I Deserve Good Things

Have you ever had something literally feel like a slap in the face, aha moment? Well, that happened to me this past week. I’ve been part of the Inner Fitness Project community since January 2021, and though it’s been VERY helpful and I’ve seen amazing progress, this past week was what has me in such awe of this wonderful community!

At work, I’m a program director in the mental health field, where I supervise four team leaders who directly supervise 24 mental health clinicians providing mental health services in NYC schools. As with all programs, our services need to be measured to ensure we are effective. Weekly, I receive an excel sheet from the grant funders with all the organizations involved and our ranking in terms of quantitative data. I noticed for weeks my agency was ranked at number 2 and I kept thinking, “Oh my God, 2 is such a low number!” I kept racking my brain around how to increase our ranking and was super embarrassed by the whole thing.

Then, this past Wednesday, the grant funders randomly asked for a last-minute, unplanned meeting with me and my supervisors. I was so nervous. They asked me how I felt about being ranked number 2. I got SUPER defensive. I said something like, “Well, I don’t look at numbers," and "Numbers don’t determine the hard work our team is putting in,” and so on and so on. Eventually, I notice their look of confusion, and at this point, I’m confused as well. When I finished my justifying speech, one of the executives said, “Tianna, your agency is number 2. The second-best performing agency out of hundreds under the grant." When I tell you, my head could’ve exploded...HOLY CRAP! We are number 2!!! As this fact sunk in, I apologized for my defensiveness and blamed looking at the data incorrectly, which I believed to be true.

It wasn’t until our Wellness Wednesday community gathering that very same day that “it” smacked me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t reading the data incorrectly; MY MIND DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO PROCESS GOOD THINGS HAPPENING TO OR FOR ME. Like, WHAT THE HECK??? In my mind, there was no way we could be number 2. My mind couldn’t process the facts that were staring me dead in the face week in and week out.

This realization is huge for me because thoughts like these are part of a pattern. I was so lost before I joined the Inner Fitness Project community and had no idea what a pattern was, let alone that I had a pattern of thinking. Now I know and can begin to process why I engage in this habitual thought pattern. Processing and reflecting in my journal, will allow me to become even more aware of the habit, and what I can see I can change. From there, I can begin to interrupt the habit. This is what attending inner fitness offerings has taught me.

Training my inner fitness allowed me to catch a glimpse of the lie that I am not good and nothing good comes to me. Now that lie can be challenged. Being in a community with fellow Self-healers and taking the necessary time with my Self helped me see the situation differently. Through participating in the Inner Fitness Circle, a leaderless gathering of women seeking to better their relationship with themselves so they can thrive, I learned the 14 Practices of Inner Health and Wellbeing. I practice and work on these transformative principles daily. I have heavily focused on practice number 2: I ask a force greater than me for assistance in everything I do. Because my habits run so deep and have been around for so long, I hardly know where to start, which often leaves me frustrated. Practice 2 guides me in times of frustration to ask God/The Universe to help me and not put any conditions or parameters around my ask of assistance. In the wake of embracing this practice, things are starting to come to me like never before. There is an openness to my help. I am willing to receive whatever I need to receive, not what I think I need. The difference has been life-changing.

To say I am grateful to be part of this community is an understatement. I am not only receiving love, community, unconditional acceptance, and wisdom, but I am also receiving tangible tools. Tools that summon a force greater than me to help me along my journey. That is more than helpful; it is profoundly impactful. THANK YOU, Inner Fitness Project.

Tianna Canady made the commitment 7 months ago to take personal accountability and action on her path to become a better version of her Self. She is learning daily to be present for her journey while learning lessons, processing instead of stressing, and manifesting blessings! Tianna has finally accepted her past without judgment thanks to the Inner Fitness Project, which has taught her that healing is a journey, not a destination. Discovering that she holds all the tools to her healing has been the sweetest, most liberating, and most empowering gift Life has given her thus far. Tianna makes a daily commitment to show up as her authentic Self and love her completely, without reservation.