The Weekly Reflection- Edition 1
Welcome to the Daily Check-In
There is no right way to do this, for me, I am committing to set a timer for 20 minutes each day. During that time, I will pull a card, use an image from my daily walk, or share about something that happened the day before - life lessons, silly thoughts, and everything in between.
You are invited to use my reflection prompts as your own, or to curate your own daily check-in practice.
Share with me here: connect@estyubuntu.com
The Prompt of the day
Today’s prompt comes from the Secrets of the Ancestors Oracle Deck by Abiola Abrams & illustrated by Destiny Powell
This morning I sat with the deck and asked to questions, which were taught to me by Abiola when I learned from her in 2024:
“What is the wisdom for today?” and “What is the opportunity for today?”
The two cards that came up were: #5- The Shaman - Trust the Path & #1- The Conjure Woman - Manifestation
For the first card, the wisdom, where in your life are you feeling like this is the right path? Why do you feel that way? Where in your life are you having a hard time trusting the current path you are on? Do you know the root of this? What action step can you take to make 1 small shift toward trust?
For the second card, the opportunity, how would you describe relationship with manifestation and integrity? You can choose how you define both of these words, but for me manifestations are things you desire from your soul… and integrity, is being in alignment with self, God, nature, and community.
If your manifestations have integrity, what does that look like, sound like, feel like? If they don’t, why not and what does that stir within you? Is it important for them to be in alignment?
The Reflection of the Day
This feels so aligned for me as I continue to pull away from things on my path that are not in alignment. There has been some deep grief, as I have closed my online community space, I have pulled out of countless collabs, and I have even shelved projects that I have been nurturing for quite some time. But all signs have been pointing to less is more. And the biggest piece of wisdom that continues to come through in my meditation, is that I am meant to be expressing myself authentically. I don’t have capacity to do anything but live in my truth. When I fully embody this throughout each day, I am genuinely met with mini and massive manifestations beyond my imagination. Big shifts are happening daily and if I am not moving intentionally, with integrity, and giving myself time to integrate, then I am easily swayed off the path and finding myself admist manifestations that no longer align with what feels right for me.
I was telling a friend recently, that it feels like I have been throwing spaghetti at the wall for years as I have been slowly developing and uncovering an understanding of my life’s purpose, of the ways to do meaningful work, and to be sustainably supported in that work. As a 1/3 line profile in Human Design, it makes sense that I have had a lot of trial and errors over the years, and will probably continue to find myself down the plot twist paths. But right now, it feels like I can finally see each stepping stone in front of me. And what is even more astonishing and new for me is that I feel safe putting my foot on that stepping stone without needing to see, feel, or hear what is on the stepping stone beyond the one right in front of me. As a young person, who grew up in survival mode, noticing this sense of safety in my mind, body, and spirit brings me to tears and deep feelings of gratitude almost hourly.
With this growing sense of trust, faith, safety, I am also mindful of a growing need for integrity in all that I do. Becoming impeccable with my word. I couldn’t always be, because I was always living on the edge in the past, never knowing if the floor beneath me would give in, but now, in this new flow, I trust deeply that no matter what happens, I am resourced enough to handle it. But it also means, I feel this deep need to untangle from the many safety nets I’d woven to try to protect myself from falling. This process sometimes feels slow and deliberate, with many meditation sessions, and journaling prompts on the way to detangle. And other times, it is swift like a sword, the cut is clean, precise, and instant.
As the detangling process is still ongoing, I notice more space for things I am calling in, but unlike my scarce survival mind, calling in everything I never had to fill the void, I am taking my time enjoying the weightlessness of being. Of not wanting. And when I do notice the fires of a desire starting to spark, I am in devotion to it, I take my time with it, I get to know this desire and see from what part of me was it birthed. Or perhaps I have partS co-parenting this desire, and then begins the ritual of the work I have learned to do, is this something aligned with my values, my pillars of power? Does it give me this deep yes sensation in my sacral? How do I think I will feel on the other side manifesting this desire, what limiting beliefs live in the shadows of this desire, and what impact will the desire have on me and my community?
Ok, I am looking at the timer, and seeing I only have a few minutes left, and I am not sure what else to say, but that I feel so safe, held, and guided on this current path that I am on, and I deeply grateful for the reminders and winks from God, the universe, source or as I sometimes say Gaia, ubuntu, & spirit (to friends, I often say thanks GUS GUS- now you know that who I mean). These little nudges and insights that support me as I continue to contract and expand into this version of myself in this timeline.
Until tomorrow, dear ones.
The Long gestation of the Daily Check
I’ve been wanting to do something called the daily check-in for a long time. In 2021, it was journaling prompts to support unlocking creativity. Then in 2022, it was a daily reflection guide. Was it going to be on Instagram, Substack, would i make fun infographics each day for it? How would I go about sharing this sacred practice of reflection, and this calling I have to express myself and be seen? 5 years later, the solution has finally come to me.
I will take it back to my early 2010 days, when I would blog about my experience teaching Intensive English courses in universities in the states, nannying for my aunt, and preparing to move abroad for the first time for my Fulbright grant. A simpler time in terms of my intentions and the outcomes of my writing. My intention wasn’t to go viral. The outcome, was more of desire for record keeping. Sharing my inner world with my outer world. Back then, The disconnect between what I said, what I thought, and what I wrote were worlds apart so the writing was kind of like my way of showing my true self to the world.
Masking in a world that didn’t have the language for it at the time, writing was my way of unmasking. It was my way of making sense of the world and it was the way that I could be uncensored. I wrote about my grandparents and the love that they had for each other, I wrote very freely about my employers, I wrote about the joys and lows of the work I was doing.
When this idea for doing the daily check in came up 5 years ago, it was the start of the way my writing changed online. Although I had started to learn more and more how to unmask in real life. By doing the deep healing work of therapy, self reflection, hypnosis, meditation, shadow work… on and on… I learned to start showing up as my true self in real time. And an interesting thing started to happening to my writing online. It was actually the place where I began to mask. It was the place where I started to censor myself. I started to learn about marketing, and scaling, and making money from my writing, and it really brought the joy of writing, expressing, and being seen in this way to a stop.
Earlier this year, I felt an intuitive hit to get off of Substack. I still can’t really explain it, but as more people are flocking to it, and I start to review what I’d written there in the last 4 years, I realize the place for marketing and the place for expression had merged and I wanted to find a way to separate them again. I wanted to find a safe space to express myself to be myself and to be seen and witnessed. Will I keep doing marketing and writing to sell my offerings, sure, but I will be doing that strictly on my newsletter through Kit right now, but I will be slowly moving that to send fox… that is a whole other story about how i am tired of paying subscription fees.
Any who… here we are now, and I am excited to check-in daily, be seen, unmask, and to give you permission to also check-in with yourself each day.
