Greetings T.E.N. Family!
I’m Reena, your devoted author and website developer, essentially here as a liaison between self and SELF....See the difference? We are here to bridge the gap of communication between you and YOU. Those amazing, dormant and untapped parts of you. This is a thought-provoking and inspiring message to all that recognizes it to be just that. I consider myself one of many messengers.
This space consists of messages for you that are coming from within yourself and from your world… your universe. You just have to open yourself to messages that have been whispering about in the invisible plain of your awareness, just begging to be known, begging to be recognized.
Before we continue, you might want to know about me and how we got here.
You might also want to know what “qualifies” me to speak to your soul. To speak to you at all. To inspire you. To believe in you. To encourage you to believe in yourself.
Well then, let’s answer these introductory questions.
After all, when you’re here, you’re family.
So….Reena….right? What’s her story?
Here’s the short introductory version of significant extractions to current creation:
Born in San Francisco, CA to a very driven mother committed to her work and family, and a very passionate father devoted to his role and looking for God everywhere. Although it was a divided household with traditional quarrels, I have fond memories of old-school music, old fashioned dance moves in the communal family room and skating rink, traditional soul food cooking, childhood mischief and the noisy and pleasantly chaotic sounds of family and culture as I once knew it to be.
In my earlier years of adolescence, as I examined the world around me with what I was provided to see in the urban area we lived in. Like most urban areas, it was a bubble, a well-constructed bubble at that. Most places are bubbles. Bubbles of people, schools, institutions, businesses, subcultures, beliefs, values, behaviors, economics or the lack thereof, jobs or the lack thereof, languages, interactions, patterns, societal norms. In the bubble of my youth, I, like everyone else, experienced the world around me. Despite living in an urban bubble called “the ghetto” or “the hood”, I was fortunate enough to attend a public school outside of that bubble in the ghetto. It was a very diverse elementary school, Lakeshore Elementary, in San Francisco. There, all of the children were from different walks of like and they did a great job in integrating us and encouraging positive diverse exchange and engagement between the diverse student bodies. I still remember a few common faces and names, all of which were different races and ethnicities. Early in life, I was given the opportunity to form friends and have healthy relationships and interactions with a diverse world of children, and I embraced it immensely. I was never that child that gravitated towards a cafeteria table full of only people that looked like me. Being exposed to a colorful world shaped my expectations and comfort for a colorful societal norm. Due to my positive early experiences, my societal norm was colorful and diverse, not uniform in appearance. My expectation of life was to engage in a well-rounded and colorful environment with different people that didn’t necessarily look like me. My expectation in life was never to only engage and draw pleasure from uniformity of appearance, identity or background. If ever there were only people that looked like me as far as my eyes could see, something felt void, something felt “off”, something felt extremely limited or imbalanced, as if I was not seeing the world in its fullness, but rather a small portion of it. I felt shortchanged or swindled, like I wasn’t getting as much bang for my youth bucks. I wanted it all, I wanted to talk to it all, play with it all, know it all, enjoy it all. If ever there were only people that looked like me, at home, sure, that’s fine, but out in the world, no…. That felt wrong to me. One of my first expectations as a child was to be in a broad world of people, colors, languages, backgrounds, cultures, customs, music, sounds, behaviors, patterns, contributions. Not only was this one of my first expectations as a set societal norm, but it was also an expectation for such exposure to be pleasant for me.
At Lakeshore Elementary School, we were exposed to a wide range of activities and given the opportunity to take on responsibilities and extracurricular roles that helped us to develop soft skills, communication, conflict management, solution-oriented behaviors, collaboration, talent and creativity. I remember my poetry teacher taking interest in my writings as she would chaperone us to Lake Merced across the street and allow us to pick a safe spot to sit and write unguided poetry. That truly sparked the writer and poet in me, but also presented an opportunity to create in mid-air, to recognize the serene beauty of nature in its unadulterated state, which oftentimes gets overlooked or ignored. My poetry teacher, although I can’t recall her name; she believed in me, and despite my youth, I knew it and felt it. I recall an African dance performance put on for the school and families, in which I received a trophy for my performance and artistic talent. That truly solidified in me the belief that I am an artist, yes, but moreover, I am a good artist recognized for that art as a pleasantry to others. That drove my desire to give my art to the world for pleasant acceptance.
At that same time in my youthful adolescent years, I was fortunate enough to attend an afterschool program, Whitney Young, also in San Francisco, CA. There, I was exposed to a wide range of activities that built creativity, artistry and talent in young minds. Having my natural tendency to maximize on opportunity, I signed up for everything available. I remember performing tap dance solos on stage in front of the audience, Polk dance, African dance, ballet, gymnastics, karate and self-defense.
I will never forget seeing my father in the audience watching me perform, while my mother was committed to working long hours, climbing the company ladder and providing for her family and children. I understood that fully and never faulted her for her absence. I appreciate it more now looking back.
I remember doing flips and handstands on gym beams, rehearsing ballet performances and solos, laughing while taking my teacher’s soft punch to the belly at age 7 when my guard was down during karate class. I remember the audience giving a standing ovation as I performed my tap dance solo with very little practice. I remember dressing and traveling to perform African dance as I waited for my teacher’s que to start. I will never forget her serious face and eye contact while she played the Congo drums waiting for the perfect tone, rhythm and sequence of beats to signal with a tilt of her face up and down that meant “it’s showtime”. I was always ready for showtime, fearlessly as a child. One evening, I must’ve prepared for three performances back-to-back, having 3 layers of clothing on as I stripped off one layer to prepare for the next set coming up with a packed audience waiting to see all that Whitney Young Center was teaching the youth in the community. How lucky I was to travel around the world of art, music, dance, talent, culture, people and creativity all under one roof and on one stage. How lucky I was to see outside of my very small urban bubble in the ghetto, of racial uniformity and limited beliefs and interests of what society is, who I was and what I can be, should be or want to be or see or do in life. How lucky I was to exit that small bubble of urban identity and enter the wide spectrum of colorful discovery.
I remember Ms. Robinson, my 2nd grade teacher that treated me more like a granddaughter and my father more like a son. I recall participating in the school Spelling Bee, where I competed against other students in stating the correct spelling of words that became more and more complex at each level of the competition on stage. After a heated competition, I was the only one left standing in my class against the opponent class. I will never ever forget Ms. Robinson’s words as she looked into my eyes with a confident and supportive smile and said to me before starting the final phase “ok Reena, you’re our only hope!”
Ms. Robinson’s voice and words echoes in my heart to this very day. I learned to carry the weight of a team while standing on my own two feet. I learned confidence and productive pressures. I learned to take on responsibility for a group and for a good cause. I learned to win some and lose some with the right attitude. And, most of all, I learned how to be someone’s only hope, to be that hope, to be determined in that role as the last one standing for the good of the group. I learned the importance of pushing forward in a mission with a common and mutual goal, even if everyone else taps out, I learned to say, “we did it!” not “I did it”…..Thanks Ms. Robinson.
Later in life, I, like many young teenagers in urban city regions, was rebellious and experimental in my youth, ignoring my high scholarly academic potential and finding pleasure in all the wrong friends and activities, way beyond curfew. If it was wrong, fun and against the rules or “an adult only” activity, I found a way to be a part of it.
After all, I always had a natural tendency to maximize my exposure, right? In my teen years, all common sense and cognitive processes were essentially clouded by hormonal blasts of sheer insanity and rapidly changing views of identity, appearance and self. Hence, the holes in my blue jeans and the mitch-match blue and red sneakers. At this time, I was heavily influenced by that urban bubble as a female teenager of color in the ghetto.
I hadn’t yet learned that society would attempt to place limits on who I am, what I should be, how I should be identified, what interests I should take up, what I can do, what I can’t do, my potential, abilities and the distance that I can walk, run, jump, skip and take myself.
There were no jobs, so that was not at all of interest at the time. College was not of interest at the time. Heck, there were no jobs in the neighborhood, so how could we consider what a college education or successful career looked like in motion aside from our parents working to pay bills and the teachers showing up every day, the bus driver driving around, the corner store owner selling tobacco and liquor, the man standing on the corner selling drugs for income in lieu of no available jobs, the women styling hair for income and struggling to survive, utilizing federally-funded resources? The rappers, singers, movie actors, actresses, music video dancers, basketball players and NFL millionaires were the only real image of high success that was nearly impossible to reach. The women sought access to the only images of success that they knew and had to look the part. The men sought access to the only image of success that they knew was available to them. Music, acting, sports for success. Selling recreational drugs, hairstyling or accessing federally funded income and housing. Those were the options in the ghetto, the urban bubble. Use what you have to get what you need or what you want, which was not much of a need or want, because the identities within the bubble were limited, therefore the interests and desires were limited, the discovery was limited, the exploration was limited, the presence was limited, the existence was limited, the mindset was limited.
But I also seen women like my mother with different plans. She had a vision. She worked hard, climbed the company ladder, was financially responsible, grew economic standing and buying power just enough to get her and her children out of that bubble, that bubble that she so deeply despised as a damaging device for anyone to experience in life. She got us out of the ghetto, out of the bubble and into another suburban bubble, then moved again and into another suburban bubble, and then moved again into another suburban bubble, until we settled in the smallest and most quiet and least diverse bubble that she could find. Her mission was to get as far away from the first destructively constructed urban bubble as possible. I appreciate her so much. I then realized that each move was essentially a different bubble.
My father, still in the urban bubble, was not so fortunate to obtain economic standing sufficient for the needs of relocation and mortgage payments. I attribute his financial and career hardship to the racial identity and limitation that society has placed upon him as a man of color, making it difficult to maneuver economically. I also attribute his persistence to reside in the bubble as being a creature of habit that prefers to reside in familiar territory, he stayed in that bubble. I realize that he will never truly know who I am as I have expanded my consciousness and awareness far beyond that little bubble of urban life, work and religion. But I will say that he did lay the foundation of a strong rooted faith and a confident identity that is very important when exploring, standing, falling, skipping, tripping and getting back up again. He would always look me firm into my eyes with assertion and say to me “you’re a Smith, okay Reena.” That meant a lot, I was someone special, someone unique, not any average jokester just jiving around aimlessly. I was “a Smith” as dad always told me, knowing who I am with pride and confidence. Thanks, dad.
After high school, which was really just 4 years of smoking pot at the skatepark with the biggest pot heads I count find in the quiet suburban bubble of nonexistence, I went to college to be a psychologist, which I later revised to nursing, environmental studies, and entrepreneurship. At the stage of college life, a fork in the road appeared. I went in one direction, career, health and success. My very fun and reliable pothead friends went in another direction, drugs and criminality, which I do not judge by any means. Identity can shift at any time, remember? Who knows what they are accomplishing now?
There comes a time in life where you must choose which bubble you want to reside in. The bubble that you choose will guide your life down desirable or undesirable paths, so choose your bubbles wisely.
During college, I dabbled in industries, such as music, food service, hospitality, retail and sales, healthcare, psychology, environmental, entrepreneurial, nonprofit organizational, community and humanitarian work. Throughout these experiences, I was able to expand my view of life, people, society, beliefs, values, priorities, sense of self, passions and contributions.
I also became more aware of how society identifies me in each of their bubbles, how you are identified in bubbles, how that impacts our lives and pathways, and how to redefine ourselves. It was at the start of my 30s that I took all that I learned and observed about life and decided to invite others along my journey of exploration and growth, while encouraging others to lay hold on their own pathways and opportunities for growth and enrichment. Over the last 3 years, I have set out to have a positive impact on society by learning what is void in society. There was always this sense of void as I looked around. I learned that the biggest relational problems that we have in society stem from two concepts, the bubble effect and the thorough lack of a meaningful or fulfilling life. The most significant reasons for societal conflict of persons and conflict within self is that which is generated and maintained inside of bubbles, and that which is never explored.
Bubbles can limit or expand people. Examine your own bubble and how you either became confined by that bubble, allowing that bubble to form your identity and existence. Examine whether you’ve allowed a bubble to limit everything that you think, say, do and want in life. Or, how you managed to escape that confining bubble to seek more, to know more, to be more. Are you in the bubble or are you out? Do you jump back and forth in, out, in, out, in, out? While inside of the bubble of limitations, does it feel like you’re drowning, or do you feel right at home? Does it feel like you’re suffocating or perhaps only when you can’t get out? While outside of that bubble, do you feel free and true to self, and does it change how that which is still trapped in the bubble of existence feels about your outward expansion? How does that which is in the bubble feel about your expansion beyond the bubble of existence?
I could go on with a full biography that divulges the beautiful, bitter and bold truths of my life that are heart wrenching, soul piercing, tearjerking and mind twisting that would leave you in complete aww to hear of the tails of time and fiery trials and tests of faith, endurance and willpower. Although, I believe that story is best written in another space. Here, we will focus on you. You, you and more you. As you relate to yourself, as you relate to source, as you relate to the world.
Now, what qualifies me to speak to you?
I will only say this in response to skepticism that stems from whatever bubble of beliefs and expectations that one may have of me starting out, which I may shift or redefine is you stick around.
I care about you, despite having known you for a moment, and perhaps for eternity in another life.
I want you to care about yourself, at least enough to see yourself through life in its full meaning and purpose, joy and self-awareness.
I believe that it is not for anyone to want someone to be less or equal to them in any aspect of life, but rather to be more, to be better than them. It doesn’t matter how much money I have, how many homes I own or how many PhD degrees I have mounted on painted walls, and it doesn't matter how much you have. I want something beyond that for you, which you may already have achieved. In that respect, I congratulate you, but I also welcome you to invest in someone else’s journey if you have already fulfilled your own.
When it comes to self-discovery, enrichment, inspiration and motivation, the only qualifications one must possess is to believe in someone, despite them believing in themselves. To want the best for someone, despite them wanting the best for themselves.
To want the best for society, despite society being content in all of its ways.
We share the same qualifications the very moment that our intentions are mutually good.
You are qualified to do this.
You are qualified to give and to receive.
You are qualified to be here, whether you are here to provide, to take, to listen or to create.
I hope that answers your question and satisfies your skepticism. In addition, I have worked with all ages in society, diligently for 3 years and have changed lives for the better. Not only has my work changed lives, but it has also saved lives. I have changed the world for the better each life at a time in small sparkles of stars in the sky, and I continue to conjure up the best in each person that allows it to be so. The world may seem dreary, but we create beautiful and lasting sparkles of stars in the sky each time we have an ah-ha moment.
If ever you doubt or question my abilities, simply ask around about me. I am sure that you will hear all that is needed in the form of testimonies if you consult the right parties.
Now that you know a bit about how this all started, let’s make you the priority starting now.
This is a group thing, you’re not alone here. Many are taking this journey right alongside you, whether you know it or not.
Take what you want from it and leave the rest.
Shall we begin?
PS, you’re safe here.
Wholeheartedly,
Reena
copyright 2025
