Being Me: Returning to My Roots

For a long time, I didn’t know how to just be.

I knew how to perform and adapt. How to succeed, impress, endure, and push through. How to read a room, and shape myself accordingly... But what I didn’t know - or rather, slowly lost - was how to exist as myself.

This post is about that loss, and my journey coming back to me.

Not reinventing, or becoming someone new. But remembering who I was before the world taught me how to survive it.

Being Before Becoming

Before healing became a practice, it was a necessity.

Before intuition became language, it was instinct.

Before spirituality became visible, it was private and quiet.

“Being” is not passive. It’s presence. Truth. The act of living from the inside out without apology, performance, or constant self-correction.

This blog begins here because everything else I share - intuition, healing, boundaries, spiritual growth, creative expression - is rooted in this return.

The Stories That Shaped Me

I come from people who didn't have the luxury of softness.

On my mother’s side, my grandmother was one of the Norfolk 17, and her parents successful business owners before her - an early reminder that courage and resilience were lived realities in my family, not just abstract values. My mother then carried on that legacy in her own ways. She chased her childhood dream of becoming a doctor - graduating valedictorian, and going on to attend medical school, all while bringing her babies with her to lecture - and still, she finished at the top of her class. She then went on to become one of the only Black, female doctors in private practice in the area -and later became the head of her department at the local hospital.

On my father’s side, survival took a different shape. He grew up in the projects with almost nothing - three pairs of pants, inconsistent meals, and parents living a party centered, hustler lifestyle. Then when he was fifteen, his mother died. And he learned quickly that no one was coming to save him. Then years later when my parents met, and my mom became pregnant with their first child, both of their families kicked them out - so my father did what made the most sense at the time, and dropped out of university to join the military and chase stability while my mother finished school.

⏩ FFWD a few years and they had four daughters, and still no money… until they did.

What followed then was built through unrelenting discipline, sacrifice, and effort.

I grew up hearing stories of struggle often - not as inspiration, but as instruction. I understood early that my life was made possible by everything that had been overcome by those before me - and as the youngest of four Black girls now presented with hard earned privilege, I absorbed a not-so-quiet responsibility:

Don’t waste this. Don’t repeat mistakes. Don’t falter. 

Be at least as accomplished, as exceptional, and as driven as the women who came before you - because it’s your responsibility to make all this sacrifice worth it.

Talk about pressure.

Creativity, Sacrifice, & the Inheritance of Silence

What complicated this legacy even more was that both my parents, and their parents before them, were artists at heart.

Creativity lived in and fueled them, but it was set aside in favor of what was deemed realistic, respectable, and sustainable to the outside world.

I watched them exhaust themselves - and their joy become secondary to responsibility. And I watched resentment grow: toward circumstances, each other, and toward the dreams they believed they had to abandon for survival. They sacrificed deeply. And they paid for it.

Being around them (and many people in general) often felt tense, heavy, and unresolved - as though everyone was carrying grief for the lives they never allowed themselves to live - but afraid to take any accountability for it, even after being given opportunities to change their circumstances for the better.

And all the while I was repeatedly encouraged to become like them, to follow the same path of achievement and self-denial, even if something in me knew I wanted the opposite, because "success requires sacrifice."

I didn’t want to abandon my creativity to be taken seriously, trade my joy for approval, or live a life that looked impressive, but felt empty. But still, I tried for years.

Because when you’re raised inside stories of survival and sacrifice, wanting something different can feel impossible, selfish, and even dangerous.

Code-Switching, Conditioning, and Losing Myself

Like many Black people, I learned early how to code-switch (or if you’re new to that lingo - how to shape myself in certain environments for safety, acceptance, and opportunity). So not only did I have a family image to uphold, but it was also culturally acceptable to not be myself, most of the time. To shrink, to stay agreeable, and to work harder than necessary - just to feel worthy of rest and appreciation.

I learned to silence my intuition, judge myself relentlessly, and measure my value primarily through productivity and performance.

Because of my understanding of disparity and generational trauma from a young age, I became hyper-aware of my senses but not always self-connected, and over time that awareness turned inward, and hardened.

I became a shell of myself and who I thought I was going to be: functional and accomplished in my own right, but disconnected and desperate for clarity.

Until I broke.

And my healing began.

The Breaking Point and the Invitation to Spirit

I can’t pinpoint one dramatic moment, when "it all went to shit" - just a quiet collapse after years of exhaustion and emptiness.

A sense that no matter how much I searched, sacrificed, or achieved, I was still far away from myself or any real semblance of peace.

So out of desperation, I asked for help. Not from the world (I had already done that for years, with little success) but from something deeper. Spirit. Truth. The “divine intelligence” that meets you when you finally stop pretending you’re okay and surrender to “the impossible”.

And just like that, something answered…

In full transparency, it wasn’t instant clarity or bliss. It was years of shedding - layer after layer of conditioning, beliefs, and identities that were assigned. It was Awakening. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Vulnerability. Grief. Unlearning. Healing. Growth. Discovery. Integration. Creation. Then all of it, over and over again in new ways, as I came to remember, Me.

Slowly, I began to understand myself again. To feel deeply again. To trust myself again. To experience flow, joy, and presence without earning them.

Just. By. Being.

Returning to Wholeness

Remember when I said "success requires sacrifice?" Well, as it turns out, that's actually true - just not in the way most people try to frame it when coercing themselves or others out of (or into) something.

But becoming myself did mean letting go of everything I had dedicated my then life to - and been praised for - but never truly was.

It meant choosing:

⋆ Creativity without justification.

⋆ Intuition without permission.

⋆ Patience without certainty.

⋆ Rest without guilt.

⋆ & Boundaries without apology.

And it's proven that grounded, embodied, and honest follow-through leads to truth, clarity, and the empowerment to build a life aligned with who we truly are, not who we were trained to be.

And it’s what my work is rooted in today - what House B exists to hold for others.

Why I’m Sharing This

This blog isn’t about perfection, enlightenment, or having it all figured out. It’s about living the work in real time, and transparency around what unfolds from that space.

I’m writing for people navigating a similar path of healing, growth, boundaries, intuition, and spiritual awakening while still being human; for the sensitive, perceptive, tired of performing, and ready to trust themself again.

I'm writing to let you know that if you’ve ever felt like the odds were against your desired reality, or that you’ve outgrown who you had to be to survive - you’re not alone.

This blog is for actively and intentionally, being.

The rest will come.