It *Is* a NEW Day, pt 3
It is a New Day:
Journaling Probes
What HAPPENED? Write a review of the past season/life chapter.
…No really: WHAT HAPPENED?
What was DONE TO you?
Are you grieving? What?
Do you need to write a eulogy for the woman you once were?
What are you enjoying about this new season?
What are you finding it difficult to embrace on this side of things?
Are you resisting peace, ease, goodness, or joy? How has resisting good things in your new season impacted your morale?
Has peace felt foreign or even offensive to you? How so?
What has been difficult about things being “good”?
Consider situations you were in during your last season. Who hurt you (on purpose)? Howso? How did it impact your trajectory?
Was something withheld from you?
In retrospect, who or what situation was just plain EVIL to you?
What were some situations you pushed through but now upon reflection realize were morbid?
What were you going through that prevented you from noticing who had ill-will towards you? (This happens, sis)
How are you handling flashbacks of being hurt/insulted/used/withheld from, etc?
What memories of pain have been eclipsing your time with joy and peace?
What are you learning about yourself in this new season?
Can you be still? Why not?
How has your body responded to not being in fight or flight?
What are your coping mechanisms? When do you feel tempted to reach for them?
As Black women we are “encouraged”/ TOLD [through societal programming] how “strong” we are. More times than not this misnamed “strength” is simply our plowing through time without ever having grieved or taken stock of what has been *done to* or happened to us. We’re encouraged to “get over” things we should inventory and examine. Or to prematurely celebrate one season’s ending without sitting with very real emotions and reflecting on how it impacted us so as to AUTHORitatively decide how healthy navigation should look for us.
The state of being where we just keep going without marking the changes in seasons or chapters makes us thralls to societal programming, vices, devices, and self-soothing through consumerism and capitalistic aims disguised as hope or progress. It can also have us sojourning with deep spiritual or emotional wounds that need tending before we move into our new day.
Remember: Western capitalism is HIGHLY contingent upon Black women NEVER reflecting on history and/or our previous life seasons so as to make dignified, wise, informed decisions on how we might move forward; who we should or should not forgive; what we should or should not be attached to; or how we might operate in love, wisdom and discernment in our sojourn for future generations. Too much depends on Black women forgetting, participating without the benefit of recorded life lessons turned vertebral resolution or decisions informed by dignity mined by penning the pages of our journals and discovering the truthful realizations of our significance.
In your new day, grace yourself with the abundance of taking stock of where you are and how far you’ve come. This is a weapon against colonizer powers and capitalism. Your healing is their undermining: this is a technology in your new day. Embark on healing where necessary and speaking life to yourself on the page and in your imagination, you are transforming by reflection turned zeal, experience turned decision and you transforming from one woman into another.
