Hey Fam,

Forgive me in advance. I’m about to be petty, peeved, and pissed for 20 statements. Only 20. Then I’ll baptize myself in holy water, flog myself with a satin whip, and pray for forgiveness.
~~~~~~~~

20. I hate tax season because I can NEVER find the right paperwork at the right time to file on time. #uurrrrrrrrr

19. It pisses me off seeing Black people doing group workouts, without masks or gloves. I think I’m jealous.

18. I hate getting reminder after reminder after reminder from the Census Burau to fill out the form. I refuse to do it. The government already has enough information about me to put me in an American Caste System. I’m not going to help them.

17. I hate that White Men are making BILLIONS off of marijuana and we have MILLIONS of Black Men in jail for the same stupid ass plant.

16. It pisses me off that Black Men REFUSE to wear a mask,   gloves–either or both– so people around them don’t have to worry about them. It’s fuckin’ selfish, childish, and pure defiance.

15. I HATE that our government cares more about money than lives.

14. It annoys me to high heaven that people don’t understand what 6ft apart feels like. #backupoffme

13. It pisses me off that I had to reorder a smoothy because the person preparing it didn’t put on his gloves–AND THERE WAS A BOX RIGHT IN PLAIN SIGHT!!!

12. If I see one more “Don’t Touch Challenge” I’m going postal.

11. I hate that our current president trifles with our sanity and anxiety with “jokes” like injecting disinfectant to cure COVI-19 as if our lives are punchlines.

10. I hate feeling powerless because it makes me feel hopeless.

9. I hate sitting down so much my joints ache.

8. I miss dancing because it made me feel alive.

7. I miss being touch because it made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world.

6. I wish I had the drive to fight off apathy like I did when I was younger. I don’t. Not now.

5. I hate that The Senate & Congress didn’t listen to President Obama about the infrastructure for the probability of a deadly virus five years ago while contending with Ebola.

4. I love America. I hate our politics.

3. I’m livid that I can’t find jerk chicken in downtown LA.

2. It hurts me that more Black people than any other group have died from the coronavirus and very little is said about it.

1. I am pissed with us Democrats for NOT voting when we had the chance to take the House and Senate during President Obama’s first term. Our arrogance was our Achilles Heel.  It will take DECADES to set things right again in this country because of it.

#justmad #grumpy #urrrrrrrr

#urrrrrrrr

Due to the quarantine, I feel like I’m getting fat. The gyms are closed, I’m indoors all day, and I’m eating to soothe myself.

So to make me feel better, I decided to take matters into my own hands (bad idea) and exercise.

I over did it…

I got excited.

I bought two pair of orthopedic (don’t judge me) running shoes and lost my damn mind.

I raced Happy up and down the hall.
I ran hills like I was a high school track star.
I even out sprinted parked cars and took home the gold medal.

My body looked at me like I was insane.

My Brain told my knee, “Oh, she forgot she is kicking fifty in the face. Knee, sit her little a$s down before she kills us!”

I’ve been in bed for a week.

Since I went temporarily insane, I’ve been resting, icing, elevating, and now “tiger balming” my left knee, my lower back and my IT band.

I think I’m in denial about getting older.

I remember when I use to be able to run.
I remember when I could stay up past 9pm.
I remember when I basked in the blissful and pain-free ignorance of youth.

When I was younger, I could eat sweets, drink alcohol and gorge myself on carbohydrates just to run it off in a few days.

Now, I can’t even run two steps without injuring myself or signing myself up for geriatrics. I feel like my body has turned against me but my will power is too proud to face reality. So now me and my body are in a street fight.

My body is kicking my A$S.

How the hell do I go to sleep well and wake up crippled? How?

My body has turned into a prude. She rejects EVERYTHING that’s supposed to bring me pleasure.

Running.
Dairy.
Sex.

By the time the quarantine is over my muscles will have atrophied.
A snail will out run me.
And I’ll be bedridden for the rest of my natural born life.

AUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

So be it.

I guess I’ll move into my tub and eat Epson salt, slather tiger balm over my aging body and reminiscence about when I was young and pain free. Bitterly.#errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Aging sucks.

Dr. Venus

Happy and I are ready to go outside and stay healthy!
My mask.
His shoes.
We are ready!
Well we are now, but this morning was a whole different story.

I woke up with a dry cough and immediately went into panic mode.

Lord, am I dying?

My imagination ran wild! I called Dr. Andrea Perez to let me know if I should write my will. Or if I need to figure out a way to ship Happy to my sister to kept him in the family after I meet my maker.

Dr. Andrea chuckled at me and told me to breath deep and rest easy. I didn’t have the coronavirus. It’s not as easy to contract as we may think.

Once I exhaled, I realized just how beautiful my life is BECAUSE of this global reboot.

I’m fulfilling a dream I had given up on over two decades ago. I am producing my own Amazon Prime Series because, like Dolomite, I believe in me. My podcast is launched and I FINALLY learned how to use my microphone!!! I received the proofs for the Hot Mess Edition of Black Women Millionaire book! AND my Hot Mess Millionaire Facebook Tribe is growing daily—organically.

I can see that I am transitioning from the internet to entertainment.

It feels divinely ordered. Had it not been for the quarantine, I would not have felt lead to empower my Truth Tellers to focus on the future instead of fear. That’s why I gave the love offering of my most proven self-paced program to the world. That’s why I shifted the focus of my podcast from artistic expression to teaching how to monetize what you know instead of what you do.

It was in this space that I realized my dreams are just as valid as the people I love. I needed to take my own teachings and apply them to my own future; to my own dreams. So I gathered my courage and invested in myself to learn the art form of Standup Comedy. To say I was scared is an understatement.

But I felt like God created this quarantine just for me.

I needed the unaccounted for time to listen to the desires of my heart. To hear the dreams I had given up on as impossible. I NEVER imagined it would be standup. But it was the one thing that made me feel alive. So I’m taking it on.

And I’m am LOVING IT!! I’m learning the structure of a joke as well as different kinds of jokes. It’s fascinating! I’m excited to try writing (EVERYTHING I do comes back to writing!!!!) different types of jokes and really mastering the form. I can see myself filling and selling out stadiums, hosting award shows, having my own specials, television, film—all of it. It feels doable through standup. It feels possible.

So I bless this season in human history.

I will look back on this season of change and transformation and thank God for creating the condition for me to to see a path, that I could win at, to reach the world.

What about you?

How are you living your best (quarantine) life right now. Please post below so we can bear witness. I will respond.

I love you,

Dr. Venus

Ever since we’ve been quarantining I’ve been adamant about having my tribe focus on the future instead of fear. That’s what inspired me to make my love offering available until the 8th of April. I KNOW this season of uncertainty and change has a shelf life and will pass in divine time.

I have been tending to my tribe really inviting them to use this time to focus on their dreams by doing their impossible. The prework to the love offering, Money Mogul Fundamentals Formula, is a worksheet I created five years ago called the 5 Ds To Defy the Impossible. I teach the worksheet in-depth on my Hot Mess Millionaire Podcast and I walk my Truth Tellers through the emotional landmine of telling truth about where they have given up on life on Mondays in my Hot Mess Millionaire Facebook Tribe.

I’ve been doing my work for over thirty years. And it is always a joy to be with someone when they become brave enough, to tell the truth, they have buried or quietly gave up on. I do the work with my tribe. I don’t do it from memory. I do it with what’s going on on in my real life right now. So as I quarantine and teach the 5 Ds of Defying Your Impossible, I realized I have a dream that I had given up on when I was in college.

I want to perform. Even writing it makes me a bit nauseous. 
When I was at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York, Father Joel told me I had what it takes to be successful as a performer in NYC. He told me it would take ten to fifteen years but I could really be a great success. Other teachers said it too. It was at Adelphi where I was encouraged to write my own one-woman show and I did. My English Teacher said I was an excellent writer and should consider a career in writing. I did plays and skits that were funny and well-received. But here’s the truth: I never believed them. 

I was scared of New York City and felt inadequate. I had just gotten off the streets and didn’t trust white people and their motives. But most importantly I saw myself as a worthless piece of shit that no one would want. And while my teachers saw me as capable I saw me as inferior. I never saw myself the way they did and didn’t have the courage or the confidence to try. I feel like God has given me SO many chances to be a successful performer but I coward away. It hurts me to say it now. 

I have lived a very successful life. But success doesn’t equal fulfillment. So when I prayed the prayer that exploded my life in December 2017, I see that I wanted out. So I let it all go: the mansion, cars, money, marriage, teams—all of it. I’ve released every distraction from my life so I could get to this quiet space inside of me to try. 
So today I invested in myself. I’m taking a standup comedy class virtually and am committed to writing the best 5-minute set I can in the next 8 weeks. I know it seems like a little step but it’s life-changing for me. I’m taking on mastering the art form, the genre and will study it and do it with the same ferocious passion I poured into my business. If that means shutting down my business, I will. If it means downsizing, I will.  If it means interning, I will. If it means liquidating all of my assets, so be it. I’ve been poor before. Poor passes. But fulfillment is eternal. 

I’m not saying I have to be down and out to do this. What I’m saying is I’m willing to do what it takes to win at this. AND I’m willing to have it be easy, fulfilling, fun, and opulently lucrative. 

I want to enjoy the rest of my life. I’m sick and tired of hitting all the marks only to continually be disappointed by all the stress, lies, BS and betrayals that come with it. I want to do work that is collaborative with the audience and other creatives. I would love to fill stadiums with tens of thousands of audience members who came to hear my Word. 
And I would love to not have to market or sell my act. There are structures in place for that as a standup. I just want to be an artist and truly focus on what I have to say. Given my temperament, I’ll move right into producing my own work. But this time, I won’t do it alone.

I sometimes feel like God created this season of self-reflection at the level of the world for me/us/we to really go within and align with our hearts’ desire. If I tell the truth, I’m tired of running my business as a business. I can’t even MAKE me do what I know to do as a CEO anymore. I don’t want to fall back into creating a business that turns into prison again.

I’m choosing to be a performer. My art form: Standup. My dreams are just as valid as the people I love.

And they deserve for me to try…

I’m right next to Lizzo and right under Halle Berry!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!  #iamgodsfavorite  Here’s the story!!!>>>>>>https://thegrio.com/2020/03/31/dr-venus-opal-reese-black-women-to-launch-businesses/ I am SO grateful I listen to the whispers from Spirit to tithe/give with no ask. Who would have thought giving would get me on the home page of arguably the largest African American media platform in North America???? AND it’s a good story!!! Well written. Balanced. Accurate! The photos used are dope!!! We are cooking with hot grease now! PLEASE SHARE! WITH THE WORLD !! My love offering is good until 4/8/20!!!  I have to call Nanna!! WOW!! #godissofaithful ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have been sitting with why this feature, on the home page as well as the article, that shifted something in me, which I have been nurturing and waiting on since Dec 2017… I have made my own way all of my teen and adult life. If I tell the truth about it, I have “made it happen.” Sometimes through transactions to raw to share on this platform or sheer force of will. I have even turned manifested and intention into a “doing.” I worked hard at it energetically and never hit the mark I aimed for. I came close but never the picture.  I had to dismantle my life to let go of the pictures.  When I prayed on Dec 7th, 2017, “God please, get whatever’s in the way OUT of the way, so I can fulfill my destiny,” I, in essence, was giving up proving I had a right to be born. I simply stopped doing all the things that kept the identity of having to prove it, make it, overcome it, make it happen, prove them wrong, etc. alive.  The death of that identity was painful.  It took three years, the divorce, dismantling my previous business, moving across the county to stop “getting” and start “letting” God’s will for my life arise. Yes, I needed to take the actions that felt “God guided” but I had to surrender my addiction to “knowing.” To controlling the outcome. To planning. To timelines and projections. I had to wait. Trust. Allow.  Each time I think I have thrown my life away, God sends me something so spectacular, that I could never have imagined, I become more convicted to stay the course and trust God with my life.  This article is a blown kiss from God saying to me, ” I love you, Venus. I got you. Stay with me. Walk with me. Step by step. I will get you exactly where I need you to be to fulfill that which you were born to give the world. You are my Beloved in whom I am well, please. Be at peace and enjoy quarantine. I am setting the stage for you in such a magnificent way, you will MISS this downtime.” I guess the reason I hold this article so precious is for the first time, I can see me on the same level as a Lizzo or a Halle Berry. Here’s the kicker: I didn’t realize I didn’t–UNTIL I saw me on the home page of The Grio.  My point is this: I could NEVER have prayed for this. It’s beyond my imaginings. And now I am seeing all the steps that are leading me on a path, to my destiny, coming into focus. Step by step. Piece by piece. Day by day.  I see you, God. And I am grateful. Sincerely, Your favorite… Me.