Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening everybody.
It's your girl, Sonia McQueen, with your mind, your body, your choice.
I was reading the scripture the other day, and I think it was in Psalms, and it was about
God giving you your inner peace.
And it reminded me of when I was younger.
I went into the military when I was 17, and I was living my best life, I thought.
You know, I created the identification cards in the military.
I'm young, so I would create my own identification card, and I believe I created a couple for
friends because back then we had the lamination machine.
We would just take a picture, cut it, type the information on the card ourselves, laminate
it, and give it out.
And we didn't have any structure back then to keep count of, you know, there was no
record of this, this identification card number should be with this person, and there was
no sequence to it.
There probably was, but we didn't have any record keeping to it.
Anyhow, my ID card said I was 21, of course, so I could get in all the clubs, and if I
wanted to go buy my beer, I could go buy my beer.
You know, I'm thinking I'm living my best life.
I'm living with my best friend and her husband, and we're going out every weekend and just
having a good time.
And then, of course, I meet my daughter's father.
I get engaged at 18 and a half.
I have her at 21, and I leave him, and still, you know, I have no sense of urgency, no sense
of really honing down and becoming a professional, going back to school, because at the time
I only had a high school education.
Just living my best life, you know, going out on dates after him and I separated and
meeting different people and still going to the club and enter and dance contests, having
a ball, right?
And maybe along the way you meet people who are your polar opposites.
Maybe they go to church on Sundays.
They don't party.
They only, you know, they only have one person they're seeing or they've been seeing or they're
married.
They have no kids because they're not married.
Just the opposite of you, and you think they're kind of boring.
Or you envy them.
It's one of the other.
You envy them.
I had a friend her name was Sabrina, and I think Sabrina was one year older than me, but
Sabrina had her own place.
She had a daughter.
She had a career.
She went to college, got out of college.
I think we were both maybe, I was probably 20, so she was probably 21, 22, but her feet
were on solid ground already.
And here I am living with my best friend and her husband partying.
I was a weekend warrior in the military.
Didn't have another job.
Didn't have a car, but I was having fun.
I was having a good time.
And I remember going to her house, having to sleep on her couch a couple of times for
various reasons and not really feeling anything.
But when I got older, I thought, man, Sabrina, I wish I could have been more in her ear or
her been more in my ear back then.
I was easily impressionable for positive things.
I wasn't easily impressionable with negative things like my best friend was a heavy weed
smoker and I never smoked.
I had other friends that were on things I would never do, drug dealing, a couple of
my guests were in gangs or something.
I wasn't into any of that and you couldn't have talked me into being into any of it.
But if maybe, maybe you never know, if somebody would have spoke positivity into me, I would
have got on that because I remember somebody inviting me to church and I jumped on that.
I jumped on it.
But anyway, fast forward, years go by, years go by, and partying ceases and I become more
responsible, especially after what ended up, when I ended up giving up my son, I ended
up becoming, of course, you got to grow up.
And I started finding friends that were nothing like that.
They like to have fun, but they had fun at home or fun with their family or fun in atmosphere.
And his fears were everybody around them.
They knew, loved and trusted.
And I like that.
I became fast friends with people at my church who were fun.
They weren't, every time you talk to them, hey, sister, oh, I'm highly favored sister,
you know, that drives me crazy.
You can just say, hey to somebody and you don't have to always mention your highly
favored, your blessed, the God, God is with you.
We got you.
You can still, I hate it when people do that.
Just write that down somewhere.
It's okay to have a conversation without having to remind me you're saved or you're a Christian.
But anyway, that became my new norm.
Going back to school, getting an education, making more money, finding a profession became
my new norm.
Clubs were something I didn't even think of anymore.
Dance contest, what's that?
Malt liquor.
I traded that for wine, you know, now I drink wine a couple of times a month instead of
malt liquor every weekend.
Everything changed.
My mind matured.
Even though I still wasn't 100% because you guys already know I had some issues, but my
mind matured.
And along with that, my heart matured.
And I started wanting better and doing better.
And with that, I got peace.
And that peace is crazy because once you have that kind of peace in your life and you think
about the lack of peace, the lack of discipline you might have had before, you don't know
how you survived it and you don't understand how people don't seek peace.
Before people get peace and they quickly gravitate back to the insanity.
That's crazy to me.
Once I got this peace, once I realized my worth and that I can make things happen in
a positive way and especially with kids, you want your kids to be 10,000,000 million dollars
and billion trillion gazillion percent better than you are.
So if you're in the streets, you're just working the system and you're able-bodied, but you
just feel like you could work the system.
You smoking and you drinking and you sexing and you cursing and you talking all kinds
of crazy around your kids and got your kids doing the same thing with you.
What do you expect when they get older?
Because you're not bringing peace to their life now.
So many parents treat their kids like they are their best friends.
I love my kids.
I think everybody who knows me knows I love my kids, but they are just that grown as hell,
32, 30 and 25, but they're still my kids.
So I still present myself in a way in front of them that screams mom, not bestie, not
ace, not all drinking buddy, let's go get wasted.
That's not me and my kids.
They know they can come to me with an issue and I'm going to be level headed about it.
They know they're going to come here and I'm going to be in that kitchen whipping up some
great meals for them.
They're going to see me and my husband rubbing elbows and not saying cross things to each
other or yelling or cursing or acting crazy.
They're not going to see me twerking all around the house.
They're not going to see my butt hanging out of my clothes and my boobs overflowing out
of the top of my shirts.
They're not going to see me sneaking to go talk on the phone to some other dude because
I'm sneaking around behind my husband's back.
They're not going to see me still in killing destroying anybody else.
They're going to see peace, happiness, love, commitment, all these great things.
My friends, they see the same thing.
Yeah, I have a totally different group of friends now and it's okay.
It's called growing.
When some friends stay stagnant, they are stuck.
You know how you have the lady who just turned 60 but she still wants to be 30 so she goes
and gets the facelift and gets the injection in her lips and gets her the Botox and gets
her boobs done and gets her butt lifted and bigger and walking around like she's still
30.
You look good, girl.
I'm going to give you that.
You look good.
I'm going to give you your props but you're still 60.
It didn't change your age.
You're still 60 all day.
So when that young guy comes up to you, are you going to tell him, oh, I'm 60?
Are you going to lie and say, oh, I'm 30, 35 or whatever you're looking?
I embrace my age.
I embrace the change.
I'm embracing this grade.
I'm embracing the wrinkles when I smile because that's the only time I have them.
I'm embracing it all.
Gravity is real.
I'm embracing it because my grandma's embraced it and my grandma's worked everything to
me.
My mother embraces it.
My auntie's embraced it.
It's okay to get older.
Just don't get old.
There's a difference.
My daddy used to say, you're not old till the day you die until then he's just going
to age and have a wonderful life.
I'm a coinback.
Those are beautiful words.
Just growing peace.
You know, on TikTok, there's a group of grandmas and I love it.
They're older women, probably in their 70s, 80s.
Maybe older, maybe a little younger.
But they're dancing and rapping to bust the rhymes and Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube and WA.
And I mean, make the stallion, little Kim, they're just hitting it.
And I love those videos because they're enjoying their lives.
I love that.
But for some reason, I don't like the ones where, and this is my personal opinion, when
you got parents with little kids and they got the same rappers talking about sexing
and drinking and smoking and shooting up places in their oozes and their guns and killing.
And they're doing those videos with their little kids.
That bothers me.
It hits me a different way than just seeing some adults having adult time.
Even if I don't agree with it, even seeing a group of kids doing that.
But when I see a parent doing it with their kids, it's different.
I love to see kids being kids and having a peace and running around playing outside or
playing their video games or whatever and not being too grown.
Not being grown this day and age.
These kids really don't have peace because they're too busy living their best lives because
that's what they're being able to do.
They're being able to wear, in my opinion, in my opinion, inappropriate clothing, you
know, little bitty shorts.
I went to my daughter's school.
I don't know if I told you guys this before she's a math teacher at a middle school.
And I went to an event.
It was an outdoor event.
And I kid you not when I say at least 60% of the girls.
Now, these are middle school girls.
Had on shorts so short their behinds were hanging out.
Booty cheeks hanging out.
And they had on low cut shirts and half shirts and the language of these kids.
They were dropping F bombs.
They didn't even care that their parents were around, teachers were around and nobody was
correcting them.
I was in shock.
This is what this is what we have now.
A generation.
Even in high school, kids wouldn't have been so disrespectful around teachers and parents.
Even in college.
And I went late.
The kids wouldn't have been so disrespectful.
With those little 12, 13, maybe 14 year old kids.
Horrible language.
Dressing horribly.
The fake eyelashes, the eyebrows, the weaves, the fainting at the nails.
When are they able to be kids?
Last point.
Because I want everybody to live in peace.
When as an adult, you're going through things and you're telling your kids everything you're
going through and your struggles and you're making them a part of your struggles.
You're dead wrong.
You're dead wrong because you're putting extra weight on a child that can't make a difference.
I don't know what you expect from your child, your 10, 11 year old child.
If you expect them to go get a job, drop out of school, go borrow money, go whatever.
Cut that out.
You figure it out.
And if you can't figure it out, ask somebody to help you figure it out because there are
too many resources out here these days.
Too many.
Drop the pride and go get help, but do not disturb your children's peace and expect them
to become your partner when you struggle.
It's not fair.
Do not live in the past.
Go find your peace if you don't have any.
If somebody is bringing a whole bunch of turmoil into your life, release them.
Embrace it and find your peace.
Walk into it.
Embrace it.
Shut the door behind you and keep it moving.
All right.
This is your girl, Sonia.
And I hope you have a great day or you're having a great day.
It's almost the weekend.
I cannot wait.
You know, oh yeah, I'm sorry.
You know where to find me.
I'm Sonia M. S-O-N-Y-A-M at LeadByMotivation.com.
You can hit us up at LeadByMotivation07.com.
Some of this was based on what I read and some of it was based on something I heard
from somebody else and they asked for my opinion.
All right.
Have a great day on purpose.