

Something that I'm being very intentional about until my next birthday (June) is healing from my childhood PTSD. Very long story short, I've endured just about any kind of abuse you can imagine growing up. Add to that, parents — and grandparents and some aunts, uncles and cousins too — who were in the spotlight but also used religion as a way to not take full ownership for their actions and/or neglect; meaning, no matter what they did, they wanted me to focus more on forgiving and moving on than their need to take responsibility and make amends. What I realized is the trauma made me pretty codependent. It also caused me to continue to re-victimize myself by choosing friendships/relationships/situationships that reflected my childhood.
See, when you're a child, you love from such a pure and innocent place. You just want others to feel loved, so no matter what they do — good, bad or super ugly — you keep on loving them; even to the point of overcompensating in hopes that it will make them 1) feel loved, 2) love you and/or 3) stop hurting you.
Next, you tend to keep repeating this pattern over and over again until you say to yourself, "OK, something isn't right." Then, rather than choosing more people who will harm you, you slow down, take a deep breath, and focus on healing so that you can learn what love really is and start selecting individuals to be in your life from that head and heart space.
As far as the healing process itself? As much as a lot of us may not want to accept this blaring reality, it does include forgiving those who caused us so much pain. Only, what I'm learning is just like a lot of people presented a jacked-up representation of love, they did the same thing when it comes to forgiveness.
As I've been working on forgiving from a healthier space, this is how I've learned how to forgive others — whether they take ownership for their actions or not:
Remember That We All Need It.
Being a marriage life coach has taught me A LOT about forgiveness. One of the main reasons why is because oftentimes when there are issues in a marriage, BOTH people have to accept some of the responsibility. That means both people have to be willing to humble themselves and forgive each other so that they can move forward.
I've had a lot of crap happen to me and I've done a lot of crap too. I accept that it's definitely arrogant and borderline dangerous to think that I deserve forgiveness while someone else doesn't. Or, someone should forgive me while I shouldn't forgive them.
Knowing that I'm gonna need to ask someone for forgiveness at some point makes it easier to be willing to give it to someone who asks.
After all, forgiving someone is simply not holding what someone did — or didn't do — against them. I certainly don't want a ton of folks holding things against me, so why not put good karma energy into the atmosphere? A bonus is I can put the emotional energy that it takes to stay mad at someone towards something far more beneficial and productive. Plus, it's proven that forgiveness is really good for my physical health and that's always a good thing.
Feel the Pain. Then Choose to Heal from It.
We're not designed to embrace pain. We're designed to embrace love. So when someone hurts us, it can be almost devastating to our being. Not allowing yourself to "feel that out" is not only unrealistic; it's unhealthy too. But again, you are made from love and designed to embrace love. While you didn't choose to have someone hurt you, you do have the power to choose to not let the pain consume you.
How do you get past the pain and on the road to healing? I'll tell you what I do. I spend a season (sometimes it's days, other times it's weeks) saying "I can't believe they did that!". Then I move into the season of "I didn't deserve that because I'm better than that". Then it's "What can I do to prevent that in the future?"
Once I get to that third question, healing starts to happen because no longer is my time, effort, and energy going into what someone else did. It's now focused on the lesson I can learn and how to set better boundaries.
When you stop looking at the wound and start looking for the lesson in the wound, you're well on the road to being able to forgive someone. Whether they are sorry for what they did — or not.
Accept That the Past Can’t Change.
Although I think author Gary Zukav is the originator of the quote, I remember hearing Oprah once define forgiveness as "Accepting that the past cannot change." Listen, if forgiveness has a foundation (other than God himself), this would be it.
No matter what someone did or how much they hurt you, no one can go back in time and change it. Yet, if a lot of us are honest with ourselves, that's what we can't get past — wishing that the "offender" did things differently from the beginning.
Once you get to a place of accepting that only the future has the ability to be different, that opens your heart up a bit more to at least considering giving someone who hurt you another chance — that is if they apologize, put forth concerted effort to right their wrongs, and ask for one.
Value Your Sanity More Than Their Offenses.
There's a conclusion I've come to as it relates to relationships where I'm doing more work than the other person is. If I'm keeping record of who's doing what, something is imbalanced.
What I mean by that is, when you're in a relationship (this includes a friendship) where both people are showing up, being emotionally available and giving, not only do you not need to keep tabs; it's almost impossible to. Oh, but when what they do is so far and few between that you can count 'em on one hand (give or take a few fingers), that's when you know the scales are off.
That said, there's a woman in my life who has been a taker since the beginning. If she needs something, she has no problem asking (and expecting). But if I need something, it's an inconvenience.
It used to piss me off to no end because 1) it's been years of this and 2) she never thinks she does anything wrong, including her feelings of entitlement. But one day, I said to myself, "While she's going on about her day without a care in the world, I'm over here mad as hell." Who do you think was winning?
Just recently, she did something that was SEL-FISH (like the deal-breaking kind). But for the first time since knowing her, I decided that my sanity was worth more than staying frustrated with her.
She's probably not gonna apologize but I forgive her anyway. My sanity needs me to.
Know That Forgiveness Is a Process.

A man by the name of Cedric Dent presented forgiveness in a very wise way. He said that if he tells someone a secret, they tell others but then come and ask him for forgiveness, and while he's going to forgive them, he's also not going to tell them anything (that he doesn't mind getting out) for a while.
His motive isn't spiteful or to "punish" the individual. What he said is, "Obviously confidentiality is a weakness for you, so I'm not gonna tempt you to hurt me and our relationship again by giving you more information." What this taught me is forgiveness is a process. Just because I "pardon an offense", that doesn't mean things are supposed to immediately go back to the way things were.
A wound needs time to heal. A scab is only the beginning. Relationships need time to heal. Forgiveness is only the beginning.
Here's the thing, though. If someone is truly remorseful, they will be patient, loving, and careful to not do the same offense during the healing process. If they're not sorry, then it's easier to see the weakness for what it is. And weak people who are too weak to choose to be humble enough to apologize? They are who we should truly feel sorry for.
I promise you, the stronger you get, the more you'll realize that if anyone needs forgiveness, it's them. I forgive you for being so unhealthy that you can't help but be toxic and do toxic things.
Oh, the irony of what forgiving someone who isn't sorry can do for your heart, your life, and your overall perspective on things. Try it. It's worth it.
Featured image by Shutterstock
Originally published on December 16, 2018
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It's kinda wild that, in 2025, my byline will have appeared on this platform for (what?!) seven years. And yeah, when I'm not waxing poetic on here about sex, relationships and then...more sex and relationships, I am working as a certified marriage life coach, helping to birth babies (as a doula) or penning for other places (oftentimes under pen names).
As some of you know, something that I've been "threatening" to do for a few years now is write another book. Welp, October 2024 was the month that I "gave birth" to my third one: 'Inside of Me 2.0: My Story. With a 20-Year Lens'. It's fitting considering I hit a milestone during the same year.
Beyond that, Pumas and lip gloss are still my faves along with sweatshirts and tees that have a pro-Black message on them. I've also started really getting into big ass unique handbags and I'm always gonna have a signature scent that ain't nobody's business but my own.
As far as where to find me, I continue to be MIA on the social media front and I honestly don't know if that will ever change. Still, if you need to hit me up about something *that has nothing to do with pitching on the site (I'm gonna start ignoring those emails because...boundaries)*, hit me up at missnosipho@gmail.com. I'll do what I can. ;)
Love Is The Muse: How Skylar And Temi Built A Creative Life Together
When Temitope Ibisanmi DM’d the word “muse” to Skylar Marshai, he knew he was shooting his romantic shot. He didn’t realize, however, that he was connecting with his future business and creative partner, too.
“I was the boyfriend,” Temi says. “Everybody out there knows, you’re the cameraman at that point.”
Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Today, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak
The ChatGPT Prompts That Got Me Through A Career & Life Transition
Oftentimes when we hear about ChatGPT prompts, there's always some sort of business pitch, entrepreneurship push, or other shortcut connected to money-making. (Well, at least that's been the annoying case with my Instagram feed.) It's undeniable, though, that ChatGPT prompts can be game-changers, even beyond business plans or revenue schemes.
For me, creating and using my own ChatGPT prompts has been more about self-motivation, self-development and inspiration, especially at a tough time of career transitions and personal shifts. And as cray-cray as things seem in the U.S., especially related to one's livelihood, future financial stability, and overall mental health, I decided to take back a bit of my power using a great AI resource that you'll literally wonder how the hell it knows you so well to even answer your prompts so accurately.
Here are a few ChatGPT prompts that have been super-helpful and empowering related to career and finances. Simply visit OpenAi.com/Index/ChatGPT (or use the app of your choice), copy and paste the prompts, and be sure to fill in the blanks before submitting them:
The "Level Up" Prompt
Write an encouraging letter to a Black [your age]-year-old woman who is a [occupation] and wants to level up in her career. She lives in [city and/or state], earns [your yearly salary], and wants to be able to [career passion 1], [career passion 2], [career passion 3] during her work day. She also wants to earn [your dream salary] and work from [office/home/dream place of business] but feels challenged by [briefly state challenge here in 3-4 words.]
I swear ChatGPT got me all the way together, reminded me of the amazing experienced journalist, editor, and speaker that I am, and gave quick tips on how to take things to the next level that are actually doable.
The "Get My Credit Card Debt In Check" Prompt
Write a detailed plan, with categories, for a woman in her [age group] who is a [occupation] earning [your yearly salary]. She wants to cut at least 50 percent of her current credit card debt of [card balance] with an APR of [percentage]. Her minimum payment is [amount] and she'd like to cut down in [days/months/years]. Her expenses include [list] along with non-negotiable spending on [leisure/travel/fitness/wellness or other activity].
From here, it can also create spreadsheets or you can request that it get more specific with each category. You can also request that the plan be adjusted based on the first response and whether it truly fits something you can realistically do. Add more specific details based on your life, the unique challenges you face, or other options you have in mind knowing what you're capable of or you're realistically interested in doing to pay off a debt.
The "Retire Early" Prompt
Write a step-by-step early retirement plan for a woman age [your age]. She has [time in years] of experience in [industry] and has been working for her current company for [how many years]. She also currently earns [amount] per year. She lives in [city and/or state], [rents/owns], and has [amount] in savings. She also has [amount] in her 401K [or Roth IRA---whichever is relevant to your situation.] She currently has [amount] in her checking account(s). [Add any other details about your earnings including side hustles, businesses, freelance work, settlements, lottery, rental income, or other funds you have access to.] She has [amount] in unpaid debt. She'd like to retire by [age; and be reasonable sis] and live in [city and state/country].
While early retirement might seem like a pipe dream to some of us, a prompt like this lets you know that it's more possible than you think. It's also something great to take to a financial adviser so you can sift through what's actually doable (based on real-life scenarios) and what's not.
The "Career Pivot" Prompt
Write a plan for a woman who works as a [occupation] and wants to pivot into earning money doing [new career or career activity]. She is passionate about [activity or goal] to serve [potential audience/client/customer]. She wants to transition out of [current career] to earn [amount] doing [new career or career activity] by [time/date] and earn [dream income that you'd make doing the new career activity]. Include steps and categories. Include a timeline to achieve this by [date].
This is a helpful prompt when you feel stuck in your current role (or even your career altogether) and simply need inspiration on what could be the perfect pivot. You can update this to include different career activities or scenarios, add company names or brands, and even ask for pitches or ways to brand yourself online to achieve this goal.
The "Faith-Filled Career Confidence Booster" Prompt
Write a letter from God to a woman who is feeling like she is behind in life. She feels lost and scared, especially with everything that is going on in the U.S. right now, politically and economically. She is [age], works as a [occupation], and lives in [city/state]. She has [educational degrees or training], loves [three passions/hobbies/favorite activities], and has [mention family, spouse, children, or other loved one, even if a pet here.] She is [mention three things you like about yourself including one about your appearance]. She wants to achieve [list two small but important goals here that are related to personal and/or professional life]. She has faced [list any major and specific challenges, briefly, here] and does not know how she will handle these challenges. Include [Bible verses] of encouragement to study.
This prompt had me in tears, but it reminded me of my Biblical upbringing and my foundation for success and motivation. It also reminded me to get stronger in my faith, to read my Bible a bit more, and to stop allowing doom and gloom to inform my approach to problem-solving.
The "Talk That Career Ish" Prompt
Write a letter from the perspective of a football [or sport of your choice] coach for a woman aged [age] who works as the best [occupation] in [city, state]. She has accomplished [list 3-5 highlights of your career, whether past or recent] and is a leader in [relevant business or career activities that reflect leadership, whether you've accomplished these things or they're aspirational]. She brings the following skills to the work with her: [list 2-5] and she is proud of [aspirational career goal of you at your highest career self.]
Add in the name of your favorite coach and this gets even better! (I used Deion Sanders, but choose who you want.) You'll not only get hyped up to remember the fabulous bad boss you are, but you'll also get tips on how to be even more successful in the future.
Try any of these prompts and use them as stepping stones to prompt positive thinking, further conversations for financial and career planning, or just a fun and potentially constructive distraction from all the mess that's going on. Dig deeper and request more specific steps, inclusions of actual resources like books, conferences, or course recommendations, or create images, vision boards, or graphs. Add in specifics that will help you remain accountable in planning to meet a specific financial or career goal.
Also, this is a big one: Be sure to remember that ChatGPT is simply a tool. It's neither a genie nor the Almighty. You'll need to fact-check, use common sense, and adjust any sort of plans based on your actual reality. Try out these ChatGPT prompts as springboards for sparking imagination, motivation, and innovation.
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Featured image by Getty Images