Rise and shine, my Loves. I had an amazing #selfcareSunday. Every week, I meet a lot of people IRL and on the socials. I love chatting, planning, analysing, laughing and getting into the #realtalk. So, it’s vital for my mental well-being and vitality that I set aside at least one full day a week where it’s allllll about me and I spring clean my mind and heart. On that day, I rifle through all of the impressions and thoughts that I accumulate over the week. I look everything square in the eye and decide what’s mine, what belongs to someone else, what I have the power to transform and what I just need to accept. Yesterday, I arrived at the conclusion that I need to take full responsibility for a heavier heart than usual. I try my best to avoid cynicism and bitterness. Trust, I have plenty of reason to slip into that vibe. Plenty. But those energies damage me more and cause me to stagnate and rot in a cesspool of victimhood. So, in addition to problem solving and, where there is no solution, daring to #realtalk, I practise #gratitude. I have slipped a bit in my practice of gratitude. It’s easy: the year started with violence, deaths and a week of intense anxiety and sense of powerlessness with the entire #zimbabweshutdown situation. Needless to say, my heart is heavy and I live in a part of the world where privilege means most folks don’t really get what we’re going through. In fact, they care more about a dead Lion named after a coloniser than people dying in the aftermath of continuing colonisation. What do I do with this fact? I have to acknowledge the feelings of sadness, anger, trauma and despair. AND I have to get up and function in a world that operates in blissful ignorance of (and complicity with) the oppressive global economic order. So, in the midst of all of this mind blowing f@&$ery, why am I even talking about gratitude? I refuse to succumb to victimhood. I’m still working that out because I certainly do not intend to promote #spiritualbypassing ... all I know is this: it’s a new day and I need an incredible amount of energy to maintain a vibe that facilitates my capacity to move through this racist society with assuredness, grace and joy. (at Self Love) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtJpxRZlebT/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2rj2637txrul