay afloat, stay alive and learn things I would not have been exposed to working solely as a model.

People think that just because I won America’s Next Top Model that I would become an overnight success story of Super Model Stardom! The truth is that I had to work my way to the top just like every other model in the industry. It was rocky road often times, but I accomplished my success with the knowledge I gained along the way and I cherish every moment of it!

For more advice on how to maintain a healthy mind and other great tips on starting your modeling career, please consider purchasing my iTunes book MODEL BEHAVIOR! Print copies are coming in January!

The post Modeling Advice Series: A Healthy Mind appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

On set shooting for Crown Atelier in Grand Cayman.

I had to share that two great sites – Calming Corners and KSY Online – who have written wonderful articles/interviews in support of me and my new book Model Behavior (print coming Jan 15th) plus promoting the fact I am hosting “Walk Fashion Show” in Detroit this year this weekend, December 8th!

Calming Corners – a new favorite site of mine for healthy lifestyles. 

KSYOnline - a new blogger to join the blogsphere. K.S.Young blogs to  inspire, empower, educate and entertain.

Come see me in Detroit December 8th and support fashion’s greats in Detroit!

“The WALK Fashion Show is in its 6th edition averaging over 500 women during each casting call and over 2,000 fashion show attendees from the Metro Detroit area. Each year WALK donates a portion of its proceeds to various charities. This season’s show is being  produced by native Detroiters Daishawn Franklin and Crystal Bailey.

Franklin was just recently featured in the Detroit Free Press celebrating 9 years of successfully producing celebrity events and concerts around the Metro Detroit area. WALK strives to provide a platform to the needs of many locally based designers, store owners and members of the Detroit fashion community. The Fall/Winter WALK fashion show will be showcased December 8, 2012 at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.” Shannon Lazovski, Detroit Fashion News.

The post December 8th in Detroit – Hosting “Walk Fashion Show” appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

Sometimes life surprises you and you discover the dreams you share are much closer than you think. Meet Rajesh Kumar, a man born and raised in poverty in India, who persevered through dire straits to not only get an education, but move to the United States, earn his MBA and grow up to spend his life helping educate children in India. He found me and bravely shares his life journey with us.

We are proud to share with you the story he submitted below as it was submitted and links to his education project and a video about his efforts. A dream Rajesh proves is always possible. Thank you for sharing your story. – Naima

***

My name is Rajesh Kumar and this is my story.

Rajesh Kumar

A student has to travel miles every day to get better education, which is very costly. Common families rarely see their child’s dream of having a quality education. Families sacrifice even basic necessities to provide a better life and education for their children; their dream is still too far out of reach.

 One student among many, Rajesh Kumar, set out to change this trend; he broke through this cycle and completed his high school education. This was a life changing accomplishment and an inspiration for many students. He attended a private high school by sitting in an empty back seat, with the help of the school’s principal.

There were times he did not have winter clothes or even shoes to wear during the cold winter months. As there was no electricity at his house, he studied outside using the street lamp. Even while working as a brick kiln factory worker at the age of 15, his determination was never shaken. After completing his high school education, he went on to finish his professional education. Rajesh is now striving to achieve his second mission in life, which is to build this school so that other families can have the opportunity to see their loved ones receive a good education and become successful.

 Rajesh Kumar, though born to an illiterate family, is a technocrat and has worked with leading national and international companies. Despite his lack of resources growing up, he has reached top level jobs. In order to bring excellent education to this village, he started the Takshila Education Project. He always reaches out to education institutes while working in six countries around the globe. He would like to give an opportunity to thousands children who do not have hope. His dream is to provide hope to these children through access to exceptional education.

 This is a community project that has contributors from all walks of life who are excited to give this school to the community. We can see the excitement of locals, through their actions. The village has already donated ten acres of land for this cause, which is a major milestone for this project. There are many people, nationally and internationally, who are ready to become part of this mission.

***

To view his education project video Dreak Takshila.

About Takshila Education Trust.

The post The Dreams We Share: Rajesh Kumar Fan Profile of the Week appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

My beautiful twin sister and myself sitting on the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico. She is defintely one of my heroes. For more about my family click the photo to see all my heroes.

My heroes are people I look up to and aspire to be like. I love watching videos of performances or interviews of my favorite musical or visual artists. I read quotes of people that inspire me. It encourages me. It gives me drive. “If they could do it, I can to!” (Naima Mora: Model Behavior) This has become one of my personal mantras.

When I go through doubt and question my talent, I go back to this mantra and consider all the difficulties my heroes may have gone through in order to succeed. I am inspired and encouraged by what they made of their lives and the way they have affected people.

When I went to South Africa while filming America’s Next Top Model I experienced a huge turning point, not only in the competition, but in my life!

We visited Nelson Mandel’s prison cell where he was held for close to twenty years. I realized that he inspired people to fight for their lives and for freedom, from the confinement of a prison cell no greater than the size of a closet. I told me myself if he could do that, then I could win this competition! I did, and that experience motivates me to this day.

More often however, my heroes are those closest to me. My parents, my sisters, and my friends are some of my most treasured heroes! I am inspired by the victories they have had in their lives. I am inspired by the victories my mother and sisters have had in being mothers, and by the victories my father has had in being a father. I have witnessed the troubles they have dealt with first hand, in battling illness and life, and have chosen to live my life with them in mind. I want to succeed for them and I know that this life is short, but it’s more than enough time to do that!

I am also inspired this week by people like Rajesh who shares his story with us about his dreams and how he is using his life to give children like himself in India an educational dream, too. These are our real heroes.

Who is you hero and why? Share your story with me at the Fan Corner!

The post One Life To Live: Our Heroes appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

w/Charlotte Style Magazine’s Ivey Moore. Photo by Daniel Valverde

Here’s a new series of entries  on Modeling Advice…excited to hear your feedback!

***

I recently had the opportunity to be the guest speaker at a Model Clinic in North Carolina as part of an event held by the Breast Cancer Awareness organization Pink Soles. I have spoken at many model clinics before and I really love having the opportunity to share the knowledge I have gained over the last several years with other young men and women. So many young people across the nation are eagerly trying to pursue a career in the fashion industry, specifically as a model. And they just don’t know where to begin.

I thought that it would be really cool to include some of the key topics I share at these model clinics here on my blog! Here is the first installment of my Model Tips for young aspiring models.

It is so very important for a model to maintain his or her health. We work in a very physically demanding profession and what we bring to the table, besides our charm and charisma, is in fact our physique. When we eat a healthy well rounded diet and exercise regularly, our bodies perform to their maximum potential. I mention this in my book Model Behavior.

As models we have to be very conscience of what we eat. Consider researching raw foods and replacing animal fat with other forms of protein like soy based products and grains like Quinoa. Juicing is amazing as well because it delivers a maximum amount of nutrients from fruits and vegetables directly to your stomach to be absorbed more quickly by the body.

Our food is the energy we fuel our bodies with. When we fuel them with the best kinds of foods, our bodies will naturally react in a positive way. Our skin becomes radiant, our hair shines, toxins are more readily removed from our systems and we gain so much more energy!

Beyond the physical benefits, eating healthy and exercising regularly actually improves our mood. Because our bodies are not working so hard in digesting junk food, our mood improves as a result. Think about all the time you’ve had a bad stomach ache and how irritable it can make you. When those ailments don’t exist anymore, we have room to actually feel good.

What this does for your career is this: The hardest part of modeling in my opinion is booking the job. When we go to castings and go sees we need to present ourselves in the best way we can. The client wants to see the best version of you as possible. I can’t tell the number of times I go to see a client and after looking at my book, they scrutinize over my face and say “This is a great portfolio, and you have great skin!”

The client wants to make sure there is a natural glow to your skin, something that cannot be added by photo shop. They also want to make sure they do not have to pay a photo editor for hours spent in retouching your skin. With a glowing face and a radiant personality, you’ve booked the job! At that point you just need maintain your regiment so that when you arrive on set, you can continue performing your best!

There is a stigma in the fashion industry that models do not eat. A lot of models actually think they must literally starve themselves to attain a model’s physique, especially when they start out in their careers. We are who we are and we must respect the bodies that we are blessed to have. For example, I will never be a size zero or double zero at that. It’s just not in my genetic makeup to be that size. My natural size is a size 2 and I have learned to respect that and cater to my body’s specific needs.

Eating healthy and keeping a good exercise regimen gets you in shape. It helps you to maintain a lean physical appearance, as a toned healthy young person without having to result to drastic measures (that can actually harm your body) to stay thin. It is a part of a model’s job to stay lean and thin, but it is possible to do this in a healthy way. For more advice on how to maintain a healthy diet and other great tips on starting your modeling career, please consider purchasing my book MODEL BEHAVIOR!

The post Modeling Advice Series: Healthy Diet = Healthy Body appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

Personal Goal Setting. In my book, “Model Behavior” I talk about the importance of staying focused and reaching for your dreams. This article by Mind Tools (Essential Tools for an Essential Career) has some wonderful advise on setting goals for yourself!

Planning to Live Your Life Your Way

Many people feel as if they’re adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don’t seem to get anywhere worthwhile. A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven’t spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven’t set themselves formal goals. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no real idea of your destination? Probably not!

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You’ll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Why Set Goals?

Goal setting is used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you’ll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you’ve set.

Starting to Set Personal Goals

You set your goals on a number of levels:

First you create your “big picture” of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.

Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.

Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

This is why we start the process of goal setting by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

Step 1: Setting Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own, where these are important to you):

Career – What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve?

Financial – How much do you want to earn, by what stage? How is this related to your career goals?

Education – Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals?

Family – Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?

Artistic – Do you want to achieve any artistic goals?

Attitude – Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.)

Physical – Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?

Pleasure – How do you want to enjoy yourself? (You should ensure that some of your life is for you!)

Public Service – Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals that you can focus on.

As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want. (If you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants – however, make sure that you also remain true to yourself!)

Step 2: Setting Smaller Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.

Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.

Then create a daily To-Do List of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.

At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.

Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Staying on Course

Once you’ve decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.

Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)

SMART Goals

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we’ve included in parenthesis),

SMART usually stands for:

S – Specific (or Significant).

M – Measurable (or Meaningful).

A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).

R – Relevant (or Rewarding).

T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

For example, instead of having “To sail around the world” as a goal, it’s more powerful to say “To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015.” Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

Further Goal Setting Tips

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:

State each goal as a positive statement – Express your goals positively – “Execute this technique well” is a much better goal than “Don’t make this stupid mistake.”

Be precise: Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you’ll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.

Set priorities – When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.

Write goals down – This crystallizes them and gives them more force.

Keep operational goals small – Keep the low-level goals that you’re working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward.

Set performance goals, not outcome goals – You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control!

In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, they could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck.

If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.

Set realistic goals – It’s important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.

It’s also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

When you’ve achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you’ve made towards other goals.

If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve.

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goal harder.

If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goal a little easier.

If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so.

If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Feed lessons learned back into your goal setting. Remember too that your goals will change as time goes on. Adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, consider letting them go.

Goal Setting Example

For her New Year’s Resolution, Susan has decided to think about what she really wants to do with her life.

Her lifetime goals are as follows:

Career – “To be managing editor of the magazine that I work for.”

Artistic – “To keep working on my illustration skills. Ultimately I want to have my own show in our downtown gallery.”

Physical – “To run a marathon.”

Now that Susan has listed her lifetime goals, she then breaks down each one into smaller, more manageable goals.

Let’s take a closer look at how she might break down her lifetime career goal – becoming managing editor of her magazine:

Five-year goal: “Become deputy editor.”

One-year goal: “Volunteer for projects that the current Managing Editor is heading up.”

Six-month goal: “Go back to school and finish my journalism degree.”

One-month goal: “Talk to the current managing editor to determine what skills are needed to do the job.”

One-week goal: “Book the meeting with the Managing Editor.”

As you can see from this example, breaking big goals down into smaller, more manageable goals makes it far easier to see how the goal will get accomplished.

Key Points

Goal setting is an important method of:

Deciding what you want to achieve in your life.

Separating what’s important from what’s irrelevant, or a distraction.

Motivating yourself.

Building your self-confidence, based on successful achievement of goals.

Set your lifetime goals first. Then, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Keep the process going by regularly reviewing and updating your goals. And remember to take time to enjoy the satisfaction of achieving your goals when you do so.

If you don’t already set goals, do so, starting now. As you make this technique part of your life, you’ll find your career accelerating, and you’ll wonder how you did without it!

You can visit this website below for more details about this article:

http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html

The post Personal Goal Setting appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

Jason Alcantara

In this week’s Fan Corner meet Jason Alcantara, a writer and path traveller on his way to discovering himself. The following is one of the most heartfelt, honest and real submissions I have received since we began to collect stories from you in the summer of 2012. All the stories I have read from readers and fans are courageous and extraordinary, and these words below are, too, and so very raw and so very beautiful.

Thank you, Jason, for sharing yourself with others so intimately. – Naima

***

Make My Words Cry

The journey to self-awareness is more than looking in the mirror. For me, it’s about dealing with pain, guilt, happiness and love. It’s about digging deep in my soul where I have hidden all of my deepest emotions. Emotions I have kept guarded by an impenetrable wall. The safest place for pain and hurt is non- acknowledgement or so I thought. Until they escape from their cage and confront you. It is in the midst of this confrontation that even the strongest man can succumb and cry. I cry through my prose and to understand my inner battles to realize that my formulated words are my tears.

“I make these words cry and each letter my tears,

For somehow, all the pain has taken over my ability to feel.

I believed in you that I opened up and gave you my all

I believed in you that you would catch me when I fall”

-Excerpts from Make My Words Cry

***

Growing up, I had always yearned for a close relationship with my dad. He was there in presence but the emotional connection wasn’t there. He provided shelter and food but I wanted him to provide me with guidance. He was a man of few words yet I yearned for his wisdom.

Although we shared the same eyes, we saw things differently. Those tears I dropped on my pillowcase at night in the morning turned to disdain. I was a bastard to his work and to his stern prideful ways. My heart was empty like the seat I reserved for him during my football games. Then I discovered that his dad, my grandfather, died when he was only 14. My dad’s father figure was the man in his mirror.

He had to be his own father so how could I have expected him to be more than what we had. My tears at night then became strength in the morning. I started to realize that his silence had made me the man I was becoming.  He gave me 70 years of what he knew so that I can become a better father to my own son. Those tears of pain I poured into my prose have turned to tears of joy.

“Still I owed you my life, couldn’t pay you with your expectations

To you nothing was right; still I paid you with respect and patience

I have your eyes yet we still saw things differently

Your blood in mines yet my life to you was a mystery

Then I understood- your father figure was the image in the mirror

My father was the hood and you were nowhere near the picture”

-Excerpts from Self-Made Man: Dedicated to My Father

***

Crying is a form of cleansing for the soul. Without heartaches, betrayal, and distrust I would not fully understand what love is. Immersing everything I felt into my writing gave me an opportunity to be honest with myself. Self-love really does lead to real love. Pain is a difficult confrontation. But going through it gives one the strength and appreciation for sincerity. It’s like you don’t know what you inflict until you feel the infliction yourself. There is the dream of every little boy of finding love and it lasting forever.

Unfortunately, reality is that sometimes it takes a few broken hearts to find that one that makes your heart alive. Marriage was a destination I traveled only to realize that you have to have the right traveling partner to make it work. Divorce in itself is a conundrum of emotions that preys on your heart. A wounded heart learns from the hurt. The good thing is love also has the power to heal. My heart bled in a form of ink into paper. It was like an open-heart surgery where I took out all the pains of my heart and transferred them into my prose. In doing this, my heart found salvation.

The destruction of my heart led to the rebuilding of me.  A “me” that was more mature in handling a delicate fragile subject as love. With my soul cleansed, I am now in a healthy relationship in which there is organic growth because of the reciprocation of respect, communication and love.

“She is Heaven on my earth, the sun in my sky

I see my dreams through her eyes

And between her thighs

I see my unborn child

And between her sincerity

I see my smile”

-Excerpts from Soulmate

***

Death is like a kidnapper of happiness except it doesn’t hold it for ransom. A person cannot cry enough tears to ever bring a person back. We simply do not get over it; we just learn to deal with it. The day I learned that my dad was dying of cancer is forever tattooed in my memory. But the day I held him during his last second of life is embedded in my heart.

As I held his cold hand and watch his eyes slowly close it open my eyes to the reality that I no longer had a father. I was thoroughly engulfed with sadness, confusion, doubt, guilt and sorrow. This was then when I realized, that those battle with pain and the lessons learned from my past, had prepared me for this ultimate pain.

I couldn’t say the same for my mom. I saw and felt her pain with every drop of countless tears she would shed with just a mention of his name. This pain was new to me. I was not only dealing with the pain from the loss of my father but from pain of seeing my mom lifeless. As I buried my dad, it was like my mom’s passion to live had also been buried with him. This put a large strain in my heart because no child wants to see his/her parent hurting.

As a coping mechanism, I once again cried through the use of my pen. The tears told of the pain, the loneliness, and the hurt that my mom encountered. It gave me a perspective of my mom’s angst.  In which gave me the strength to help my mom heal. Now when I look in her eyes, I don’t see tears but a newfound hope through the lives of her kids and grandchildren.

“What happens when half your soul is gone

And the look in your eyes is one of an irrevocable stare

she can’t sleep even though its only in her dreams

that she can share life with him again

A simple remembrance

not only triggers the tears to fall

but the heart to ache

She slowly withers away

like his cancerous body

from a reality that no longer includes

His warm smile”

-Excerpts from Death Becomes Her by Jason Alcantara

***

There is triumph in pain and adversity. For each tear I have encountered have not only became a sentence in my prose of self-awareness but a lesson in self growth.  As I internalized each emotion, and nurture them, through my pen I birth an escape for those who share the same emotional dilemma. Sharing my inner thought s and feelings give hope to those who may not yet know how to “cry”. In this journey my triumph is within. My struggles of dealing with pain have given me a canvas to refine my soul.

Each word I wrote, each sentence I compose, and each prose I completed gave me an escape for all the emotions I had caged in. I didn’t know how to cry because I was taught to be strong and to not show weakness. As a man, I had to keep my emotions to myself but it wasn’t until I made my words cry that I truly became a real man.

“For with every pain you can only grow strong

For every bad note still contains a good song

And while I live with scars, I been given strength

For every experience of pain is heaven sent

And though sometimes the picture is imperfect

Painting the picture is worth it”

***

-Excerpts from Imperfect Picture by: Jason Alcantara

Share your story here, too! 

The post Fan Profile of the Week: Jason Alcantara on Self-Discovery appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

Music Lab provides a range of affordable programs and services for girls, young women, and trans youth aged 8 – 18. All classes are offered in small groups led by experienced teaching artists in a supportive, fun and positive environment.

If you know a young girl who has a dream of music, I hope you’ll visit their website and explore what Willie Mae has to offer. Visit their website here.

Follow Willie Mae on Twitter.

The post Willie Mae Music Lab 2012-2013 appeared first on Naima Mora Online.

Thanks, Jacqueline, for sharing the story of your journey! – Naima

My name is Jacqueline Carrion, and this is my story.

Growing up in a single parent household is difficult for anyone. Especially if the parent who is raising you relied on their marriage to be the steady income. Being the youngest of three children and raised by my mother with the help of my older siblings, I had to grow up fairly quickly.

I was born and raised in the military town of Fayetteville, NC. However, I do not consider myself a “military brat” because I was two when my parents divorced and there we stayed. Seeing the struggles that my mother had to go through made me realize just how amazing this woman was and to the great lengths she would go to putting a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes on our back, and getting us toys to play with.

My sister Vanessa was a great role model for me growing up. She always stressed that we needed education to better ourselves before we settle down in a serious relationship and that’s exactly what she did. She worked three jobs while in college to pay for her tuition and still managed to help out my mother when she could.

Our family took another hard hit in February of 2000, when my sister Vanessa was killed in a car accident. I can remember that day like it was yesterday and I still cannot believe how much time has gone without her here. I was 10 at the time and my brother about to be 15 the next day. As I saw my mother go through a loss of a child, I knew that I had to put on my big girl pants and be the strength that she needed to keep it together. It was a very difficult time for us, but we manage to continue on day by day.

I had always had a knack for performing when I was little, so when I got to be around 12 or 13 I started to model and act. I quickly found out that these were things that I enjoyed and wanted to do for the rest of my life. All throughout school I would do little modeling things here and there but mostly acting at my schools and the local theater.

I would watch Top Model every season and learned so much about the modeling world that they don’t show us and hoped to get a chance on the show, but never did. Graduating from high school, I followed my sister’s footsteps and became a Charlotte 49er at UNC Charlotte.

Adapting to Charlotte, I concentrated on my studies, campus activities, and tried to get the most out of the college experience as I possibly could.

My modeling and acting career had to be put on hold, but it still remained a big part of my heart. I did shoots with local photographers and tried to break in the Charlotte scene but didn’t realize how much time I would have to commit to ait nd how much that would take out of my studies.

So, I graduated in December of 2011 and began working in radio. Still in the entertainment industry, I realized that I did not want to be the person interviewing the celebrity, I wanted to be the one being interviewed! I decided to take my life by the horns and do what I wanted to really do with my life, and that’s entertain.

I have started getting into the Charlotte fashion scene and just recently signed with a talent agency in Charlotte, so we shall see where these next roads will take me. I have realized that you must have tough skin to make it in this industry, and I believe that I do. My sister always told us to “Never give up” and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.

What’s your story? YOu can share it here, too, at Naima’s Fan Corner. 

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Me with and up and coming model at the Pink Soles Model Clinic In Charlotte, NC.

Hope is the foundation of belief. Hope is the most powerful and important possession we can own. Hope cannot be taken away from us. It can never be defeated. It is ever present and like love and courage, there is an endless amount of it in our hearts. Hope is knowing that there is always tomorrow or an hour, minute or second from now that life will go on.

In our darkest hours it may be difficult to feel hope amidst the heavy cloud sadness, anger, frustration and disappointment. But it is there. Even unwillingly at times when we don’t want to or care not to continue living, our bodies continue breathing, willing us towards life.

Life goes on and the beautiful thing about it is that at any moment we can start making ourselves happier than the moment before. Or if we are truly happy, at any moment we can begin to show our gratitude and appreciation for it.

Simple things have helped me turn my day around. I like stopping to smell the flowers, literally. I enjoy sticking my mug right into their beautiful little faces and taking a deep whiff of their aroma. I enjoy marveling at their fragile beauty meant to attract insects and people alike. It reminds me of my own fragility and that makes me feel beautiful- grateful to be alive here and now going through the throws of life.

Life goes on and as long as it does, I have reason to as well – enjoying each and every part of it because I am alive.

Be grateful this wel ad every day, and look to hopeful thoughts and ideas to fuel your life. What do you hope for? What are you most grateful for?

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