A lot of people in this world have been relying on religious affiliations or self-help gurus and books to navigate life. For them, inner peace or direction is found through going to church, or absorbing materials that are meant to help guide you to happiness and joy.
Still however, many are left with unanswered questions about how to obtain true inner peace, balance, happiness, and purpose.
Despite gravitating towards resources that are believed to grant those things, some people wonder why their life is not where they always dreamt it would be. By embarking on a personal spiritual journey, I believe people could live and lead more fulfilling lives. This piece will help you get started.
Self-Love
First things first, you must learn how to love yourself from the inside out. It's crazy that self-love needs to be learned! It is meant to be instinctual. I'm not talking about vanity or ego, rather genuine love for the essence of what makes you complete, which is all within you.
No additives should ever be necessary.
Do you know how unnatural it is to look in the mirror and hate what you see? The dark things of the world have managed to separate us from the innate love of self by poisoning our minds with the beliefs of seeking validation externally. Dangling false sense of beauty and jaded ideals of what it means to be successful, or worthy; pushing every soul away from their truths.
Related: 5 Truths About The Higher Self That Will Elevate Your Life
Who are you when you take away your money and clothes? When you relinquish your job titles, political and/or religious affiliations, and Instagram pages? Who are you outside of Black, White, Male, Female, Gay, Straight, etc?
Describe your soul. What does your Spirit look like? Love the heck out of whatever that is. Once you do that, love for your physical vessel is a piece of cake!
Introspection
Going inside of yourself and understanding what motivates you is an important step along your own personal spiritual journey. Allowing yourself to be alone, uninfluenced by the world around you is imperative to finding your truth.
Get still and be quiet about what you personally feel about any and everything that bothers you. Whether it's about yourself, about your friends, or family, or the world at large. Figure out who you are without the opinions of anything outside of yourself.
Understand your pet peeves and what irritates you. Figure out what makes you smile, and what makes you sad. Learn to monitor your thoughts as if they are separate from your body.
Introspection of self is the key to finding where it is you need to heal.
Unpacking
Once you get a handle on your mind, you open the door to get a handle on your emotions. Unpacking is the psychological term for realizing wherever you hold emotional baggage. This can stem from your childhood, to experiences with other people in platonic and romantic relationships, to how you have fared so far in your professional life.
Every emotion we feel is connected to another emotion. It's up to you to figure out where the negative ones come from. This is what unpacking means. It is not always going to be fun. Unpacking painful emotions and feelings can feel like picking at scabbed-over wounds.
Related: Every Major Win In My Life Came After A Breakdown
You can't think that you are over something that you have repressed, put a big Band-Aid on it, and call that healed. The truth is, it is not healed until you get to the source or the root of the wound, and remove the origin of said pain. That is why a scab still hurts. It is not fully healed. A scar however, is physical proof of something that has been healed.
This will require you to be humble and dissolve your ego. It is definitely one of the hardest parts of a spiritual journey.
Release, Shedding, And Rebirth
Once you have gotten to the bottom of any pain within your spirit or your soul, it is time to release any hang-ups or resentments about it. This can come in the form of accepting apologies, or giving apologies. This can also represent cutting people off who no longer serve you, and have decided not to continue growing with you. This can also take the form of forgiveness.
Whether you have to forgive yourself for something you have done wrong, or forgive someone who has wronged you. Forgiveness is proof that you have healed what needed to be forgiven. This release, or shedding, can represent an old personality as well. If you have been known to be a hot head in the past, or mean, or envious, these are all low vibrational traits that dissolve with ego. If you have been impatient, you have to reverse that. Where you have been intolerant, or angry, you have to release that energy.
Emotions, characteristics, and toxic people aren't the only things that need to be released. Addictions, bad habits, and materialistic desires need to be balanced in order to remain on a spiritual journey.
You don't have to subscribe to any religious affiliations to be reborn. You need only truth.
Find Purpose
Once you get through these initial steps of healing your soul, you can move on to finding your purpose. The truth is, all of these steps lead to purpose to begin with. This is the point of embarking on a spiritual journey. In actuality, every human being has been on a spiritual journey since they were born.
With this process comes true joy, happiness, inner peace, unconditional love, empathy, compassion, and an understanding of universal oneness.
Meditation, affirmations, self-care, and connecting with like-minded people help to keep you aligned along this journey.
As someone who has navigated the waters of this journey of truth-seeking, I have found that I literally exude a glow. I am not perfect, but I am happy, whole, worthy, and a survivor. I tattooed on my wrist the word, "healer", because my journey has healed me.
I mentioned in the very beginning of this article that you do not have to be affiliated with organized religion to start a spiritual journey. I personally believe that truth shouldn't be organized. As someone who has broken out of a very Christian upbringing, I can honestly say that I have never been more spiritual.
*Featured Image by Giphy
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Anyway, I personally think that the less shallow folks out here may contemplate calling things “quits” or they at least distance themselves a bit from their partner (and what I’m referring to is serious relationships) due to all of the stress and strain that oftentimes comes with the holidays whether it be financial, familial, due to their tight schedules or something else.
Listen, I would hate for you and your man to miss the fun and happiness of experiencing this time of year, all because you are so overwhelmed or irritated that you can’t really enjoy it. That’s why I have a few practical tips for how to avoid allowing the typical holiday season stress from INFECTING your relationship.
Manage Your Expectations
GiphyUnmanaged expectations. If there is a main reason why the holiday season tends to be so stress-filled for so many people, I’d bet good money that this is the cause. And when you’re in a long-term relationship, expectations can manifest themselves in all sorts of cryptic and/or unexpected ways. You might have relatives who assume that you are going to be with them for Thanksgiving or Christmas when you have other plans in mind. You might be thinking that you are going to spend one amount for presents while your man is thinking something totally different. When it comes to scheduling, your signals may be crossed.
And you know what? To all of these scenarios, this is where clear and consistent communication come in. Don’t assume anything. Don’t dictate anything either. From now until New Year’s, mutually decide to check in once a week, just to make sure that you are both on the same page as it relates to the holidays and what you both are thinking will come along with it. The less blindsided you both feel, the less stressed out you will be. Trust me on this.
Set (and Keep) a Budget
GiphyOkay, so I read that last year, 36 percent of Americans incurred some type of holiday-related debt. Hmph. Last year, there was still some sense of normalcy in this country, chile, so I can only imagine what finances are gonna look like over the next several weeks. That said, since I don’t know a lot of people who don’t find being broke stressful, make sure that you and your bae set a budget and then stick to it this year — no ifs, ands or buts.
Because really, y’all — it doesn’t make sense to deplete savings and/or max out credit cards for a few days of giggles only to be damn near losing your mind because you don’t know how to make ends meet come Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
And by the way, this tip doesn’t just speak to things like food and gifts; I also mean travel. If it doesn’t make a ton of sense (or cents) to be all over the place this year — DON’T BE.
Keep Matthew 5:37 at the Forefront
GiphyIf off the top of your head, you don’t know what Matthew 5:37 says, no worries, here ya go: “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” That verse right there? Oh, it’s a boundaries lifesaver! I say that because do you see “maybe” or “I’ll think about it” in there? Nope. LOL. It says that you should tell people “yes” or “no” and leave it at that — and that complements Anne Lamott’s quote, “’No’ is a complete sentence” impeccably well. Yeah, you’ve got to remember that anything beyond a yes or no to a request is privileged information; you don’t owe anyone details or an explanation.
Besides, if you are really honest with yourself, when someone asks you something and you give a “Umm, let me think about it” kind of reply, more times than not, you already know what your answer is going to be — so why not let you both off of the hook? Give your response. Commit to that. And let everyone (including yourself) get on with their lives and schedules.
I promise you that when it comes to those holiday parties, you are pissing more folks off by not RSVP’ing or doing so and not showing up than just saying, “Thank you but not this year” off the rip.
Remember That Your Personal Space Is Privilege Not a Right
GiphyA friend of mine recently bought a new house and invited me over to come see it. He’s a single man with no children, so as I was taking in all of the space that he had, especially as I walked through his finished basement, I joked about relatives coming to live with him. “Hell no” and “absolutely not” were pretty much his immediate responses as he went on to say that some folks even had the nerve to be offended when he told them that he had no intentions on taking DNA in.
Ain’t it wild how people think that your stuff is their right? And yes, that brings me to my next point. Your home is your sanctuary space. If you want to host folks this year — cool. If not, ALSO COOL. Please don’t let folks (family included) guilt you into how they want you to act or even into what they would do if the shoe was on the other foot. You are not them — and as one of my favorite quotes states, “If two people were exactly alike, one of them would be unnecessary.” (A man by the name Larry Dixon said that.)
Hell, my friends? They know that I am good for sending them random things that they need or even want all throughout the year. Coming over to hang out at my pace, though. Uh-uh. Chalk it up to being a card-carrying member of the ambivert club yet I like keeping my living space personal — and I sleep like a baby, each and every night, for feeling that way.
Always remember that your space, your time, your resources, your energy and shoot, yourself period (including your relationship), are all things that are your own. You get to choose how, when and why you want to share them. The holiday season is certainly no exception.
Cultivate Some “You Two Only” Traditions
GiphyIt’s not uncommon for some couples to hit me up after the holiday season to “detox.” Sometimes it’s due to the financial drama (and sometimes trauma) that they experienced. Sometimes it’s because they allowed their relatives (especially in-laws) to get more into their personal business than they should’ve. More than anything, though, it tends to be because they didn’t get enough quality time together and so ended up feeling “disconnected.”
Please don’t let that happen. Listen, I’m not even a holidays kind of woman and yet, I will absolutely sit myself down with some hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies to enjoy a Hallmark holiday film or two. Aside from the fact that most of them are lighthearted and sweet, I also like that they usually focus on couples loving on each other amidst all of the holiday beauty and ambiance — which is something that all couples should set aside some time to do.
Maybe it’s a vacation. Maybe it’s a staycation. Or maybe it’s my personal favorite, A SEXCATION. Whether it’s for a few days, the weekend or even overnight — don’t you let the holidays go by without setting aside time for you and your man to celebrate one another. Don’t you dare (check out “Are You Ready To Have Some Very Merry 'Christmas Sex'?”).
GET. SOME. REST.
GiphyI once read that 8 out of 10 people get stressed out over the holidays and 3 out of 10 lose sleep during to it — and when you’re stress-filled and sleep-deprived, that can absolutely lead to hypersensitivity, making mountains out of molehills and even not being in the mood for sex.
Your relationship can’t afford to go through any of this, so definitely make sure to prioritize rest. I don’t care how unrealistic it might seem during this time, sleep should never be seen as a luxury; it will always and forever be a great necessity.
That said, try to get no less than six hours of shut-eye in (check out “6 Fascinating Ways Sex And Sleep Definitely Go Hand In Hand”) and even ask your bae to take a nap with you sometimes (check out “Wanna Have Some Next-Level Sex? Take A Nap, Sis.”). Not only will sleep help to restore your mind, body and spirit but, when it’s with your partner, it’s an act of intimacy that can make you both feel super connected, even in the midst of what might feel like chaos.
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Holiday season stress is real. Still, never give it the permission or power to throw your relationship off. Put you and your man first and let the holidays be what they are gonna be, chile.
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Using the same material from the interior of the Volvo EX90, Hudson crafted a wool-blend car coat and waistbelt that combine the vehicle’s Scandinavian design with his signature tailoring and intention. The exclusive collection launched on October 20, and each piece is made-to-order by Sergio Hudson Collections.
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In October, I traveled to Charleston with a group of journalists to get a firsthand look at Hudson and Volvo’s location. During a fitting, Hudson said his goal is to make “great work that can stand the test of time.”
“People can look back on and say, ‘I remember when Sergio did that collaboration with Volvo,’” he continued. “Thinking about aligning yourself with classic brands that speak to where you want to go. And I think that's what this collaboration kind of means to me and my business.”
Hudson pinpoints his mom as the biggest influence for his designs. This collaboration was no different.
“This particular coat reminded me of the swing coats that my mom used to wear in the early 90s. You know, diva girls in the early 90s had Sandra suits,” he said, referring to Jackée Harry’s character in 227. “My mom wore those and she would have these matching swing coats to go over them. And that's where the initial idea came. This would be around the same time that we had our Volvo. So she would put on her suit, her swing coat, get in that red Volvo, and go to church.”
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With this capsule and beyond, Hudson wants to see more staples rotating in and out of closets this fall. He advises fashionistas to build her closet out with essentials to mix and match that aren’t just stylish but also sustainable.
“It's just those special pieces,” he said. “You can wear the same shirt and pants every day and nobody will notice. But if you have a special boot, a special coat, a special bill, a special bag, that kind of speaks to everything that your style stands about, that is something you should focus on.”
These are the same kind of staple pieces that return to our Pinterest boards and TikTok feeds season after season. Fast fashion has never been Hudson’s aim. “I'm trying to create a special pieces that can stand the test of time,” he said in his warm, Southern accent. “I'm only creating those kind of pieces from here on out.”
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For Hudson, this collaboration is revolutionary. It’s his first time working with a car company and experimenting outside of his wheelhouse in this way.
“This is a Scandinavian brand, and, you know, it's 70 years old. I'm an African-American boy from South Carolina that has had a brand for 10 years. So I think bridging those two worlds and seeing the similarities was the beauty of this project,” he explained.
Though Hudson and his partner and CEO of Sergio Hudson Collections Inga Beckham have made massive strides in just 10 years, Hudson said the industry is far from where he wants to see it when it comes to Black representation. He pointed to how few Black designers were at this year’s Met Gala despite the theme being Black dandyism.
“The fact that I dressed 18 people speaks to how many of us weren't there,” he said. He implored more of industries, fashion and beyond, to collaborate with Black designers often.
“Allow mentorship. Allow funding. Allow great design to shine through,” he implored. “When it comes to being a designer of African descent, when you can't get the funding that your counterparts have, you can't compete. When you get opportunities like doing a collaboration with Volvo, or you get opportunities to be at the Met Gala, that's putting us on the equal playing field, but really the funding behind it is what we need to take it to that desk level.”
Featured image courtesy