Personal Empowerment | Tyra Garlington

Black History Month 2019 theme: Black Migrations … But is reverse migration reshaping US cities?

Posted on February 26, 2019 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

“Alden Loury remembers when buying his home felt like achieving the American dream. A black journalist from Chicago, Loury, and his wife were able to purchase a home for $165,000 in 2005 in Auburn Gresham, a predominantly black neighborhood on the city’s south side, where he grew up. “I felt great,” he told Curbed. “I was back in my neighborhood. I knew the streets and the places I went to as a kid were still here.” For Loury, who grew up in public housing as well as an apartment in a three-flat, buying a bungalow in his old neighborhood was……
Read More »

Let’s get this year started off right!

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

One Simple Question You Should Ask Everyone You Meet -by Marc Chernoff “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.”—The Invitation by Oriah 7 Billion Stories in the World I don’t care what you do or what you own. I just want to know who you are. I want to know your uniqueness, the experiences you’ve had and the lessons you’ve learned. I want to know your story. What is your story? Everyone has one. And no two stories are exactly……
Read More »

REWIND: There is a place where lost, lonely, and left out youth can write their second story.

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

“David has been homeless since the age of 12. He first started “couch surfing”, but by age 17 David ran out of places to visit and ended up on the streets. Even while living on the streets, David worked hard to stay in school. A social worker eventually connected with David and let him know about the youth shelter where he currently lives. Penny says he has been hopping trains for a few months now, but he has been for almost a year. Jimi has been traveling for the better part of two years. She took a few months to “kick……
Read More »

Christmas Wish #5 Inspiration

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

Strongest Dad in the World by Rick Reilly for Sports Illustrated “Eighty-five times Dick Hoyt pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars – all in the same day. Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? And what has Rick done……
Read More »

Christmas Gift #4 You don’t have to be a people pleaser.

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

“If you spend your life pleasing others, you spend your life.” ~Cheryl Richardson Looking back on my life, I came to realize that I spent quite a high amount of my precious time trying. Trying to be perfect. Trying to be appreciated and liked by everyone else around me. Trying to fit in with different groups of people so that I could feel accepted and approved. I can recall many situations in my life when I did things I didn’t really want to do to comfort or please others. I wanted people to like me. I expected them to give me the……
Read More »

Christmas Gift #2 Encouragement: From Sharecropper’s Daughter to Army General

Posted on December 10, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

Clara Adams-Ender was born in Willow Springs, North Carolina in 1939, the fourth child of ten and grew up in a family of sharecroppers. Her parents were Caretha Bell Sapp Leach and Otha Leach. She attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University earning her B.S. degree in nursing in 1961. After that Adams-Ender joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She entered the service as a second lieutenant and received training at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In 1963, she was assigned overseas, beginning as a staff nurse for the 121st evacuation hospital in the……
Read More »

Loving and Being Loved: Self Compassion as a Pathway to Connection

Posted on November 13, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

Many of us can probably remember a time when we fell madly in love, convinced that our beloved was our life’s crucial missing piece. Fiery for this new person, we believed that we must be with them in order to be happy! Of course, part of the human condition is the deep desire to be seen and loved. And so, when we are marinating in the hormone cocktail of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine which fuel the early infatuation stage of the relationship, we are experiencing the very real effects of the “most addictive substance on earth.1” We are easily swept……
Read More »

About the Precious Little Time, You Have Left

Posted on November 3, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

A Good Girl (Who Didn’t Make It) “Alyssa was my best friend. She was a talented musician, a graceful gymnast, a brilliant writer, and a deeply passionate human being. She cared about people. Love bled from every facet of her being. When she spoke, her eyes were as sincere as her words. And she always wanted to understand what was wrong so she could strive to make it better. But Alyssa woke up one day during her senior year in college with a strange pain in her chest. The on-campus doctors didn’t understand why, so they referred her to a……
Read More »

My heart cried last week: Part two

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

This is a continued conversation about sexual assault and why women don’t tell sooner, or ever. Last, week in part one I introduced the concept from my personal sexual abuse rear-view mirror. The words here are not meant to indict, but to shout comfort in the fact that none of us has to feel alone ever again. Our voices heal! Last week we talked about feelings of shame. Victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault in adulthood or sexual abuse in childhood tend to feel shame because as human beings, we want to believe that we have control over what happens to……
Read More »

My heart cried last week: Part One

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

The intense angry sexual assault conversations knocked down the door to my secret pain. For all intent and purposes, I am well adjusted. I live in my worthiness, I believe my circumstances are not who I am. And, my abusers have long since died. However, on rare occasions, unpredicted triggers catch my breath in hushed fury. I ask the ghosts “How could you? How dare you? YOU were supposed to protect me.” Yet, I never told. “The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports receiving 12,000 allegations of sex-based harassment each year, with women accounting for about 83 percent of the complainants. That figure……
Read More »