Quote of the Week: "Dig a Little Deeper"

If you haven’t taken the time to watch “The Princess and The Frog” yet, you definitely need to! This movie is filled with so much heart and features one of the most self-driven motivated leading ladies of our time, Tiana. Even though she’s a Disney princess, she reflects so much more of what real-world women have to deal with than many of our beloved princesses who came before her. And in addition to this headstrong, dedicated protagonist to cheer for, the messaging throughout the movie is heartfelt and purely inspirational.

In light of the turmoil and the frustration that has no doubt been going around lately, it feels like the right time to reflect on who we are and what we want and need. And that’s why our featured quote this week is “Dig a Little Deeper.”

This song, in all its lighthearted-ness really spoke to me and I think really hits home the importance of introspection in order to find what is right for you. At the surface there are lots of things we can accomplish that all fit nicely on some arbitrary checklist of “things you should do in order to be happy,” but finding what really fulfills us takes a lot more work than that. It takes a lot of digging.

And digging deeper in ourselves doesn’t just help us find out what fulfills us, but it also helps us discover how we truly feel about things and what matters most to us. A combination of shelter-in-place and the uprising of the Black Lives Matter movement have made me dig deep, deep, deep in order to root out and challenge the covert racism that I was raised with. It’s brought to light the fact that all of these issues surrounding us today are dire problems that need to be addressed now and that I’ve been raised to be part of the problem. And in order to now become part of the solution, I’m going to need to put in a lot more work and effort, not just in myself but in the people I surround myself with. It’s going to take uncomfortable conversations where I encourage others to dig deeper with me. It’s going to take confrontations with my own demons and acknowledgement of my own flaws. It’s going to take courage and honesty and overall willingness to be wrong and learn.

But at the end of this tough and arduous journey, I have hope and trust that there will be, as Mama Odie says, “Blue skies and sunshine guaranteed.”