Get ready friends! This post isn't about fashion...its about life. Its something I have been ruminating on lately, and felt compelled to share with you today. Thank you for reading and joining me on this journey.

Friends, I have been leaning into my personal journey lately. It's not something I share about often because, let's be real, vulnerability is not one of my strong suits. I'm used to being perceived as successful, strong, "balancing it all".

But here's the really real: these past several months have been an awakening for me. I tend to burn the candle at both ends, and be highly influenced by "hustle culture", but it has been killing me. I felt perpetually tired trying to manage my family, my business, my own self. It wasn't working for me.

In January I attended a yoga retreat specifically for Women of Color and it was truly transformative. All these snippets I'd been hearing from people and seeing on social media (the power of rest, connecting with the ancestors wisdom and strength, healing from ancestral trauma, letting go of expectations/attachments) came into sharp focus as I learned to release what wasn't serving me and embrace my inner light. It may sound hokey (it still feels unnatural for me to express in those words because I have been conditioned to think of these soft words as weak, silly or innane), but I feel it in my bones.

Every day since that retreat has been a day of me chasing after the light I felt shining so brightly in those 2.5 days of complete rest and restoration, but tested at every single turn of my real life back home. Releasing what doesn't serve me is so much easier in the safety and sanctuary of a mountain top retreat. It's soo much harder when it means changing behaviors that are so ingrained in me they are like a reflex.

Its also so hard for me to rest...and I don't mean sleep, I mean sit still and just be. I have been conditioned by both society and the remnants of colonialism still present in my blood that rest is lazy and weak. That I must be busy all the time to prove that I am worthy, that I'm achieving, that I am successful. It's a hard mentality to break and requires daily affirmations and self talk when I start to feel guilty about sitting in my cozy chair with my cup of tea.

But you know what? I am worthy regardless of how much I achieve. I am worthy whether I'm resting or busy. I am worthy just because I am. I don't have to DO anything to prove it to myself or others. I am deserving of the kind of restorative rest that helps me come back to myself, that creates space for that creative spark to burn so I can realize new ideas.

Rest is powerful, friends. Let's release the idea that we have to be doing all the time, that we have to lean in or grind or hustle. Let's live this life with rest, passion, creativity and grace for ourselves and others. We deserve that, just because we are us.