The journey is inward

For years I believed life would finally feel right once I changed the relationship, landed the right job, and created the right community connections. I was the one people called when they needed advice, and the one who held everything together.  From the outside, it felt like progress. On the inside, there was fatigue, no sleep could remedy.

I remember the night everything changed. I was late at work one night and forgot to pick up my daughter from daycare. I ran frantically to the Wee Watch front door, only to be told that her aunt had already picked her up. Then came a flood of guilt. How could I have forgotten?

In that moment I understood something that would shape how I observe everything; my foundation impacts everything in my life.  In the months that followed, I realized how much I had been pouring from a dry cup with holes. I was dependable to everyone else but disconnected from myself.

Many of us in the Caribbean community know this pattern. We invest time in our education, work, and family.  We often have great examples from elders that showed us what “making a way” really meant, but strength built from survival has a cost.

My grandfather came to Canada and lived in a one-bedroom apartment until he could send for my Granny, who sent for my mom, which led to the purchase of the first family home, to house our growing family. In a time with fewer resources, they were creative, and they always made it work.

Our elders taught us how to survive circumstances that demanded extraordinary sacrifice. Perhaps our responsibility is not simply to repeat their sacrifices; it is to build lives where those same sacrifices are no longer necessary.

What if the work was never out there?

When we practice Sankofa, returning to retrieve the wisdom of our past, we reconnect with our divine inheritance and the values passed down through generations. We remember the fearlessness, resilience, and determination our elders embodied, but also the unspoken expectations that accompanied them, including “Don’t let them see you cry.”

We may overlook the conditioning, expectations, and survival patterns we have handed down, with love, but, in some cases, with pain. Some survival habits were born from intelligence but releasing them is not rooted in disrespect to those that taught us, nor in the younger ones deciding they are not taking on Sunday dinners or listening when being told what to do. In some ways, this speaks to the need to release what is not ours to carry. Their tools may look different, but perhaps the question is not whether they are working as hard as we did, but whether they are learning to work differently.

Perhaps reclaiming looks like speaking up and setting boundaries, resting without guilt, and giving from a full cup, instead of one with holes.  It also starts with acknowledging that growth starts from within. Our realigning looks like moving from awareness to action and making daily choices that honour our true selves. Where we spend our time, energy, and money can start to match our values rather than our fears.

The practice of Ubuntu reminds us that “I am because we are.” What happens when the “I” is constantly exhausted, emotionally disconnected, or silently suffering?

When “Ubuntu” is a lived embodiment, we recognize that a focus on healing ourselves is not selfish. We start to realize that the community receives a healed version of adulthood. When we commit to our own healing, our families and communities inherit a healthier version of who we are.

Family traditions that taught us never to rest until everyone else was okay have sometimes become patterns of putting ourselves last. A life lived from the inside out requires us to recognize that caring for ourselves is not separate from caring for others. The journey inward begins when we become willing to look at what we have spent years avoiding.

So, I leave you with this question: are you living the life you consciously chose, or simply repeating the one you inherited?

Sometimes the greatest change we can make in our lives is the one nobody else can see.