Consistency From Your Boots to Your Roots - Week #5

by Tania Staps, Tastemaker in Residence

This week I honor the late, great Dr. Maya Angelou by sharing my favorite quotes. She was a beacon to this world, and will be missed, but her words will live on. 

"When you know better, you do better.” If I have learned anything about this journey to health, consistency is the key in making it a way of life, not just another diet. 

Another Quote..."Courage is the greatest of all the virtues.” This leads you to be consistent with the other virtues, such as being kind, honest etc. 

When you are dealing with facing your view of your own body image...well, this indeed takes courage.

It is hard to face what so many including myself fear; that image looking back at you that you have so purposely IGNORED, for so long. Courage gives you the strength to begin and consistentcy allows you to finish and reach your goals.

In the past, I have started the diet to health process, hundreds of times, but never finishing, never being consistent. 

Great ladies like Dr. Maya Angelou, provide simple and profound inspiration. One thing that stands out, especially in her life, she was consistent. What a legacy she left behind. She paved the way for so many. 

I would like to end this week with her lovely Poem Phenomenal Woman.

Big Hugs!

Tania

Phenomenal Woman
BY MAYA ANGELOU

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,   
The stride of my step,   
The curl of my lips.   
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,   
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.   
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.   
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,   
And the flash of my teeth,   
The swing in my waist,   
And the joy in my feet.   
I’m a woman.                                                                                                                    

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered   
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,   
They say they still can’t see.   
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,   
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.   
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.   
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,   
The bend of my hair,   
the palm of my hand,   
The need for my care.   
’Cause I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Maya Angelou, “Phenomenal Woman” from And Still I Rise. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.
Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)