Self Love

Family, Growing Up, Mindfulness, Self Love / 15.03.2018

Stories elicit sentiments from love to hate, joy to sadness, compassion to misery, and every feeling in the human emotional lexicon. The stories we tell ourselves and make up in our minds have the most control over us. It’s no wonder their influence lasts long after the story is finished and held after the heart needs or desires. Some stories no longer serve our higher purpose so they must be burned at the funeral pyre, ashes floating in the sky allowing ourselves to grow, heal, and begin anew. During the mid-80’s, even though Chicago’s suburb of Bellwood had been home for...

Growing Up, Self Love, Women / 01.03.2018

Breasts. The word alone catches your eye (yes, pun intended). The love, hate, resentment, and finally finding peace for my breasts has been a tumultuous relationship. Daadi, Napo, Umme, Chotee, and Bhari huddled around me in the kitchen of our home in Chicago. Straight away, with bowed heads as if in mourning, someone handed me a stark white item, with what looked like straps on a harness. “It’s time…you’re showing yourself…we all wear one…modesty…decency,” all the voices intermixed, none above a whisper, using what my elementary teachers referred to at school as our “library voice”. Before I could ask any questions, I was...