turning

more lessons in resilience

Hello gentle people,

I wrote something on Threads then realized I had a lot more to say. I love when that happens.

Also there is a reflection on my trip to Atlanta to spend time with the Lucille Clifton papers forthcoming! I am still integrating and working on my blog post that is part of my fellowship requirements. But trust—we will be sitting with the lessons from that archive for a long time.

Here are some photos to enjoy for now!

left - my gloved hand holding a picture of Lucille Clifton from the archive. middle- my ungloved hand holding a letter written to Clifton by LANGSTON HUGHES! right - my legs enjoying some time in an Adirondack chair in the Georgia sun.

Lately I’ve been working (more intentionally) on healing my activist heart.

It was broken by trauma, burnout, and racial battle fatigue in 2021. It has taken years for me to recover. Years.

It has been a real struggle but I’m starting to feel myself opening up again.

I’m considering a more intentional path in healing justice work, alongside becoming more outspoken in my writing again.

***

I took a very long break to rest and recollect myself. So I feel like I’m finding my footing again in the world of justice work.

But one thing I know for sure is that I never want to be one of the leaders white people look to and put on a pedestal. Because when you fall from that pedestal you quickly learn you were never a human to those folks.

***

I have been so exhausted for so very long and I have learned that this is just the body that I was given with the energy that I was given. It is finite.

I learned that the eldest daughter in me needed to heal. I needed to find the soft Black woman within myself and work on healing my trauma.

I am also keenly aware of what Audre Lorde says—”we were never meant to survive”

I am finally doing all of these things and holding on to these realizations. That is what is saving me.

— me, on Threads, March 9, 2026

we begin with the fall

I was starting a promising career as a faith-based activist when I was working as a pastoral and organizing intern in 2018. At the time, my intensity was enough to fuel my passion. I can see now that justice was a special interest, racial justice in particular. Because I was a good writer and speaker, I had many opportunities to preach and teach at the intersection of faith and justice. Things intensified in 2020 when it felt like the entire world, positively or negatively, was talking about Black Lives Matter.

I thought “I was born for such a time as this.”

I threw myself into the ringer, responding to inquiries left and right to teach and preach. I was doing very little to replenish my stores of energy.

In truth, I did not know how to rest well. Even when I was beginning to realize I needed to rest, I turned my public work into a campaign for rest and softness. I also did a second masters program where I centered learning about healing and trauma instead of just healing my trauma. To be fair, I didn’t know how and I did have to learn. To be fair, going back to school gave me the opportunity to begin to learn somatic healing practices with Resmaa Manekem. To be fair, I knew no other way than to hurl myself into another rigorous program, where I would have support built in for my life as a student.

But it felt so deeply unfair when I ended that program with three weeks in the hospital for my mental health, brought on by acute stress and a traumatic event.

In this newsletter I have said that work and rest are two sides of the same coin. I have good reason to go on believing that. Because in the story of my life, I have yet to experience rest as anything but a kind of work.

I recently celebrated 30 days of keeping a consistent meditation practice. This has been my most recent addition to my morning routine, which already includes morning pages.

Today, as I write, there is a genuine smile on my face, brought on by my survival. Brought on by the realization that I am still here, somehow, making a way out of no way.

---

turning by Lucille Clifton 

turning into my own
turning on in
to my own self
at last 
turning out of the 
white cage, turning out of the 
lady cage
turning at last
on a stem like a black fruit
in my own season 
at last

---

but we end standing up

These days I am learning about neuroplasticity, which is the scientific fact that we can rewire our brains through new patterns of thinking and behavior. I take a pill every day designed to do some of that work, but increasingly, I am committing to practices of mindfulness and learning new skills to improve my neuroplasticity.¹ I am learning that certain effort-based rewards can shape resilience.² It has been a gift for me to learn that I am not stuck with the depressive neuro-pathways I currently have. A gift to know that even in adulthood, there are things I can do to improve the quality of my life.

As I increasingly identify as one among the healing justice movement, I am also learning to shape commitments to spiritual abolitionism. Spiritual abolitionism takes into account that systems of oppression have severely limited the resources we have to flourish. It names that we are instead given life-denying carceral systems instead. Spiritual abolitionism seeks the liberation of all through systems of oppression and beyond them. It demands that while I take my own healing journey seriously, I also deeply consider how I live in community with others in ways that seek their embodied spiritual flourishing as well. If none of this sounds new to A Gentle Landing it’s because it feels like language I didn’t have for dreams I was beginning to articulate here over the years.

As a spiritual abolitionist, I engage contemplative and trauma healing practices on a regular basis. I hope in the years to come, I can lead others through those practices so that we might experience the freedom that is our inheritance. Whereas in the past I would have numbed my senses to do justice work, I now believe that a deeper relationship with my senses allows me to more deeply engage in meaningful work. I can do justice work and stay human.

Over the years, I have felt as if I have written to you of my many falls and failures. I have been “struck down but not destroyed,” as the Bible says. I somehow keep getting back up and I keep learning new ways to do life better each time I come back up. Sometimes I come back up on crutches (metaphorically) or with a series of helping hands. Sometimes it’s more of a crawl than a walk. But I am here, trying. “Turning into my own own self at last,” as Clifton says.

landing track

Take a few moments to enjoy some quiet and embrace some stillness. Take a deep breath before filling in this affirmation:

I was made to love.
That love flows through me in [insert a practice you do regularly].³

I was made to be free.
That freedom flows through me when I [insert a reflection or practice that reminds you of freedom].⁴

I was made to hope.
That hope rings most boldly when I [insert something that keeps you hopeful].⁵

I want to practice a loving freedom that breeds more hope. Because I was made for it. May it flow through me.

Beauty is still possible…even here.

taking a break

Gentle people,

I am still turning. Sometimes I take a turn for the worse. This week, I felt that happening as I slipped into some bad habits of overconsumption of social media and spending too much time in bed. I felt myself growing more depressed and slowly started to feel like my work didn’t matter. I felt a lack of support for the things I have been working on and a profound loneliness.

Since then, I decided to take some time off social media and have even decided to pause publishing newsletters for awhile to give myself time to truly rest from being perceived publicly. This is the last thing I will publish for awhile, but I will keep writing.

I know I don’t have to tell you all when I am pausing since I structured this newsletter so that I can rest whenever I want. But I share to bring you into the journey and to be transparent about some of the reasons why I rest, in case it inspires similar efforts towards rest in you.

Some part of my rest is also to take a break from information overload. I am slowing down how I consume information. So perhaps you identify with that and similarly want to take a break from social media or some ways of consuming information that you find overwhelming. One practice that is helping me is taking notes on the content I watch and consume in my commonplace notebook. (I will take more about that in a future woven newsletter.)

If you aren’t going to take a break but will miss my writing, feel free to look through my archive of posts. Feel free to leave comments I can respond to when I return. I will be so happy to engage with you all when I return, ready to do this work again with an open hand.

1. For more on this, I recommend this Youtube video by Dr. Tracey Marks on “The 3 Brain Strategies that Actually Rewire Your Brain.”

2. For more on this, I recommend this TedxTalks video on “Improving our Neuroplasticity” by Dr. Kelly Lambert.

3. My answer is “in the music I sing and the words I write.”

4. My answer is “quiet my mind and release the tensions of the day”

5. My answer is “follow the movement of liberation in the world”