Why I'm Ending The Love Affair With 'Healing' For True Transformation
Are we obsessed with healing? Is the culture curated around healing perpetrating one's need to "fix" themselves?
Is our need to be constantly "working on ourselves" causing us to find new things to be anxious and depressed about?
What started out as individuals seeking to move beyond traumatic experiences, fears, and insecurities has become individuals drowning themselves in healing practices but being stuck in the same cycle.
Once I became aware of my own issues, I couldn't stop finding issues. Every day, a new one would pop up. Initially, I thought this was great. I figured because I was so self-aware, I would be able to fix all of the things I believed I needed to fix about myself. Then, I would finally be happy and free from the chains of past experiences.
I was committed to going through the baggage I had accumulated over the years but it started to take over my life. I am actually in the beginning stages of this realization, meaning I am currently in the process of reshaping my relationship with personal development. So, I am not writing this article as an expert. I am writing this article as someone who is currently moving through the experience.
Learning and adjusting as I go.
A lot of things started to come up for me during my journey; most of these things stemmed from childhood. Actually, all of them stemmed from childhood. Healing requires you to go down memory lane and, depending on your experiences, you may or may not spend a lot of time there. While this can be helpful, venturing down memory lane tends to be in direct conflict with the concept of being and staying present. One can easily get stuck in their own memories which can end up triggering mental loops and cause you to put yourself in a destructive emotional cycle.
During my various healing transitions, I found myself having on-again off-again experiences with anxiety and depression. I was beating myself up mentally and emotionally when it came to the changes I knew I needed to make but was finding myself falling short. This was a symptom of me raising my awareness.
I became aware of everything. Awareness is a very beautiful and necessary thing but I do think it's important to note that it could end up doing more harm than good if it isn't applied in the most nurturing way.
I was constantly at war with myself. I felt split. Like I was two people in one.
One side of me, I will call her the "evolved side," was attuned and aligned, trying to live her best life. While the other side of me, I will call her the "default setting," was clinging to the traumas, fears, insecurities, and false narratives. I would go back and forth between these two states but most times, I just found myself feeling depleted. I call this the healing vortex. I'm not sure if you have ever experienced this whirlwind I am describing but it was trapping me in old storylines and causing major stagnancy when it came to moving forward with the new stories and beliefs I had created.
This healing vortex made me feel like I was always taking two steps forward and three steps back. So my obsession with "healing" or relieving myself of this stagnancy resulted in me diving deeper into my addiction with trying to fix myself.
My obsession with "healing" resulted in me diving deeper into my addiction with trying to fix myself. Milko/Getty Images
Let's examine this frame of thinking for a second: To believe that you need fixing would imply that you think you are broken. This thought automatically starts the healing process off on a negative note.
Dr. Crystal Jones, a friend and spiritual advisor has built her platform around disempowering this broken narrative and leading with the empowered concept of humans being fundamentally perfect, whole, and complete. I encourage you to look her up. I love this ideology because I believe it gives us space to focus on self-allowance, rather than thinking we need to dismantle ourselves.
I now believe healing is a perspective shift. I don't believe healing is this life-long experience, at least I don't believe it has to be. It also doesn't have to involve pain and self-torment. The concept of healing seems to have become something we drag out, just like many of us do with traumas. We trade one addiction for another, which can be a common thing for addicts.
I have decided to break up with healing as I move more into evolving. "Healing" implies you are recovering from something. "Evolving" is more so about growing and moving forward.
One is rooted in attempting to put oneself back together and the other is rooted in embracing the next phase of who you are, regardless of who you have previously been.
This switch in perspective comes with less stress and strain and more ease and flow. Suffering doesn't have to be a prerequisite for personal growth. Your transformation can be adventurous, wonder-filled, and playful. So, I have started to "look at life from a place of play instead of climbing a mountain." (Aijt Nawalkha) Shifting my belief around what it means to change has taken the pressure off of getting that next self-help high.
I'm not focused on beating myself up for not being better because better is a choice. You choose to be better, you choose to be okay, you choose to move forward and then you commit to that choice in every moment.
I no longer believe I have to heal my way through life. I choose to playfully and graciously evolve with lots of self-compassion and my sanity still intact.
xoNecole is always looking for new voices and empowering stories to add to our platform. If you have an interesting story or personal essay that you'd love to share, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us at submissions@xonecole.com.
Featured image by Getty Images
Originally published June 30, 2019
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Chandra Meadows is the author of Revelations from a Black Girl Bloomin' and co-founder of Abstract Genius Creative Agency who is on a dual soul mission to transform work culture so that creative wellness and conscious capitalism is placed at the forefront and to teach young girls and women of color how to find, utilize, and maximize their voice. You can explore more of her magic via Twitter + Instagram.
This Black Woman-Owned Creative Agency Shows Us The Art Of Rebranding
Rebranding is an intricate process and very important to the success of businesses that want to change. However, before a business owner makes this decision, they should determine whether it's a rebrand or an evolution.
That's where people like Lola Adewuya come in. Lola is the founder and CEO of The Brand Doula, a brand development studio with a multidisciplinary approach to branding, social media, marketing, and design.
While an evolution is a natural progression that happens as businesses grow, a rebrand is a total change. Lola tells xoNecole, "A total rebrand is necessary when a business’s current reputation/what it’s known for is at odds with the business’s vision or direction.
"For example, if you’ve fundamentally changed what your product is and does, it’s likely that your brand is out of alignment with the business. Or, if you find your company is developing a reputation that doesn’t serve it, it might be time to pump the brakes and figure out what needs to change.
She continues, "Sometimes you’ll see companies (especially startups) announce a name change that comes with updated messaging, visuals, etc. That usually means their vision has changed or expanded, and their previous branding was too narrow/couldn’t encompass everything they planned to do."
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The Brand Doula was born in 2019, and its focus is on putting "the experiences, goals, and needs of women of color founders first," as well as brands with "culture-shifting missions."
According to Lola, culture-shifting is "the act of influencing dominant behavior, beliefs, or experiences in a community or group (ideally, for the better)."
"At The Brand Doula, we work with companies and leaders that set out to challenge the status quo in their industries and communities. They’re here to make an impact that sends ripples across the market," she says.
"We help the problem solvers of the world — the ones who aren't satisfied with 'this is how it's always been' and instead ask 'how could this be better?' Our clients build for impact, reimagining tools, systems, and ways of living to move cultures forward."
The Brand Doula has worked with many brands, including Too Collective, to assist with their collaboration with Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty and Balanced Black Girl for a "refresh," aka rebrand. For businesses looking to rebrand, Lola shares four essential steps.
1. Do an audit of your current brand experience — what’s still relevant and what needs to change? Reflect on why you’re doing the rebrand in the first place and what success would look like after relaunching.
2. Tackle the overall strategy first — before you start redesigning logos and websites, align on a new vision for your brand. How do you want your company to be positioned moving forward? Has your audience changed at all? Will your company have a fresh personality and voice?
3. Bring your audience along the journey — there’s no need to move in secret. Inviting your current audience into the journey can actually help them feel more connected to and invested in your story, enough to stick around as changes are being made.
4. Keep business moving — one of my biggest pet peeves is when companies take down their websites as soon as they have the idea to rebrand, then have a Coming Soon page up for months! You lose a lot of momentum and interest by doing that. If you’re still in business and generating income, continue to operate while you work on your rebrand behind the scenes. You don’t want to cut existing customers off out of the blue, and you also don’t want so much downtime that folks forget your business exists or start looking for other solutions.
While determining whether the rebrand was successful may take a few months, Lola says a clear sign that it is unsuccessful is negative feedback from your target audience. "Customers are typically more vocal about what they don’t like more than what they do like," she says.
But some good signs to look out for are improvements in engagement with your marketing, positive reviews, press and increase in retention, and overall feeling aligned with the new branding.
For more information about Lola and The Brand Doula, visit her website, thebranddoula.com.
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Kelly Rowland Reveals Her Recipe For A Good Time Through Food, Family, And Giving Back
Kelly Rowland has been a beacon of light for little Black and brown girls since she first arrived on the scene through Destiny’s Child in the 1990s, yet, despite her success and accolades, her road to self-discovery is still underway.
The Fantasy Football actress says this era of her life is rooted in constant discovery and the realization that the possibilities in life are endless.
“I’m in constant discovery and learning about myself, about life, about love, about communicating, and I just say discovery is my current era, and to me, the possibilities are endless of what my capacities are,” the “Motivation” singer told xoNecole during an exclusive interview.
A part of that discovery is acknowledging all of the different looks she’s trademarked over the years, whether it’s her classic short red cut or the blonde she’s been known to lean toward recently. She attests a lot of her iconic looks to her bonus mother, Tina Knowles.
“I’m really grateful to Mama T for that because since she owned and worked in a hair salon, she would say, ‘Well, let’s try this. Let’s cut it off. Let’s grow it back. Oh, it’s just hair,’ you know what I mean?” the 43-year-old recalled.
“I’m definitely in that spirit when it comes to hair and glam and just seeing what pops and what doesn’t. I think that there are no rules.”
“For a long time, brown girls were told you can’t do this, you can’t do this, and you shouldn’t do this. It won’t look good on your complexion. That’s not our story. That does not belong to us at all.
"Our possibilities are endless. If anything, we make the trends and we make it look good. We make gem tones look wonderful because of the brown skin that pops off of the gem tone. We make it look wonderful.”
As the mother of two boys, Noah and Titan, Rowland still aims to create tradition through a good meal. She notes how she manages to balance maintaining quality time with her family as a woman who wears many hats.
“One thing that we’re trying to stay on top of right now is one-on-one quality time,” she shared. “I like to do that with my boys. They both get their own afternoon or day with me, so we have these little dates. Noah and I were sitting at this ice cream spot in LA the last time, and we just sat there and talked. It also made me sad because I was like Oh my God, this three-year-old is growing up so fast. I can’t believe he’s even three, and we’re sitting up here and having this whole conversation.”
“One thing that we’re trying to stay on top of right now is one-on-one quality time. I like to do that with my boys. They both get their own afternoon or day with me, so we have these little dates.”
Rowland added, “Then, with Titan, he likes a sushi spot that we go to for hand rolls, and so, we definitely bond over food and over certain outings that we might have. I just like for them to be one-on-one so that we can create our memories together, and they feel seen by me, their mother, and we just enjoy each other’s time. We laugh, and that means a lot to me.”
She is also very intentional in stressing the importance of giving back, something that was instilled in her at a young age by her mother that Rowland is ensuring her sons get a taste of.
“For Christmas, we like to be home, but we also like to give back,” said Rowland.
“Around Christmastime, I want my kids to understand how important it is to give back. So this year, I think we will pile it on because both of them will understand now even more.
"The three-year-old might miss it, but the nine-year-old is definitely starting to catch on. My mom poured that into me about the spirit of giving, and I want my kids to have that same tradition that my mom gave me.”
Today, she continues to give back by pouring into a locally owned eatery that made her, even having a meal named in her honor in a new partnership centered around spreading the love when it comes to patronizing local restaurants nationwide.
This Is It! is one of her childhood favorite Black-owned restaurants in her home city of Houston. During the earlier DC days, she recalled bonding with her bandmates-turned-family members over a delicious plate of soul food at This Is It!, a fourth-generation, family-owned establishment known for its comfort dishes.
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“I love the idea that a huge corporation like Pepsi wants to make sure that in their budget, they’re giving back to communities that have supported them for many years,” she said.
Rowland added, "This Is It! is a place that grew me up and helped me to keep my feet on the ground. This always brings back such fond memories for me.”
In honor of Rowland’s favorite This Is It! meal being named after her, which includes pepper steak with rice and gravy, green beans, peach cobbler, and an ice-cold Pepsi, the “Like This” crooner discussed her recipe for a good time.
“I would say good food,” she laughed. “Not that I need it, but a good Espresso Martini or a French white wine. Sometimes, I might lack energy, so I need a Pepsi to pick me right back up.”
“What else? Good energy. You need good energy. Like, good people with good energy who know how to have a good time. Who aren’t going to look around and see what the other person is doing," Rowland added.
"Because just when people are so good in their body and self-aware and self-assured, they are the funnest people to hang out with because they don’t give a crap about what’s happening around them. They just want to have a good time. I like those people.”
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