I AM All of the Above: A True Story of Divine Empowerment

By Dineth Correia

For centuries the world has limited us in who and what we can be. But despite these worldly limitations, we have been called from above to live a purposeful life. In truth, we are divine beings, created to be who God says we are to be and not who the world has restricted us to be.  

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: INTRINSIC SKIN LLC
• Release date: Jul 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087895215

Book preview

1

Dedication

To the women of the modern world who suffer from social, cultural, economic, and spiritual oppression, you exist for such a time as this. May the words in this book penetrate past its pages and into the storehouse of your spiritual being. I hope you experience and discover the joy and fulfillment that is created in you from simply being alive.

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Part I

Dineth, the Unknown

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception

— Aldous Huxley

I was born in a bright yellow nursing building in Luanda, Angola to a military sergeant and a Chemist. In my country, there is no such thing as middle class. The classifications are rather simple. You were either part of The Haves or you were part of the The Have Nots. I so happen to have been born both with a silver spoon in my mouth and a broom in my hand. The Haves side of me comes from my assertive father while the Have Nots was ruled in part by my meek mother. My father came from a very wealthy family compared to my mother. Not only was I born in between distinct financial circumstances, I was also born in between very different personal characteristics. My father was as hard as a rock while my mother was the complete opposite. 

With these stark differences, it was always a question of who I would become like the most. Would I be more like my dad, who absolutely played no games and didn’t tolerate excuses at all? Or would I be more like my mother, who was warmhearted, hypersensitive, and overly empathetic? As the title of this book will have it, I grew up to be all of the above. As a typical human, in needing love and affection, I possessed emotional sensitivities similar to my mother while also asserting impassive characteristics like my father. My ability to both express and withhold thoughts and feelings are conspicuous. At times I am able to clearly express my passions and frustrations alike, while at times I am not. There are moments where I am overly expressive and moments I do not show any feelings at all.

I was a chubby and seemingly independent baby. My mother always delights in telling the story of how I used to take the bottle from her hand in an attempt to hold it myself while I was only a few months old. Another thing for sure was that I was a huge daddy’s girl. I loved my dad and was very much attached to him, always needing to be in his lap. I was also very selfish when it came to him and wanted him all to myself. It was clear that I was developing my mother’s outright need for affection and my father’s dispassionate assertiveness.

In the way that opposites attract, they also repel, as was the case with my parents whose marriage was short lived. According to my father, wealth was defined by how much you had in your pocket, and to my mother, wealth was defined by how much you had in your heart. My mother’s affectionate manner was no match for my father’s antipathetic aggressiveness. One would think that they would eventually balance themselves out but there was no common ground between them and where there is no common ground, there is no peace. Not being able to withstand the emotional and physical turmoil, my mother resorted to the best solution available to her. Leave. Although she loved Angola, dearly, with all of her heart, she knew it was no longer suitable for her and her children. No amount of money or luxury was worth not having any peace in her mind and heart. So, leaving behind all that we knew and had, we left the Motherland and ventured to the other side of the world.

I can only imagine what my life would be like had I stayed with a silver spoon in my mouth. Thankfully, it was the broom in my hand that was chosen for me. It was the broom that catalyzed who I would become. If I had a choice to pick between the two, I would still choose the one that was ordained for me. I may not have had a wealthy parent, but I certainly had a Spirit-filled, loving mother and there will never be any shame in that. Although she raised me, I could not escape my father’s hard-boiled qualities. I reflected so much of him during the early parts of my years one would think he was perfectly present in my life. I recall my mother mentioning many times how I was so much like my father in my unresponsive, uninterested, or unimpressed behavior. It was clear that despite him being distances away, I still resembled so much of him in my thick-skinned ways. Perhaps it was our separation that made us more alike? I think it was my way of coping with his absence. I was a daddy’s girl after all. As a baby, my mother used to give me a piece of my dad’s clothing to keep with me in my crib whenever he left for work. Apparently, his scent was the only thing able to calm me down. As I reflect, I believe it was my inner-child’s mind holding on to whatever parts of my father it knew. Maybe him being so far away made me yearn for him in ways I had not realized. I often wonder would the latter have occurred if it was the other way around. Would I grow up being more like my mom had I stayed with my father? As a child, would I be more expressive in my love, and hate for that matter? One can only imagine. Nonetheless, my parents being who they are became a byproduct of all that I would eventually become.

Dineth, the African Booty Scratcher

Every human is like all other humans, some other humans, and no other human  — Clyde Kluckhon

My family and I migrated to New Jersey in the Spring of 1997. The four of us went from riches to rags in a matter of twenty-one hours. We had little money and the only possessions we had were our suitcases and the contents inside of them. We also didn’t have our own place, so we stayed with my aunt and uncle until we could afford one of our own. Like many immigrant families, I grew up with my cousins in one single household. Despite us not having much and being all crammed up, those were the best days of my life. As children all we ever wanted to do was play and have fun. Fun and games were what life was like inside of the house. But outside of our home was another story.

My first years of being in America truly affected me and how I viewed myself. My immigrant family and I spent most of our time trying to adjust to our new lives. We were often bullied and picked on for being African, and we tried our best to ignore the discrimination and disrespect. My mother’s heavy accent made matters worse and it also didn’t help that she worked at the same school I attended. Everyone knew us because of her poor English. 

The taunting got so bad that I began denying being African. To lessen the load, I found myself telling people that I was mixed and had a Portuguese father. I figured that since he didn’t live in the states, my classmates wouldn’t find out the truth. I thought claiming to be Portuguese was more acceptable and I chose that as my pretend ethnicity because Portuguese is my native tongue, so at the