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Just Shut Up




I am not your typical sports fan. I watch football if it’s the Pittsburgh Steelers playing, I watch basketball if it’s the Cleveland Cavaliers playing and I watch LeBron James regardless of what team he is playing for (Michael Jordan will always be number one for me but we’ll save that for a different conversation).

With LeBron’s superior basketball skills and helping to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a championship win in 2016, it is his work OFF the court that I most admire. Marrying his high school sweetheart and with three children of his own, this “Just a Kid from Akron” took his humble beginnings and became a household name not just as a basketball player, but by giving back to his community with the opening of the I Promise School for at-risk students and providing resources through House Three Thirty, a renovated venue that houses dining, retail, arts and entertainment activities and provides job training and employment for the I Promise community.


While LeBron may be the apple of my eye in so many areas, not everyone would agree with me. To my dismay, back in 2018, on the Fox News program, The Ingraham Angle, Laura Ingraham criticized LeBron on HIS criticism of Donald Trump and politics in general by making the statement “shut up and dribble” Upon hearing this, my first reaction was maybe Ms. Ingraham was implying that LeBron should do what he does best, play basketball and stay out of politics. I love LeBron’s response to the criticism:


“The best thing she did was help me create more awareness during the best weekend at the NBA. I get to sit up here and talk about social injustice. We will definitely not shut up and dribble. I mean too much to the youth, too much to so many kids who feel like they don’t have a way out. I had no idea who she is until now so she won in that case.” (article source)


Even though the criticism was directed at LeBron, there is something for us to learn as women in this. We DO need to shut up sometimes. We talk way too much about stupid things and we confide way too much in the wrong people. We spend way too much time mindIng other people’s business instead of minding our own. Have you ever shared something with someone and they used it against you or you regret you said anything in the first place? Maybe you repeated something that should have been confidential. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.


Some of our relationships are not the best right now - marriages, friendships and family circumstances included. Some of us are gaining weight instead of losing it. Some of us complain about everything little thing. Some of us are still trying to deal with trauma from our childhood or something that someone said to us or did to us that we have a hard time forgiving. Some of us are struggling just to keep the bills paid, the kids fed and making ends meet. Some of us keep talking instead of praying which is how we got into trouble in the first place.


The whole point of this group is to help you realize that despite what has happened in your life, you are still worthy in God’s eyes but there are some things you need to change or do differently in order for you to see it. You can’t run in the same group with a stagnant mindset. Like LeBron, you can take what was meant to be a negative situation, and make it positive.


Here are some steps you can consider:

1.) Everyone doesn’t need to know everything that is going on in your life and that includes social media. Just shut up.

2.) Be careful who you share information with. Everyone is not your friend. Some things need to stay private within your household and with God. Just shut up.

3.) Watch the gossip - especially workplace gossip. This is so very hard to do and I have been guilty of this as well. Would you want someone talking about you behind your back? Just shut up.

4.) Watch what you say about other people. Think before you speak. Pray before you speak…or just shut up.


As LeBron mentioned in his quote, WE TOO have people depending on us. We have education to pursue. We have money to make. We have homes to buy. We have weight to lose. We have to get healthy. We have to apologize to someone. We need to open up some doors or maybe we need to shut some doors. We need to work on our marriage, our finances, our children. We have so many things going on with us, that we need to work on us.


I am not saying that we can’t talk to anyone, but we need to surround ourselves with people who will push us to where we are trying to go, to keep encouraging us when we want to give up and someone who will motivate us not to quit.


Who are you surrounding yourself with? Who are you sharing information with? Are these people supporting you, or not so much? In order to embrace your worth, your audience may need to change. Some people are only in your life for a season. Just shut up.


Y.



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