“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Life ebbs and flows, there are ups and downs and cycles and seasons. Recognizing the season you’re in while its occurring and even after it has ended can offer valuable insight. You will avoid the pitfalls of self-pity and bitterness through an understanding of the purpose of a particular season. You can even find the courage to be grateful for the hard times because it revealed the resilience and courage that would have remained dormant. It is through an understanding that life is a series of lessons to be learned and karmas to transcend that we can remove ourselves from the mundane ordinariness of life and experience the depth of all that is waiting for us, both pain and joy.

2018: The Year of Preparation

I have identified the themes of my life for 2018-2020. 2018 was the year of preparation and it was a really good year for me. I completed my first 24 hour fast and started my intermittent fasting journey on July 24, 2018. Intermittent fasting changed my life in so many ways; physically, mentally, and spiritually. I began to reactivate dormant DNA and see life completely different. I also started my Sisterloc journey on June 10, 2018. I will forever say it was the absolute best hair decision I’ve ever made, and I wish I had gotten them sooner. 2018 was also the year I took my first trip to Jamaica. Since having my daughter in 2011, I rarely traveled outside of work which kept me away from my daughter entirely too much. I felt guilty if I did anything for myself, but this trip presented itself and I had THE best time ever. It was just what I needed and because of my intermittent fasting, I was looking like a whole snack in my bikinis! I ended the year feeling good, embraced a new level of health and wellness, and did away with any more worries about what to do with my hair!

2019: The Year of Profound Loss

I am grateful for the preparation I received in 2018 because it carried me through 2019 which was one of the worse years I’ve had in a while. There was just one loss after another. The roof of our church blew off in a windstorm and the sanctuary was ruined. I watched my father, who is the pastor struggle to keep the congregation afloat. I then had a complete fall out with a group of women I had been friends with since high school. One of those women I genuinely loved, and the loss of that friendship was crushing. Then I stood outside while my parent’s next door neighbor Mrs. Parks who I’ve know my entire life perish in a house fire with her family watching completely helpless. Two days later, I received a call that I had been accepted for a Senior Accountant position with another agency. I happily accepted and prepared to leave my very first real job that I had spent 10 years of my life at. Just two days after that, my grandmother, my last living grandparent died. And without me being able to make things right between us. The year ended with me mustering up the courage to leave a long-term relationship with the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with and have the rest of my children with. This was the year of profound loss and I ended the year deeply depressed and questioning what was next. Especially when it came to my failed relationship. I was 35, mother to an 8-year-old and now single once again. I was bent, but I didn’t break and that is because 2018 was the year of preparation. I kept fasting and praying. I started my new job, started a new business, Melanin Rich Wellness and self-published my first book, F**k Boy Free: 10 Ways to Repel F**k Boys and Attract the Man of Your Dreams. All in the midst of a season of profound loss

“Some losses are essential to our growth” J.B

“Nobody will protect you from your suffering, you can’t eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal” Cheryl Strayed

2020: The Year of Recovery

I didn’t know I was depressed. I just kept pushing. It wasn’t until we were ordered to stay home on March 16, 2020, that I realized I was in the throes of a deep depression. The pandemic allowed me to see that I had sustained serious damage during 2019. And I fell off the face of the earth. I went ghost. I didn’t talk much to anyone, I deleted the FB and IG apps and started binge watching Ray Donovan, Insecure, The Ozarks and The Chi (all great shows by the way). I also started baking lots of cookies and muffins. I felt the loss of my grandmother. I missed her. I felt the pangs of regret that I didn’t tell her how much I loved her and appreciated all she had done for me over the years. How she was the one person I could always depend on and was there for me when I literally had no one. And I had turned my back on her. That hurt is indescribable. I wondered if I would ever have more children. Would I find someone to love me or was I destined for a life of single motherhood. I had to face some demons and shadows. I had to come face to face with my greatest fear; that everyone had been right. I wasn’t good enough. Recovery is a mutha! It often hurts more than initial hurt and pain of what one has been through. Anyone can survive. But not everyone recovers. But I wrote my way through recovery (I wrote 3 more books), I fasted my way through recovery, I received energy healings, I cried, I prayed, I talked with my ancestors, I let that man go and I let my heart love another. I was reduced to nothing but ashes. And I built myself up with all the self-love and self-compassion I could muster. My ancestors were right there. I made peace with my grandmother. I made peace with who I am. By the end of 2020, I could breathe. My heart was on the mend and I was more of myself than I had ever been.

2021: The Year of…

48 days into 2021 and I am not quite sure that the theme is. But after preparation, profound loss, and recovery I’d say there’s nothing left but consecutive wins.

“I never met a winner that did not lose” Hadiiya Barbel

“She is the perfect example of grace because she is a butterfly with bullet holes in her wings that never regretted learning to fly” JM Storm

What are the themes of your life? What are some of the seasons and cycles you have experienced? Identify them, learn the lesson, transcend your karma, and recover.

“It’s through personal development that we transcend our karma” Melissa Feick