Faith Cole
The End of Friendship

If adulthood has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot predict who will be there for a lifetime. The very person we trust will be there forever, becomes nothing but a memory Facebook won’t let us forget.

The End of Friendship
Faith Cole
Being Chased by Dreams: Seeds Sown

Deep down, I always knew I would live in America. As a three year-old, I was strikingly drawn to the brownstone row-homes and strange accents in Sesame Street. In my childhood play, I would create a world in which many of the characters had Southern drawls. The earliest vacation I remember was a family road trip across the States in 1992. It was an incredible time of laughter and discovery. I had traveled elsewhere before, but it was the first time I would truly take in the environment around me. Everything seemed so big in comparison to London. Big roads, big trucks, big houses, big portions. We would cite moments from that trip for the rest of our lives. From then the seed was sown. There was a big America, with big opportunity and I felt I belonged there.

Being Chased by Dreams: Seeds Sown
Faith Cole
Baby Names

Recently I was told that someone close to me had given birth to her firstborn. In many African cultures, there is a delay between the birth of a child and the announcement of its name. Often during the period, grandparents, siblings, aunties and uncles (even long lost family members) weigh in on the name of a child. It is then shared to extended family, and friends by way of a naming ceremony, celebrating the arrival of the newborn.

Baby Names
Faith Cole
Find Joy, Bring it Home.

My parents were very intentional with naming me, and I have found that names are either prescriptive or descriptive. I have certainly had enough experiences that require faith, and my name reminds me to look beyond my circumstances and hope in things I cannot see. One of my middle names is “Ayodele”. In Yoruba, this means “joy has come home”, and in my late twenties and early thirties, “joy” has been something that I have found myself craving more than anything.

Find Joy, Bring it Home.
Faith Cole
The Weight

We all have a unique personal relationship with the word “weight.” For some, it may cast a memory of the stubborn fat around one’s midsection that never disappeared after 27. For others, it may relate to the training, resistance, and conditioning of your physical body - that desire to handle more, lift more and push more. The word “weight” may also represent the heavy load that is felt emotionally, spiritually, or mentally, and walks with us in our daily lives. Regardless of how we frame weight, there is always something we are trying to do with it, knowing full well that it is not sustainable to leave it exactly the way it is.

The Weight

Combating Fear (Part 2) - Fear of Failure

Combating Fear (Part 2) - Fear of Failure

At some point, you are going to fail. It may be messy, it may be painful, and it may be one of the best things that ever happened to you.

The commonality between failure and success is that both require an attempt on our part. Failure indicates a challenge addressed, a dream chased, or an idea executed. Failure signals past hope, and although the outcome was less than desired, at some point we believed enough to try.

Many of us are so afraid of failing that we miss the key step of starting. We abandon our boldest, wildest and most extraordinary dreams for scenarios that are never guaranteed and situations that have not even happened yet. We trade courage for safety and suffer deeply for it.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Combating Fear (Part 1)

Combating Fear (Part 1)

As the year matures and the excitement of 2016 begins to fade, how is your hope holding up?

Quite often after some time has passed, our hope is attacked by our fears. We may convince ourselves that it’s just another year of disappointments, unrealistic dreams and unachieved goals. The weight has not been lost, the job has not been found, and the relationship is still the same.

It’s hard to hope and easy to fear when you cannot see the harvest of the seeds you have sown.