Episode 8: Adrienne Carter

Bloody Mary is a childhood game we’ve all played on sleepovers. A brave soul goes into a darkened bathroom and says the Tudor Queen’s name three times and she is supposed to appear in the mirror. The sightings of Mary are legendary. She comes complete with broken medicine cabinet mirrors and wide eyed, terrified junior high school kids shaking with fear as they wait for the apparition to appear. It’s funny how we can all rush to call on a ghost to appear in a mirror, but what about when you stand in front of a mirror and try to find something nice to say about yourself. Let’s test it now. Go stand in front of your mirror and say three times, “I deserve to have the best in life.” Say, “I am acceptable.” Say, “Who I am is great!” How did you do?

Adrienne Carter shares with us her road to the statement of, “Who I am is Great,” in our frank and forthright discussion. She lays it out clearly. We can either stay miserable, suffering and mad, or we can become like Diana Ross and be a black woman living life on her own terms. We can lament the lack of range of opportunities and representation in the media’s images of black women, or we can find our own creative voices and write and produce the stories we want to see. We can script our lives in ink, or we can choose to write life with a pencil so we can erase and start again as often as we need to.

She leaves us with two important questions and one admonishment on the road to being able to call out and proudly own our greatness. Do you want to be fine, or do you want to be excellent? What happens when you have no one to blame? And finally, be careful how you talk to yourself; your words are power.