
Welcome to 2025 everyone! This year started off with a literal bang. The devastating terrorist attack in New Orleans and the person detonating the electric truck outside of that hotel (y'all know which one I’m talking about) in Las Vegas. The previous year also ended on a sad note as well, as we lost the presidential equivalent to Mr. Rogers. Now we have absolutely calamitous wildfires raging in California. These are only things that have happened here in the US, not to mention any other disasters that have occurred around the world. All that being said, my hope is that this blog post will leave you with some hope and inspiration in spite of current circumstances each of us must navigate on a daily basis.
Let me preface the rest of this blog by saying I had every intention of writing about Vision Boards for my first blog of 2025. This is the time of year for reflection, resolutions, devising a plan to work towards achieving personal goals, people identifying their word of the year, and of course the creation of vision boards. I am a huge fan of all of those things. I am also noticing a sense of fatigue and lackluster hope for this coming year. We had what some might describe as a soul sucking election, then the holiday season which for many was a welcome respite after the election and before the changing of the guard. In my vision board post I was going to take my rudimentary level of biblical understanding and talk about Habakkuk 2:2. I was going to talk about the concept of manifestation supported by principals discussed in the book turned documentary “The Secret”. I was going to discuss how in Black, Indigenous, and African cultures the manifestation of a plan often begins with the conceptualization of dreams and visions gifted to us from our ancestors. That was my initial plan but my mind, body, and spirit just couldn’t come into alignment for me to stay only on the path of vision boards and new year resolutions.
The majority of my clients have heard me quote Dr. Daniel Black at one point and time during one (or several) of their sessions. He is a professor at Clark Atlanta University and he is always dropping gems as a regular guest on The Karen Hunter Show on SIRIUS XM Radio. During one of his appearances on her show they were talking about manifestation. Karen was describing how she went to someone asking if they could help her bring a vision to fruition. The person pushed back and gave some excuses, such as time and money, as to why the thing could not be done. Karen acknowledged that it would be a steep hill to climb but wished the person had at least tried to figure out a way to get it done and not just shot down the idea. Dr. Black then stated “Time obeys destiny”. He went on to say that time moves either on our behalf or against us. It is up to us to choose whether we feel time is fixed or will conform itself to what is meant for each of us.
This concept of time being fluid and relative to a situation really got me thinking, especially in regards to the mental health space. We therapists have the privilege to hold space for people and their deepest, most personal thoughts, memories, and desires of the heart. The usual sentiment around time is that there is never enough of it, that it has been stolen or wasted, that something is not happening in a desired amount of time, or that time just whizzed by seemingly without conscious awareness.
How can we begin to apply the concept that “time obeys destiny” into our lives? In my humble opinion I believe that the starting point for allowing time to obey destiny is to discover what our lives are destined for. Yikes, that feels like a gargantuan task. So let me offer this as well, identify things, just some things from one day to the next that feels part of your destiny. Consider where you were 10 years ago. Could you have envisioned being where you are right now? I imagine for some of you the reflection is a positive experience but for some of you it may feel frustrating or disappointing. If that is the case this may be a good time to reassess if that which has not yet come to pass is truly meant for you or is it something that could benefit from breathing new life into it.
The next step is to surrender any expectations of time. Something I hear so often (and have been guilty of myself) is that “I’m a certain age and I SHOULD be ________ by now”. To that I say ***Insert RHOA “Who said that?” meme*** This belief that the vast majority of us should be doing relatively the same thing at the same time in our lives as what may seem like the majority of our peers, creates a place for resentment and dissatisfaction to breed. What makes this human experience beautiful is that it can be done in a multitude of ways and there is no singular timeframe. I understand that it can feel isolating or that we’ve been forgotten by the universe when hopes, dreams, and wishes were granted. That feeling comes, in great part, due to the expectations we put on time.
The next and final step is to submit to the process. This looks like controlling the things you can and not trying to control the things we cannot. I imagine for a lot of people this may be the most difficult step of them all. For those of us who have experienced a great deal of trauma or instability in life, being in control of as many things as we can offers a sense of security and comfort. The thing with time obeying destiny is that if our focus becomes controlling various aspects of our journey we can lose sight of our destiny or find the moments along the journey feel punitive. While the journey may not always be easy, if we view those less desirable parts as the “lessons” that prepare us for the “final” we’ll be able to appreciate those challenges as opposed to resenting them.
Admittedly none of this can be verified or peer reviewed but as I mentioned earlier the privilege of sitting before so many of you and bearing witness to your stories have informed much of what I’ve written. I would love to hear from anyone willing to share their experience with allowing time to obey destiny in your lives. Please feel free to add a comment, a word of encouragement to anyone that may be in a more challenging part of their journey, or if you have additional thoughts regarding this notion. Let’s all step into 2025 with courage and trust that those things which are destined for us will find us at the perfect and appointed time.
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