Queens Don't Crumble: The Art of Securing Your Crown When Life Gets Heavy

By Sharlene Balfour-Joseph

"LIFE TRIED TO CRUSH HER BUT ONLY SUCCEEDED IN AWAKENING THE QUEEN IN HER."

- Sharlene Balfour-Joseph

You have to know that you are a Queen before you receive your crown. The crown is not what makes you a Queen. The Queen produces the crown.

All throughout her life, Sharlene has experienced situations th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Opportune Independent Publishing Co.
• Release date: Oct 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781636160115

Sharlene Balfour-Joseph

Sharlene Balfour-Joseph is a wife, mother, transformational life coach and medical professional. A highly motivated individual, Sharlene has decided to branch out into the world of literature, writing motivational and uplifting pieces she hopes will benefit those who read. Sharlene earned her Bachelor's Degree from Keiser University. Sharlene currently resides in Florida and spends her time working and being a mom to her three kids.

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INTRODUCTION

As women, we deal with a lot of circumstances and situations that cause us to experience fear, insecurity, and rejection. These three ingredients are the recipe for what  I have now identified as ‘shame thinking’. It is a mindset that we have to hide the very thing that makes us and our purpose so unique—our story.

I grew up in, what could only be perceived as, a beautiful family with four older siblings. As time progressed, things began to transition at a rapid pace. My mom left when I was too young to remember her departure or understand the circumstances surrounding it. Our home was now broken and, as you can probably imagine, that’s when things turned sour.

My dad has always been a workaholic, seven days a week, including holidays. There’s no such thing as a day off on his agenda. A work ethic like that made him a very good provider, but at the same time, it came at the price of his absence. Sundays presented the only, for a lack of better terms, tradition in which our family strictly followed. Sunday breakfast and dinner. The clanging of the dishes and utensils meeting echoed throughout the house as we all sat in silence.

At the risk of some believing that this is old school  culture, I will say that my father has never believed in practicing verbal communication. His philosophy is that children should be seen and not heard. In hindsight, the only appropriate term for my environment as a child, is dictatorship.

My exposure to this dynamic resulted in my accumulation of toxic traits and the negative impact on the choices I would make later on in life. A reticent is defined as an uncommunicative person who doesn’t open up easily. The lack of verbal exchange I was accustomed to led to this being one of my more prominent traits.

I was a people pleaser. My desire to aspire was based  not on who I was as a person, but solely on the opinion  of others. This is one of the most insecure personality distinctions a person can possess. This kind of development can come from  a  multitude  of  things:  a traumatic upbringing, fear of rejection, an abusive relationship, or in my case, all three.

Women, by nature, are emotional creatures. In my situation, I allowed my emotions to dictate my choices and this eventually led to my 20s and 30s being unstable and unpredictable.

Sometime around my 40th birthday, a major catalyst took place within my life that not only shifted my soul, but allowed me to have the epiphany I needed to realize that  I was no longer going to be a victim of my circumstances. The cause of this ground breaking realization can only be likened to a story that occurred in the Bible. A man who had been blind since birth, healed by Jesus.

As you navigate through the pages of this book I encourage you to pay attention to what you understand and what is relatable to you. Anything you understand is what God is saying specifically to you. There are some things that will resonate with you that may not have the same effect on someone else. Allow God to give you the revelation of how to unpack and implement what you learn.

My prayer and intent is that this book will create an appetite in you for change.

THE GENESIS

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

—Jeremiah 1:5 (NIV)

In the beginning, there was a little girl who lived with her dad and older siblings. Her parents separated when she was at a very tender age. Her mom left. The details surrounding the broken marriage are still unclear.

The ‘little girl’ is me.

Now that I am an adult and a mother myself, I can only imagine what it must have felt like for my mom to not only leave her home but more importantly, her five children.

As I reflect on the events after my mom’s departure, it has become clear to me that my dad was also negatively impacted. He did the best he could on his level. We lived in a very nice house, attended the best schools, traveled and stayed in the best hotels, ate at the best restaurants, and wore the best attire.

While I will always be grateful, those were all tangible things provided by a parent, especially one who was able to afford such luxury. We lived in a world of materialism. Intangible love and affection was never a part of my childhood.

There’s a very popular phrase that has resonated with me and provoked my thoughts the very first moment I heard it: Hurting people, hurt people.

My dad was hurt, and my siblings and I were on the receiving end of his pain. His primary trigger would be knowledge of us having any contact with our mom. Whatever happened to drive a wedge between them, made her public enemy number one in his eyes.

He never openly admitted it. My mom would literally have to visit us in secret and the consequences that came as a result of him finding out spoke volumes. No child should have to endure or witness the corporal punishment that became a customary event in our household. We were far from perfect but the punishment was excessive, to say the least

As I entered my teenage years, I began to perfect the art of subduing my emotions. The seeds of fear, anger, rejection, helplessness, and hopelessness began to take root in the soil of my heart. I was angry at my mom for leaving. The fact that she left me behind at such a young age felt like rejection. I lived with that lingering why? for most of my life.

With all this being said, I have come to acquire the ability to be able to look at situations from all perspectives. Instead of only focusing on the negative aspects of my upbringing, and how much I resented them for allowing me to be privy to it, there was still another standpoint I had yet to understand. As much pain and trauma that I endured, I never stopped to think that they might have been subjected to their own kind of horror as well.

Typically, whatever we are taught and exposed to by the age of four, is what we are conditioned to believe. So much of who we are as an adult is an echo of our childhood experiences because as a child we are like sponges shaped by our environment.

Differentiating between idealism and reality has become a ne- cessity in healing. Ideally, I had a perfect picture in my mind of how I wanted our family to be. In creating those expectations for people who were not equipped to cater to my fantasy, I ended up hurt for years wondering why I could not get what I thought I deserved. The reality was that our family was broken, and had been long before I became a part of it.

Accountability for the suffering I endured is and has always been scarce, but regardless of this my parents are not bad people. I no longer judge them for their actions, all I do now is view them as learning lessons. While of course, everyone knows how simple it is to be a decent human being, there is no handbook on how to be a model parent. The task of being an ordinary parent to an extraordinary child is strenuous. If I have the capacity to consume 10 gallons of water, it is impossible for someone who only possesses a pint of water to fill me up.

I am at a point in my journey where I am looking at the totality of the situation through different lens. Despite the challenges, I consider it a blessing to be strategically placed in my family by God to help me learn and evolve.

Your trauma is a treasure. This statement may seem like a bit of an oxymoron, but your attitude about a situation can greatly influence how you can overcome it. If you can look at your pain as a tool, a weapon that you can arm yourself with, no one can take it from you and make it into something that only serves to bring you down. The family you have been placed in, the abusive relationship, the divorce, the breakup, the miscarriage, the job you lost, whatever your trauma is linked to. Everything you have been through and will go through is necessary for your life’s purpose.

The majority of the problems you encounter are in your soul (mind, will, and emotions). In order to stand ten toes down, be an overcomer, and not crumble under the weight of life, it is imperative that you learn the art of mastering your soul. Your story, thoughts, and emotions are the driving force behind how you lead as a parent, how you love others, and the relationships you enter into. Studies show that the average person has a minimum of 16,000 thoughts on a daily basis. Some may be positive and some negative, and that is totally okay because your emotions are what help you to evolve. Your soul is vulnerable to damage. Trauma that remains hidden will cause you to live a lie. Smile on the outside, hide behind makeup, portray a life of happiness and perfection, all while being consumed by anger on the inside. Whatever remains hidden has no chance of being healed.

This was my truth. I was so afraid of being judged that for a long time my life was a facade. I was fully functional damaged goods, suffering from identity crisis, and all my decisions were dictated by my emotions. My afflictions combined with not knowing  who I truly was resulted in me subconsciously making terrible decisions, especially in the area of relationships.

The key to knowing who you are is completely dependent on knowing who your creator is. It is in understanding that you are not a result of mass production.

God strategically pulled ‘woman’ out of ‘man’ from his rib. The woman was not created from the man’s feet because she was not designed to be disrespected, walked over, or trampled on.

She was not created from his head because her position is not to take the lead in the marriage or relationship. The woman was masterfully created by pulling a rib from