(updated 9/25/22 @ 7:01pm PST)
Is it me, or does it feel like September has been about experiencing a sort of “Sister Salve ” on the earth!?!
In today’s post, I share the healing power of women’s leadership and how to engage in your own Selfwork to support your own transformation.
Representation and “The Woman King”
I might be feeling the way I do after watching Black women warriors fight for us both on and off of the screen. Perhaps it was listening to the incomparable Viola Davis revisit the journey of “The Woman King” to the big screen. Maybe it was the thrill of actively ignoring calls to boycott a movie with Black Women leads because…just No.
Sister Wounds and Sister Healing
Similarly, I was blessed to attend the inaugural Black Women Leaders Convening in Oregon with my daughter. We watched one of the elders of the group “Righteous Indignation Dance” all over the fears and barriers that we placed in the middle of our circle. I was also able to heal a 15-year-old Sister Wound, while also demonstrating how to Repair and Recover from emotional wounding (tools learned from my kiddos therapist).
Protest and Progress
Additionally, this feeling connects to the protests by our Iranian Sisters to the recent death of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini. Mahsa Amini’s death is reminiscent of the death of Black women like Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor, at the hands of police. To see footage of women cutting off their hair and standing toe-to-toe with their aggressors, while thinking of the work being done here in the U.S. reminds me of that quote “The Future is Female.”
In accordance with this quote, I was one of a host of witnesses to the transfer of power of the transformational Woman Thou Art Loosed Conference from Bishop T.D. Jakes to his daughter, the Pastor, Sarah Jakes Roberts. Experiencing that moment and hearing a father speak of (and to) his daughter as Bishop did, was a layer of healing that is difficult to put into words. I cannot do that moment justice. UPDATE: The video of the transition was just released on the T.D. Jakes YouTube page! Watch the video in its entirety below:
I am excited for Pastor Sarah! I am also thrilled for her sister, Pastor Cora Jakes Coleman as she re-emerges from her own personal liberation journey.
The Salve of Selfwork
In addition to these experiences, my own Selfwork is allowing me to see and feel the interconnections of these events. As I mentioned in a recent post, the fight for liberation and justice is not merely a tagline. We can actualize this work through releasing our unique gifts and abilities into the world.
This work is necessary in order re-imagine radical love through justice in the earth. And, it is time to be about the work of fully reconstructing them in our internal and external worlds.
With that said, feel free to engage in the 7 activities that are part of my Selfwork regimen. Please add your own activities as you see fit.
7-Selfwork Activities
- Write letters of apology to yourself and others in order to release the trauma you have survived (and write them as many times as you need to do for your breakthrough).
- Change what you feed yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually.
- Tell yourself the inconvenient truths that are difficult yet necessary for your healing.
- Listen to the stories of strangers and be open to the collective fear, loneliness and despair that exists.
- Reconnect to your spiritual core and Divine Essence so that your Divine Assignment becomes abundantly clear.
- Gird yourself with the love of Your Creator.
- Love yourself unapologetically and know that whether you’re 9 or 109, if you woke up this morning, you can make a positive difference in some way (big or small).
Use the radical, unapologetic self-love in #7 in order to reinvigorate your fight and your resolve as you Freedom Dream.
Understand that right now our collective healing is personal. It’s necessary.
It is time.
In Solidarity for Love, Justice and Liberation.
One response to “Healing & Leading the Way”
[…] prayer for us is that we have the courage to tell ourselves what I called in a prior post, the “inconvenient truths” about ourselves and the people around us. Here are 7 questions that may help us as we soften our […]
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