
I Took A Happiness Workshop In Curaçao & It Gave Me Healing Through Community

The first thing I felt after a long day of traveling was ease. It would become the common thread experienced throughout my 5-day stay on the breathtakingly beautiful Dutch island of Curaçao. There’s something innate about the energy of healing on an island. Life feels slower. Nature surrounds you and grounds you. And you are called to mirror your surroundings in a way that ushers in ease and flow. The environment itself is healing and if you let it, you can be blessed by those effects.
Aside from the shining faces of strangers, the warm hot heat of the island’s climate and the gradient of navy and turquoise blue of the expansive Southern Caribbean Sea was the undeniable throughline of self-care. Deeper than that, self-care is community care, something I’ve never felt as pronounced as I did during my time in Curaçao. The healing power of the island is complemented by an element of neighborliness from locals that nurtures you and nourishes you in tandem with the island’s offerings.
Upon arriving at the Universal Alchemist, a restorative space offering high vibrational wellness and lifestyle products, my travel group and I were greeted with a hug from Elly. Little did we know, its warmth would pale in comparison to the workshop she hosted for us and how alive, seen, felt, and embraced each of us would end up feeling by the end.
Marerly “Elly” Sambo pictured at The Bar at Universal Alchemist.
Sheriden Chanel/xoNecole
Marerly “Elly” Sambo, the owner of Universal Alchemist, is a woman who wears many hats, including one of a microbiologist, alchemist, clinical and community herbalist, and yoni steaming specialist, just to name a few. As she led us through her farm to sit in a circle underneath a large mango tree on the property, we were able to see the many plants she grew there and the intentionality she put into cultivating healing and products from the earth.
To Elly, the earth not only grounds us, but it births us too.
At 150 years old, even the mango tree we gathered underneath was an ancestor. She encouraged us to see all plants as that. The warmth we felt in our initial greeting of Elly continued as we shared our stories as a group and encountered a similar embrace with each other. Elly revealed to the group the life-changing journey that brought her back to her home in Curaçao o after years of being away.
The circumstances involved a health scare where she was diagnosed with two benign tumors in her breasts. She declined to have a procedure to get them removed and decided to instead make a "potion" with fruits and ginger to make them shrink. However, within three months of relying on a holistic approach to healing, she learned that the tumors were completely gone.
She found that the more she focused on healing the physical symptoms, the more she healed her emotional and mental ones too. “I went very, very deep in my core, and I think that’s why the tumors are gone,” Elly explained to the group.
She also went on to share the importance of community care and kinship with other souls in healing, saying that the more she connected with herself, the more she connected with other people, and the more she connected with other people, the more she connected with herself. It was the art of well-being. Although she left Curaçao to pursue her career as a microbiologist in Holland, her healing work on the island created a pathway for a business rooted in expansion, self-cultivation, and high vibrational healing. She co-founded Universal Alchemist alongside Femi and has been there for eight years.
In addition to her story, our truths left each of us so easily with such openness and vulnerability, that you would think we’d known each other for years and not just a night. The end result felt like such a release, with the leaves of the trees waving in the wind around us like confirmation. And after each person shared their story, Elly stood up and pulled each of us into a hug, reinforcing release with a tangible action of safety.
Without even realizing it, our workshop with Elly had already begun, and it was the first way to tap into our happiness hormones. Through a hug, we unlocked oxytocin, the love hormone.
Sheriden Chanel/xoNecole
Sheriden Chanel/xoNecole
Sheriden Chanel/xoNecole
Effortlessly, we segued into the happiness hormone serotonin through a guided meditation practice led by Elly. Shortly after, we enjoyed a light snack underneath the mango tree prepared by Femi that was inspired by happiness hormones, healthy, and hearty. It would be the beginning of a few other farm-to-table light bites shared that morning that drew inspiration from each of the hormones our activities were inspired by. Between the food, the activities, and the feeling of kinship, the morning epitomized mindfulness. The balance was divine.
The next part of the workshop was the MOOD Table Elly created with a focus on joy. It was more hands-on and involved crafting a DIY happiness-infused oil incorporating essential oils. Mandarin and lemongrass spoke to me the most, so I used that for my body oil blend. Through essential oils, we were tapping into our endorphins. An important aspect of crafting our “potions” was giving our creations names because of the intention we speak over them and, therefore, over ourselves whenever we use them.
Sheriden Chanel/xoNecole
Sheriden Chanel/xoNecole
Sheriden Chanel/xoNecole
One of my favorite parts was the tea crafting workshop, where we made our own tea blends from seven types of herbs, offering a variety of physical and emotional benefits that she provided for us that could all easily mix and match with each other. The name of the game was cultivating what you feel called to. By completing the task and doing self-care activities, we successfully accessed a feeling of dopamine.
A few of the herbs that stood out to me most were the Melissa plant, also known as lemon balm, known for its ability to restore clarity and reduce stress and anxiety; Moringa, which is a mood booster that facilitates harmony and Elly refers to it as a “master healer”; and Raspberry leaves which is a hormone balancer that can also be used for emotional disturbances. I named my three teas Eternal Sunshine, Heated, and Everything In Its Right Place, respectively.
Courtesy of Universal Alchemist
We ended our MOOD Table session by taking turns expressing gratitude for the transformative time we spent together that day and the healing we cultivated. We each answered for ourselves the question, “Are you happy?” We shared tears and hugs and created a safe space for one another to be and to let go. It further cemented a recurring message of a pivotal aspect of healing being about people outside of you just as much as it is about doing the work inside of you.
By the time we left the MOOD Table organized by Elly and Universal Alchemist, we weren’t strangers, we were sisters. We were renewed. We were healing through each other, and it was glorious.
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Devale Ellis On Being A Provider, Marriage Growth & Redefining Fatherhood
In this candid episode of the xoMAN podcast, host Kiara Walker talked with Devale Ellis, actor, social media personality, and star of Zatima, about modern masculinity, learning to be a better husband, emotional presence in marriage, fatherhood for Black men, and leading by example.
“I Wasn’t Present Emotionally”: Devale Ellis on Marriage Growth
Devale Ellis On Learning He Was a ‘Bad Husband’
Ellis grew up believing that a man should prioritize providing for his family. “I know this may come off as misogynistic, but I feel like it’s my responsibility as a man to pay for everything,” he said, emphasizing the wise guidance passed down by his father. However, five years into his marriage to long-time partner Khadeen Ellis, he realized provision wasn’t just financial.
“I was a bad husband because I wasn’t present emotionally… I wasn’t concerned about what she needed outside of the resources.”
Once he shifted his mindset, his marriage improved. “In me trying to be of service to her, I learned that me being of service created a woman who is now willing to be of service to me.”
On Redefining Masculinity and Fatherhood
For Ellis, “being a man is about being consistent.” As a father of four, he sees parenthood as a chance to reshape the future.
“Children give you another chance at life. I have four different opportunities right now to do my life all over again.”
He also works to uplift young Black men, reinforcing their worth in a world that often undermines them. His values extend to his career—Ellis refuses to play roles that involve domestic violence or sexual assault.
On Marriage, Family Planning, and Writing His Story
After his wife’s postpartum preeclampsia, Ellis chose a vasectomy over her taking hormonal birth control, further proving his commitment to their partnership. He and Khadeen share their journey in We Over Me, and his next book, Raising Kings: How Fatherhood Saved Me From Myself, is on the way.
Through honesty and growth, Devale Ellis challenges traditional ideas of masculinity, making his story one that resonates deeply with millennial women.
For the xoMAN podcast, host Kiara Walker peels back the layers of masculinity with candid conversations that challenge stereotypes and celebrate vulnerability. Real men. Real stories. Real talk.
Want more real talk from xoMAN? Catch the full audio episodes every Tuesday on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and don’t miss the full video drops every Wednesday on YouTube. Hit follow, subscribe, and stay tapped in.
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My personal relationship with birth control pills is a bit of an odd one. Back when I first became sexually active (I started having sex with my first boyfriend a couple of months shy of 19), I took them for a couple of months, didn’t like how they made me feel, and so I quit using them altogether (and got pregnant almost immediately after). The rest of my adult life, I stayed off of the pill and pretty much only used condoms (and even then, not consistently — SMDH).
And yet here I am, now, all these years later, back on them again: surprise, surprise.
These days, it's for a completely different purpose, though. Now that I am in the hopefully latter stages of perimenopause (I’m not sure because my mother had a full hysterectomy at 29, her mother died at 53 and I don’t deal with my paternal grandmother because…chile… ) — although I have always had relatively easy cycles and I could definitely set my watch to them, about two years ago, my periods started to show up whenever they felt like it and it was damn near a crime scene once they did.
It was driving me crazy, and so, my nurse practitioner recommended that I take progestin-only pills to shorten, if not completely stop, my cycle: “After a year or so, we can wean off and see if you are entering into menopause on your own.” (Whew, perimenopause, chile.)
Although the first five months of being on this particular pill made me wonder if it was worth it to take this approach, I actually re-upped for another 12-month cycle because the extra progestin (a synthetic form of progesterone) has benefitted me in other areas as well because I am sleeping more soundly and my weight is more stabilized (by the way, when these things are “off,” they are signs of low progesterone levels). However, I did ask my nurse practitioner if, once I do decide to wean off of the pill, would there be any issues.
Her response is what inspired me to write this article because, until she said “post-birth control syndrome” to me, I had no idea there was such a thing. Anyway, if you give me a sec, I’ll explain to you what it is and why you should care if hormone-related birth control is currently a part of your life.
Yes, Post-Birth Control Syndrome Is a Very Real Thing
Okay, so it’s important to always remember that the way that birth control works is it “manipulates” your hormones so that you can significantly reduce your chances of conceiving. This means that taking them could result in some side effects including nausea; weight gain; headaches; irregular periods and/or spotting; increased stress; depression; blurry vision; breast tenderness, and/or a lowered libido.
That said, even though birth control pills are basically 99 percent effective (when taken correctly and consistently), if the side effects that you are experiencing are making you close to miserable, you should absolutely share that with your healthcare provider because…what’s the sense in preventing pregnancy when you don’t even feel up to having sex because you don’t feel good or your sex drive is shot? More times than not, your provider can find you another pill brand or option that will help you to feel more like yourself.
With that out of the way, think about it — if going on the pill can produce side effects, why would going off of it…not? And this is where post-birth control syndrome comes in.
For the most part, it’s what can happen to your body once you decide to come off of birth control. Typically, the symptoms will last anywhere between 4-6 months and, although the symptoms seem to present themselves most intensely as it relates to going off of the pill, any hormone-related birth control (like IUDs, injections, patches, the ring or implants) could produce similar outcomes.
Outcomes like what?
- Irregular cycles
- Breakouts
- Excessive gas and/or bloating
- Weight gain
- Anxiety and/or depression
- Fertility issues
- Migraines and/or headaches
- Shifts in your libido
- Sleeplessness/restlessness
- Hair loss
Whoa, right? And if a part of you is wondering, “Okay, if this is indeed the case, why have I not heard of this syndrome before?” It’s because it’s not a term that conventional method uses nearly as much as alternative medicine does. Still, it makes all of the sense in the world that if your body has to adjust to an uptick in hormonal intake, it would also need to adjust to removing those extra doses of hormones from your system as well. COMMON. DAMN. SENSE.
Anyway, if you were thinking about taking a break from birth control and taking all of this in has you feeling a bit…let’s go with the word “trepidatious” about doing so, I totally get it. There are some things that you can do to make experiencing post-birth control syndrome either a non-issue or a far more bearable one, though.
7 Home Remedies That Can Make Coping with Post-Birth Control Syndrome Easier
1. Take a multivitamin.Something that’s fascinating about what going off of birth control can do is it sometimes has the ability to lower your nutrition levels as it relates to certain vitamins and minerals; this is especially the case when it comes to vitamins B, C, E and minerals like magnesium, selenium and zinc. So, if you don’t currently take a multivitamin, now would be the time to start (along with consuming foods that are particularly high in those nutrients as well).
2. Up your vitamin D intake. Speaking of nutrient levels, a vitamin level that commonly drops after going off of birth control isvitamin D. This is hella critical to keep in mind as a Black woman since many of us tend to be naturally deficient in the vitamin as-is and vitamin D is important when it comes to fighting off diseases, regulating weight and keeping your moods stabilized (for starters). So, make sure that your multivitamin has vitamin D in it. Also make sure to consume vitamin D-enriched foods like fatty fish, eggs, mushrooms, yogurt and fortified orange juice.
3. Drink herbal teas. Since going off of birth control will cause your hormones to be all over the place for a season, consider drinking some herbal teas that will help to stabilize them. Black cohosh contains phytoestrogen properties, Chasteberry can help to level out your prolactin levels and green tea can help your hormones out by helping to balance out your insulin (which can sometimes directly affect them).
4. Keep some ibuprofen nearby. The headaches and migraines? Until those subside, you and ibuprofen are probably going to become really good friends; although I will add that ginger tea and inhaling essential oils like chamomile and lavender can help to ease migraine-related symptoms too.
5. Do some meditating. Waiting for your hormones to get back on track can be stressful as all get out. That said, something that can get your cortisol (stress hormone) levels to chill out is to meditate. If meditation is new for you, check out “7 Meditation Hacks (For People Who Can't Seem To Do It).”
6. Get massages. As if you needed an excuse to get a massage, right (check out “12 Different Massage Types. How To Know Which Is Right For You.”)? However, there is some evidence to back the fact that regular massages (somewhere around once a month) can help to lower your stress, boost your dopamine, increase blood flow and drain your lymphatic system so that you will have more energy.
7. Sleep/rest more. There is plenty of scientific research out here which says that sleep deprivation can throw your hormones out of whack — and since your hormones are already trying to stabilize themselves, you definitely need to get 6-8 hours of sleep and not feel the least bit guilty about taking naps sometimes too.
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Post-birth control syndrome may not be the most pleasant thing about getting off of birth control yet it is manageable. So, now that you know all about it, you can feel more confident about taking a birth control break (or getting off altogether) — without the surprises that can come with doing it. Give thanks.
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