Put on Your Crown

by Queen Latifah

  Winki was a cop. Sometimes I think maybe he went in this way so he wouldn’t go in a worse way. Maybe something bad out there didn’t happen to him, something that would have been worse for all of us. I don’t know. I always leave myself open to the possibility that things happen for a reason, and I don’t always understand that reason, but it’s something I have to accept.

  Life has a way of reminding you that you’re not immortal and that tragedy can strike any one of us, anytime. That’s why you need to have faith. I’m not saying you necessarily have to believe in God. You don’t have to be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Jewish. But you need to open yourself up to an idea that’s bigger than you are. It could be compassion or a faith in the basic goodness of mankind. Even just a sense of the spiritual, or a trust that there are benign forces in the universe that we don’t necessarily understand, will give us the strength to take those steps toward living our best life.

  When we’re going through some crisis, God is whispering to us the whole time. He’s not shouting, “Hey, yo, listen up!” By the time you get that message loud and clear, He’s already tried to tell you a few times. He gave you plenty of signs. You just weren’t paying attention.

  About five years ago, I was running myself ragged and enjoying a few too many drinks at night. It tends to happen when I’m busy and I don’t take the time to check in with myself or communicate what I need to the people around me. I have a strong constitution, and that might not be such a good thing, because I don’t always know when to slow down. It served me well at the beginning of my career when much of our business was conducted in the nightclub, but it’s not how I should be living my life as a grown woman. It’s not good for me. There were times when I’d drink so much, I would black out the next morning.

  One night I was out at a club in L.A. with my assistant, and it was her turn to drink and have fun, so I agreed to be the designated driver. I figured one drink would be okay, but then one drink led to two and possibly three. I wasn’t impaired, but it was just one of those nights when everything goes wrong. It was my time of the month—a sign that I should have probably just stayed home. It was also a full moon, and there’s always something about a full moon that messes with you.

  A cop pulled me over, not because I was over the speed limit or doing anything wrong, but because someone earlier that night had gone on a shooting spree in the area, and they were driving a vehicle similar to mine. Well, that did it. The cops could smell a little alcohol on my breath, and they made me take all the sobriety tests. They’d just changed the acceptable alcohol limits in the state of California from 1.0 to 0.8, and of course, the way my evening was going, I was just over, at 0.9. They took me to the station, where I was questioned by Officer Laffer. Laffer! I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” It was like God was laughing at me!

  I had to pay a fine and take a remedial driving course, and they recommended I attend an AA meeting. I was not happy. When I went to the driving class, I told the instructor how unfair it was. I wasn’t even driving impaired. But he said something that really changed my perspective.

  “Think about how many times you drove home at night and you were driving impaired.”

  He was right. There probably were a few times. There were moments I felt the angels must have been guiding me home safely, because I really shouldn’t have been behind the wheel.

  Famous people with money can lawyer up and get charges dropped easily. I could have gotten out of that DUI. But because of what that instructor told me, I decided to suck it up and deal with the consequences. I even went to the AA meeting. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to check in with myself. I wanted to know, “Am I okay?”

  At the meeting, everyone introduced themselves and did what they call “sharing.” One guy said, “I’m frustrated because I had a lot of things to do at work today, and I didn’t get to all of it.” Another man shared that he was having problems communicating with his teenage daughter. A woman shared that she was six months sober.

  It was small stuff. But by being in that meeting and opening up about all those little things, like not getting through a task list, these people were saving themselves from the temptation of going to a bar after work. It taught me that I can’t let my own frustrations pile up like that. I had to do a better job of communicating how I really felt.

  I asked the leader of that session how you know if you’re really an alcoholic. He gave me a quiz, and I learned that I am not. I can go without a drink. I can stop at a certain point if I choose to. But I was definitely borderline. And with a history of alcoholism in my family (some aunts and uncles were big drinkers), I needed to be careful. It was just the wake-up call I needed.

  That whole incident was God’s little way of saying, “Take it easy, Dana.” He gave me a little spank in the form of a DUI charge, just to let me know. I wasn’t listening to Him before, so He had to shout in my ear this time. It wasn’t the first situation like this I found myself in, but you can bet it was the last.

  Having faith has gotten me through so much in life. It helps me handle all those ups and downs and teaches me to trust my better instincts. It helps me to accept what is and move on. I believed in God before Winki died, but I took my faith for granted. Then I almost lost that faith—my brother’s death tested it to the limit. But ultimately it grew stronger because of what I had to go through, and that was a gift. Belief in something bigger allows me to follow my inner compass and know when to let things go. Life is too short and too precious to get mired in the stuff I can’t control. My belief in God helps me to prioritize. Going through the loss of my brother and coming out on the other side with an even closer connection to God gave me a real sense of perspective. I don’t sweat the small stuff. As for the big stuff, well, I guess can handle it.

  Whatever your religion or belief system, the key is to have an active inner life that radiates through all your actions in the world. We’re all being tested, every day. It’s not so much how bad a time we have as how well we handle it. That’s what gives us real power. That’s what God is looking at. You have to hold your head up and look at the horizon, because if you don’t, if you keep gazing down at the ground, your crown’s gonna fall right off.

  CHAPTER 7

  Strength

  People gonna let you down / Don’t expect for them to be around / They’re just people…

  —LATIFAH, “PEOPLE”

  I’d had enough. My pager was blowing up, I was supposed to be in a million different places, and everyone was looking for me. So I disappeared. Just vanished. No one was gonna find me until I was good and ready, if ever. I was done!

  It was at the beginning of my career, and I was so overscheduled that I didn’t even have time to breathe. Our company was growing. We were starting to manage a bunch of new artists. I’d just released a new album, and I was expected to visit at least twenty different radio stations. I had video shoots, photo shoots, performances, store signings, interviews with this magazine and that magazine. It’s what you’re supposed to do to make your career happen in this business, and I was pushing myself as hard as I could. But I was exhausted. I tried to express myself about certain things. I tried to say it was too much, but that little people pleaser in me kept caving in. I’d say no to doing this or doing that, but apparently I wasn’t forceful enough, because somehow it would end up on my schedule. And once it was on my schedule, I had to show up, because if I didn’t, it would mess up my relationship with this club or that magazine or this radio station. I felt out of control, to the point where I didn’t have any energy left to give. The expectations of me were so high, and I hated letting people down. But I just couldn’t take it anymore.

  I was doing something in the studio, putting out my tenth fire of the day, when something in me snapped. I decided to run away. I got in my car and just drove. Somehow I ended up at my brother’s graveside. I bought myself a couple of Heinekens, cracked one open, and sat there drinking. I was just chillin’ and having a couple of beers with
my brother. Here’s to you, Winki!

  There I sat, on the grass beside his marker, for hours and hours. I completely lost track of time. I didn’t care what I had to do or where I had to be going. I thought, “Y’all don’t get it; well, you’re gonna get it now!” And I got real comfortable sitting there on that grassy patch. I had to be in a dozen different places, but I stayed right where I was, far away from all the noise. The sun was shining, like it almost always was whenever I went to spend time with Winki. I just watched the geese eat the grass, glad to be someplace where no one could find me.

  Do You Hear Me Now?

  As the sun was setting, I went back to my car, drove home, and called my mother. Her soothing voice and wise words always have a way of calming me down. There were dozens of frantic messages on my machine, with everyone from Shakim to my assistant to the executives at the label screaming, “Where are you!” The later the message on the machine, the greater the panic in the caller’s voice. I was only gone for the better part of a day, but you’d have thought I’d been kidnapped. I finally called Shakim, and when he answered he was nearly hysterical.

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!”

  “I needed a break, Sha. It was too much.”

  “But Dana, why didn’t you say something?”

  “I tried telling you a few times.”

  “I’m sorry. We had so much going on, I guess I didn’t hear you.”

  “Do you hear me now?”

  And he did, for a while. I came back to the world and started from scratch again. Things would move along nicely. Then the madness would start again, and I would disappear again. I’d go hang out with Winki. We had a lot of those moments together, Winki and I.

  In many ways, it was my own damn fault. The cycle continued because I had a hard time communicating how I really felt. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, so I kept on extending myself to the breaking point. Fortunately or unfortunately, success came to me early, almost immediately in my career. People would think, “Wow, we’ve got one here.” I was a moneymaking commodity and everyone was jumping on me to do different things, and I just couldn’t carry it all. Our company kept growing, and there were so many things to take care of in running the business, so when it came to stuff I had to do for me personally, it got shoved to the bottom of the list. I fell into that pattern for years. When you are responsible for too many things—not to mention people who are on your payroll and counting on you for their livelihood—it can take away from who you are. You give away all the pieces of yourself until there’s nothing left. That’s why, at some point, you need to draw boundaries for yourself and make sure those lines don’t get crossed.

  Dare to Disappoint

  Like many women, I can find it hard to say no. I’m sure you’ve been there. We feel guilty. We tend to get caught up in nurturing and pleasing others, and we lose ourselves in the process. And the more you roll in life, the more you are going to have people around you who want all that you can and cannot give. But you can’t be all things to all people. You have to have something left for yourself. Accept that you will feel guilty when you say no, but say it anyway. You can still turn someone down in a nice way.

  You’d be surprised at how easy it can be to let someone down gently. While you’re all tangled up in guilt, fussing and fretting over how you’re going to give someone what they want, or dreading their disappointment when you can’t deliver, the other person probably isn’t even giving it a second thought. Seriously! Think about how many times you finally did screw up the courage to say no. You probably didn’t sleep the night before. You probably discussed it with your girlfriends and went round and round in circles in your mind. And when you finally said it, the other person’s reaction was, “Okay, whateva.” They shrugged it off or, if they were mad, they got over it a few days later. Yet you expended all that emotional energy building up to the big rejection. You put yourself through the whole array of resentment, guilt, and fear.

  Saying no can often be better for that friendship. It’s more honest. If you really can’t take on a favor or give someone your time, you’ll start resenting that person if you do it anyway. They’re none the wiser because you said, “Sure, no problem,” when it really was a problem. Not only do you hurt yourself by taking on that burden, you’ve damaged that relationship you’re trying so hard to preserve. You’ve built up all this tension and turned yourself into a martyr, and nobody wants to hang out with a martyr.

  “No” is a powerful word. As toddlers, when we’re going through the terrible twos, we like to say it over and over again to assert our independence: “No, no, no, no, no, no!” We exult in that word, because we’re discovering the joy and power of establishing our little identities. As we go through life, we have to keep practicing and say it like we mean it. No means no! But the older we get, the harder it is to say that word. We’re conditioned to please. As girls, we learn to acquiesce. In school we’re told not to question authority and to obey our parents and teachers. We don’t want to say no to our friends for fear of being social outcasts. We eventually fall into the habit of saying yes in relationships, because we want to be loved. We don’t want to risk upsetting, and possibly losing, the man in our lives. We don’t want to upset our children or our family members, so we keep on saying yes to keep the peace. And the more we do it, the more we say yes when we really mean no, the more our boundaries are crossed. The more we lose ourselves.

  I have a close female relative who had to see a therapist because she had such a hard time saying no. She’s just too kind. I won’t say who it is, because I don’t want to give the wrong people ideas, but this woman can’t seem to turn down anyone who asks her for help, whether it’s another relative, her church, or whoever. And it’s wearing her down. When she commits to something, she follows through, and she does it to perfection. She gets no sleep, she has no time for herself to just chill, and it’s affecting her health. It appears as if people are taking advantage of her, but they’re just so used to her willingness to help and oblivious to the fact that she has so many other obligations, because she doesn’t say anything. In many ways, it’s her own fault.

  You have to be realistic. You are never going to please everybody. The word “no” requires a lot of practice. I am one of these people who can be a little too generous sometimes. But I think unless they are serious con artists, people tend to show you who they are. If you lend money to friends, you know which ones pay you back and which ones don’t. If you lend to someone with a history of not paying back what they borrow, you might as well consider it a gift. You know the score. So you are either going to give a gift or you are not. And if you can’t do it, let them know you can’t do it. Try to remove the emotion from it. You shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Why should this person who is asking for your help, time, or money be entitled to it? People are responsible for their own lives.

  Someone in my position gets tapped a lot. In many ways I’m protected because I surround myself with real people. I don’t feel the need to be at every opening or hang out on every red carpet from Los Angeles to New York. I have true friends who’ve known me forever. I’ve got Shakim, who guards me like a pit bull. Early on, there was a shooting in a nightclub where I was performing, and Shakim’s first instinct was to throw his body over me to protect me from any stray bullets. The shooting wasn’t actually aimed in my direction, thank God, but that was a powerful moment. The love and loyalty run that deep.

  Most of my crew have been with me since before I got famous. We started hanging out together when I was fifteen, and they’re like family to me. But there are always going to be a few people around who aren’t so solid, and you have to learn to slowly distance yourself. Edit the takers from your life. You’ll know who they are. There’s no need to waste all your energy and bring the whole ’hood along. We get caught up in that just as rappers. One of us gains some success and we want to bring everybody on the block, but you just can’t.

 
Just People

  Over the years, I’ve learned to pull back from certain people. But it wasn’t easy. When you’re used to giving and being there for other people, they become familiar with that trait in you, and it’s expected. A case in point is a particular friend who asked me if he could borrow money. I’d helped people out from our circle in the past, including him, but he wanted more than $1,000, and at the time I just didn’t have it to give. It was around the time I went broke, in 2000. I really did not have the money. But I didn’t go around sharing this fact with people, and when I said I couldn’t do it, he didn’t believe me. He just assumed. A lot of people love to count other people’s money. They see you look a certain way or figure that because of what you do for a living you must have money in the bank all the time. But you should never assume. You don’t know what another person’s troubles are, because they aren’t necessarily going to share them with you.

  This guy took it like a personal rejection. I don’t know what he was going through at the time, but he was mad, and he didn’t speak to me for years. There was a falling-out over some other things, but it’s usually money that brings these matters to a head. He said, “You won’t even give me this money to help me feed my kids.” But I didn’t make those kids. I felt he was being irresponsible with his money, and when you bring children into the world, you can’t afford to be reckless, and you can’t make someone else, namely me, responsible for feeding your children. I said, “I wish I had the money to give to you, but I don’t.” It was perfectly true, but to this day I don’t think he ever believed me.