Martti Peoples

24Jun 2018 by Martti Peoples

Inspiring and Aspiring from the Heart

Books, Business, Enterprise, Life & Community

Inspiring & Aspiring from the Heart By Denise Ervin RN, BSN, NC-BC What does it mean to inspire and aspire from the heart? Why is it an important part of our overall health and well-being? I started to incorporate heart-centered work into my nursing practice over 17 years ago, and the results have been life-changing. As a nurse, my first instinct is always to teach, so let’s start with the basics. Our body is made up of two hearts, the physical heart and the spiritual heart. The physical heart is about the size of a fist and has four chambers and four values. Its purpose is to pump blood to our vital organs. As we all know, the physical heart is a major organ and…

24Jun 2018 by Martti Peoples

Antonia Dillon is Building Her Business One Bin at a Time

Business, Enterprise, SLIDES

Antonia Dillion: Building Her Business One Bin at a Time By Martti C. Peeples One will never know how one’s personal life experience can lead to the creation of new ventures. This is exactly what happened to Antonia Dillon. When her 101-year-old grandfather became ill and it was left to Antonia’s mother to pack up his home, Antonia had an idea come to her: start your own business. Take a leap of faith. And why not? This would not be out of character for her. Antonia grew up in Southfield and attended Southfield-Lathrup High School. After graduating, she went on to the University of Michigan, where she received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in African American Studies. She’s the only child from her parents and although they divorced…

09Jun 2016 by Martti Peoples

The Miracle

Health and Wellness

by Martii Peeples Luther Vandross has a song called, Miracles Happen. And when you come to know Maurice Brown, this title perfectly fits his journey. Maurice was born 23 years ago and his mother’s pregnancy was plagued with health issues. After Maurice turned a year old, he started showing signs there may be something wrong, but his father was against going to the hospital. His parents thought it was a minor issue which would correct itself, but Maurice suffered a stroke at a young age. [caption id="attachment_2583" align="aligncenter" width="300"] photo by Martii Peeples/Family[/caption] This stroke left him with severe brain damage. He was on oxygen twenty-four hours a day. The doctors tried to persuade his mother to put Maurice in a home. Katrina, couldn’t do that to her son,…

06Jun 2015 by Martti Peoples

Man on Fire

Life & Community, Stories

By Martti C. Peeples Stanhope Gayles Jr. is a man on fire, on a mission to help stir more young men to choose a better path in life. How capable is this man? Judging from his own personal journey, very capable. Question: What makes your caged bird sing? Answer: "My bird's been caged for so long. In order for it to sing, it had to be released. And just the freedom of being released is why I began to sing. When you don't know you're caged, every day is just a day. But the moment you realize you're free, you sing, and from the day I was free, I've been singing, I've been singing!!!!" Reared by a single mother, Stanhope lost his father by the age of 2. Stanhope would,…

08Mar 2015 by Martti Peoples

Abba Father

Arts & Culture

By Martti C. Peeples I lay still in the silence, allowing my mind to reminisce. My mind wondering back to a time of which I have only read or saw a visual. Yet my heart and soul feel the cries of a people longing to be free, arms outstretched to the Heavens, crying out, “ABBA FATHER.” They toil in the dirt daily, they remain in a vocal silence, but in song or eye contact, they speak amongst themselves, “Freedom be a-coming, freedom be a-coming.” At night they lay beneath the stars caressing one another, capturing a moment, for tomorrow may not be promised; but still they whisper to one another, “Freedom be a-coming, freedom be a-coming.” Morning comes with a sound of a trumpet playing; the sound isn’t music, but…

01Dec 2014 by Martti Peoples

A Son’s Journey to Mental Health (Part 2)

Health and Wellness, Life & Community, Stories

Part 1 of this article was published in the September/October issue and can also be found on our website: Thrivedetroit.org When we made our move to Southfield, it was deemed a great idea. We would be closer to family. William would be closer to cousins his own age and we would be in a predominately African-American community. Again, a situation that I thought would be great, but turned out to be worse than before. When William started high school, he was short and overweight with female breasts. From afar you couldn’t tell, but if you bumped him, his breasts would move. Once this was discovered, the taunting started once again and he would start his spiral into depression. The time he thought he was going to spend with his cousins…