In My Wilderness Season… Ghetto, Holy, and God Said “Trust Me” Like I Had Options

I have a secret to share. You ready?

I’ve been in my wilderness season, and I bet you didn’t even notice. Why? Because I’ve been off social media and out here raw dogging my emotions… well, respectfully, in my prayer closet where my beautiful grey oak floors now have some of my tear stains.

When I tell you I have been dragged for filth, I mean that.

This wilderness season has been dragging me for filth, for real. For the past year, I have been in a full wilderness experience, and I’m not talking about a cute “finding myself” moment. I mean, no map, no clear directions, and me asking God daily, “Where are we going and when is this over?” Because everything you can think of has either happened or is currently happening.

I’ve released people with love, been laid off, and my unemployment is still pending. And yet somehow, by the grace of God, my bills are still paid, and my sanity is still intact. Listen… that alone is a testimony.

I’ve been in my prayer closet twice a day. Crying, rolling on the floor, getting pruned, and still trying to stay disciplined by going to the gym. The whole time I’m on the treadmill, fighting tears and trying to keep it together during my sets. At this point, I’ve learned to stop resisting and just cry. No shame, no holding back. I am crying like that little child whose parent pulled up to the school and caught them acting out. No warning, no escape, just consequences and tears. That’s exactly where I’m at.

And the confusion has been real. There have been days when I’ve been so confused I just start laughing and say, “Okay God… this is what you got me doing today?” Because honestly, what else can you do but laugh at this point?

Now let me tell you how deep this wilderness got. The other day, I thought I had the flu. Fever, chills, fatigue, night sweats, everything. I go to the doctor, they test me for everything, and she tells me, “Congratulations, you don’t have anything.” Ma’am… what do you mean I don’t have anything? So I go home and do what I do best, research like the scholar I am, and I discover something called period flu. Yes, period flu. Twelve hours later, my cycle starts, and I just sat there like… this is insane. At that point, I felt like I should be listed in a medical journal as a real-life example.

But what makes this season even deeper is how I’m going through it. I am doing this wilderness without social media. No numbing devices, no scrolling to escape, no distractions to check out mentally. I even stopped listening to music.

Chile…

Do you understand how quiet it gets when you remove all the noise? It’s just you, your thoughts, and God. That kind of silence will either break you or build you.

But in that quiet, I found something I didn’t expect. I got back into my hobbies. I started dating myself again. Taking my little solo trips to reset and recover. Sitting with myself and really learning who I am without all the outside noise and opinions.

And I’m not even going to lie… I like her.

I’ve spent a lot of time alone in this season, and I’m okay with that because I’m realizing this is not isolation, this is preparation. I am refining, redefining, praying, and surrendering. Because truthfully, I don’t know what’s next, but I do know who does, and that’s enough for me.

The moment I decided to give everything to God last year, this wilderness season began. Not because I did something wrong, but because I said yes to transformation.

So if you are in a season where things feel uncomfortable, uncertain, and a little bit ghetto, you are not alone. You are being stretched, shaped, and prepared.

Even if it looks like crying at the gym, even if it feels like confusion every other day, even if your body is out here introducing new symptoms you didn’t ask for, God is still in it.

And one day, you’re going to look back and realize this season didn’t break you, it built you.

Until then, I’m going to keep praying, keep crying, keep laughing, and keep trusting God. And apparently… keep Googling my symptoms too. 😌

Scriptures That Carried Me Through This Season

Because Boo… I didn’t get through this on vibes alone. God had to hold me down for real.

Matthew 6:33
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Because even when everything around me felt uncertain, I kept choosing God first… and somehow, everything I needed kept showing up.

Psalm 34:18
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Every tear in that prayer closet? Seen. Every breakdown? Covered.

Proverbs 3:5–6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…”
Because let’s be honest… none of this makes sense. But I’m trusting anyway.

Ecclesiastes 3:1
“To everything there is a season…”
Even this. Yes, even this wilderness. It has an expiration date.

Romans 8:28
“And we know that all things work together for good…”
Not some things. Not cute things. All things.

Galatians 6:9
“Let us not become weary in doing good…”
Because quitting has definitely crossed my mind. But I’m still here.

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Because some days the only thing I could do was hand it all over to God… tears, stress, confusion, and all.

Psalm 23:1–3
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
Because even in this wilderness, God is still providing, still leading, and still restoring me… even when I’m laid out on the floor crying.

 

The Academia Report with Prof. Drea Two Narratives. One Nation. Two Diagnoses. One America.

Part 1 examines two landmark federal reports produced during the 1960s—the Moynihan Report (1965) and the Kerner Report (1968)—both commissioned by the U.S. government to diagnose the condition of Black America. Though written within three years of each other and addressing the same crisis, these reports offered radically different explanations. The Moynihan Report argued that family structure had become the primary barrier to Black progress, shifting attention toward household instability, employment, and social behavior. The Kerner Report, by contrast, declared that America was moving toward “two societies, one Black, one white—separate and unequal,” placing responsibility squarely on structural racism, segregation, housing policy, policing, and economic exclusion. This lecture places both reports in their full historical context—slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, segregation, and mass incarceration—and challenges the long-standing practice of treating these forces as background rather than as active systems shaping outcomes. It confronts America’s era of benign neglect, when structural reform was abandoned in favor of cultural blame, and asks why one narrative was absorbed into political language while the other was ignored. This is not a debate show. This is a historical and intellectual reckoning. Two Narratives. One Nation is the beginning of a multi-part lecture series examining how policy, power, and narrative have shaped the modern Black experience—and how the stories a nation chooses determine the solutions it is willing to pursue.

The Negro Family: The Case for National Action

If You Can't Court Me, You Can't Touch Me

We need to bring back courting. And before anyone gets confused, let me define it.

Courting is an intention.

Courting is an effort.

Courting is clarity.

It is real dates. Planned dates. Public dates. Not “your house or my house.” That is not a date. That is convenience disguised as interest.

How We Got Here

Somewhere along the way, we lowered the standard and renamed it flexibility. We started calling access connection and effort optional. We allowed people into our bodies, our beds, and sometimes our lives without ever asking them to show us who they were when it actually mattered. And then we act surprised by the outcome.

How do you build a life with someone who never took you on a real date?

How do you share a child with someone who never shared the intention?

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What Courting Actually Means

Courting is not old-fashioned. It is foundational. It tells you how someone values time. How they handle responsibility. How do they show care when nothing is guaranteed? Courting creates a container where discernment can live. It slows things down just enough for truth to show itself. It makes room for observation instead of assumption, consistency instead of chemistry.

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The Standard I Stand On

And here is the part people don’t like to hear: If they cannot court you, they do not get access to you.

Not your body.

Not your energy.

Not your softness.

Courting is not about being difficult. It is about being deliberate. And I am no longer confused about the difference.

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Why This Matters

Courting protects everyone involved. It gives space for discernment. It allows red flags to show themselves without being masked by chemistry. It creates room for God, wisdom, and time to speak.

If someone tells you courting is “old-fashioned,” what they usually mean is that it requires effort they’re unwilling to give. I’m not asking for perfection. I’m asking for presence. I’m not asking to be impressed. I’m asking to be considered.

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Love Doesn’t Rush

I’ve learned that love doesn’t rush. Lust does. Ego does. Fear does. But love moves with intention. Love shows up with a plan. Love honors boundaries instead of negotiating them away. So no, I’m not confused. I’m clear. Courting is the standard. And anything less no longer has access to me.

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Call to Action

If this essay resonated with you, I’m writing a book about healing, standards, and becoming whole after heartbreak. It’s about choosing yourself, protecting your peace, and never settling for convenience disguised as love.

 

If I Had to Heal From You, You Don’t Get Access to Me

If I cried over you, not the Jodeci Cry For You kind but the kind that sent me to therapy, unraveled my nervous system, and forced me to learn the difference between love and endurance, I am not letting you back into my life.

That sentence did not come easily. It was earned.

For a long time, I believed forgiveness meant reopening doors. Answering texts. Letting nostalgia blur the truth. Allowing familiarity to masquerade as safety. I was taught explicitly and implicitly that grace required proximity. That healing meant making room. That being spiritually mature looked like access. No one told me how much of myself I was surrendering in the process.

Last year’s heartbreak did not arrive dramatically. It came quietly through patterns. Through emotional inconsistency dressed up as misunderstanding. Through moments where my body knew something, my heart was still negotiating. I kept explaining behavior that did not need explanation. I kept offering compassion where accountability should have lived.

And then I broke.

Not loudly. Not publicly. But in the slow, destabilizing way that changes how you move through the world. I cried in therapy sessions where I had to say things out loud that I had been minimizing for months. I learned language from what I experienced. I learned how often I overrode my own boundaries just to keep the connection alive.

Healing asked me better questions than love ever did.

Why did I stay when my body was signaling danger?
Why did I confuse patience with self-abandonment?
Why did I think forgiveness was proof of strength?

The hardest part was not letting go of you. It was letting go of who I was when I loved you. I had to grieve the version of myself who believed loyalty required suffering. Who thought understanding someone’s wounds meant absorbing their harm? Who believed endurance was devotion.

Therapy did not make me bitter. It made me honest. And honesty removed the illusion that reconciliation was required for peace. Forgiveness is internal. Reconciliation is relational.

Forgiveness lives in my breath, my prayers, my nervous system, finally at rest. Reconciliation requires safety, consistency, and repair. You did not offer those. And I stopped negotiating with absence.

So no, I do not hate you. I do not need revenge. I do not need closure conversations that reopen wounds I worked hard to close.

I forgive you.

But healing changed my access points. It taught me that peace sometimes looks like distance. That love can exist without proximity. That choosing myself does not require an explanation. If I had to rebuild myself after you, you do not get to meet who I became.

Forgiveness does not require reconciliation. It requires truth. And the truth is, I am no longer available for what broke me.

Free Me From the “Girl’s Girl” Label

I want to say this carefully, because nuance matters.

I’m not anti-women.
I’m not anti-sisterhood.
I’m not anti-community.

However, I am deeply uninterested in performative labels that don’t align with my actual behavior.

Somewhere along the way, “girl’s girl” became a badge people wear instead of a practice they live. And in my experience, many of the loudest claims of sisterhood have come from spaces that felt unsafe, competitive, passive-aggressive, or quietly cruel.

I’ve learned that not every woman who smiles at you is for you.
Not every “sis” is safe.
And not every space labeled empowering actually empowers.

And that truth doesn’t make me bitter.
It makes me discerning.

I no longer need to be called a girl’s girl.
I need integrity.
I need emotional maturity.
I need accountability.
I need women who can celebrate without comparison, support without competition, and communicate without manipulation.

I’ve been in rooms where the language was “support,” but the energy was envy.
Where the connection felt conditional.
Where success made people uncomfortable.
Where vulnerability was collected, it was not protected.

And I’ve also been blessed by women who showed up quietly, consistently, and without performance. Women who didn’t need to announce their loyalty. Women who didn’t need a label to be decent.

That’s the difference.

Real sisterhood doesn’t need branding.
It needs character.

I also noticed something else this year, and I paid attention.

When I got engaged, the energy shifted with certain women. Subtle at first. Then obvious. Women who once checked in consistently when I was single and healing suddenly went quiet. The “hey sis” texts slowed down. The likes disappeared. The shares stopped. The calls became nonexistent.

So I did what I always do: I observed.

I went ghost from social media for a few months, not to test anyone, but to protect my peace and heal from my breakup. And in that silence, patterns revealed themselves. Support that once felt abundant evaporated the moment my life expanded. And that told me everything I needed to know.

I realized some people weren’t connected to me; they were connected to a version of me that felt non-threatening. A version they could relate to, advise, or feel superior to. When that version evolved, so did their discomfort.

I didn’t confront.
I didn’t explain.
I didn’t announce anything.

I simply peeped the energy and did a full sweep.

No warnings. No speeches. Just boundaries.

Because I’m not in competition with anyone. I’m not auditioning for space in anyone’s life. And I refuse to stay connected to people who only celebrate me when I’m struggling, but grow distant when I’m chosen, loved, or aligned.

What stood out most was the irony.

Many of the same women who claimed “girl’s girl” and “women empowerment” energy were the ones moving strangely online and in person once they realized I wasn’t engaging in the nonsense, the comparison, or the unspoken tension.

That’s when it clicked for me.

Labels mean nothing without character.
And empowerment that collapses under another woman’s joy isn’t empowerment at all.

At this stage of my life, I’m choosing relationships rooted in alignment, not optics. I’m choosing peace over proximity. Discernment over belonging. Depth over labels.

If that means I don’t fit neatly into someone else’s definition of a “girl’s girl,” I’m okay with that.

I don’t need a title.
I need truth.
I need safety.
I need a grown-woman connection.

And I trust myself enough now to choose that quietly, cleanly, and without apology.

Black America"s Relationship with Mental Health:

Black America’s Relationship with Mental Health explores one of the most critical and often overlooked dimensions of our community’s well-being—how history, culture, and access shape the way we experience and talk about mental health. For generations, Black families have carried the weight of collective trauma, systemic inequality, and cultural stigma around seeking therapy or emotional support. This discussion shines light on those realities while reclaiming a narrative rooted in healing, self-awareness, and community care. In this special episode, Let’s Talk 2 brings together voices from across the spectrum—therapists, advocates, parents, and youth—to unpack why mental health remains a complex topic in Black America. We look at the statistics: suicide is now the third leading cause of death among Black youth aged 15-34, yet access to culturally competent care remains dangerously low. Many in our community still encounter barriers of cost, trust, and representation, with only about 5% of psychologists identifying as Black. The conversation challenges the silence. It embraces new approaches rooted in empathy, spirituality, and cultural understanding. It asks how we can normalize seeking help, expand awareness of resources like the 988 crisis line, and strengthen family and faith-based support systems that already exist within our communities. Together, we’re breaking the stigma—turning pain into purpose, and silence into strength. Healing begins when we talk about it.

Black America's Relationship with Mental Health Part 2

Black men in America stand at the crossroads of strength, survival, and silence. For generations, they have been expected to carry the weight of families, communities, and society while hiding their own emotional wounds. This episode of Black America’s Relationship With Mental Health – Part 2 focuses directly on the experiences, challenges, and healing journeys of Black men. From historical trauma to modern-day pressures, Black men face a unique set of emotional and psychological demands. Racism, economic instability, over-policing, incarceration, and cultural expectations of toughness often leave little room for vulnerability. Many Black men are taught early on that expressing pain is a weakness and that asking for help is unacceptable. These beliefs, combined with systemic barriers to care, have created a silent crisis—one where depression, anxiety, PTSD, and emotional exhaustion are far more common than openly discussed. This episode breaks the silence. We explore the mental-health struggles that many Black men secretly face, the stigma that keeps them quiet, and the urgent need for culturally competent support systems. We highlight the importance of safe spaces—barbershops, brotherhood circles, faith communities, therapy, mentorship, and honest conversations between fathers and sons. Through personal stories, expert insight, and community dialogue, this conversation centers on reclaiming emotional freedom. It challenges the narrative that Black men must suffer alone. Instead, we uplift new narratives of accountability, vulnerability, and healing—reminding Black men that strength does not mean silence. This show is a call to action: to check on Black men, to honor their humanity, and to build environments where they can breathe, express, and heal without judgment. Healing is not just possible—it is necessary. And together, we can create a future where Black men are fully supported, emotionally empowered, and mentally free.