They Protected Us So We Could Learn to Love

Last night, I went to the premiere of Indomptables, the new film by Thomas Ngijol. I walked in with the only expectation of having fun. I walked out with a heart full of emotions. It’s a funny, tender, moving film. One that touches on deep, heavy truths with surprising lightness. And most of all, it brought me straight back to my childhood, to that delicate, bittersweet space where memory, silence, and survival meet.

There’s a moment in the film I haven’t been able to shake. The main character (a Cameroonian father) says something along the lines of:
“The most important thing to me is protecting my children.” And his wife responds, without flinching:
“The most important thing is loving them.”

That one line stopped me cold.

Because it says everything.
It says fear.
It says lineage.
It says trauma.
It says distance.

And suddenly, I saw my own father.

My father wasn’t like the one in the film. He was warmer, more affectionate in his own way. But he raised us with the same strictness. The same unwavering structure. The same unsaid rule: feelings must wait. There were things to do. Standards to meet. A future to protect. Love, in his world, wasn’t spoken. It was done. It was food on the table, rules in the house, pressure to perform. It was shielding us from a world he knew could break us.

And now, as I mother my own children, I understand just how political that protection was.

During the post-screening Q&A, Thomas said something that stayed with me:
"Many of our parents grew up during colonization, or just after. And the traumas they lived through shaped their armor, and colored the way they raised us."

Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.

They carried fear like a second skin.
They raised us in survival mode.
Because they knew (or at least believed) that softness could cost us everything.
That protection had to come before tenderness.
That dignity was something the world would try to rip from us — and that their job was to make sure we didn’t hand it over too easily.

So they built walls. Set rules.
Taught silence.
Rewarded resilience.
And somewhere in the midst of all that… they loved us.

Not always gently.
Not always clearly.
But fiercely. Desperately. Consistently.

Now, I raise my children differently.
Not because I’m better.
But because I’m freer.

Freer to speak.
Freer to feel.
Freer to unlearn.
Freer to love without fear.

I tell my children “I love you” , out loud, as often as I can.
I listen to them.
I hold space for their questions, their anger, their joy.
I tell them when I’m tired, when I’m scared, when I’m not sure.
I want them to know that vulnerability is not weakness — it is a language.
That love is not earned — it is given.

And yes, I still protect them.
But I do not need a hard shell to do it.
I want them to be strong — but more than that, I want them to be soft.
I want them to grow up knowing that emotion is not a threat.
That silence is not the only way to endure.
That love can be spoken, freely, without shame.

Because our parents protected us —
so we could learn to love.

And the way I love my children now…
is my way of saying thank you.

Maybe What I Do Isn’t Work

Someone asked me recently why I work.

And I took my time before answering.
Because I didn’t want to respond out of habit or politeness.
I wanted to be honest—with myself, and with the life I’m living right now.

And the truth is,
I don’t think I’m working.

At least not in the way people usually mean it.
Not the kind with fixed hours, performance goals, or career ladders to climb.

After my last wave of professional disappointments—failed applications, abandoned ventures, ideas that never took off—I made a quiet but radical decision:

From now on, everything I do must come from the heart.
Paid or not. Recognized or not. That part doesn’t matter anymore.

I let go of financial expectations.
And in doing so, I made room for something else: freedom.

So now, I only do what feels true.

I move more slowly, yes.
Because I don’t have big budgets or backers to fund my ideas.
But I move with clarity. With joy.

And that has made all the difference.

This pace I’ve chosen gives me time.
Time for my children, for their laughter and questions and growth.
Time for myself—to rest, to reflect, to rebuild.

I’ve stepped out of the race.
The one we call “success,” but that often feels like running from ourselves.

It doesn’t mean I don’t have goals.
It just means my metrics have changed.
My calendar follows a different rhythm now—my own.

So is this still “work”? I don’t know.

But I know it’s alive. I know it matters.
And that’s enough for me.

We Were Always Walking Each Other Home

I was listening to Yame.
Young, French, Cameroonian. Tender voice. Sharp mind. A musical talent walking with destiny’s ease.
He was on Clique, speaking of his father — a man who sang before him, dreamed before him, tried before him. A Cameroonian artist whose voice never made it past the walls of struggle. A father whose success never caught the spotlight, but who carried music anyway, like inheritance stitched into the soul.

And I felt a familiar ache.
Not sadness.
Reverence.

Because what if his father’s failure wasn’t a failure?
What if it was a laying down of bricks?
A rehearsal of breath?
A planting, not for himself, but for the son?

We love to say — don’t live through your children.
Let them choose their own path.
Let them be.

And yes, control and ego are dangerous dances for a parent.
But there is something sacred we forget when we speak too sharply of separation.

What if the path the child chooses is the one the parent longed for?
And not by force, but by frequency.
What if it is not projection — but prophecy?

In family soul constellations, we speak of soul groups.
Spirits who return together, again and again, to walk each other home.
Maybe a parent’s dream isn’t their dream alone.
Maybe it's a story that needs more than one lifetime to be fulfilled.

Yame’s father, voice roughened by life, might have carried the melody that would only fully bloom in his son.
Not as an echo, but as a continuation.
Not as living through, but as living with.

The father struggled.
The son soared.
But they were always in the same song. Different verses. Same chorus.

This is not about romanticizing pain or painting poverty in soft hues.
This is about spirit.
About agreements made in the space before birth.
About a father who may have mistaken his child’s mission for his own —
not out of ego,
but because the dream lived in his blood and whispered its name in his sleep.

Maybe the child who walks faster, who achieves with ease, isn’t bypassing the parent.
He is lifting the weight.
Redeeming the offering. Completing the sentence his parent began in stammered hope.

And maybe this is what ancestral healing looks like.
Not always rituals and tears.
Sometimes it’s a song on French television.
Sometimes it’s a son saying “thank you” to the man who couldn’t make it — but made him.

We must expand our understanding of purpose.
We must stop measuring impact in single lives.
Legacy is not always personal.
Sometimes it's collective. Sometimes it skips a generation.
Sometimes it hides in failure, waiting for a voice that can carry it home.

So no, not every parent lives through their child.
Sometimes, they live for them.
Sometimes, they are the rough draft of a symphony that only the next generation can complete.

Yame’s father sang. And because he did, his son could sing louder.
Clearer. Freer.
As if the melody was waiting for the right lungs.

And that… that is not failure.
That is grace in motion.

What If I’m Already Wealthy?

For a long time, I believed money would get me somewhere. Somewhere freer. Lighter. More fulfilled. A version of myself I hadn’t yet met.

I chased money with the quiet conviction (almost universal) that something was missing.

But one morning, while thinking about my life, my sons, and my work, I realized this: I already live much of what I thought money would bring me.

Money can buy freedom.

But I am free. Free to be the woman I want to be. Free to do work that feels aligned with who I am. I’m not confined to a role or trapped in a life that suffocates me.

Money can buy time.

Yet I have time (real, sacred time) to spend with my teenage sons. Time to be present, to be with them, not just around them. My husband reminded me recently that this, too, is a privilege.

Money can buy health.

I live in a country where I can access good food and proper healthcare. And I am healthy.

So why the constant pressure to earn more?

I don’t need money to be free.

I don’t need money to be present.
I don’t need money to feel alive.

But yes, I still need money.
To support my daily needs. To travel. To invest in myself, in my family, in the projects I’m building. To give. To create. To build a life with more spaciousness and ease.

Not from a place of lack. Not from fear. But from the desire to sustain and expand what already feels meaningful.

This is not a race anymore. It’s not a chase. It’s a grounded desire for stability, for anchoring, for flow.

And maybe the real work is to remember this: I’m not starting from empty. I’m starting from full — from a life already rich in love, time, freedom, and health. Full of meaning.

What if the work isn’t to earn more, but to remember that we already have so much — and to build from that fullness?

When a Whisper Becomes a Movement: Expanding Of Trees and Butterflies

There are things we create quietly, with trembling hands and a full heart. Things that are more prayer than plan. Of Trees and Butterflies was one of those things.

In 2018, I created a private healing space for women of African descent navigating generational trauma. No big launch. No press release. Just a deep need—for truth, for rest, for softness—and the courage to hold space for it. That year, I was working full-time in strategic communications and fundraising. My days were filled with campaigns, deadlines, donor calls. But in the quiet, after hours, I was building something else. A sacred offering. A home for the stories that didn’t fit into program reports or fundraising decks. A space for soul work.

I didn’t talk about Of Trees and Butterflies much. It wasn’t a brand. It wasn’t a product. It was a feeling. A container for unlearning and remembering. A place where women could reclaim their narratives, sit with their shadows, and reimagine healing on their own terms.

But some dreams don’t stay small. They grow. They stretch. They knock on your door again and again until you finally say: yes. I hear you.

So here we are.

In 2025, Of Trees and Butterflies is becoming a French nonprofit association. A bigger project. A bolder dream. What started as an intimate circle is becoming a structured organization, anchored in African perspectives on mental health, rooted in dignity, and expansive enough to hold the complexity of our stories.

Why now?

Because the need is louder than ever. Because our communities deserve support that is culturally anchored and spiritually aware. Because the mental health field, as it exists, too often pathologizes what is sacred and silences what is inconvenient. And because I finally asked myself the question I’d been avoiding for years: why not do for my own organization what I’ve spent a decade doing for others?

For years, I’ve raised money for nonprofits and social enterprises across Africa and beyond. I know how to build compelling strategies. I know how to write the proposals, design the programs, and engage the donors. I’ve done it all, for everyone else. But Of Trees and Butterflies is where my soul lives. And it’s time I brought my full self to the table.

The new iteration of Of Trees and Butterflies will begin in France, but it is meant for the continent. We’ll be working first in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Benin, offering mental health support and storytelling spaces that center African realities and restore a sense of communal healing. We will walk slowly. Listen deeply. And build with care.

This is not about scaling up for the sake of visibility. It’s about anchoring more deeply in the work. About offering something honest and necessary. About giving well, and receiving without guilt.

This time, I am not whispering.

This time, I am choosing to grow out loud.

The math isn't mathing: on 120% hustle, womanhood, and business

Dear friends,

I recently stumbled on a podcast where a guest (unsurprisingly, a man) declared with confidence that you need to give “120% of yourself” for your business to succeed. He meant it as a universal truth.

But as an African woman who has lived the simultaneous realities of salaried work, motherhood, partnership, entrepreneurship, and caretaking, I have to say: the math ain’t mathing.

A few years ago, I had a full-time job. I was raising small children. I was managing a home, navigating illness in the family, doing the school runs, writing reports, trying to stay professionally sharp… and somehow also supposed to “give it my all” to a new business. I remember working on client deliverables at 1 a.m. after everyone had gone to sleep, or using Saturday nap times to edit pitch decks. There was no 120%. There was barely 65% to go around.

And yet, that wasn’t failure. That was survival. That was building. That was real.

The data agrees with us.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, women in low- and middle-income countries often start their businesses later in life, typically between 35 and 55. Why? Because life has other plans first. Because we give birth, we raise babies, we care for aging parents, we clean kitchens, we lead community meetings. The OECD even estimates that if women started businesses at the same rate as men between 30 and 49, there’d be nearly 25 million more women entrepreneurs. Twenty-five million. Let that sink in.

And it’s not just about starting late, it’s about starting tired. UN Women reminds us that globally, women spend 2.8x more time than men on unpaid care work. In our lives, this isn't abstract. It looks like this:

Most of the women entrepreneurs I meet with? We don’t have strategy calls at noon. We talk at 10 p.m., sometimes 11, after the elder kids are fed and tucked in, after the house is calm, after the kitchen is clean. Half of us are nursing newborns during those Zooms. And yet we show up. Consistently. Tenderly. Cleverly.

We’re building businesses differently.

Our businesses don’t usually spring from sudden capital injections or overnight epiphanies. They begin with a moment of deep frustration or helplessness, when a system failed us or someone we love. That’s how we build: from the inside out, rooted in the personal, branching into the communal. Even when it’s tech. Even when it’s bold. It still often starts with “this thing didn’t exist when I needed it.”

We build slowly, and we build with others in mind. Our communities are woven into the blueprint. We are subconsciously designing safety nets, joy pockets, and systems of dignity. And even when growth is slower, our foundations are strong.

The advice needs to change.

When people hand out business advice without nuance, when they say “just go all in” or “wake up at 5 a.m.” without asking who’s nursing a baby at 3 a.m., they reveal more about their world than ours. That kind of advice is callous at best, dangerous at worst.

But it also shows us why we need more of our own voices in the room. We need to write more, record more, document more. Yes, even if that means adding to our already overwhelming to-do lists. I say this to myself too: your story matters. Not just for visibility, but for shaping the kind of entrepreneurial ecosystem that honors the realities of African womanhood.

So no, I will not give 120%. I will give what I can, with intention, with clarity, with truth. Some days that’s 40%. Some days that’s 103%. But I will do it with joy. I will do it with care. And I will not apologize for refusing to burn myself to make someone else’s metric.

With heart and honesty,
Arlette

What If It’s Just the Ego Playing?

A quiet meditation on desire, emptiness, and the space ego occupies in our lives.

My kids are away on vacation.
They’re coming back tomorrow.

Today, I cleaned the house. Rearranged a few things, folded laundry, made space for their return.
And somewhere between folding a blanket and wiping down the kitchen counter, a thought floated in:
What would happen if I wasn’t here tomorrow?

Not in a dramatic way. Not sad. Not anxious.
Just still.
And then, a deeper truth settled in:
If I’m still alive, it’s for them.
Not because I think my life is deeply meaningful in itself.
But because they exist. And for now, they still need me.

Maybe none of what we do on a daily basis really matters.
Maybe, as individual humans, we’re not that important.
Our thoughts, our ambitions, our emotional storms — all of it passes.

If we’re part of something vaster, something beyond what we can name, then why are we so afraid of emptiness?
Why this obsession with leaving a mark, being useful, being noticed?

What if we’re just souls passing through, inhabiting one form for a moment, before moving on to another?
If that’s the case, then who I am today isn’t permanent.
What I do today isn’t essential.
And somehow, that truth doesn’t disturb me. It calms me.

I’m not afraid of death. I don’t long for it either.
There’s no melancholy here. Just a quiet kind of clarity.
I simply don’t believe that any of this is that serious.

Sometimes I feel like a spectator.
Like I’m watching life more than I’m caught in it.

Maybe that’s why I see through systems so easily —
the roles we’re assigned, the stories we’re told.
It all looks like a well-rehearsed play. Everyone is performing with conviction.
And I find myself watching the scene thinking:
Maybe there’s another script. Maybe there’s a whole other stage elsewhere.

That doesn’t mean I reject life.
It just means I’m looking at it from a slightly different angle.
With distance. With what might be called extra-lucidity.
I’m not judging. I’m not trying to persuade anyone.
I’m just saying what I feel.

And what I feel, often, is that so much of what we do comes from one specific part of ourselves:
the ego.

The ego isn’t evil. It’s not a flaw.
It’s a function. A lens. A storyteller.
It gives shape to our identity and lets us feel like we’re someone.

It’s the voice that says, “I want,” “I deserve,” “I know better,” “I matter.”
It compares, it competes, it performs.
It even cries — not always out of true pain, but from the fear of vanishing.

The desire to have children, to succeed, to accumulate, to be seen — these aren’t bad things.
But they often start in the ego.
That part of us that can’t bear the idea of being nothing.
That clings to meaning. That needs to be central.

Even our tendency to judge people who choose to live differently (with less, or slower, or outside of ambition) comes from the ego.
Because if they can live that way, then maybe our own desires aren’t universal.
And that’s destabilizing.
The ego wants its way to be the way.

Because really, the ego’s job is to fill the empty space.

That deep, quiet space that shows up when there’s nothing urgent.
When the house is still.
When no one’s watching.
When there’s nothing to chase.

Without ego, we think we’ll dissolve.
And so we let it take over.
We give it the mic. We build our days around it.
Even when it exhausts us, we keep it close — because with it, at least, we feel real.

But sometimes, something breaks through.
There’s a pause. A softness. A flicker of something deeper.

And a voice inside says,
What if I’m not what I want? Not what I do? Not even what I believe?
What if I can just be here, without having to matter so much?

And in that moment, another space opens.
Less noisy. Less heavy.
An unclaimed space where nothing needs to happen.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s where we can finally exhale.
Where we can live not as performers, but as presence.

It’s not that serious.

It’s not disconnection.
It’s not nihilism.
It’s just another way of being with life —
when we stop believing everything rests on us.

Intention...ality

The Power of Intentionality

Doing things with intentionality is not the same as having an intention. It’s not saying “I want to succeed” or “I want to heal.” It is something deeper, wider, more anchored.
It is a way of being in the world. A posture. A quiet orientation of the entire self.

Intentionality is that subtle, often unspoken awareness that infuses our actions, our choices, our pauses. It is the inner space from which our intentions arise. It’s not a goal, it’s a state of presence.

To act with intentionality is to be attuned to yourself. To dwell within. To meet each step, each detour, each still moment with the question: does this feel like me? Does this honor who I am? And sometimes, it’s choosing to go forward anyway (even when the step isn’t perfectly aligned) but doing so with eyes wide open.

Intentionality invites us to slow down. To take up space. To move through life at the pace of presence. It makes the process alive, resonant, sacred. Every win, however small, becomes worthy of celebration, because it was lived fully.

To live with intentionality is not to grasp for control. It is to feel. To listen. To walk through the world with an inner compass steady, even when the map is unclear.

It is a kind of truth. And a kind of tenderness, too.

Living with Intentionality — In Business, In Motherhood

Living with intentionality as a mother and a businesswoman is not always easy. The world moves fast. People expect answers, results, decisions…yesterday. And some days, it feels like everyone wants a piece of me, all at once.

But intentionality is my anchor.

It means things may not always move fast.
Emails might wait 24 to 48 hours before I respond—not because I don’t care, but because I care deeply. I need to sit with what’s being asked. I need to check in with myself first.

Intentionality means I won’t rush into every opportunity that knocks.
I take time to investigate (deeply) before investing my money, my time, or my energy. I look at people before I look at proposals. I ask questions like: Does this align with how I want to feel? Who I want to become?
Because doing things just to keep up has never been the kind of success I aspire to.

As a mother, intentionality calls me to listen more than I speak.
To resist the temptation of control, and instead tune in to who my children are becoming.
To honor their rhythms, not just mine.
To make space for flexibility, for repair, for presence.
To model for them that they don’t have to run just because the world is racing. That they don’t have to go where everyone else is going, unless it’s where their heart leads them.

Living with intentionality won’t always win you the race, but it will make sure you’re running towards what matters.

And that, for me, is the only kind of winning that counts.

Spiritual Re-engineering: Rebuilding the Sacred After Collapse

1. Unlearning: Dismantling Imposed Foundations

Purpose: Identify and dismantle inherited beliefs that create guilt, passivity, or spiritual codependency.

Examples of beliefs to unlearn:

• Suffering is proof of devotion.

• God only listens when you're obedient.

• You must earn blessings through hardship.

• Doubt is dangerous.

• Needing help is weakness.

Practices:

• Free writing: “Which beliefs did I inherit that no longer serve me?”

• Mapping the origin of beliefs — religious, familial, colonial, social.

• Radical questioning: What if the God I was taught isn’t God at all?

2. Re-anchoring: Giving the Spirit Something Solid to Stand On

Purpose: Provide new grounding after deconstruction so the soul is not left in limbo.

Possible anchors:

• The body — sensation as sacred truth. What I feel is valid.

• Joy — not as a reward, but as a compass.

• Inner truth — building a personal spiritual ethic.

• Safe presence — finding or creating a community where belief is reimagined.

Practices:

• Meditation prompts: “Where do I feel safest right now?”

• Rewriting prayer in your own voice.

• Inner child dialogue: “What would I have wanted to hear about God when I was ten?”

3. Reimagining: Building a Spiritual Framework That Nourishes Dignity and Life

Purpose: Invent new symbols, language, and rituals that meet the real needs of the soul: safety, agency, connection, hope.

Key shifts:

• Reimagining the Divine: God as ally, not judge.

• Reimagining time: Slowness as sacred, not punishment.

• Reimagining self-worth: You are enough, even when still.

• Reimagining transcendence: I have the right to make meaning.

Practices:

• Create a personal altar — objects, memories, quotes that anchor you.

• Rituals of closure and invitation — letting go of old beliefs, welcoming new truths.

• Embodied spirituality — cooking, walking, resting, dancing as sacred acts.

Why “Re-engineering”?

Because this is not about switching religions.
It’s about soul architecture.
It’s about truth-telling.

With softness.
With fire.
With your own authority.

You’re not abandoning God.
You’re reclaiming the right to define what is sacred — and what is not.

Reprogramming the Inner World: What Comes After Unlearning?

Unlearning is not enough.
Once the belief crumbles, emptiness arrives.
And in that emptiness, the mind searches for something to hold. A new truth. A new myth strong enough to hold the chaos.

Because yes, the chaos is real.

Losing a parent.
Having no income.
Carrying the weight of an entire family on your back.
Not knowing if tomorrow will be survivable.

I can’t pretend these experiences didn’t break me.
They fractured my sense of stability.
They planted seeds of anxiety deep inside my day-to-day.
They had very real, very tangible consequences.

Which is why trying to extract meaning from them often feels violent, dishonest, or both.

And yet, I can’t live suspended in a void.
I no longer want to cling to inherited dogma — but I need a language.
A compass.
An inner ground.

So I’m trying something else.

I no longer ask: What lesson am I supposed to learn from this hardship?

Instead, I ask:
What is this experience revealing? What part of me is trying to emerge through the pain?
What door is this crisis forcing me to face?

I’ve long felt trapped between two extremes:

• On one side, religious fatalism — every hardship as God's test.

• On the other, toxic positivity — every loss repackaged as a "lesson" with a smile.

I’m choosing the middle path.
One where I acknowledge the brutality of what I’ve lived through,
without letting it define me.

I believe in a spirituality that neither demands submission nor denies suffering.
A spirituality rooted in listening.
A spirituality of re-anchoring.

What I call spiritual re-engineering is not a new belief system.
It is an act of interior architecture.
A redesign of what holds me up from the inside out.

I am building a mental and spiritual space where hardship is not a punishment,
not a test,
but a mirror.

It shows me where I’m still waiting.
Where I need softness.
Where I need support, boundaries, or reinvention.

Sometimes, it shows me what I can no longer carry.

And in that collapse, it opens the possibility of something else.
A version of me less obsessed with control, more open to receiving.
A version of me that dares to ask, I need gentleness. I need help. I need rest.

I don’t know if God sends these experiences.
But I do know I refuse to live in a spiritual system that punishes grief, silences anger, or treats doubt like sin.

Today, I seek softer anchors.

Simple rituals.
Words that soothe.
Presences that lift.

I give myself permission to rebuild my faith like an old house:
keep what still stands, replace what has crumbled, let more light in.

And maybe that’s what spiritual re-engineering is:
refusing inherited narratives,
inventing my own,
and daring to believe that God, too, can be rewritten through me.

I Refuse To Believe In A God Who Abandons His Children

There are lessons I have learned in suffering … but obedience is not one of them.

The past three years have stripped me bare. I lost my father. I lost my footing. I lost what little sense of stability I had managed to build around me. My businesses struggled. My job search felt like an endless desert. And behind me, a family waiting, hoping, depending on me to be the one who would make it out alive — and bring them with me.

I know what depression tastes like. I have held it in my mouth like iron. I have fought it with the fragile weapons I had left: small routines, hope against reason, silent prayers without expectation.

I do not blame life for being hard. I know I am not entitled to ease.

But what I cannot accept, what I will never bow to, is the spiritual violence of a faith that tells me this suffering is somehow divine.

I was raised on stories like that of Job — the man who lost everything, stripped of children, wealth, health, and dignity, just to prove a point in some celestial bet.
People love to quote Job as a model of unwavering faith.

I read Job and see spiritual abuse.

Because what kind of parent — what kind of God — watches their child drown in grief and calls it a lesson?

Not the kind of parent I want to be. Not the kind of God I want to believe in.

I do not know when this theology took root in us — the idea that we must suffer endlessly before being worthy of joy. The idea that begging is holy. That prostration is the only way to be seen.

But I know this: it did not begin with us.

It began when our stories were stolen.

When our cosmologies were interrupted.

When our relationship with the divine was hijacked by colonizers who needed us to bow — to them, to their God, to their way of seeing the world.

And we have bowed for so long that it almost feels natural.

But it is not.

I am tired of praying as a performance of endurance.

I am tired of being told that silence means favor is coming.

I am tired of spiritual frameworks that tell me my only power is in waiting — quietly — for a breakthrough that may never come.

I believe in God.

But not the God who abandons.

Not the God who needs me small to love me.

Not the God who mistakes humiliation for holiness.

I am unlearning.

Unlearning the colonial faith of scarcity and suffering.

Unlearning the doctrine of waiting rooms and closed doors.

Unlearning the silence that shames us for asking: Why would a parent let their child suffer like this?

I am remembering.

Remembering that I come from people who met God in rivers, in drums, in laughter.

People who did not need to be broken to be blessed.

People whose prayers were not whispered in fear, but sung in gratitude.

I do not have all the answers.

But I know what I will not do: I will not teach my children that God is a test they have to pass.

I will teach them that they are loved — here, now, without condition.

And maybe, just maybe, that is all the faith I need right now.

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?