Here it is, January 3rd at 2:36 in the morning. 2026, another year has arrived. I brought in the New Year in New York City again. I know, a little different than the previous years. Going into 2026, I felt a responsibility to stay home. I’m embracing this season that invites me to stay still and slow down more. Settle into the possibilities of being home. An intentional choice on my part.
It’s been a minute since my last annual reflection in 2021.
Life looks so different and yet so similar. What has happened since then?
Lots of shifts.
Lots of uncertainty.
Lots of looking inward.
Lots of learning.
Lots of unlearning.
Lots of grieving.
Lots of growing.
Lots of healing.
Lots of loving.
Lots of living.
My motto for 2021 was to #ShareTheFlame. I’m happy to report, I’ve been sharing my flame a lot since then and along the way understanding more of what is required to do so with open generosity. It’s been critical to find spaces and practices that nourish me. Nourish my mind, my heart, my spirit, my physical body. The more I’m nourished, the stronger the flame, the greater capacity I have to learn and explore. The more I can actively liberate myself and support others on their journey. In doing so—I’m figuring out ways to share. Share my learnings, my thoughts, my journey in a way that feels purposeful and authentic. There are obstacles. As someone who is relatively private, I battle with the invitation of invasiveness that may come with sharing. I’m slowly figuring out what inviting others into my journey and perspective means to me.
It’s been a cycle and I’m getting a little better each time I go around. In these reflections, in Intellect Expressed, were the beginnings of sharing about my journey. The cycle continued with the first season of my podcast inspired by All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks, where I was vulnerable about my thoughts and experiences with and about love and relationships. Eventually, I ran it back with another season where I invited some loved ones and familiar souls to talk more about their experience with love and how love informs how they show up. Towards the end of 2024, I held an event with one of my close friends with the intention of bringing people together to connect to themselves and others. We’ve held some spaces in person and virtually since then and continue to slowly cultivate a global community building brand with a focus on wellbeing.
Brick by brick.
I’m still in Brooklyn, still love Brooklyn, still feel like Brooklyn is home. NYC feels like home. I’m starting to see more familiar faces when I’m out which is new and a heart-warming sign that I’m settling in and forming connections. Gratitude for it all.
I turned 34 last September marking the swift approach of my grown and sexy era. That same month, I transitioned from my job that seven years ago enabled me to move to New York City. A move contemplated for a few years but no real action to make the change. Each time, I would earn more growth opportunities and the work felt and was impactful, allowing me to feel comfortable staying. I wasn’t expecting the transition to happen the way it did. Manifestation doesn’t always fit our personal vision or timeline. Looking back, I see that it happened exactly how it was supposed to. At the beginning of 2025, I was rejected from a growth opportunity within the org and there were restructuring happening throughout the org at the same time. Restructuring felt more frequent. Rapid shifts became the norm after restructuring. This go around was no different. A reminder that others can shift too. Organizations, businesses, and institutions shift around us constantly.
Over the next few months, it became clear that my time was coming to a completion. I felt the grief, the frustration, the disappointment, the hurt, and eventually moved to a state of acceptance and gratitude. The rejection from the role gave me more capacity to focus on nurturing other projects. In the midst of the grief from the shifts, I felt a sense of purpose and passion in mixing together creativity, community building, and wellbeing through events and digital content. Learning the importance of showing up, releasing without too much critique, and holding space more consistently. Focusing on the practice, building the foundation, and not getting caught up in the results. At the same time, I was battling the feeling of being under-valued, burnout, questioning my expertise, my leadership and my impact. Stumbling through the flow of feelings and lessons trying to find my balance. I think that is part of the grown and sexy era. Learning to own our journey and the responsibilities that characterize and humanize our path.
2025 was humbling.
I’m thankful to know God, to know that God got me and to know I got God. I’m thankful to be surrounded by people who truly love me, see me, call me in, and pour into me. 2025 would’ve been a completely different year if I did not have that. I’m certain and shaken by that truth.
I’m still unemployed. Working full-time, overtime, on myself, my dreams, stoking the flame. The last time I had this much time to myself was during the pandemic. This time I am alone in my home without the structure offered by external employment. Just me, myself and I. Resting. Reflecting. Resisting. Procrastinating. Studying. Avoiding. Learning. Exploring. Connecting. Opportunities have arisen in this moment of transition. The kind of opportunities only time and spaciousness offer. Been sitting with the discomfort and uncertainty of the unknown. Detaching my identity and worth from my career, figuring out what really matters to me. Seeing the habits that don’t serve me and questioning my attachment to them. Putting faith into practice, the tussle between losing and finding motivation and hope to continue on, experiencing the gap between theory and practice and understanding the labor to close the gap. Feeling what it means to honor my body through rest and experiencing the tension that comes with that. All over the place and yet exactly where I need to be. Still stumbling through the flow but with a little more balance.
I am blessed.
Remember, God got me and I got God.
In December, I set a goal to run 30 miles before December 30th. I can’t remember how cold January through March 2025 was, but damn December was cold. It was my commitment to “finish off strong” with a year that felt arduous. I played sports from elementary school through college. My coaches at all levels would always tell my teammates and I that we need to finish off strong. Finish the play strong, finish the last sprint strong, finish practice off strong, finish the academic quarter off strong, finish the game off strong, finish the season off strong. Whatever we did, we should always finish off strong.
A mentality that has translated to other areas of my life. I often reflect on how disciplined I used to be as a student athlete. How easy it was for me to finish off strong because I built the endurance to do so during the off season. Similarly to the saying “practice how you play.” If finishing off strong was not the standard set during practice, it was likely to translate to not finishing strong during the game. It’s all connected.
2025 was filled with a ton of conditioning similar to how off season would feel like. As I was reflecting on the motto for 2026, #FinishOffStrong kept coming up for me.
Funny enough, I heard I would be a great therapist more than a great NFL player growing up. Honestly, I wanted to be one more than the other anyway. I knew helping others would bring me more joy and purpose than being on the field. Psychology piqued my interest because I was interested in human behavior, the mind, and brain and how all of that informed our experience with self and the world around us. Looking back, I selfishly wanted to understand myself and my experiences more and I ended up understanding others along the journey. We’re all more similar than different and I feel a high enthusiasm to create spaces for us to come together and connect through our shared experiences. I believe that’s one of the ways we get closer to healing ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world at large.
I’m working towards being a clinical therapist. A delayed endeavor that has now moved to the forefront of my focus. It aligns more with what feels purposeful to me and what I see for my future.
#FinishOffStrong2026 is a mindset shift, a commitment to do all that I can with what I have now. It’s a temperature check, an opportunity for accountability to reflect on my progress, my effort, and my capacity. While also recognizing that sometimes I have to push beyond my capacity to get to where I want to go. It means I have to sacrifice habits that don’t serve me to make space for the habits and routines that are more important now. Release. Organize. Re-prioritize.
It’s a reminder that regardless of how things start, there’s still an opportunity to leave it all out on the field. Finishing off strong does not guarantee THE win every time, but it does guarantee mindset wins every time. Each time I gain a sense of confidence knowing the work I’ve done, and how that is preparing me for what’s next. Most importantly, I get more practice to improve and strengthen areas requiring more attention. Finishing off strong will look different each day, each month, each quarter, each year.
As I continue the cycle of nourishing the flame, liberating the flame, and sharing the flame—my invitation to myself is to bring the mentality, commitment to finish off strong as I move through the days, months, and years. Finishing off strong won’t stop in 2026, it’s just a gentle reminder going forward. As I sit with this motto, there’s three reminders I want to offer to myself as I move through #FinishOffStrong2026.
Conditioning will continue to happen. That is how we learn and how we adapt—how we grow. I choose to accept the continued conditioning as an invitation to build endurance. I believe to fully thrive, to actualize my purpose, my capacity to endure must expand and my commitment must become firmer. Anything worthwhile requires endurance and commitment. My commitment helps when my willingness to endure waver, and my willingness to endure teaches me what commitment looks like in practice. Character Development 101. A muscle that I get to strengthen. It also brings light to refluxes that threaten my commitment or endurance when challenges come up. How we endure matters and what we commit to matters even more. Conditioning becomes the space for me to determine and practice how I want to build endurance and grow in my commitment.
Welcome moments of rest and support. I finish off stronger when I feel rested and supported. I can finish off strong when I feel exhausted and neglected—but I don’t have to. I don’t want to. Life feels better when I can endure from a place of being rested and supported. Enduring does not mean I have to suffer, be isolated, or be depleted. There are moments when I have felt those ways on the journey but they’ve only been temporary thus far. Necessary reminders of my own humanity and providing me with insights on what I want more of in the future. To welcome rest and support. It means releasing the belief that everything is urgent. It means releasing the belief that I have to do everything by myself every time when others offer to support. It means embracing the belief that rest is one of the kindest acts I can offer myself. It means embracing my need for rest and support from others and communicating those needs with the belief that it can be respected and/or negotiated. Opportunities to rest and be supported by others have always presented themselves and will continue to present themselves to me—I just get to welcome those moments with more ease.
God got me. 2025 was filled with so much uncertainty and even in the uncertainty—certain decisions just made sense. I didn’t know what the outcome would be but I knew the action needed to happen. A lot of things have worked out in ways that I knew were possible but it’s one of those—you don’t know until you know moments. My faith is my biggest source of confidence and it is what keeps me grounded in moments of uncertainty. In this season of transition, I grew in my firmness of what it means, what it feels like to know that God got you. It means that I don’t have to know it all. I just need to know enough and sometimes enough is “it’ll work out but you’re going to have to take action to be ready.” Take action with faith. There’s power in our words and I believe there is equally as much power in our thoughts. What we think can inform what we say and what we do. So much doubt and fear can come up when uncertainty is present. I’m learning to acknowledge the doubt and fears and address them head on but not let them get in the way. Sometimes doubt and fear serve as a motivator for me to take action—testing my faith. Faith and taking action go hand and hand. I’m learning there’s levels to faith. To have faith is the first level. Taking action with faith despite the evidence or lack thereof—that’s the level where abundance becomes visible. That is the faith that God is asking of me. Asking of all of us. And that is the faith I want to ask of myself more consistently.
#FinishOffStrong2026 is here. There will be tons of moments to practice, to strengthen muscles, to shift mindsets, behaviors, and beliefs that will allow for us to endure better. To become clearer on our commitment to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to the greater world around us and those within it. We must rest, we must support, and we must be supported. That is love that we don’t have to work for—we get to give it to ourselves and others freely.
Lastly, in the midst of the unknown and uncertainty, know that God got you. God got us. Let’s continue to take action and see what #FinishOffStrong2026 has in store for us.