#10: This sparks joy 💥💫

you are not a problem to be solved 💫

Hi lovely people,

Happy Sunday! Oh my word, I have so many exciting ideas pulsating through me and I’m impatient to get them to you as soon as I have the time and space to usher them into the world (and your inbox). I will be renaming Reimagining to Paradigm Shifts (thank you for all the suggestions, they warmed my soul!!!!) and I’ll be focusing on giving you a deep dive into some of the ideas that I share on TikTok. Each will be focused on a paradigm shift that has moved me and that I hope will move you, too. These paradigm shifts will be focused on breaking and seeing through (both as in via/through and as in debunking) colonial paradigms like Beauty, the self/individualism, ageism, romantic love, and so on. I both can’t wait and am terrified. I share a podcast episode below that helps me move through creative resistance.

The spring is finally here and with it a reminder that I was born for the sunshine: bright mornings, warm evenings, and the buzzing energy of eternal summer. I was not born to ever be cold, I’m convinced. I love bright energy in people as well — when you leave a human feeling rejuvenated, like the sun on your soul, growing flowers and planting seeds and replenishing your spirit. I also love energies that leave you feeling grounded; that bring a stillness and earthiness to you. They are like a deep breath, a pause in a moment you thought you had to act.

I wanted to leave you with the words: You are not a problem to be solved. Your Being, your personality, your body, your skin, your face. Are not problems to be solved. There are ways we should seek to grow, but they are growing towards each other, not growing towards a more optimized, productive, “Beautiful”, self. I don’t even know that the self exists in the way we’ve been told: if we spend most time thinking about other people — what they think of us, what they’re doing, how they are, how we lost them, how we miss them, how they hurt or betrayed us, how they love us, what they did to us — then are we really a self? Or are we a collective Being that has been severed into isolated pieces? Are we like a tree that thinks it is an individual, when its wellbeing is literally rooted in its interconnectedness with the forrest? We are certainly the both/and, the paradox, and we have been pushed far too far towards a hyper-individualistic sense of self. Anywayssss, here is this week’s list!

1. This art

This week’s feature is South African artist Dada Khanyisa: uMdali Wezinto/ Maker of Things. Follow them on IG here and visit their amazing website here to see more of their work! Isn’t this MAGNIFICENT!!! I love the different textures, the 3dimensionality, the playful colors, the vibessss. This to me is just… chef’s kiss!

the artist, Dada Khanyisa <3

2. This quote

Rather than the common refrain, “Don’t just sit there! Do something!” Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that we can tell ourselves instead: Don’t just do something, sit there. This reminds me of the sacred pause I learned in the book Radical Acceptance:

3. This mix

Please if you do anything just listen to the first 3 minutes of this mix omggggggg

4. This video

If you love my content on individualism vs. collectivism YOU WILL LOVE THIS VIDEO. I literally was in a trance. I love Gabor Mate and I can’t wait to read his book, The Myth of Normal. The video doesn’t exactly spark JOY but I just loved it, it brought me more peace and clarity. I also just love feeling people’s energies through video like this man has such a calming and soothing presence to me.

5. This podcast episdoe

If you struggle with creative fear/anxiety/resistance — babes, I’m right next to you. So many of my ideas terrify me. In response to the fear I either avoid the medium/platform/project altogether out of shame/anxiety, or I trust that it will not kill me even though it’s very uncomfortable and feels like it might. If you struggle with creative resistance I HIGHLY recommend this podcast episode, it was a paradigm shift for me.

Of course, there are deeper structural barriers to our creativity that this podcast ignores. In the absence of community and resources, the question of “how we can be more creative” — when I believe creativity is our inner nature but is drowned out by capitalism and white supremacy’s chokehold on our time, wellbeing, relationships (to everything, including nature, art, each other), and value system — demands a societal answer, not an individual one. And much of the creative resistance we feel is rooted in a culture of shame and disposability, in turn rooted in white supremacy culture (e.g., toxic perfectionism, “you have to be twice as good” for Black people esp) and capitalism (professionalization and monetization of all passions). Anyways, here is an episode to help overcome creative resistance and here is this week’s list!

6. What’s on my mind?

I recently gave two compliments from the deepest part of my belly. They almost brought me to tears, actually. One was to an elder who lost her mom, and shared her experience openly in a way that gave me a window into her experience of grief. I went up to her knowing what I wanted to say. But finding my truest words nearly brought me to tears. I pushed through and let her know that I really admired her openness and how her words were now imprinted in me and my understanding of grief. It got me thinking that we need to be brave with our compliments. Often there are ways that we silently admire people that we keep to ourselves. I think we should generously plant seeds of love, admiration, and affection in people. Let them know that they moved, inspired, uplfited, affected us. We are a great togetherness.

When we highlight the impact people are having on us, we let them experience themselves differently. Since we are each prone to hyper-fixate on what is wrong with us, a collective vision for how we could love ourselves more is to help make it easier for other people to love themselves, by consistently telling them what we love about them. If I tell you what I admire about you, and I tell you often, this lets you experience yourself differently: as someone who is admired and cherished. We are social beings, and therefore if we come to the conclusion that we need to love ourselves, then we need to socially embed that in the way we relate to each other.

Recently one of my best friends sent me a voice note about this newsletter — that he shares parts of it with his community, that he really enjoys it. It allowed me to see it differently (and so do all your comments!) and gave me the energy to write this week’s newsletter and to keep this little offering going. I was able to see that people were using this in ways I couldn’t possibly see or know about, and there was something magical about the faith it instilled in me that this matters in its own way. Self-love as an individual project coheres only to a colonial conception of self: contained, individualistic, something you are responsible for cultivating within yourself. We are collective beings. Our love must therefore be collective. Recently I’ve been basking in the sunshine. It revitalizes and energizes me. I can feel that my body and spirit literally need the sun, that I am more human in it. In truth, the sun ignites aspects of my being that were already there. We can be the sun for each other. I can be a sun shining light on and nurturing the parts of you that to you live in the shadows of your self-undrestanding. That is our collective responsibility to each other, among other things.

You are light. You are here. Thank you!

Who can we make feel loved, appreciated, admired today?

• For me: I owe a few members of my family a phone call, so that’s where I’ll begin!

Thank you for being here!!!!

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