sacred sundays vol. 6

me vs. me

God is so loud with these signs I see daily

Life is so wild right now and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings per usual. As the season shifts, and my 30th birthday approaches (in 2 months to be exact), all I can do is reflect on the adventures of my twenties. I keep thinking about how powerless I “felt” in so many situations. At how voiceless I let myself be. I wanted other people around me to feel so safe and comfortable that I completely overlooked creating that feeling for myself. It’s all come to a head. My patience is currently pretty thin and my fuse is very quick to blow lately. TLDR: don’t fuck with me LOL jk but seriously. I’m taking care of myself and creating the space I need to let these big feelings breathe.

I am not scared of these feelings. I’m happy that I have finally come to a place in my life where I NOW feel safe and comfortable enough to let myself express these types of emotions. Being the nice girl, the sweet girl, the easy-going girl, the nonchalant girl, the pushover girl is OVER. I am changing. And while I feel very angry at the girl that I used to be, I am learning day by day to have just as much compassion for her.

During my time reflecting, I have realized that there is a lot that I simply was not taught. Being from a small town, gave me a very limited perspective on life. And because that very important fact about me is something I’ve tried to run from/deny/avoid for years, I have been blindsighted by my own doing. While I knew my peers born and raised in larger cities, had different life experiences than me, for the most part, we always shared similar interests… hell I’d say my tastes and interests were even broader than a lot of them due to my extreme curiosity of scrolling the internet… dying to see what life was like outside of my itty bitty town.

But I didn't understand until this year how much the beliefs I learned while growing up were still a part of me without me even knowing it. Low self-worth, scarcity mindset, smallness, settling for less, fear of conflict, people pleasing, and underdeveloped communication skills just to name a “few” have secretly corroded my psyche for most of my life and I had no conscious clue of it. I began to notice this once I began having trouble connecting to the innate mental beliefs/culture of my New Orleans peers. So I decided to do some digging and look back. It hit me… oh yeah, that’s it… I may deeply love and appreciate the people and the culture here BUT I am not from here and I was raised very differently. I knew it was time to finally dig up my roots to begin to deeply understand who I truly am.

There is so much that my parents didn’t have the knowledge or capacity to instruct me on. Now I am at a stage in life where I no longer want to dwell on what I wasn’t taught, I know my parents did the best that they could with what they had. Hell, they still are and I love them so deeply. EDIT: And in many ways they have done an absolutely incredible job at helping me grow and supporting me to be the person I am today writing this newsletter. But now in this present moment, I feel empowered to uproot some of the beliefs that I was taught to plant seeds of new beliefs/habits/actions. Some things can stay but a lot must go.

I’ll leave you with a little conversation that I had last week at an amazing Bachata dance class that I attended by Chipo. I exchanged words with a beautiful stranger (who I knew looked familiar and was my barista multiple times) having a brief but enlightening conversation on “home”. She asked me where I was from and I told her Marksville, LA rambling on about how it’s a little country town in the middle of nowhere that no one ever knows about. I’ve got to change that narrative. She smiled and told me that sounds lovely. Then she asked me: “What do you bring with you from your home?” Wow, I sat perplexed and blank-faced for a moment… no one had ever asked me such a question. I must’ve pondered with my face twisted for a minute before it hit me! “Love”, I responded. I received so much love from my family and hometown and that is what I bring with me. I smiled softly inside, finally mediating a deep wound of shame within that I had so deeply associated with home. I had no idea how much harm the shame of denying where I am from was causing me. I could finally let go. I could finally see it in a new loving light.

And with that, it reminded me who I am and why I am the way I am. I AM LOVE. And with that love, I am able to transform every aspect of my life or any obstacle that comes my way. Love sustains me, it flows through me, it leads me. Sending some of the love to you all reading.

Be easy,

Taylor Simone

FAVES FROM THIS WEEK:

• Eating: Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Batons #yktv

• Listening to: Gold by our fave Cleo Sol

• Reading: The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler on Audible

• Watching: The Power of Your Light Lecture by Caroline Myss

  • Video notes: This was a profound lecture on understanding the foundation of where you are from and how it essentially determines the way you view the world. Myss then discussed how to transcend beyond your foundational beliefs by elevating your vibration and going up levels. Essentially it’s pretty imp It’s about an hour long and I highly recommend watching while cooking or doing house chores. She has TON’s of talks that are like free therapy in my honest opinion. She can be a bit harsh so take it with a grain of salt LOL.

Q&A’s

Ask me a question here to answer in an upcoming newsletter… the link was broken in the last post *sorries* Don’t be shy.

OFFERINGS

My fall calendar is still open for booking portraits, engagement, branding, and commercial photography. I’ll be in Atlanta from Oct 13th- 19th and NYC from Oct 20th- 23rd if you’d like to shoot with me. I’m also offering virtual one-on-one mentor sessions for women creatives priced at $111 for one hour. I’d love to work with you and consider recommending me to a friend you think I’d vibe with.

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