Aubri Black

Abuse July 19, 2018

Why I Don’t Like to Call Myself a Wife

I don’t like referring to myself as a wife. Even though I am one (#remarried). I’ve considered adding “wife” to my social media bio, but I can’t bring myself to do it. After leaving an abusive marriage, the thought of ever calling myself a wife was like: hell no. The definition of what a wife is and should be was so convoluted and crazy that I vehemently hated the title. If “wife” meant what the ex said it did, then I wanted nothing to do with it. His version of a wife was someone who was subservient: prepared to obey unquestioningly. Someone who was less important. Someone who did all the household chores. Someone who emotionally supported him in everything he did, but someone he didn’t have to support. Someone who was in the background, so he could stay in the spotlight. Someone who really didn’t matter aside from what…

Life July 16, 2018

Why “Never Say Never” is Actually Helpful

When we say something often, it starts to lose its meaning. We forget to think about it and we just say it or ignore it. I’ve often thought the saying “never say never” was stupid. Why can’t I say never? I know what the saying means. I just got annoyed by it. Now I think it is good advice. Because really you never know. I like to think that I know myself well enough to say “never” and mean it. But this year has taught me, you can never fully know when you say never that you will mean never forever. I don’t know what will happen in my life or what could happen. I could never have predicted where I am today. I’ve said there are many things that I would never do and would never happen, but I did and they have. It is ridiculous of me to…

Life June 28, 2018

The Messages You Send

There are a lot of messages that get tossed at you daily, from anything and everything. Little messages each day can slowly create the way you see yourself both in a positive or a negative light. The messages you internalize are not always conscious or noticed. You absorb them. Then you begin to live them out. Some of you probably can’t remember when you started to act on those messages or when they started to become a part of you. They were just there, added to the back of your mind. Every so often it is a good practice in self-awareness to take an inventory, to assess your emotional state, your motivates, motivations, actions, desires, character to discover what you have internalized that is positive and what you can eliminate that is negative. You can’t always control what messages you hear, but there is something you can do. You can…

Abuse June 15, 2018

What Not to Say to Someone in an Abusive Relationship

Abusive relationships are more common than you think; however, many people don’t call them that or don’t know that is what they are. Some find the word abusive too harsh, while others don’t know how to define abuse, to begin with. Some of the things that people said to me once I left an abusive relationship, made me feel judged and criticized in a time when I needed support. I don’t hold it against them though, I know how hard it is to understand. It took me a long time to get it myself. I also know most people meant well. They simply didn’t understand the dynamics that are present in an abusive relationship. Not a lot of people talk about abuse so knowing what it is like and the signs are not common knowledge. Below are the lessons I learned from my own experience, and from times I got…

Life June 9, 2018

I Was Very Angry

Writing a memoir is not for the faint of heart. Have you ever been so angry that you can’t think straight, and you just start swearing at your computer screen? I have. When I first started writing a memoir, I had something to prove. I wanted anyone and everyone to know just how badly I had been treated in my first marriage. I was very angry. And rightly so, but what I have learned is that angry writing isn’t always helpful writing. As a reader, when you read something, you don’t want the words to be yelling at you. A while back I heard someone say: you will know when you are ready to share your story with the world when you don’t have something to prove. It’s the idea that you are in a good place with something when you no longer have to prove it. There have been…

Life May 31, 2018

5 Ways to be a Happier You

A happier outlook is calling. Here are five things to consider when happiness is on the line. It’s time to answer the call. Remember you are the expert on your own life. You are the one responsible for your actions. You are also the one who gets to reap any benefits. That knowledge lets you off the hook to not listen to bad advice. Certain things work for certain people, and they might work for you or they might not. Either way, you don’t have to listen to everything you hear. You get to choose! Your friends care about you, that is why they give you advice. Be thankful you have friends that care. Listen to them. Be respectful. Then remember that you don’t have to apply what they say to your situation. See other people’s success as a good thing. It is far too easy to fall into envy…

Abuse May 17, 2018

Dangers of Hero vs. Villain Thinking

HERO VS. VILLAIN THINKING Those who hold an abusive belief system have a certain way of looking at the world. When I say abusive, I am talking about anyone who does what they do to have power and control over someone else. And this behaviour isn’t always obvious. In fact, the belief system they hold can be very subtle. If you don’t share their view of the world, it can be incredibly confusing to try to understand them. Let’s talk about something that abusive people do. They see the world in terms of heroes and villains. In each situation, someone is the hero and some is the villain. No matter what. If you approach someone and they think you are trying to be a hero, that is when they will bite your head off or will attack you for looking at life from your perspective. They will assume the worst.…

Life May 7, 2018

The Fear of Imperfect Writing

There are days when I have a lot to say and write about, but I don’t know where to start. I type and I type and I type, but I end up not writing anything that is blog-worthy. Though I am unsure if I know what that even is at this point. I’m a recovering perfectionist, or rather some days I still am one, who reads all the blogs, books and articles I can to know how to be a better writer and blogger. And then boom the overwhelm creeps in. I can’t seem to keep all the advice straight. So I don’t post anything because it doesn’t have a theme or a point or isn’t well-written or doesn’t pass the length test or whatever reason the other people told me I needed to do in order to be great. Too many times I have started blogs and then dropped…

Life March 7, 2018

What Depression Feels Like to Me

It’s strange for me to share something like this. I don’t always know how to talk about my struggle with depression, and I usually don’t want to. Sometimes I feel like there are multiple versions of myself and they appear at different times. I feel so completely one way one day and then the opposite the next. Despite my desire to not talk about it, depression is something that needs to be talked about. It’s something that can be helpful when learned through the eyes of those in the midst of the battle. Often I find it easier to say that I have anxiety, but not depression because it comes with so many more negative stigmas. I don’t want to be looked down on. I don’t want to be seen as sick or messed up. I don’t want to be broken. I don’t want sympathy. I’m not lazy when I lack…

Life January 25, 2018

An Idea That Became a Reality: Overflow Market

Kim Norcross and Carla Thiessen went to a pop-up used clothing sale put on by a local organization not that long ago. The event was at High Street in Abbotsford, BC. While they browsed, they realized most of the people attending were a lot younger than them. Even though they picked up some nice items, the event was targeted at younger, early twenty-year-old group. They didn’t feel like they belonged. Carla had been thinking about putting on a similar event like the one they went to for awhile. She suggested to Kim that they do a curated second-hand clothing market, but with a bigger age bracket of 20-40s. From their experience, it was hard to find used clothing for their age. “It’s our age group though, that really cares about being eco-friendly, reusing and not being wasteful,” Kim says. Sure, you can go through Value Village or any…