Hello beautiful people and welcome to this dose of Celestial Goodness.✨✨✨✨💫
As always, thank you for joining me on this journey, and in this space. It has certainly been a while, and if you are still around, if you are still subscribed to the channel (Celestial Goodness 1111) and to my blog, my deepest appreciation and a very big thank you. See the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/xUVPbGeT-Sc?si=RAQdA_caTrciWF_R
I love when we start by putting a hand over our heart space, and just taking a deep breath.
I am so thankful that you are here—as in you exist. I hope that everything has been going well for you.
I had to check to see when the last time was that I made a post, and it was approximately six months ago. I had no intention of being away that long, I just knew that I was overwhelmed with life and adulting, and so I needed to make some hard decisions about what would get prioritized. My writing and creative endeavors are important to me, but so is my health, family, friends, work obligations, and so forth. There is so much life to squeeze into each day! C.S. Lewis said, “We must stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life. The truth is that interruptions are real life.”
The last six months have been filled to the brim for me with beautiful lessons and blessings. There have been painful lessons, and reminders that even for a Pollyanna, the world is not all sunshine and 🦄 unicorns, and that is ok. Our own shadow side is very informative about where there is some necessary healing that may need to happen in our lives. In the midst of everything though, there has been so much for me to feel gratitude about.
Within the last six months, there were some definitive highlights:
I went to see one of my favorite people (who also happens to be my cousin, haha) on the beautiful island of Bermuda.
I went to California to watch one of my faux kids graduate from medical school. You know there were happy tears because I am a water bucket!
I finally lived out my teen dream of seeing Craig David perform live!
I taught my summer class at the university, and two of my little cousins and my sister got to see me in action.
I went to Mexico for some relaxation with friends, and I got to take mommy to Chichen Itza.
I got a very good health report—something I had been working on for about two years. I ordained a beautiful wedding—that’s right—I can ordain your wedding if it is not in Virginia or Tennessee.
I made Turkish lamps with my friend Steph which was super cool.
I went to London for two weeks to see family and friends, and celebrate my cousin’s amazing nuptials.
I popped over to Ireland for the first time with Charmaine and mommy to harass Derek hahaha.
They teased me endlessly because I had done my ancestry and it looked like the united nations rolled into one person—so cheers to my 5% Irish blood.
I spent some time with lovely friends all throughout. I attended some amazing live concerts. I went back to Mexico for another amazing wedding and mommy and I got to relive our 2022 Puerto Vallarta trip.
I attended theater shows and got lost in the artistry and creativity of the talent. I had very beautiful and intimate conversations with people that I love on every possible topic.
I participated in community activities with various communities that I am a member of and I continued my workouts and Yoruba lessons as a personal gift to myself.
I stressed myself out for not making videos for Celestial Goodness lol, and not working on my creative dreams enough, but they will come! These were all wonderful moments, but life also left me feeling a bit worn out, and close to what I might call burn-out.
Burn-out for a super extroverted, Sagittarius sun, and Leo rising person is probably the equivalent of the death of a supernova.
Fun fact, there are 5 stages in the death of a star—in the first stage, the star does not have enough fuel left to burn and to make it shine—it prepares to collapse under the density of its own weight. In the second stage, the core collapses, and it sends out a shockwave which produces a very bright flash of life from inside the star. In the third stage, the shock blows the star apart, and the core becomes a compact atomic nucleus with the mass the size of the sun. The 4th stage is supernova stage, and this is when everything expands. The fireball is brighter and grows to over 10 times the size of the original star. In the fifth and final stage, all that remains is a beautiful glow, and little star bits spread-out all-over space. Burnout for me feels similar on a much more micro scale. According to the Dictionary of Psychology, burnout is defined as “physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion, accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes towards oneself and others.” Essentially, we have a lot of energy to give until we don’t.
I have also heard this sentiment a lot from friends and family members—“I just feel tired, and I am not entirely sure why.” Fatigue is one symptom of burnout. Most of us are feeling it on a micro level yes but let me not neglect to mention all the things that are happening on a global scale that impact us mentally, emotionally, and even physically. Sometimes we want to just pause everything and get a moment of reprieve from all the things.
The problem is that we can’t escape the world. We are citizens of our respective countries and participants in a very interconnected life on a planet that existed before manmade borders, crisis, and an onslaught of traumatic news. It is too much sometimes, but we can never be fully disengaged from the world. We are all connected, no matter how things look. There is a quote that I love from the Talmud. “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
And yet, neither are we free to abandon ourselves. We should do what we must, to protect our sanity and our mental health as well! When we can be still enough to listen to our internal voice, we can hear clearly what it is that we need in any given time. In stillness I hear my soul. In stillness, I find momentary peace from the troubles of the world, and from my own stuff; all the things that I must deal with daily. It is also in that stillness that I often find very viable solutions to the things that I have to deal with.
We never really know what each day is going to bring, and as much as we plan, sometimes life has other plans. That is one of the things that brought me back to my blog and channel. (Also, massive shoutout to the folks who always ask how Celestial Goodness is doing, and when was I coming back. I appreciate the love and I appreciate you.)
My creative endeavors were never far away from my mind, it is just that I had a lot to do and my own internal compass was saying to slow down. Also, whenever I experienced any sadness, I allow myself to grieve without feeling the need to rush the process. Unfortunately in the past six months, I have also witnessed many people that I love deal with death close to them. Many moons ago, I made a video/blog post about death. In Western society we don’t really talk about it as we probably should, and we don’t allow people sufficient time to grieve.
We rush the process of death instead of slowing down and allowing it to inform us about life. When someone dies, is usually when most of us pause to think about how we are living our own life. And yet, each day we can get up and say, “I am thankful for this life. I don’t know if this will be my last day, and so I will live this day to the fullest. I will be kind; I will find things that bring me joy. I will add some good energy out to the world, and I will treat each moment as though it is a sacred and precious thing.” But we don’t—and the cycle repeats over and over again. Death is a reminder that we are not immortal, and that none of us will make it out of here alive. How are we choosing to live this life?
And that brings me to the topic of choosing stillness, and choosing to slow down especially when everything seems to be speeding up. Slowing down in a world that glorifies the hustle, and “sleeping when we are dead,” feels like walking into a crowd of people going in the direction opposite to you. Some people cannot understand why you are not going in the same direction they are, and in some cases, you bump into people, angry and annoyed that you are choosing a different way. But you must learn to listen to yourself. In my case, I could feel the weight of all my obligations—like Atlas—with the world on his shoulders, and yet, something softly whispered to me—slow down.
Rest when you can, sleep, exercise, and find ways to incorporate more downtime. Does it always work? No, why? Probably because I am an adult with responsibilities, and bills, and an oldest daughter at that, so I am fighting against my inherent nature to be responsible all the time haha. That being said, it definitely made me aware that my pace was not sustainable, and it helped to put some non-negotiable downtime on my calendar.
In Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, Tricia Hersey, says some important things about resting. “We are socialized into systems that cause us to conform and believe our worth is connected to how much we can produce. Our constant labor becomes a prison that allows us to be disembodied. We become easy for the systems to manipulate, disconnected from our power as divine beings and hopeless. We forget how to dream. This is how grind culture continues. We internalize the lies and in turn become agents of an unsustainable way of living.”
She also says, “Treating each other and ourselves with care isn’t a luxury, but an absolute necessity if we’re going to thrive. Resting isn’t an afterthought, but a basic part of being human.” She also said, “You were not just born to center your entire existence on work and labor. You were born to heal, to grow, to be of service to yourself and community, to practice, to experiment, to create, to have space, to dream, and to connect.”
And finally, “You are worthy of rest. We don’t have to earn rest. Rest is not a luxury, a privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out. I hear so many repeat the myth of rest being a privilege and I understand this concept and still deeply disagree with it. Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us.” These are lessons that I am still learning. The rest, the downtime, the stillness, are actual vital to everything else that I hope to do or to be a part of! In fact, the lesson of the tortoise and the hare is that “you can be more successful by doing things slowly and steadily than by acting quickly and carelessly.”
So yes, I have been working, traveling, and hustling and bustling around, but I am also listening to the wisdom of my body and finding time for other things—mindfulness, meditation, tending to my plants (and myself as the ultimate houseplant), doing my exercises, spending time in nature, and carving out moments to just being.
It is hard to unlearn the feeling that if we are not actively doing a task, then we are not being productive, and that if we are not being productive then we are being lazy… but in slowing down, we can speed up when the time is right to do so. Rest, and tending to your body, mind, and spirit gives you the tools to do more later if that is what you want to do. Through it all—don’t lose the joy of living.
So, I hope that you are all doing well. I will be back, much sooner, and I hope the stars shine over you, until we meet again.
Rest, slow down, and be still for a moment. Listen to the wisdom of your heart and allow it to align with the wisdom of your mind. What will you hear?
Celestial Goodness 