I am God’s strange but lovable daughter.

Transition: "moving from fleeting pleasures to enduring joys"

God specialises in redeeming lost people. I am a walking testimony of God being able to do "exceedingly, abundantly, above anything you can ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20) when you decide to study His character, observe His nature, and trust Him for who He is.

Getting to know God through daily and intentional study of the Bible. His Spirit led me "into all Truth" and caused my mind to finally understand who God is and what He wants from and for me. It all started in 2020 when I unpacked the book of Hebrews, verse by verse, for 3 years. I haven’t been the same since. I’ve gone on to do the same in the gospel of John and Acts.

It’s dark, depressing, and lonely; I became aware of the spiritual opposition to knowing God the more I made progress. What I didn’t know, however, was that the way out was through. Things truly got darker before the light dawned.

I’m a Christian, dark-skinned, Tsonga woman in post-apartheid South Africa from a typically nuclear but dysfunctional family, replete with all the complexities of being a middle child in a suburban context. I was educated in a European school system that afforded me immense socio-cultural exposure; I show up in the world as a global citizen because my upbringing was not typical. I’m drawn to people who are the least like me as a result, and celebrate difference more than I do sameness.

The lie that God doesn’t like me. I’ve come to know and believe that He actually appreciates and loves my personality, my quirks, and idiosyncrasies. It’s deeply impacted my ability to relate and speak freely with and to Him.

The worship of men; my family of origin embraces a patriarchal worldview, which I reject. Growing up, I struggled to understand why my being a girl made me inferior to boys and men. My recent study of colonialism’s mishandling of the Christian faith has helped me grasp how cultural expectations were inevitably projected onto me without critical thinking. Thankfully, I’m far less belligerent in how I challenge cultural expectations, and I’m grateful to have been given the opportunity to understand my world through Scipture.

It’s central to my personal understanding of what it means to be a human being. God purposed for me to be an African woman with a lot of melanin, and race as an (arbitrary) identity marker matters in the world, but it also impacts my own sense of pride in being from a continent and country that is responsible for the health and flourishing of other nations, alongside our deep cultural heritage. I own being African with my entire chest.

In solitude. I love being alone.

Ambition is not moral; it is only what we choose to be ambitious about that matters. I aspired to material wealth in my early twenties; that desire died when I got saved and recognised how futile and deceptive earthly and selfish ambition can be. However, ambition ought to be directed towards the work we’ve been tasked to do by God (Ephesians 2:10). In 1 Corinthians 15:10 and 2 Corinthians chapter 11, the Apostle Paul describes the hard work he graciously accepted and executed for God’s glory; ambition can and should be directed towards advancing the Kingdom of God on earth.

Dying to the desire to earn a living in the traditional way.

Somewhat; sometimes I get nervous thinking about the fact that making a living from proclaiming the Gospel will invite hateration in this dancery.

If it’s not directed by and surrendered to God, discontentment is guaranteed; success does not fill voids or heal trauma.

Find out who you are from God Himself and allow Him to direct your path. The confidence to be bold comes from the revelation of who you are.

The script handed to me by family and societal conditioning; growing up, I felt coerced into being apologetic about being a charming, expressive, assertive, dark-skinned Tsonga girl.

I rehearse the Truth to myself by reading and reciting scripture: "at the end of the day, Jesus died and rose for me; He is always interceding for me, and nothing can separate me from His love." (Romans chapter 8) And lots of calming but reviving music, and a stunning glass of white wine.

Rest means being at peace with God no matter the circumstance. I work at it everyday.

Music, friends, and communion every Sunday.

There is no healing without pain. It’s not cute at all; it’s a call to grow up and account for who you’ve been charged to be in this world. It’s HARD. But worth it.

To use it well, with no knowledge of what that meant. Now i’m learning what it actually means.

Detaching from making money define who I am.

Yes. How we handle money exposes who we believe we are. I’m re-learning who I am, therefore, my relationship to money is changing, too.

It’s madness. I see myself as fundamentally dependent on God for everything. I’ve never done anything for myself, ever; "every good gift comes from the Lord."

"What can we tell about you based on how you relate with money?"

I learned that I didn’t have any. It’s only in therapy that I’m now starting to understand the importance of boundaries.

Respecting and honouring what people choose to be and do in their process.

I wouldn’t be who I am without the profound impact of the women in my life; my mother, Winnie Mandela, Oprah Winfrey, Thuli Thabethe, Maya Angelou. The list is endless.

One void of judgement where the presence of men in our lives is concerned. Women are still so deeply obsessed with what having a says about them. Men are not gods.

In the words of Maya Angelou, "love liberates."

A deep, visible, and unquestionable love for God and my neighbour.

An obedient, humble, and loving disciple.

"Darling, prepare for the best!"

Run to God.

That God sees, likes, loves, and wants them to know Him. He’s truly the greatest pleasure in the universe.

My name is Sasta and I am a mother. I am a poet. I am the embodiment of my name, which means “the one who rules.” I find that within a name lies the virtue we live by, the thing we’re destined to live out in this life. I’m also a deep lover with great reverence for all life.

The chapter I’m in is the ascension of the different archetypes of a woman. I am in my queen era — the mother, the caretaker, the leader. She holds space for everyone, but she also has a true north, and she takes responsibility for leading the way.

I believe women bend their tongues — soften what they mean to say — to make other people comfortable, to make space for other people’s pain and discomfort, and to absorb it. And so we give more of ourselves than we should. I feel women need to understand that justice isn’t about hurting — it’s about revealing and owning your story outside of everyone else’s version of it. They say there’s your story, their story, and the truth. Every part of that deserves to be heard.

I say this because I’ve spent a lot of my life protecting other people’s privacy, other people’s problems — the way they’ve pressed themselves onto me. And I see this in a lot of women, and in marginalized communities more broadly — I’d include the LGBTQ+ community, as well as sensitive men, in that. It’s a broad umbrella of people who are often givers and caretakers, openly vulnerable, willing to be the unsolicited punching bag — and who don’t allow their own story to be heard, seen, or recognized, or their dignity to matter.

My whole life has been a series of defining moments. From when I was very young, realizing the gift that books held, to becoming a writer myself. To becoming a child of an abusive divorce, and understanding that my parents being separated was better than when they were together. To understanding my sensitivity as I matured into the world, and my spiritual gifts. To discovering whether socioeconomic status mattered or not, and understanding history’s place in all things present. To the power of philosophy to overturn rigid thinking, and also to bring people closer to understanding that we’re not so different from one another. To choosing hospitality, which built my confidence — because I could not ignore people, just as I found it difficult to ignore myself, as a server, a bartender, a leader, and everything in between. To understanding that keeping quiet did not pave a future of respect from other people — that my thoughts and my vision had a place in every room I was in. To knowing it when it was happening, but acknowledging it very late in life. Better late than never.

I believe people assume things about me — that I’ve always had everything, that it might have been easy, that because I am strong, perhaps I was always this way. I think people place assumptions depending on where they meet me, because a different version of me will arise — not forced, just molded into a certain setting. You’re probably familiar with code-switching, and that’s usually spoken of in terms of language, but sometimes different versions of ourselves appear depending on the setting. Sometimes we are strong and confident in our speech, in our directive, in how we hold a room — and other times we sit back, we listen, we grace the wall like a flower, hoping the day ends. I think the misunderstanding simply comes from a lack of asking the right questions.

There’s a host of influence. I’d say growing up in a multicultural household, but never really having direction as to what God looks like, how we should speak, how we should take care of ourselves — because I was very different from my parents. Funny, considering I’m from them. But in terms of body care, hair care, mindset, and so on, it was a bit different from people raised in very traditional settings, or people who have teachings passed down to them. I think that lack of direction allowed me to be deeply curious — to research things, to really understand them, and also, through trial and error, to understand myself. In many ways, that lack of direction from my parents created a great level of empathy in me for other people, and it shows up in the way I love, the way I care, the way I hold space for others. As I’ve gotten older, the desire has grown to have that space held for me in turn.

What I had to unlearn was really my money mindset. When I think of how my parents handled money — my mother was, in many ways, what I’d call recklessly abundant. She was raised with all her needs taken care of, and so she expected that from life and from those around her. Whether she had much or little, she spent all of it. There was no responsible way of using money; it was always excessive. My father, who had nothing growing up, maintained a poverty mentality — so when he came into a great deal of wealth, he still held onto his money very tightly. Money was never talked about. It was almost taboo to ask for anything. We were always afraid to request even simple things, basic needs, because of these poor habits and this stigma around speaking about it. These were two very diametrically opposed ways of handling money, and I had to pave my own way in addressing wealth management, wealth mindset, and how the nervous system feels when you think about money and talk about it.

I’m half Indian, half mixed on the other side — my lineage includes Portuguese, Mozambican, and Shangaan people on my mother’s side, and my father’s side is entirely Indian. There are traditional values that come with that, but not all of them get passed on. In a great deal of the version of Indian culture I was exposed to, women stay small. They take care of the family. If they have a son, that son becomes central to the household. Women keep a clean home, prepare all the meals, but never question, never challenge, never have anything for themselves — they fade into the background.

On my mother’s side, sadly, she didn’t carry on the legacy of my great-grandmother, who was a Shangaan princess — a chief’s daughter — with a great love for her people. My grandmother still maintains that within their community; she cared for and fought for everyone, and she had the greatest say. She was the matriarch of the family. And I feel like there’s also a level at which women in my lineage gave so much that they bled for it.

What I challenge is the idea of equality — the idea that love should lead the way, not oppressive behaviour. I want to redefine the way our children are raised, so they have a voice, so they know they’re part of the family — part of the decision-makers. As parents, we care for our kids, but their feelings are valid, their thoughts are valid, and their opinions matter just as much in the direction of the family.

Africa is so rich — in its storytelling, its beliefs, its rituals, its food, in the way it has come into its own to show up globally. African people are always there for the people within their communities, and also for strangers. The hospitality is unmatched. Being an African woman is a gift, and it’s a ticket to unlearn some of the thought patterns impressed on us. Being mixed-race, and never really belonging to one specific pocket of society, allows me to redefine what that looks like.

I mention this because I think about how people refer to technological generations — I’m a millennial, but a millennial in the US or across Europe is exposed to very different societal development, very different ways of thinking, than an African millennial. Our social standing and the history of our country also set us back in many ways. So I don’t think we can be compared to the rest of the world — we’re really just paving our own way toward our development, our legacy, and our identity.

Definitely at home with my partner. When I meet other philosophical thinkers. And honestly, when I met you, Thandi, there was such resonance in the way you showed up — so playfully yourself, so unapologetically yourself — and I was able to match that frequency, to be open with you. Really, in any setting where I find my people.

My professional journey has taught me to keep going — to do whatever it takes to build the life you were destined to live. It has taught me that every setback is a repositioning for your ultimate destiny, that you should not take no for an answer, and that you deserve to be treated with respect, understanding, and care — and that all of those things can exist in the workspace. It’s taught me that you don’t have to climb on the shoulders of other people to achieve what you want. I believe deeply in collaboration. I believe in giving and service as a form of leadership. The right people will find their way onto your path, and you onto theirs. Things are changing — we don’t have to be fearful of our leaders. We can be leaders who care, who are direct, who hold standards, but still love deeply. Ambition grows when we work together.

I don’t think any of it was easy. If you looked back at my life — and I realize I haven’t shared much of it yet — you’d say my path was destined to go astray. I could have ended up selling my body, not having a stable income, homeless. There were a lot of directions that could have been written for me based on my upbringing. But since I was very young, I knew there was something in me destined for more. I got through school on my own. I got through life on my own. My sister was with me for a little bit of the way, but for a lot of it, my primary caregivers were largely absent — in emotional support, financial support, decision-making, anything that really needed their presence.

So I have to say that my whole life, I’m proud of everything I’ve done up until this point — still with great humility and zero ego about it. I’ve been so resilient. I don’t even know where to begin telling that story, but life threw me many, many challenges, things that came out of absolute nowhere, and I persevered. I’m stronger for it.

Yes. I will always choose integrity over being liked.

Power is amassed when people believe in you. There’s a great book called Give and Take, where the writer researches famous companies and famous leaders across a particular period in the US, and looks at their leadership and how people revered them for different reasons. Through his research, he identifies three types in business: givers, takers, and matchers. He found that the people at the very top and the very bottom of the success ladder were both givers, while takers scored somewhere in the middle, along with matchers — the “eye for an eye” people.

The thing about takers is that they’ll do whatever it takes — in a negative sense — to take as much as possible from the people around them, to make sure they come out on top, with no intention of helping anyone else rise. Givers at the bottom give to their own detriment; givers at the top help other people rise. So you can only change the world when you choose to be seen or choose to be heard, and your leadership becomes an example of your heart. The essence of your power is an example of your heart. To be empowered does not mean to overpower.

Whether it’s one square meter of space or the whole damn building, you have earned the right to take up that space — and it starts by making space within yourself. When you struggle to speak, your body clenches, your throat closes, and there’s no room for the best version of yourself to be projected. We need to really breathe into the places that cause tension in our body and figure out what it is about the situation that isn’t allowing us to be seen, to be flexible, to be comfortable — and then breathe into that discomfort. What you think and what you have to say matters.

We’re afraid for many reasons — often because we’re uncertain, or because a similar situation has arisen before and we feel that pattern will repeat itself. Why not give life a chance to surprise you? Let it be entirely new. Do it anyway, and start small. Ask the right questions. Find your space, whether that’s making a new friend at work or giving a presentation.

If people are constantly speaking over you, a great tip: when it’s your turn — say it’s a virtual meeting — suggest you stand up. Say, “I’ve been sitting for a while now during this meeting; I’d like to stand up for my part of the presentation.” That’s simply announcing that you shouldn’t be shut down. And if someone does speak over you, take the opportunity to say, “As I was saying,” or “I’d like to finish my thought” — whatever it takes to make it known that your voice still matters.

Life asks me to heal every day. But in the healing, I’m able to help others heal on their own journey. Being the invisible child to both my mother and father was a big part of it. I attracted a lot of abusive people into my life — whether in relationships or in random encounters. I had to take a step back, because I never had a “survivor mentality” — if you’re always surviving, you’re never really living.

I think I carried this mentality of “pick yourself up and keep moving,” and that can go one of two ways. Either you never sit with the difficulties of your life and heal from them, or you persevere in spirit — and when the time and place to sit with your grief arrives, you spend time with it consciously, you welcome it in like an old friend for tea, and then you find the strength to move forward with it, gaining the relevant lessons and helping others along the way.

I allow myself to have a good cry. I allow myself that downtime where I can feel what I’m feeling, and then I move on. There are many ways I do this — a salt bath, sitting in prayer, doing some reiki, meditating, having a really nice glass of wine. There are so many ways the physical body can just exhale that I subscribe to. Speaking to a good friend helps too. If I disconnect, I can reconnect with myself, and I think making that time is important.

A lot of the time I’m just powering through, barrelling through my life, not letting the hard things settle — but they settle with time regardless. I know that’s not the most polished advice, but I think it’s important to detach and find that one thing that brings you back to ground zero. I have simple tools, and they’re very effective.

I’m not good at allowing myself to rest, but it’s something I’ve learned in the last two years is a must. My non-negotiable. Even after giving birth to my son, I was back at work in less than two months. After appendix surgery, I was working in between recovery periods. I need to work on that.

But rest is so imperative, because I realized you’re burning yourself out slowly. You think it’s one thing that pushes you over the edge, but really it’s compounding — all the opportunities you’ve given life to press you down: the late nights, the overthinking, the not taking a break. Taking rest is actually being productive — you’re producing energy. It’s something I’m learning to prioritize. But if you’re asking me for advice to give someone else — number one, put that on your list. If you don’t rest well, and you don’t rest deeply, you cannot perform well, and you cannot show up deeply.

Each season has a different diagnosis and a different healing journey. Having good people in my life, and allowing myself to lean on them — that was a lesson learned late. Prayer, and having a deep relationship with God, with what I call my “spirit squad” — the angels and divine beings who guide me through this life. Trusting myself to get through it. And really looking at the root cause of an issue, rather than letting it become a shotgun reaction or an emotional scatter. I’m a very discerning person, so I’m able to see things for what they are, regardless of how they made me feel — and that lets me come back to my true north, my values, and let those lead the way.

I don’t think it’s uncommon to know that healing can be messy — but it isn’t always. Sometimes healing comes long after the hurt, from something we didn’t even know was still an open wound. It gets a little drizzle of salt on it, or a little bit of sweetness in the form of someone else’s genuine care, and that sweetness is what brings us to the understanding that healing needs to take place. And I think we find that in other people, in relationship. If you’re looking at romantic relationships, a lot of people just want company — a companion. But when you choose a true relationship, you’re choosing an era of your life, a mirror of each other, digging deep into the things that hurt us the most and excite us the least — and discovering who we are through those trials, and through those celebrations.

I touched on this a little earlier, so these two answers tie together. My parents had very distinct — and not conducive — habits when it came to money, ways of dealing with it that weren’t built for a successful, prosperous, fruitful life. It caused a lot of friction in how my sister and I approached money, and we went in different directions because of it.

I’ve since healed a lot of that. I went through stages where I didn’t have, and I couldn’t ask — and then when I had a lot, I gave generously. I think I still hold onto a bit of those imbalances, but it’s become so much better because I understand the value now. No one had to teach me how to give — that was innately who I am. But the management side is different; it’s hard to say you can manage money well when you’ve never had anything to manage.

So, going back to what I said earlier about reckless abundance versus a poverty mentality — those were two very definitive directions I chose not to go in. And I’m so grateful I had such clear examples of what not to become.

I believe in my financial decisions. Even when I was younger, I used to spend all my money on love — travel, experiences, cultivating relationships. That hasn’t changed much. But I am very proud of my investments in my business, my investment in my family, and my investment in myself. That last one is so important, because I would give all the good stuff away and have nothing left to take care of and enjoy my own life.

But the most recent one — the investment in my new business, BSC Ignite Agency — has been one of the best things I could have done. We realized there was something no one else was offering, and we were able to give that to other business owners. It has multiplied in my life, in the lives of my business partners, and in the lives of everyone we’ve touched — our clients and our community.

Oh my goodness, so many times. I was very good at everything I’ve done in my life, but I’ve also failed — dramatically, drastically, fully. It’s funny — I used to believe strongly that you could just start again, that there was a joy in being able to start over. And a shaman once said to me, “Sasta, if you keep believing in the power of starting again, you will never build anything that stays.” That shifted the way I was thinking, in terms of what I was doing to build a strong foundation with the things I love, the things I’m invested in — instead of casually reaching for “I can just start again.”

I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to build a lasting legacy. I want a strong life. I want meaningful relationships. I want a business that flourishes. And for a while, those things weren’t true, because I was in a repetitive cycle of unhealthy relationships, toxic work environments, stretching myself so thin — in business, I gave everything away and got no monetary return, because I was so far on the other side of the pendulum swing that I couldn’t receive. So yes, I’ve rebuilt financially, emotionally, and professionally so many times. But I finally believe I’m at a stage of my life where I am strong and planted.

Independence means I can decide to do anything, and I have the ability to do it. Whatever I choose, I have the capacity to carry it out. It’s also important to recognize the distinct difference between independence and interdependence, which I believe in strongly — because in partnership, there needs to be a sense of self, but also a sense of “us.” There’s him, there’s me, there’s us, there’s our family — so many different circles of relationship that grow as you introduce new people into your life: children, in-laws, and so on.

But when I think about my own capabilities — for example, I’ve always been hyper-independent. That means I wouldn’t accept help. People would be there, and reluctantly I might give in, but I’d always do it on my own. Not because I wanted the credit for everything I did — I just couldn’t accept the help.

With my partner, though, since we started seeing each other, and now being in a deeper relationship, building a family — the one thing that hasn’t changed is that he will not let me carry heavy things. It used to annoy me, honestly, because I’m strong, I’m happy to do it myself. But a couple of months ago, I realized I could barely carry a chair — he’s made my life so soft. I’m strong again now, but it was such a funny reflection: in allowing myself to lean on him, something in me started to atrophy a little. I’m back to carrying my own chairs and shopping and everything else, but it’s not that I couldn’t when this began — I still can. It’s that I can also rely on someone I love to take care of me in that way.

Definitely what they invest in, how they spend their money, and how to incorporate things that genuinely nurture and care for themselves. Also, the best banks or platforms to save and invest in — it’s worth every woman shopping around and comparing savings rates rather than settling for the first option.

But what I’m really trying to say is: we need to learn how to save, we need to learn how to invest, and we need to learn how to spoil ourselves too — not just give it all away. That said, we also need a place where we give, where we can empower other people and improve our communities. Give to something that means the most to you. For me, the injustice I feel most strongly about is food security — SA Harvest is my nonprofit of choice, as well as the New Acropolis School of Philosophy, because I believe we need to cultivate our minds, and ultimately, amplify the spaces where culture is explored.

My relationships have taught me about balance — that we can’t live in a pendulum swing of hyperactivity and no activity, extreme happiness and unhappiness. Even when you’re excited, attracted, enticed by the person you spend your time with, there also has to be a place of calm, safety, and understanding between you.

Boundaries can stretch depending on the power dynamic in a relationship, so you need to figure out your time boundaries, your emotional boundaries, your boundaries around communication and spirituality, and hold to those — without becoming inflexible. Situations will arise that press on you, or press on them, but you have to understand why you’re in that relationship, and not let it pull you too far off course — while also allowing enough give to hold space for the other person, and them for you.

For me, healthy support looks like open conversation — where we don’t have to match each other in terms of effort put in. Some days it’s more, some days it’s none, but there’s always open dialogue. My partner and I do something on Sundays called “Honesty Hour,” where we reflect on the week. I’m the kind of person who wants to address something the moment it happens, but my partner needs processing time. So Sunday becomes the opportunity to lay all our cards on the table. And it’s not just “I didn’t like it when you did this” — it’s also a time to celebrate each other and celebrate the small wins.

Honesty Hour is easy to integrate into your lifestyle, and it lets you address not just your interactions with each other, but your family life, your career goals, and more. Just make sure you set that hour aside. If you have little kids, it’s hard to say “we’re going out for dinner,” but even just some time when everyone’s asleep at home, when it’s just the two of you — it doesn’t have to be the full hour. Sometimes you have less to talk about, and that’s okay. But making the time, building that habit and that ritual, is supportive to you and to your relationship. I know I can rely on my partner for anything, and vice versa, and we’re not afraid to have hard conversations. So for me, support is dialogue.

This is a really great question, because I didn’t have very good female role models growing up — I didn’t have role models at all, if I’m honest. When I was younger — I am a bisexual woman — I realized I was attracted to boys around the same time I realized I was attracted to girls, so I was very awkward, period.

Growing up, I had fewer female friends, and I think it came down to different interests. A lot of the girls around me were interested in their appearance, their relationships with boys, in “catty” conversations, and I was just a little girl who liked to read, who lived at the library, who was obsessed with Harry Potter. I was nerdy, with a very different way of thinking and a different conversation style than most kids my age.

As I grew up, there were pinpoints in my life — wonderful women who carried themselves so well and had deep care for me — but it never lasted very long. I could almost say there was a curse over my life at some stage. Ha ha. Perhaps there was, but it’s broken now. So I’m still discovering what it means to have deep relationships with iconic women, influential women, loving and supportive women. And a lot of that has actually come from the LGBTQ+ community — including women who have transitioned. It’s something I’m still discovering.

A collaborative sisterhood. A weird sisterhood — one where you can just joke and play, where it’s not about being poised or pretentious, where you can just be yourself and really enjoy that feminine community. One that cultivates the femininity within us and recognizes that we need that balance.

For me, I lean very strongly into my masculine energy, because I’m a very action-oriented, leadership-oriented person, and I tend to take the lead in most settings. But I want softness sometimes. There was a woman I met a couple of years ago — she worked in the construction industry, and the hardest thing for her was that everything is so hard. She was surrounded by men working in a hard industry; there was no room for softness. So what she did was buy herself thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and that became her ritual — she would get into the bath when she got home, scrub herself down, put on nothing but her pajamas, and get into bed. That was her moment of repeatable softness.

Figuring out that thing for ourselves, and for each other, and being able to be vulnerable with other women — I wish more women could experience that soft, weird, wonderful kind of relationship.

Let people show up for you. You are not defined by every experience you’ve ever had, or by your past. Family and friendship are chosen. Love should always be at the centre. And once you open yourself up to love, only good things start to enter your life from that place.

I learned very early on that my purpose here on this planet is to help raise the vibration of humanity. What that means is that through every interaction, may the person I meet be better for it — not because of me, but because they found that joy, that purpose, that light within themselves. That every life we touch becomes better for having had an encounter with me, us, you. That comes through conscientiousness, through being kind, leading with love, and empowering other people. When people think of me, I hope they think of the care I offered, the love I gave, and the wisdom I shared.

I am still becoming the best version of myself. I am learning and unlearning every day. I’m still figuring out what it means to be confident, and not stand in the boots of imposter syndrome — to believe that my life, to this point, has mattered so deeply, and that it will matter for the future and for other people. I’m still becoming strong.

I would tell her she need not fear what she is to become, because even though it was hard, she is powerful. Her voice matters. When she speaks, people listen, people heal, and in turn, she heals. I’d tell her not to shy away from the fact that her voice will always hold space — it deserves a space in this reality. And that she does become a world-renowned author.

I hope you learn to love how absolutely unlike anyone else you are. I hope you take a chance on yourself. I hope you choose rest. I hope you choose to shine after that rest.

That they deserve to be seen. That their pain is important, but more important still is finding the hope on the other side of the darkness — to not sit in that darkness and let it dictate their lives. I hope they learn something deeply hidden about themselves: that they are not one-dimensional creatures. They are multidimensional, multifaceted women — faithful, loving, explorative, kind. And that their story deserves to be heard. Do not live in the shadows and forget to live.

A poem she lives by is Warsan Shire’s “For Women Who Are Difficult to Love” — words about loving fiercely and refusing to shrink, one line of which she has tattooed on her forearm as a daily reminder of her own worth.