In Marketing, your brand is what people see you as not what you desire to be. As much I try to flee from it, many of you wear my brand as the intimate relationship guru. Yep, some of you and even strangers come to me for relationship advice.

I give up and give in.

Still it's the oddest thing because my longest intimate relationship to date was 6 years and it ended in divorce. People know this yet they come to me for relationship counsel.   If I look closely, however, I see you all are actually coming to me for courage.  It is as if the women want me to convince them it is ok to be single and the men on the other hand, those who say they will never marry or get married again come to me for the courage to wed.

The odd thing is I am relationship-adverse.  I don't believe in fear-based relationships which most relationships I witness are based on just that - fear; save a few.

Yet, Sunday, I took four "counseling" calls on relationships and the last one made me smile. The caller confessed the caller's last kiss was 8 years ago - and the way the caller remembered was to actually press to think back. Another mentioned a friend’s contentment with life's work. Another just wanted to know they were “the one”… to that caller I just prescribed “Own it"

For me, I've been stuck on this dream I had last week that featured my first and last boyfriend.  Funny thing is they are one foot apart in height (real life) but stood back to back like bookends. That right there showed me there was a clue in there for me. They were bookends wearing brown and the dream featured onions. Onions in a dream means go deeper. If you see Brown in a dream it means back to your roots. The truth of the matter or in this case my roots reveal to me is I enjoy being single. I only want to marry if I FEAR I’m going to lose my friend. Yet Fear-based relationships seem incredibly shallow to me and have no appeal; never have.

In fact, cowards make me cringe – which brings me back to the two bookend boyfriends -both were athletes and warriors in their respective arenas of basketball and track and field. In fact all of my early boyfriends were athletes and I saw my ex-husband as a warrior of sorts. So now I understand why the woman in my dream told me that women need to be focused on loving “The LAWD”. When she said that I went in with both barrels telling chick that is all we women do…but now that I’m awake - I realize that was exactly the advice I gave one of my “clients “yesterday. I said, “You should be focused on THE LOVE…not the fear!!!”

So if you’ve read this far – the picture up there should now make sense.

The key to the “bonding of the banshee” is in the warrior’s courage.  The warrior and the banshee bond for life but first he has catch her. If he can’t he will never become a warrior which is the final rite of passage in his clan.  If he approaches the banshee with fear she will kill him. It could even be a suicide mission because she is ready to kill herself in the process. It will be a fight to the death if fear is present.

Now the warrior man is my kind of man! Thank GOODNESS he showed up in my life recently.  I’m done seeing my cowardliness. Now that I see him; I can see the warrior in me.  And yes I have "slayed" quite a few would-be warriors.   Read: Coward-Slayer... 

Are you a warrior? Can you recognize the warrior in life? Remember the rule of branding it is not what a person says s/he is; it is what you believe s/he is.

In an effort to recognize a warrior here's a start:

You can recognize a warrior by his/her choices and the path s/he walks. The way of the warrior is revealed in his/her steps.   

“Look at every path closely and deliberately then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn’t it is of no use.” ~Carlos Castaneda