The Second Chance You Give Yourself

AYE YYOOO!!! What up H3:33 Fam Bam. Back again for the LAST Note from the Journey for this calendar year of 2025! You know….at the strike of midnight tonight…people will be screaming “HAPPY NNEEWW YYEEAARRR!!!”.....but….can it really be the start of a new year if almost EVERYTHING outside in nature is dead and/or asleep??? I feel like the true new year is when Mother Earth comes back to life…I mean…that makes sense right? Or nnaahh? Anyway….I digress….  How is everyone doing out there? I hope that you all have enjoyed the holiday season. As always….I am sending positive vibes, love and peace out to you from this large meditation cushion 🧘🏿‍♂️. 

For those just discovering this space, these Notes are part of a living arc. There are multiple entries woven together over the last few months, and while each stands on its own, they’re best experienced from the beginning.

 Now….let’s get to it, cause you know what time it iiissssssss. A new entry…..These Notes from the Journey began with change…..being chosen by it, resisting it, and eventually surrendering to it. Along the way, the work deepened… discipline became devotion, accountability demanded honesty, stillness revealed strength, and presence taught me how to listen, reflect, and lead myself first. Each entry peeled back another layer, moving me from reaction to regulation, from chaos to clarity, and from surviving… to consciously becoming.

Throughout my tales..I always like to give a story to relate to whichever topic is at hand and relate that back to the nugget of wisdom I want to leave ya’ll with. I often remain vague with the details of those “DARK” times along the journey…..not because I am ashamed….not because I want to seem without FLAWS….not because I wanna “fake it till I make it”....but because I am no longer that person from those stories. Writing about that in detail is wack to me,simply because I feel that there is a constant stream of negative stories across ALL forms of media. Instead of bringing a dark cloud to whomever is reading this. I’d much rather use my platform to share energy from the man and perspective of who I am today…. 12/31/2025….or whatever date each entry was dropped. I believe that there is some amount of truth to nearly every stereotype…and “Misery loves company” happens to be one of them. …but let’s leave that mindset in 2025. When things get rough…let’s talk, brainstorm, and encourage ways to the light! Thinking about what can we do RIGHT NOW….to begin the process of turning it around. EGO lives in the past and the “future”. GOD is always found in the PRESENT.

The Second Chance You Give Yourself……..

In 2018 my life was the most chaotic it has ever been. I was still grieving the death of my grandmother, I was in a relationship that I had known for years I did not want to be in, I had TWO ... .TWO year olds, and my career was on the rocks. I’m sure there was more….but those were the heavy hitters….and something had to give… it did…..and it was ME! 

That year is when I first started therapy…..and therapy is where I discovered how deep childhood trauma runs. Mother wounds, Father wounds, inner child wounds, and the interconnectedness of it all. ESPECIALLY….when you have prided yourself on the ability to suppress the emotions tied to said trauma DEEP down inside……

My Bonus MOTHER would always talk to me from the age of probably 10 to 19(when I moved out) about the importance of expressing my emotions. She was there, she saw how I was moving in the world and knew that I did not talk about things. Now, if you have been reading my entries ……as you know from “The Lesson before the Lesson”.....I did not like to pick up people’s two cents and put them in my pocket. Instead I liked to wait for the HARD lesson to arrive….which came in the form of implosion in 2018……and with a decision to make!

God has given us all FREE WILL…..and I had the option to sit in what was comfortable, easy, and familiar….OR…..to do what I had truly never done before….choose ME and not in the physical sense either because that had been done before and was rooted in EGO……but choosing my mental health, emotional health happiness,peace, and spirituality…that was NEW. I finally decided to put in real effort to become the best possible version of myself because until I became that….I would never be the best FATHER…PARTNER, Son, brother, friend, nephew, uncle or cousin that I could be…

I had to give MYSELF a SECOND chance……

What did that even look like? Therapy, journaling, TOUGH conversations, upheavals, stress, sadness, loneliness, crying, starting over, PROGRESS, missteps, frustration, establishing new boundaries, cutting people off(even family can get it), PROGRESS again, more missteps, GROWTH, HURT, TESTS, LESSONS, GROWTH, FORGIVENESS, FORGIVENESS, FORGIVENESS!

Yeah……the journey to your most authentic self is nooooott easy. It will knock you on your ass MANY times…..and that’s not even the hard part. The hard part is getting back up….and STILL deciding that it is in your best interest to NOT revert back to what has been most comfortable.

You do NOT owe your OLDself Loyalty! Word to last week’s Note 😉

Instead strive to be the version of yourself that you always wanted to be but never believed you could…Or thought that you could be…. but was scared to try….

In these moments you OWE it to yourself….

Owe it to your INNER child…..

Owe it to the YOU….you were always destined to become…..

Looking back over these Notes from the Journey, I see more than words on a page … I see proof of BECOMING. Each reflection marked a moment of choosing AWARENESS over avoidance, PRESENCE over performance, and GROWTH over comfort.

And if there’s one TRUTH I’m carrying forward, it’s this: healing isn’t about fixing the past …. it’s about taking RESPONSIBILITY for the present. It’s the willingness to be HONEST, to listen when CORRECTION(Shoutout to my LADY) comes, to take ACTION when change is required, and to choose DIFFERENTLY even when it’s uncomfortable.

The second chance we give ourselves isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s quiet. INTENTIONAL. Rooted in ACCOUNTABILITY and SELF-trust. And when we commit to that choice ….. DAILY ….. everything begins to shift.

For now, these Notes will rest. But the JOURNEY continues.

If these reflections resonated with you, I invite you to continue walking with me through my other spaces… YouTube, IG, and TikTok….. where the work, the conversations, and the growth continue. These Notes will return in their own time… sometime in 2026.

Until then, stay PRESENT. Stay HONEST. And keep choosing YOURSELF.

Healing builds strength. Rising builds legacy.

Hiram

H3:33