The Trade War Was Never About China: It’s About Us — And What We’re Willing To Pay For

I’ve been watching this unfold for weeks now. Quietly. Observing.

Watching how headlines scream about tariffs and protectionism, while my social media feed quietly tells another story.

A story about what we want. What we crave. What capitalism has trained us to need: cheap, fast, endless choice.

And in this story, China isn’t the villain.

China is just holding a mirror.

And I wonder (as I always do) if we’re ready to look.

We were told it was about protecting jobs. About defending national industries. About teaching China (and the rest of the world) a lesson.

But days and weeks after the U.S. launched its tariff war on Chinese goods, something very different is playing out.

If this was supposed to be a war between capitalism and communism, it turns out China was always playing a different game.

Not only has China mastered the tools of capitalism (scale, pricing, manufacturing efficiency) they’ve mastered something even more powerful: us.

The New Battlefield Is In Our Feeds

Have you noticed? The internet is flooded with information about the true cost of manufacturing almost anything in China.

Phone cases for $2. Sweaters for $5. Gadgets for a fraction of what they cost in local stores.

Is all that information true? It doesn’t even matter.

What matters is that it triggers us: the global consumer trained by decades of capitalism to crave the best deal, to optimize for price, to hunt for abundance.

The tariff war might have slowed trade on paper. But online? China is winning the information war, and winning over the very consumers those tariffs were supposed to protect.

Capitalism’s Mirror Moment

This is what makes the current trade landscape so ironic… and so revealing.

Capitalism promised us choice. But it also trained us to always choose the cheaper, faster, easier option.

China isn’t breaking the rules of capitalism, they’re following them better than anyone else.

And the question we need to ask is not what is China doing?

The real question is: What does our response say about us?

Final Thought

The tariff war may have been fought in political chambers and trade offices.

But the real war, the one that will shape the next decade, is happening in our feeds, in our online carts, and in the way we’ve been conditioned to value price over anything else.

This was never just about China.

It was always about us.

And how far we’re willing to go (or how much we’re willing to pay) before we start questioning the system we were taught to believe in.

I don’t write this to defend China or any country. I’m not romanticizing global trade games or ignoring power plays.

But I believe in calling a thing what it is.

This trade war was never about values. It was never about protecting people. It was never about justice.

It is about desire. About the human triggers capitalism knows how to push. About a system designed to consume… and consume more.

And right now?

China understands that system better than the people who built it.

If that makes us uncomfortable, it should.

It means we still have a choice.

But choice, like truth, always costs more than we think.

The Price of Awakening

Sometimes, I wish I knew less today than I did yesterday.

It’s not a wish I’m proud of. But it visits me often, especially at night, when the news won’t stop, when the data keeps updating, when the ache of this world sinks too deep into my bones. Sometimes, I look at the state of things and wish I could unsee it all.

Spirituality can be a blessing. A guide. A torch. But sometimes, it’s a burden too heavy to carry. There are days when I wish I wasn’t so attuned to the invisible currents. When I wish I couldn’t sense the collective fatigue, or hear the silent scream in the spaces between headlines.

Empathy is sacred, yes. But it stretches you thin. It opens you up, relentlessly. Curiosity, too. It pulls you toward understanding when ignorance would have let you rest.

I wish I didn’t care so much about geopolitics. I wish my mind didn’t map the patterns so easily: the systems, the contradictions, the collapsing structures wrapped in false progress.

And then there’s AI. The tool I use daily. The tool that makes my work easier, my thoughts clearer. But I know the cost. I know what powers these technologies. I know the energy, the servers, the emissions. I know we’re not as green as we like to think.

Sometimes I wish I was less... aware. Less connected. Less here.

They say knowledge is power…and yes, it is. But sometimes, just sometimes, knowledge is a curse.

Because to know is to carry.
To carry is to feel.
To feel is to ache.

And yet, here I am. Awake. Alive. A little too awake, perhaps. But here nonetheless.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll wish for more. More clarity. More vision. But today?
Today I wish for just a little bit of blissful ignorance. Just a little peace in not knowing.

The Age of Digital Shaming: When Parenting Becomes Performance

There is a new pedagogy gaining ground in the digital streets, a pedagogy of public humiliation.

I stumble upon it more and more these days. Parents holding their phones not as a tool to capture memories, but as a weapon of shame. Parents who, in the name of love or discipline, have decided to document their children’s mistakes, tears, and vulnerability: not for family archives, not for private reflection, but for the world to consume, comment on, and share.

A few weeks ago, I fell upon a video that stayed with me longer than I would have liked. A teenage girl, inconsolable after a breakup, was crying her heart out. And her parents, her protectors, were laughing. Filming. Mocking her pain. Uploading it online for us to see. For us to laugh, maybe. For us to judge, certainly. I suppose the lesson they wanted her to learn was to “focus on her studies,” to not “lose herself” for a boy. But I kept wondering: why did the whole world need to be invited into that moment? Why didn’t love look like a warm tea, a silent hug, or a soft reminder that heartbreak is not the end of the world?

Last week, it was a different scene, but the same violence. A video gone viral of an African mother scolding her French-born son. The boy had apologized to a friend after his mother yelled at him, and his explanation cut deep: “Sorry, my mom is African.” A sentence loaded with the confusion of a child caught between two worlds. Instead of sitting with him to unpack the weight of being Black, African, and “other” in a society that demands constant translation, the lesson became another spectacle. Another online theatre of discipline.

And just today, yet another video: a mother reprimanding her six-year-old daughter who had cut up her dress with scissors. And I watched (not shocked, not outraged) just deeply sad. Sad about the banality of the scene. What child hasn’t cut their dress? Colored on walls? Broken something precious? What was the purpose of this digital punishment, except to invite strangers into a moment that should have stayed within the sacred walls of home?

This is not about perfect parenting. Who among us has not raised their voice, lost their patience, or made mistakes? This is about something else entirely.

This is about a world where childhood is no longer protected. Where the internet, with its infinite memory and its ruthless algorithms, has become a courtroom for our children's most intimate moments.

Do we not realize that the internet never forgets?

Do we not understand that the videos we upload today can follow our children for the rest of their lives, becoming memes, mockeries, or digital ghosts that resurface without warning? In a world where Artificial Intelligence is advancing faster than our ethics, where images can be taken, transformed, and re-shared without control, should we not be more cautious?

I am always here for a good laugh. I love humor. I love lightness. But I also believe in boundaries. I believe in protecting the sacred. I believe that not every lesson needs to be public. Not every moment needs to be shared. Not every mistake needs to be turned into content.

The internet we knew 20 years ago, where things would disappear, where digital traces could be erased, no longer exists. The spaces we are inhabiting now are permanent. They are searchable. They are replicable. And they are often violent.

Innovation is beautiful. I believe in it deeply. But innovation should never cost us our empathy. Progress should never erase our humanity.

So I wonder: how do we want to inhabit these new digital spaces we are creating? What kind of ancestors do we want to be for the children we are raising? What digital legacy are we leaving behind?

Because I know one thing for sure:
Love does not need an audience.
Respect does not require spectators.
And the most powerful lessons we teach our children are often the ones the world will never see.

Raising Clear-Eyed Children: Political and Cultural Transmission

Last night, my children and I had a vivid conversation over dinner about recent global political events. The tone was passionate. And something in me stirred, a memory of similar conversations at my childhood table. Adults would speak, and we, the children, would listen quietly. And though we didn’t always understand, those words planted seeds of awareness, of questioning, of resistance.

In my home, we spoke early about the role of women in society. Early on, I grasped (sometimes vaguely) that injustice existed, that power was unevenly distributed, that some fights were necessary. I was twelve when my parents gave me So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ. I may not have fully grasped its depth at the time, but I was marked by it, by a woman’s voice, African and clear, naming both the personal and the political in the same breath.

I knew what racism was long before I experienced it directly. I was awakened early. And today, I try to offer that same awakening to my children.

Because when you are African, when you are young, you cannot afford to grow up without political consciousness or cultural grounding. The stakes are too high, too many. The world doesn’t wait for us. And often, those who govern us speak the language of power but not of people, their only compass being colonially inherited values and capitalism’s logic.

So, around the table, we dissect. We name things. We read (we try). We argue too. But above all, we learn to think. To connect the dots. To feel the ties between what’s happening here and there, between what seems distant and what hits home.

This isn’t about being militant, it’s a way of life. A deep understanding of systems, of oppression, of power and history, is not just a reading lens, it’s a key to liberation. And it must be given, shared, passed on from a young age.

I’m not trying to turn my children into walking encyclopedias of injustice. I want them to be clear-eyed, rooted, alive. I want them to see beneath the surface, recognize structures, choose their battles. And do it all while holding tight to a strong sense of who they are and where they come from.

It often begins at the table. And maybe one day, they’ll remember these nights too. With tenderness. And with a spark of fire in their eyes.

Hot Dogs Over Healing: Why We’d Rather Fund a Party Than a Purpose

I remember the day like a bruise. I was organizing TEDxCadjehounWomen, building a platform to amplify African women’s voices, visions, and victories. I spent weeks knocking on doors, sending decks, pitching meaning to people who couldn’t seem to hear it. Some smiled politely. Others ghosted. Most asked for “visibility” they already had and “ROI” that could not be measured in applause or quiet transformation.

The day before our event, a concert went live in the same city. The organizer sold tickets like hot dogs. No PowerPoint decks I guessed. No justifications. Just vibes and volume. And the sponsors? The same ones who hadn’t gotten back to me had suddenly found cash, banners, and branded cups.

And I’ve seen it happen again.
With Afrolivresque, our online media amplifying African literature, I’ve been in the trenches, trying to convince companies that books by Africans for Africans matter. That culture isn’t a charity case, but a force. This week, I saw one of those same companies fund a massive party in Washington, DC.

Let me be clear: I am not against music, celebration, or joy.
But we need to talk about what we’re funding, and what we are not.

We live in a world where entertainment is easy to sell, and education is an uphill climb. It’s not just about “preferences.” It’s about priorities.

Entertainment promises a break. A breather. A beat drop.
Education asks questions. Sometimes hard ones. It invites us to think, to remember, to reckon.

So we choose the quick dopamine hit. We say yes to the concert and no to the collective consciousness. Because it’s easier to dance than to dig. Easier to forget than to face. Easier to fund fun than to fuel freedom.

It’s escapism, yes.
But it’s also something deeper: a global culture that rewards distraction over depth. That treats literature, healing, and truth-telling as optional. That sees African knowledge as adjacent rather than central. That forgets that every revolution started with a story — not a selfie.

There is a violence in what we ignore.
Every time a funder skips the grassroots mental health initiative to sponsor yet another gala, they are choosing silence over soul. Every time African creators are asked to shrink their vision for “alignment,” while champagne flows somewhere else, we are being told what this world values. And what it doesn’t.

Maybe ignorance is bliss.
But whose ignorance? And at whose cost?

We can’t afford to keep throwing parties at the edge of the cliff. We can’t keep choosing spectacle over substance, and calling it strategy.

We need funders with courage. We need institutions with memory. We need partners who see that rest is not only on a dance floor, and that liberation requires more than a playlist.

So yes, keep dancing.
But also, fund the people building meaning, not just moments.
Because the world doesn’t need more noise. It needs more knowing.

And some of us didn’t come to entertain.
We came to awaken.

Manifesto of Abundance By an African Woman Who Knows Her Worth

I was not born to beg for scraps from a table I helped build.
I was born to sit at that table—or flip it entirely.
I claim my right to abundance—not as a luxury, but as a necessity,
not for excess, but for balance, justice, and the dignity of my lineage.

I believe wealth is a tool.
A sharp one. A sacred one.
It can build hospitals or prisons, educate or erase,
uplift communities or bury them beneath concrete and debt.
I choose to wield it with intention,
guided not by greed, but by vision.

I reject the gospel of guilt.
I reject the voices that tell me wanting more is sinful,
that struggle is holy,
that poverty is proof of piety.
I am done romanticizing survival.
I choose ease—not because I am lazy, but because I am done with systems
that glorify burnout while hoarding power.

I do not serve money. It serves me.
It carries my dreams across borders, funds my resistance,
feeds my children and my people.
It amplifies my voice in rooms built to silence me.

I do not pursue wealth to dominate. I pursue it to disrupt.
To counterbalance the influence of those
who’ve used riches to poison the earth and police our bodies.
I build so I can give. I rise so I can reach back.
My prosperity is not an end. It is a beginning.

I choose ancestral alignment.
My wealth will not be built on the broken backs of others.
It will be rooted in reciprocity, repair, and remembering.
I carry the prayers of women who had nothing but gave everything.
I honor them by refusing to stay small.

This is not capitalism.
This is not charity.
This is reclamation.

My abundance is a quiet revolution.
And it begins with the radical belief
that I am worthy of more.

When the Body Votes Before the Brain

There’s something about dancing that makes people lose their minds.
Literally.

Reason steps aside.
Coherence kicks off its shoes.
And suddenly, we’re clapping along like toddlers at a birthday party, mesmerized by hips and half-smiles.

I had just watched a video of Brice Oligui Nguema, transitional president of Gabon, dancing in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Not a polished two-step. Just that loose, spontaneous, unbothered sway men do when they know the power is theirs, for now. People went wild.
Phones up.
Chants loud.
The body had spoken.

And like any proper millennial on the edge of burnout, I thought: what does this even mean?

And then came Tidjane Thiam, in Côte d’Ivoire, gently tugged into the rhythm of the campaign trail. The smile was tight. The movement careful, as if his Harvard degree might come undone if he bounced too hard. But the message was the same: See? I can loosen up too. The crowd responded. As they always do.

Because we don’t vote with our minds.
We vote with our guts.
And guts love a good beat.

The Dance Joins the Debate

We’re here now.
The age where campaign messaging includes economic plans, foreign policy… and a carefully timed shoulder shimmy.

Obama knew. A little Al Green here, a basketball game there…suddenly he was the most relatable president in history.
Macron dropped a DJ set from the Élysée basement. Cringe or cool? Doesn’t matter. It went viral.
Zelensky danced before he ruled, and now he dances around global diplomacy with a wartime swagger.
Even Trump, whose dance resembles a malfunctioning karaoke machine, found that movement, no matter how strange, sticks.

And Kamala?
Well. Kamala stayed poised.
Tight. Controlled.
Always ready. Never too much.
Which, in a world that confuses stiffness with seriousness and joy with incompetence, may have been the safe bet.
But maybe not the winning one.

Dancing While Black Is a Different Game

Here’s the thing: dancing is a currency — but only for those allowed to spend it freely.

Let’s not pretend Kamala’s hips would’ve been met with the same applause.
Because racism is still alive, well-fed, and in the front row.

When white men dance, they’re charming.
When Black women move, they’re “extra.” “Unprofessional.” “Too much.”
She dances? She’s unserious.
She doesn’t? She’s cold.
Pick your stereotype, it’s coming either way.

As an African woman, I’ve lived in the stereotype stew.
We’re always the ones with rhythm, with soul, with “energy.”
Always expressive. Always moving.
Never thinking, apparently.

We dance, yes, but not to perform for anyone.
And not all of us. And not always.

The truth? Dancing has always been political for us.
It was banned during slavery.
Surveilled during colonialism.
And now, it’s either sanitized for Instagram or turned into meme-worthy marketing.
Our joy is real. And it’s resilient.
But it’s also a weapon.
Used against us.
And used by us.

The Hypothesis (Half-Serious, Fully True)

So, if Kamala had danced more, would she have won more votes?

Probably not.

But maybe she would’ve been felt more.
And in today’s politics, “feeling” matters more than facts.

And the irony? After voting en masse for Kamala in 2024, many African Americans, tired of being loyal, blamed, and ignored, have now decided to rest, stay home, and learn line dancing. At least the rhythm doesn’t lie.

The body speaks louder than the brain.
Always has.

And in a world full of slogans and soundbites, a well-timed sway might just say: I’m still alive. I’m still here. And yes, I feel joy too.

Final Step: Don’t Be Fooled

Let me be clear: dancing is not going to dismantle white supremacy.
It won’t save democracy.
It won’t put food on the table or keep the lights on.

But sometimes, it reminds people that they’re human.
That joy is not a luxury.
That movement can still mean something in a system designed to keep us static.

So no, dancing won’t win the revolution.
But it might get us through another day.
And maybe (just maybe) make us believe again.
If only for a beat.

I don’t whisper power anymore

I used to think power was loud.
All teeth and noise and sharp elbows.
I stayed away.
It didn’t smell like me.
Didn’t speak like me.
Didn’t hold space for softness.

But maybe…
Maybe power is quiet sometimes.
Maybe it walks barefoot.
Maybe it sits with the baby on its lap
while rewriting the damn future.

I’ve seen what it does…
when a woman like me
decides she’s no longer a guest in her own life.
When she names what she wants
without folding herself in half to be palatable.

Power is the ability to change a life…
starting with mine.
Power is when my children
look at me and see freedom
with a face that looks like theirs.

I do not perform power.
I live it.
In the way I say no.
In the way I say yes without justifying it.
In the way I show up.
For me. For mine. For more.

I don’t owe anyone smallness.
I don’t owe the world a thank you
for surviving it.

I owe myself the whole sky. And maybe a little thunder.

Because this, this thing I carry…
it’s not ambition.
It’s memory.
It’s legacy.
It’s me, walking like I own the ground.

Because now,
I do.

I stopped writing. And then, I wrote again.

It’s been three years that I’ve taken pen to paper. I stopped blogging and I disappeared.
Not physically, no. My body still showed up, did what it had to do, sometimes even smiled. But something inside me had been silenced, gently at first, then completely. I stopped writing. And without knowing it at the time, I stopped breathing with ease.

I didn’t name it then. How could I? I didn’t know what was broken in me. Only that I was broken.

I was navigating a season where everything around me, and everything inside me, felt like fog. I spent what now feels like three years watching life happen from a distance, as if I had been exiled from my own body, my own becoming. I was a spectator. A ghost with responsibilities.

During those years, I lost pieces.
Friendships I thought were anchored quietly drifted into silence. My sense of direction blurred. My rituals, once a sacred conversation between me and the Divine—felt hollow. My spiritual self, the part of me that used to kneel in awe and rise in gratitude, fell asleep. And I, not knowing how to wake her, simply let her be.

I was not numbed. I was aware. Aware that I was not well. Aware that I didn’t know what healing would look like, or if it would even come. I was just… floating. Functioning. Smiling for others. Caving inwards. Forgetting to ask myself what I needed.

And then, as life often does, it moved me.
Literally. I had to pack up everything, leave Tunisia, the place that had held me during the birth of my children and brokenness, and move to France.

That decision, that movement, broke the surface of the still water I had been lying in. It did not fix me. It did not erase my wounds. But it shook something loose. It allowed the idea of spring to enter. You know? That moment when something within you stretches again, timid but alive. A flutter.

That flutter was the desire to write.
Not to publish. Not to perform.
Just write.

And that desire… it felt like a hand reaching for me through the dark. That simple, sacred whisper…“Write.”…was the first sign that I was healing. Not healed. But healing.

It reminded me that rebirth is rarely loud. It’s not always triumphant or bright. Sometimes, it’s slow and unsure. Sometimes, it begins in a moment you could miss if you’re not paying attention. A sentence. A word. A prayer. A sigh. A tear that comes without understanding why.

And that’s where I am now. In the space between endings and beginnings. In the place where new skin is forming over old wounds. In the liminality of not-yet-whole but no-longer-broken.

I still carry sadness. I still question a lot.
I still ask myself if I’ll ever feel “complete.”
But I also feel something else now: the quiet certainty that I am walking toward something more honest. More aligned. More me.

And here’s the truth:
We don’t always have to wait for joy to be perfect to begin again.
Sometimes the act of beginning, of writing, breathing, praying, showing up—is what calls joy back in.

So here I am. Writing again.
A bit more fragile. A bit more tender. But deeply aware that this is what the beginning of a new life feels like.

And you?
What are you quietly returning to?
What whispers are asking for your attention?

Frozen

Today is December 21st 2022. This is the first and last essay/blog post I am writing this year. I have been writing and steadfastly sharing my professional and personal journey for more than five years. However, since last year, December 28th, I have stopped writing.

I may have had other things on my mind. I may have needed a break. 

The truth is, on December 28th 2021, my dad passed away. 

At the moment, as I was feeling the sadness that (I suppose) is appropriate to feel after such a heartbreaking event, I told myself I was ok. Really, I was ok. During the two months before he was laid to rest, I kept myself busy with the funerals preparations and everything that comes with organizing funerals back home. Then after that, I focused on work. I needed to work, I had projects I had planned to launch, and I told myself that this  life event was not going to stop me from moving. So I kept on moving. 

I dealt with and focused on financial emergencies, professional ones, family ones. So many fires to put out ! Life, right ?

I told myself that I was not the first person to go through such a loss. Other people went through it and they are doing ok, so I am ok.

I told myself I did not need to be too sad, because as per my spiritual beliefs, while he was not physically present, my dad was still close, albeit in another form.

I was not going to fall apart. My dad would not have wanted me to fall apart, he would have wanted me to move on, to keep on going, so I did. I even told one of my friend at one point, that I did not have the luxury of falling apart. Too many things around me depended on me being up and moving. I had to support my mother, whose world had just being turned upside down. I had to keep being a mum to my children who still needed my full presence. I had a budding company that needed my full attention. I had debts that needed to be repaid. Life was not going to wait for me.

I kept working, I kept socializing, I kept laughing, I did everything as if my dad was still here on earth. 

I am even tempted to say that I kept on being happy. I reconnected with my mom and my brother on a higher level, and I felt that those connexions were what my dad gifted me with, before leaving.

Then came the summer, which started as a two weeks break. My husband and children took a trip, and I had a nice staycation. I shut down my presence on all social media, I slowed down on the work side of my life. I told myself I needed to take a breath, so I did. 

Then, two weeks became a month. One month became two, then three. By the time October rolled in.    , my much needed break had fully become this limbo and this feeling of apathy that I did not know how to come out of. While I was taking a break, things were quickly getting away from me. Everything around me had become urgent, but I could not find in me the strength to care, or to do something about it. I was late everywhere, for everything. Those 2022 objectives were definitely not going to be reached. 

I was feeling alive, but not in life. 

Things were happening around me, to me, but not with me. I was going through the motions, without fully participating. That voice in my head kept telling me « do something, do, do, do, move ! ». I was listening, but I couldn’t act on it. I then realized that I did not even have the strength to write. I had many things to say, but I could not put them on paper, as I usually do. And to write what exactly ? I did not know how/what I was feeling exactly, I could not put words to it. 

Another voice was telling me: « be, just be, just be who you want to be at this moment ». I was more inclined to listen to this voice. Listening to that voice however, meant seeing life as I knew it fall apart. Listening to that voice meant staying frozen, looking at life passing me by. Listening to that voice sounded completely counter productive, it was going against everything I had ever learned. How could I stay frozen ? How could I not get out of this state ? How could this be more comfortable than being an active participant in my life ? 

This state of being also made me contemplate the notion of productivity, performance and earning. The « doing » part. I am still having trouble letting this go. Not because my identity was solely based on my work (I have grown into past that idea a while ago), but because I had never contemplated life without the notion of action, of doing. 

So far, to me, living meant doing. When I say « doing », I mean acting in a way that requires an effort. I had to make an effort to earn my living. 

Just « being »  implied letting go, following my instincts (which were leading me to mostly sleep, eat, read, watch tv and nothing else). 

We are mostly used to going through life while doing and having, without thinking much about the being. 

So I find it particularly interesting that the year I had to process the death of my dad, I also had to experience life as a human being. A human who is, and not merely a human who does or who has. So, I was led to contemplate life as a state of being. Not doing, not having. 

The lesson is brutal, and hard. 

Hard to unlink my being, from my doing, from my having. I am experimenting them one at a time. 

Who am I, if I am not performing ? If I am not being ? If I am not having ?

I have always believed that from my being (by honoring who I am at the moment) would derive my doing (how I show up for myself and for others, what I give) and my earning (what I receive). 

As I am writing this and as we are nearing the end of the year, I still don’t have the answers to those questions. I am still in limbo, so I have no advice, no encouraging words, or no lesson to share. I am still going through the motions, wondering when I will stop feeling stuck.

I am still struggling with the « being » part of life, not just the « doing » part of it.

So for the next season, I wish myself the energy of life. I wish to have good health, and I hope for all of us, the light at the end of the tunnel.

Answering the Baobab tree call

I woke up several weeks ago to the sounds of the baobab's call. 

I felt the master plants and the healing herbs calling on me.

I felt a part of me awaken, connections being made, knowledge coming to the surface. 

I woke up with the conviction that I knew, and that it was time to take another step towards this part of me. 

So yesterday I started the work. 

I felt like I was reuniting with old friends. 

Every time the name of a plant came to my ear, it was like a memory that came back from far away, from deep inside me. 

I found the benefits of each plant, as when one finds the arms of a former lover. 

A certain nostalgia. 

This sensation that one knew the person at one time, but that one must get acquainted with what this person has become over time. 

I am on familiar ground, but at the same time the experience seems new to me. 

I am acutely aware that the past, the present and the future are all one at this moment. 

I am full of gratitude for the past life in which I was one with these plants, and I thank my current incarnation for integrating this knowledge into my present experience.

The 11 shades of my free and autonomous spirituality

A spirituality based on love

A spirituality that builds and unfolds with the vibrations of your soul

A dynamic spirituality, which develops with the awakening of your consciousness.

A spirituality independent of dogmas

A spirituality whose rituals are the fruit of the connection you have with your soul

A spirituality that favors your autonomy of thought

A spirituality that has more questions than answers

A spirituality that recognizes your divine dimension, as well as your human dimension

A spirituality that puts your Being at the center of YOUR life

A spirituality that respects your creativity

A spirituality that reflects the best version of your Being

Just be yourself

Just be yourself.
A mantra that is so deeply imprinted in us since the advent of personal development, that we no longer know what it is.
It’s the most natural state in the world, but at the same time so complicated to achieve.

Be yourself
But who am I, When the masks I wear are an integral part of my personality and I don't know the difference anymore ?

How do we know who we are?

Being yourself requires courage
Being yourself is to trust in a future that never existed.

Miss C. asked me the other day: "how can you tell others to be themselves, when you know how difficult it is?"

And I replied, "because once you experience the fullness that being yourself brings, the difficulties don't weigh as much in the balance. And you end up understanding in the end that it's: be yourself or die. "❤️

About root-movements and spirituality

Spirit-uality: A word that can be scary to some.

When asked about it, this is my answer. “Are you a human being? If yes, then you have a spirit. Since you have a spirit, you are thus spiritual.”

We are all spiritual. Now, it’s up to you to determine what you want to do with that information.

Being conscious about one’s spirituality is determining if we want to activate that part of us, how we want to interact with this great spirit we have inside, and the space we want to give it in our lives. Me ? I am giving IT all the space !!! 😁

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Yesterday, Miss C. asked me about root-movements.

Root-movements are at the heart of Creation.

They are, for example:
❤️The beating of a heart
🧘🏾‍♀️The art of breathing
🦋A flutter of wings
🌺The blooming of a flower

These movements involve:
🎈Death and birth
🎈Closing and opening
🎈Contraction and expansion

They help us understand the different seasons of our lives.
They help us understand surrender and abundance.
They help us choose love over fear.
They help us understand that we are ONE and part of ALL.

Leaning into my feminine energy

Leading with my intuition and leaning into my feminine energy. What does it look like for me, today? 

To me, today, following my intuition and letting my essence lead means, changing my whole business model in the middle of the second quarter, letting go of pre-planned projects and going back to the drawing board. In 👏🏾The 👏🏾Fing 👏🏾Middle 👏🏾Of 👏🏾Q2😤

Some would ask: “can it wait ? Can you go on until the end of the quarter without burning everything?”

Well, no, it can’t. Because things are not working out the way they are supposed to right now. There is disquiet and unrest. Things are not flowing as they should, and my resistance to change things is making me loose sleep and money. 

Bear in mind, this is not about being anxious about extending my comfort zone, it’s more of a feeling that I need to change this boat’s direction completely. 

A part of me thinks I should buckle up and dive into a new model, even if I have to halt or disrupt things for a while. 

Another part of me is tired of the never ending leaps of faith, and wants me to power through, knowing that I might not reach my quarterly goals anyways. 

Leaning into my feminine would mean trusting my intuition and implementing the changes I am led to, while waiting and trusting that the answer will come. Be myself and let what is mine manifest, and what is not mine crash. 

Not leaning into my feminine energy would mean to push. To find a way out of the discomfort by doing. By working on my current projects until one of them sticks. 

What would you advise ?

Expansion & Contraction

Sometimes it’s our refusal to follow the natural movement of our soul, which can be that of expansion and progression, or that of contraction, that leads to our discomfort and unrest.

These two root movements are natural impulses of our soul which, like all elements of nature, invite us to hibernate and then to bloom, to breathe in and then to breathe out.

You will recognize your expansion or contraction impulses by the feeling of fullness and completeness they bring. The decision to expand your comfort zone, or the decision to stay still, will give you that feeling of being in the right place at the right time, happy with who you are and what you have.

Fear and social conditioning will incite us to resist these root movements. We will either make ourselves smaller than we are and resist the expansion movement, or we will want to go faster than the music.

This resistance will affect our physical body and eventually cause those pains we feel.

Breathing issues, anxiety, back pain or period pain. Our body will tell us.

The discomfort will help us realize that we need to expand our comfort zone, take that leap of faith we've been hesitant to take, change our perspective and viewpoint on an obstacle, consider an alternative or speak our truth.

The stronger our resistance, the stronger our pain.

I invite you to question and explore your frustrations, disquiet and pains. Look for possibilities of expansion or contraction, and ask yourself where are the unexplored spaces of freedom in your life.

You are the blueprint

Don’t look for the blueprint, you are the blueprint.

This is for the days when you are lost and confused.
The days when the voices in and out your head are going in different places.
When the smoke is so thick around you and you are losing your sense of directions.
The days when you want someone to tell you what to do, where to go.

Come on, where is that magic formula?

Well, you are the magic formula.
You are the blueprint.
You are the compass.

You came with the directions etched into you soul.
You came with a specific set of indications and directions inside your heart.

A moment of silence and you will find your way.
A drop of water and you will meet your truth.
The crackling of a fire and you will walk you walk.
A handful of earth and you will find your purpose.

You can bask and rejoice in that knowledge.

Don’t go searching for the blueprint outside of your realm.
You are the blueprint you are looking for.

My body is calling

When the body calls

I think I am still,
But I am not.
My legs are tingling ,
My arms are shaking,
My pelvis is swaying,
My neck is turning in circles,
Life is calling.

And I agree to the alliance.
I whisper promises,
Anxious and elated at the same time.
I anchor and root myself
I say my prayers in the water
I lose myself in contemplations
I let the elements carry me.

My body is calling,
Life is reminding me of my weaknesses, and
My soul remembers my power.

May we hear the messages that our bodies are sending,
And when it’s time to remember, may we answer the call of life.

Creativity is our super-power

When people ask me what our life purpose is.

My answer always is: Creativity.

Creativity is the Universe’s answers to our questions. And we wrap these answers in love and beauty, and offer them to the world.

Human beings are in perpetual search of meaning, of evolution, of light.

Once we experience Light, once we let it penetrate and pass through our pains and traumas, once our senses are aligned with our essence, the answers come to us.

Each ray of Light is a source of information that our mind and body will translate, for us and for others.

A bouquet of flowers, a child, a business, a smile, a drawing, a word, all of these are manifestations of the Light that we have let pass through us and that we spread around us. It is the power of creation. It is our creativity. It is our super power.

🎶Let The Sunshine In, Galt MacDermot

Joy, as a form of resistance

Let me give you a bit of a truth about me. I am a news junky. Getting the news from multiple places in the world helps me understand how the world goes round, the state of the human condition. At one point, I had a membership with Lemonde, Jeune Afrique, Mediapart, El Pais, the Washington Post and The NY Times. Yep. All at the same time. It was that bad. Now I just have three of those memberships, so I am still a news addict.

One thing I had learned early on from my readings however, was not to let myself get suck in by what I was reading. Instinctively, I had managed to remove myself emotionally from the onslaught of news I was subjecting myself to.

I recently came to question this ability I had acquired to remove myself from the news, when my social media feeds became a stream of black and blue squares. All days, every days, there would be uproar, pain and hurt from something we’ve heard on the news. And I started wondering if I too, should start putting black squares when the news required it.

Then I realized that what I was feeling was guilt. Guilt that I am not as sad as everyone else seem to be. Guilt that I was moving on while a lot of people where halted. Guilt that I was feeling ok.

A phone call with a friend and a re-reading of our cherished Toni Morrison put it all in perspective for me. A lot of us are out there fighting a white supremacist system and let’s be real, the system is fighting back. Daily killings of black and brown people, packed prisons, failed education, broken health. It never seem to stop. All days every days. And what do we do ? We stress over it. We fight against it. We condemn it. We cry over it. We make ourselves sick over it. We fear it. We create initiatives around it. We let ourselves be drawn to it and we drown in it.

And that’s their plan. To overwhelm us with sadness.

Frankly, what we are going through at the moment (and the moments before that) is a special kind of torture. A madness.

They want us to cry every day. And we do.
They want to exhaust us. And they do.
They want us to focus on the fight. And we do.
They want us to forget. And we do.

We forget the point of life. We forget that the point of life is to thrive, as Maya Angelou was telling us. We are stuck in survival mode. We forget to breathe. And that’s what the system ultimately want. They want us to forget about our own humanity. They want us to forget that we are not only about fighting and surviving, but we are mostly about creating, being happy and thriving.

The story I want to write is not about resilience and strength. We have enough of it. I am tired of it. I am tired of reading about survival stories. Really. We are strong and resilient people, I think we have proven that time and time again.

I want to write and read about fragility, ease, rest, and joy. Only. I feel most human when I am able to connect to my joy and creativity. And they will not steal that from me. Never. I connect to the divine when I connect to my creativity. And it’s that joy and creativity that brings me freedom. Financial freedom, political freedom, social freedom. Freedom to be myself. That is how I free myself and that is how I will free my children.

I will be joyful, I will be creative, I will be happy. And that’s what they fear the most.