Cheers to 5 years!

CB and I have had the pleasure of experiencing and co-creating life together for the past 5 years and yesterday, September 8th, marked 5 years to the very day that I got into my his blue Dodge Charger and got the ride of my life, meeting my husband, my soulmate & my twin flame!

As I said in yesterday's IG post, some of you may have heard about our story when it went viral in 2019 and some of you may have seen our crazy love story featured on the Steve Harvey Show last year, but I wanted to take a deep dive into the 5 ways in which we keep our marriage strong, aligned and energetically-balanced.

From the ups and downs over the years, transitioning from DC millennials to fiances, spouses and parents, here are the five ways we've grown as friends, partners & co-creators:

1. We are deeply spiritually in tuned with each other

Although my husband and I were both raised in the church (him a little more than me because of his deeply Southern Baptist upbringing being from Louisiana), somehow we’ve been quite open to the world of spirituality and in our own unique ways, have developed spiritual practices that are both authentic & meaningful to the lives we lead individually.

Together, however, our spiritual practice has grown significantly stronger as we have each learned about the healing power of crystals & dried herbs, the powerful healing & cleansing energy of the Elements (part of the reason why we're moving to an island), setting intentions and energetic cleansing.

We set intentions for ourselves by reflecting, visualizing and documenting them in our own journals, then we often share them with each other so that we can hold each other accountable to ensuring that the intentions manifest. In addition to setting our own intentions, we also set intentions for each other (these are also verbalized and documented) which we’ve found to be extremely powerful and a huge boost to our intimacy. This practice opens space for each other to communicate not only our own visions but our visions for each other as spouses, parents and entrepreneurs. It allows each other to be and feel “seen” by the other person which depends and strengthens our love & friendship.

2. We gently hold each other accountable to (re)discovering our Highest Selves.

When we set intentions together, we genuinely listen to each other, making sure never to interrupt the other person and offering a safe space to allow each other to really express ourselves and to verbalize out loud and in communion with the Divine, what it is specifically that we intend to manifest. When possible and with love, we hold each other accountable to those intentions, reminding each other of what had been documented and ensuring that we are each staying on track with what we’ve visualized for ourselves & each other.

3. Our visions for ourselves may be different but our visions for our family is perfectly aligned.

I’ve mentioned this before, but CB and I couldn’t be from more different places. I grew up in the Nation’s capital (hayyyy friends from DC) whereas he grew up in a small town in Louisiana (s/o to our family in Clinton!!) and despite having grown up vastly differently from one another, the life we want to curate for ourselves and our children is truly in perfect alignment.

Regardless of the way we were raised, the life we want to create for our children is one of abundance, freedom & infinite amounts of joy.

Often people ask “whose idea was it to move to Belize?” usually hinting that it must have been my idea since I’ve lived abroad before. The truth is, however, that after visiting the island twice, we both became enamored with the idea of raising our family on the island, in a place that’s surrounded by the energetic power of the Ocean, a place that has a genuine sense of community and a place where our Black boys can be both safe & completely free. We both agreed that now is the time to take that leap since our children are young and we're both working for ourselves and we also agreed that the best time to do it would be next March (2022), days before the Spring Equinox & our 3rd wedding anniversary and as we enter the season of renewal and powerful transition.

4. Laughter is healthy and we do it often.

One day when we get this YouTube channel off the ground (somebody wanna be our video editor or nah??), y’all will see how much clowning me and CB actually do behind the scenes. It’s insane. I’m talking belly-aching, damn near pee-on-yourself laughter and we do it at least once a day. It’s so healthy, it’s so freeing and these moments remind us never to take ourselves too seriously and that in the presence of each other, no facade is necessary; we're safe to be as vulnerable, goofy and silly as we inherently are…with each other.

5. Sacred space is offered for transparency & vulnerability because at the end of the day, we’re each others’ best friend

I remember awhile ago sending CB a text asking, “you wanna know how I know I love you?” to which he replied, “how, bae?”. I responded, “because when something good happens, you’re the first person I want to tell.” He responded in true CB fashion, “well then, I must love the shit outta you, girl”.

Although being transparent (which requires a certain level of genuine vulnerability) is something that we’re both working on as we navigate healing, pride and past trauma, the progress we’ve made in our ability to communicate with each other non-violently and openly has been powerful and for that, I’m deeply proud of both of us for what we've accomplished thus far.

In my opinion, transparency & vulnerability both come a bit easier to a person who feels safe enough to drop his/her guard and communicate their emotions (yes, even the shadow emotions) and their needs with his/her partner. Having been betrayed countless times in the past by men who I’d loved, this didn’t come naturally nor easily to me and is still something that I am working on as I continue to lower my guard and open my heart further.

The biggest thing ultimately is that we each want to be the absolute best versions of ourselves for both individual & collective reasons so we’re willing to do the hard shadow/work to be more effective communicators as we navigate marriage, entrepreneurship & parenthood.

I'm going to wrap this post up by saying this:

CB and I are a team and although we've faced and survived our low-vibrational moments over the years as we transitioned from our lives as young, single millennials in the DMV to husband & wife, we’re both pulling in the same direction of joy, abundance & longevity. As we embark on our 5th year of partnership & friendship, I have never been more confident that the Universe and all things Divine have our back and brought us together for extremely powerful reasons.

Thanks so so much, family for being with us thus far and I pray you all stick with us as we continue to grow, transform and manifest the life we’ve always dreamed of for ourselves and our two little s(u)ns.