I see you.

I see you carrying what you carry — the weight of the world, the weight of your family, the weight of a history that did not always protect you, and the weight of a future you are still learning to believe in. I see you moving through days that ask everything of you and give back so little. I see you smiling when you are exhausted, showing up when you are depleted, and giving generously to everyone except the one person who needs it most.

You.

“You are okay. Not broken. Not too much. Not too little. Not too late. You are okay — and you deserve to be loved.”

But here is what I have learned after decades of working with women, building businesses, raising my voice, and yes — falling down and getting back up again: that love must begin with you. Not someday. Not when things calm down. Not when you have earned it or proven it or suffered enough. Now. Today. In this moment, with all of your beautiful, complicated, unfinished glory.

Women of color carry a particular kind of burden in this world. The research confirms what our bodies already know — higher rates of stress, anxiety, and depression. Less access to care. Communities that have been underserved for generations. The exhausting labor of being strong for everyone, always, with no one asking if you are strong enough for yourself.

This is not your fault. But your healing is your responsibility — and that is not a burden. It is a gift. Because the moment you decide to tend to yourself, everything changes. I have seen it happen. I have lived it myself.

When you tend to yourself with a generosity of spirit — when you give yourself the same grace, patience, and care you give everyone else — something almost magical happens. The stress loosens its grip. The joy you thought you had lost finds its way back. Your purpose, which was never gone, simply begins to bloom again. Self-love is not selfish. It is transformative. It ripples outward. When you are well, the people you love feel it. When you bloom, others find permission to bloom beside you.

So I want to invite you — gently, but with great intention — to begin. Not a grand beginning. Just one small act of tending. A walk. A breath. A conversation with your doctor you have been putting off. Twenty minutes of quiet that belongs only to you. The decision to accept the help someone is offering. The courage to say — for perhaps the first time — I matter too.

These words have been my companions through loss, through failure, through exhaustion, and through every well I have had to dig again. I offer them to you now — not as answers, but as lanterns. Hold them when the path is dark. They will not fail you.

My prayer for you is simple. That you would know — in your body, not just your mind — that God’s will for you is a good will. That the same God who watches over the sparrow sees every tear you have cried, every burden you have carried, every morning you got up anyway. That His will for your life is not punishment. It is not struggle without end. It is flourishing. It is bloom.