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Hey tribe!
If you know me in real life or virtually through any of my social media outlets, you know that I spend a lot of my time/energy encouraging my respective tribes to be authentic, to operate with intention & authenticity and to do the difficult work of healing so they can confront and ascend beyond their own Shadows & past experiences.
My encouragement for people to navigate healing in order to transcend beyond the people/experiences that have attempted to stunt their growth is rooted in the fact that I am currently navigating the exact same thing. What I’ve been reflecting on so intensely these past few days, particularly with Mercury stationing direct which has left many of us in this "hectic" post-retrograde energy is that when you choose a path of alignment, when you’re prepared to make the sacrifices and do the work that achieving alignment requires, there is often an onslaught of challenges that must be faced once and for all in order to truly arrive in full bloom.
In the spirit of transparency, I want to walk you through what I'm currently navigating in pursuit of true & total alignment.
Ready? Here we go...
Last March, after 2 years of trying but failing to get back to our favorite little island, we finally went back to Caye Caulker, Belize to celebrate our 2-year wedding anniversary (yay)!
It was one of the most incredible experiences because despite it having been two years since the last time we’d been to Belize and all of the changes the entire world was experiencing due to COVID-19, once we got back there, it seemed like nothing had changed. The people were the exact same; vibrant, warm and extremely welcoming, the climate was the same; densely energetic with high vibrations and the entire vibe of the island that made us first fall in love with it in 2019 was also the exact same. We enjoyed our few days on the island, sleeping (among other things...wink) more in those 4 days than we had the 2 years prior (thanks Josiah lol), indulging in the beauty and majesty of this island and reconnecting to ourselves individually and each other as a couple.
In tears, we left Caye Caulker returning to the chaos that is American life and I sat for days...honestly…maybe even weeks thinking about how depressing it was to be back "home". I began to even question what it meant to be "home" if that word is associated with chaos, stress and anxiety. We’d just bought this incredible house, our beautiful son had just turned 1, I was pregnant with another baby, our jobs and businesses were both flourishing, so we should have been happy, right? To the outside world, our life was ideal, we were "doing everything right" as young, married parents but to us, especially once we removed ourselves from the routine we’d become so accustomed to, we were beginning to realize that our life was feeling more and more inauthentic and misaligned.
Ultimately we realized that we never wanted to live a life from which we so desperately needed a vacation.
So I sat CB down and threw out the idea that since we were both working remotely, we could go back to Belize for a month…this time with Josiah to see if perhaps island life was one we could actually pursue and CB said, as per usual, that he needed some time to think it over (ugh). Staying there for a month meant ensuring that all of our major expenses (including our mortgages & heavy ass car notes) were still taken care of on top of the travel expenses of getting to and living on an island. Fast forward a few days and CB decided he was on board…BET!
So off we went!
We were stunned to learn while we were there that at least half of the population on the island not only lived there permanently but were born, raised and educated on the very island that we’d only ever experienced through the lens of a “mini-moon” or “vacation”.
I’ve talked so much about how profound that experience was but in a nutshell, one of the biggest takeaways from our month-long stay in Belize was the fact that island life is not necessarily reserved exclusively for vacations.
Seeing Josiah make friends with so many natives on the island only reinforced the budding idea that we could actually make a life for ourselves & our children on this land. What really did it for us was the fact that the entire island, and Belize generally-speaking, is composed predominately of Black and Brown people. This meant that the shops, restaurants, tourist attractions, etc. were all owned and operated by people of color and endorsed and patronized by the European or North-American tourists. What a concept!
It was also empowering to see a place where Black people, Black skin, Black culture and Black community thrived without being at risk of attack or potential extinction like so many communities of African-Americans have historically been in the US and elsewhere. We were no longer the "minority" but the "majority" and in Caye Caulker, Blackness is not just tolerated; it's celebrated.
It wasn’t long into our month-long stay that we realized that this was the exact life we had always wanted. From the abundance of fresh fruits, the delicious wild-caught seafood, the slow-paced lifestyle, the Black joy, abundance and affluence and the ability, despite being parents, spouses and entrepreneurs to completely & entirely RELAX and be at total peace. So we made the decision and began planning, visualizing & strategizing. We wrote down a list of all the things we would need to take care of in order for this most magnificent intention to manifest (i.e. selling the house, having the baby, selling the furniture, cars, etc.) and we agreed that when we got back to the US, we would hit the ground running, never falling off course & never getting distracted or succumbing to the energies of other people/entities who may not agree with our decision to uproot our growing family. As we were setting intentions that evening, I'll never forget CB saying “we will always be intentional despite the different energies we face when we get back” and whew chile…was he right!! We were not expecting what we encountered when we got home but we were prepared for it.
It was upon our arrival, however, that we realized just how much we would be tested if we were going to fulfill out intention of pursuing a life of true peace, joyful abundance and total & complete alignment...