19 Jun Women That Inspire: Tracy Wilson Mourning
When we pray to the Lord, we are comforted, knowing that He hears our prayers. But Tracy Wilson Mourning, founder of the Honey Shine Mentoring Program, challenges believers to do more than go to God with our problems, our thoughts, our hopes, and our dreams. She challenges us to listen with our hearts to what the Lord wants us to do.
Listening is what the wife of famed basketball star Alonzo “Zo” Mourning says she was doing when God placed a mandate on her to start a charity that would cater to the needs of young women in a very unique way. After some soul searching and a few brainstorming sessions with her girlfriends, Mourning says she felt as though the Lord whispered in her ear, and she just happened to be listening at the time.
By Monique Farmer on April 30, 2011
HOPE: What led you to start the Honey Shine Mentoring Program?
MOURNING: When I tell you it’s God, that’s all it is. My husband and I moved back [to Florida] when he started to play for Miami. I used to live in Florida when I was a little girl. This amazing woman named Ms. Annie Lou Johnson helped take care of me when my Mom worked. I would go visit her in the same house that we were in growing up. During one of those visits, I saw a group of girls walking around—no direction, no place to go, baby on the hip. It got me thinking about what might have happened to me had I not had my mom or Ms. Annie Lou.
So, it just started with me talking and saying: “I need to do something; I want to do something.” I was writing in my journal about that, and then Honey Shine came to me. I said, I’m supposed to do something with Honey Shine. I didn’t know exactly what but I knew Honey Shine was supposed to happen. I would just talk about it for a long time, and then, one day I just gathered my girlfriends around the table and said, “We’re supposed to do something Honey Shine; let’s do it.”
HOPE: What unique experiences are the girls exposed to?
MOURNING: We do journaling because I feel that’s how I take care of a lot of things that are going on in my life. Journaling is a huge part of our program. We encourage our girls to write all the time. Our workshops consist of Pilates, yoga, nutrition, education, women’s health, girl’s health, tolerance…everything including preparing for schools and jobs.
HOPE: What has been one of your proudest moments since the program launched in 2002?
MOURNING: We have our annual luncheon every year. That’s one of our largest fundraisers for the program. It’s called “The Hats off Luncheon.” When we started, there were maybe 50 to 60 women in the room. Now we have more than 500 women that attend this luncheon. We have our girls model in a fashion show. And just seeing them on stage and knowing some of their personal struggles and their stories, knowing they are there with their hearts open and they have their smiles and their confidence, that is really a wow time for me. That’s really, really special to see the change in them.
HOPE: You’ve talked about your aim to make the program spiritually fulfilling. How does the program work to nurture that piece?
MOURNING: I think a lot of that has come through the sharing of experiences. Whenever I share my experiences or we have women there, the girls see that everyone has something they’re going through. Everyone has a struggle, and it’s only God that gets us through. You have to listen to that inner voice and pay attention—that’s God speaking to you. That’s the best way we have been able to show them that it’s real from everything we do…from the yoga to the Pilates to the music.
They see and hear the stories of women’s perseverance. Deborah Cox, Christina Milian, and Sanaa Lathan have all come by our summer camps, and it really shows the girls, “I’m not alone. God is really real.”
HOPE: You exude a sense of being very comfortable in your own skin. If you could offer one piece of advice to young girls who struggle with trying to live up to unrealistic standards such as magazines and media images, what would you say?
MOURNING: Don’t believe the hype, whatever that hype is. There are more important things out there. It’s about what you do, and what you do for others. When you are comfortable in that, it all works. There are times where I don’t feel my best physically or weight wise—whatever is going on. But, you have to get to a place where you realize life goes on, and we have to keep moving no matter what.
I’d also caution other women about comparing themselves to someone else. Whenever I do that, I feel like I come up short. Compare yourself to yourself—and ask yourself, “Are you being your best self?”